For the second consecutive week I have as many readers to thank for helping me identify someone in a Way We Were photo. Nancy McCarthy and Maureen Crick Owen both reached out on Monday, when they told me the Scout in the center of a row of three Scouts in last week’s photo was Jimmy Titus. His father, Art, is the man standing behind him, Nancy was able to add. Maureen couldn’t remember Art’s first name but she did recall he worked at the post office for a while with her father. These helpful notes arrived one week after Christine Miller and Joan Brand both reached out to let me know it was Christine’s brother Robert who was featured in the previous Way We Were column.

Monday was also a big day for Bruce the Spruce, who joined Punxsutawney Phil, Beardsley Bart, et al for a Groundhog Day observation. As with Phil, Bart, and the others, our three-foot tall artificial pine tree was initially ready for either seasonal prediction, as noted by the outfit in this week’s photo. After looking around for just a moment, Bruce decided we are in for another six week’s of very wintery weather. By mid-Monday morning, the flower on the lower left of his outfit and the question mark were both gone. The big snowflake on the right had moved front and center, leaving no question as to what he thinks about the next six weeks.

Instead of being only a very dry volume of numbers, the Newtown 2027 Budget Book has pictures by, among others, photographer Rhonda Cullens, from Flagpole Photographers. The cover picture, by Sue Marcinek, the executive assistant to the first selectman, presents the Municipal Center as mystical and otherworldly. Director of Finance Glenys Salas prepared the book.

The next two St Rose Bingo nights have some schedule changes. Organizers announced this week that this month’s games, planned for February 6, have been canceled “due to technical difficulties.” Further, next month’s games will be postponed one week, to Friday, March 27. We’ve updated our calendars in print and online, and will see you next month, one week later than originally planned.

The Newtown-New Fairfield Rebelhawks hockey team played their second Hockey Fights Cancer game last week at Danbury Ice Arena. The team hosted the Bethel, Brookfield, Danbury and Immaculate (BBDI) co-op — detailed results are in this week’s Sports section — and while NNFR did not bring home a win, the players and supporters nevertheless did something very good in memory of Newtown hockey assistant coach and Newtown Middle School teacher Andrew Tammero. The team invited Mr Tammero’s family for ceremonial puck drops, the Rebelhawks wore ceremonial jerseys, and the game served as a fundraiser for Mr Tammero’s family. Readers who would like to continue the fundraising effort for widow Autumn and the four Tammero children — Paisley, Elodie, Lucy, and Oliver — can do so through Venmo (@Nighthawks_Hockey).

The team isn’t finished with special events this season. The Rebelhawks Senior Night game is planned for Wednesday, February 11, when Fox Lane visits Danbury Ice Arena at 6 pm. The team will honor Collin Whitmore, an avid hockey player from Sandy Hook who died when he was just 8 years old, in 2016, due to arteriovenous malformation.

Additionally, the team will support Wounded Warrior Project when taking on the Joel Barlow co-op in Danbury on Wednesday, February 25, at 5:30 pm. A friend of the family of Blair Balmforth, who died last summer, donated a New York Rangers Artemi Panarin jersey for the team to use as a raffle item to help raise more money for Wounded Warrior Project. The jersey has been autographed by Panarin. The hockey team will honor Balmforth’s legacy. A Newtown High graduate, he was a lifeguard, swim instructor, and joined Newtown Volunteer Ambulance while still in high school. He went on to become a paramedic and instructor, working with organizations across the state and becoming very well known in many overlapping health circles. To donate to Wounded Warrior Project, visit communityfundraising.woundedwarriorproject.org/campaigns/warrior-cup.

Younger generations reportedly often have a difficult time reading cursive handwriting. They haven’t been given formal or consistent instruction in that form of writing, so they find it challenging to read it. If you can read cursive, (a) well done you, and (b) if you have some time available during the day next Friday to put that superpower to good use, have I got the project for you! Windsor Historical Society will be part of the national Douglass Day Celebration on February 13. The annual celebration of Frederick Douglass’s legacy draws together people to “communally transcribe documents from a Black history archives collection to help make them more widely accessible to researchers,” according to a note I’ve received from Windsor Historical Society.

This year, participants will transcribe records from Colored Conventions Project, which includes rich, historical documents and debates that speak directly to the fight today to secure and preserve citizenship and civil rights. WHS will host the transcribe-a-thon in their event space, 96 Palisado Avenue in Windsor. Snacks and tech support will be provided, but participants will need to provide their own laptop or tablet. This event is drop in, drop out. Transcribers may stay for as long or as short a time as they please between 10 am and 3 pm. Participation is free and registration is encouraged; visit windsorhistoricalsociety.org or email info@windsorhistoricalsociety.org.

I’m going to work on my thank you notes because our readers have been so helpful in recent weeks. I really appreciate the help with photo IDs, story suggestions, and even story ideas. I promise to get going on those notes, if you’ll promise to remember to come back next week to … read me again.