Have you ever seen those little Zen gardens made for your coffee table? It’s a small black frame, with white sand in the bottom that comes with a little rake. One is supposed to rake the sand, which brings some sort of spiritual awakening or maybe peace of mind. Perhaps, the juxtaposition of one’s giant self compared to the tiny rake adds a certain frequency to the contemplation?

My brother Michael (Mik) lives in Tucson, Ariz., and is crazy about the desert, which is really a big sand box. Anyway, Mik often flies home to Skaneateles to lend a hand with the folks. Life is always an adventure when Michael is around. He straightens out computer issues, takes the folks on shopping expeditions and surveys the situation to access needs first hand...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: World’s Best Kitty Litter,michael leahy,ellen leahy,hobbey skaneateles,Pig Pen and Roscoe,Skaneateles’ Austin Park,skaneateles Press

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I’ve never seen the village government act with such lightning speed as with their closure of the Skaneateles Dispatch Center.


Now why would this be?


Was the village board afraid this was unpopular among residents that there could be a revolt and the dispatch would be reinstated through the town board?


Why would they fear this?


Perhaps because when they had the issue studied in 2007 by an impartial Joint Town/Village Citizens Advisory Committee (John F...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: The village board struck like white lightning,skaneateles village board,dispatch center skaneateles,municipal communications centers

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The two women who have collaborated on the Morris’s Grill commemorative note card had never visited the saloon. But that didn’t stop them from appreciating the roadhouse’s appeal and position in the Skaneateles Community.


One Skaneateles hairdresser said she was surprised at how upset a lot of her older clientele was at the tavern’s demise. Again, these were often people who had never crossed the watering hole’s threshold.
Why, she asked?


Because it was part of their children’s passage, part of growing up in Skaneateles. Turning of age, the young folk could finally rub elbows with other adults...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: The naughty place: missing Morris’s Grill,skaneateles nostalgia,Burt Lipe,Skaneateles,Morris’s Grill commemorative note

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For more than two years I met with a group of writers at a salon (that’s salon, not saloon) on Montgomery Street in downtown Syracuse. It was across the street and down a piece from the Samaritan Center, which provides hot meals daily for those in need.


During that time, I met several regular and occasional diners at the center. Some were street people or those that lived on the streets because of problems with addiction or mental illness. There were still others with disabilities who lived on government assistance that didn’t cover their basic requirements of food and shelter. Some were passing through a time of need because of a move or a job loss or a desperate family emergency or a combination of trying circumstances...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Good Samaritans skaneateles,skaneateles samaritans,beach blues and barbecue skaneateles,samaritan center syracuse,Grace of God

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The Worlds Fair in Flushing Meadow gave its visitors a glimpse into the future. How we would be living almost Jetson-like in the 21st century. It was a future that is being realized with Apple’s iPhone 4.


The difference is in the quality of 3.5 inch (retina) display with 326 pixels per inch and In Plane Switching (IPS), which allows for a wider viewing angle with a clean, clear view. Top this off with two 5-megapixel cameras, one in front and one in back. The camera on the face of the phone allows for the user to photograph or video themselves - even while talking to another iPhone 4 user - with a feature called face time. This means two people can really be talking and viewing each other with the touch of a button using a handheld device...

CATEGORY: General Technology

TAGS: iPhone 4,ellen leahy,skaneateles press technology,Austin Park skaneateles,Apple’s iPhone 4,'64 worlds fair

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Sometime around the NCAA tournament in Syracuse, I was walking with a friend in St. Mary’s cemetery, when a car pulled in with out-of-state plates. A young woman got out and called to us, asking if we were from Skaneateles.


“Yes,” I said.


“Did you know John Kelly?” she asked.


“Everyone did,” I said.


He was just that kind of rascal; and if you didn’t personally know him, his tragic death on the lake in July 2007 was a bitter introduction.


“Is he buried here?” she said.


“It’s the catholic cemetery, so I assume so,” I said.


Yet, in our weekly meanderings we hadn’t run across his gravestone. St...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: St. Mary’s Skaneateles,John Kelly,SAVES skaneateles,Heather Wilkins

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Who says you can’t go home again? That’s one of the interesting characteristics about Skaneateles. One can absolutely come home again. I know; I’ve done it several times. And, each time the experience has been richer than the last.


Where’ve I been?


I spent two and a half years on the Syracuse beat for Eagle Newspapers, while living on a working apple farm in LaFayette.


The past couple of years have been an interesting juxtaposition: city streets by day, the birds and the bees at night, and sometimes the other way around!


Coming from a foodservice background, I thought I knew I thing or two about apples. And I was right, I knew about two things about apples...

CATEGORY: General Society

TAGS: Skaneateles,skaneaeteles press,austin park,Syracuse city eagle,ellen Leahy

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