Date: Fri 10-Apr-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Mountain-Lawrensons

Full Text:

TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

Before you make plans for that dream trip this summer, I think you better hear

about a trip Shirley and Don Lawrenson just took down under.

The Lawrensons have just returned from a 2«-week trip to Australia and New

Zealand on what one other traveler described as "the plane from hell and the

ship from hell." It sounds like the kind of vacation experience that Homer

once put into verse.

Shirley insists the trip was still "pretty neat" even though the plane lost an

engine on the way there and the ship was caught in the tail-end of a typhoon.

The Lawrensons were halfway to New Zealand when the pilot calmly explained

that the plane had lost an engine and would be turning back to land in Hawaii.

He said emergency fire equipment would be lining the runway.

Shirley said the pilot was so calm that no one got excited. "The crew didn't

have us run through any emergency procedures so everyone thought it couldn't

be that bad," she said.

The plane landed at 4 am at an empty gate where no lights were on. An hour

later the passengers were told there would be an additional hour to wait.

Finally the passengers were bused to a hotel with only their carry-on bags to

wait until 3:30 pm, then they were bused back to the plane. They started to

board, but were told to halt because someone had to change a light bulb.

"Then they realized that because this was an unscheduled stop, no one

remembered that the plane had to be refueled," Shirley said.

The Lawrensons finally arrived in Auckland a day late. The cruise also had its

share of unexpected happenings when their ship found itself in 40-foot waves

crossing the Tasmanian Sea, a trip that took four days instead of the

scheduled two. The ship missed three of its scheduled ports of call and missed

Tasmania completely. Fortunately neither Shirley nor Don got seasick.

"But we have to go back just to see all that we missed," Shirley said. "It was

to say the least interesting."

The Bee's former ad manager Jim Lightfoot took a trip last week from his home

in New Hampshire, but it wasn't nearly as long and eventful as the

Lawrensons'. Jim was back in the area for a knee operation this week at

Danbury Hospital. Jim quipped that his arthritic knee was the result of all

those years of getting in and out of his car making calls on Bee advertisers.

We all send Jim best wishes for a speedy recovery.

During an interview with a Bee reporter earlier this week, the doors in First

Selectman Herb Rosenthal's office simultaneous crept open. "It must be the

ghosts," Mr Rosenthal speculated.

But the ghost of whom? Could it be the ghost of Mary Hawley?

Last summer, the town lost Nancy Markey as its personnel director and labor

attorney. Now, it's losing Nancy as a citizen. Nancy and her family are moving

to White Plains. She got a job as a labor attorney for an area hospital there

and since her husband, Joe, already works down that way, the decision to move

to Westchester County was a logical one.

Jim and Joan Crick celebrated their 42nd anniversary on Tuesday this week.

Russell Strasburger thought for a while that it might take him 42 years to get

off the green at a par 5 hole at the Heritage Village Country Club last week.

Russell made it onto the green, just ten feet from the pin, in just three

shots, but he holed out with seven strokes. Oh, how fast those birdies turn

into bogeys.

Now that the CVS store has opened in the Newtown Shopping Center, the shopping

carts are really mixing it up in the parking lot. I've noticed more than a few

people in Big Y pushing around CVS carts. Has anyone seen any Grand Union

carts in Big Y yet?

The town Easter Egg Hunt at Dickinson Town Park last Saturday was another huge

success. Once again Barbara Kasbarian played Cecil B. DeMille to a cast of

thousands of egg hunters, all of who managed to scrounge up a few Easter

treats on the hunt. And I expect many of these same kids will be getting more

Easter candy this weekend. Good luck to all those parents facing a long

holiday weekend with their sugar-primed kids.

Don't forget to pay your taxes, and don't forget to...

Read me again.