Contributed by Sarah L. Padula

I am writing to express outside views regarding some of the Skaneateles population who are part of a movement to discriminate against certain people who use public roads in their area.

In a recent rally held in Skaneateles, a resident who claims she lives on the corner of Routes 20 and 41 proudly announced that she hits her breaks when a garbage truck comes up behind her so she can force the truck to go as slowly as possible. This woman is clearly unaware that she, in fact, is demonstrating road rage. Does she have a clue about braking distance in relation to load factor? This same woman said something to the effect that “one of these days, one of these trucks will kill someone.” Well, she could very well be the person who causes such an accident if she continues her road rage driving behavior.

Now, this woman certainly must recognize herself in the paragraph above , as well as should some of her friends and neighbors. It seems the local police might want to go have a chat with this woman about road rage and intentionally interfering with the smooth flow of traffic.

As punishment for her self-admitted road rage, I think this woman should have to ride with a garbage truck hauler for at least a month. (more…)

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By Cary Briel / Skaneateles Design

I secretly admire people who have a simple name (read, normal). I wish I had a simple name, such as Joe, or Tim. Steve, John, Hank, Bill… anything simple! Or, just anything that wouldn’t need to be spelled out. It’s not only the first name that’s the problem. C-A-R-Y  B-R-I-E-L. C-A-R-Y  B-R-I-E-L. C-A-R-Y  B-R-I-E-L. AHHHHHH… !!! Do you feel sorry for me yet? I didn’t think so. Lately with all the angry earth stuff going on in the world (devastating storms, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires), as well as economic issues here in the US (rising oil prices, high foreclosure rates, declining US dollar, ongoing war), my needing to spell out my name when asked doesn’t seem to be a hugely important issue. But, then, there’s those times when I am asked for both name and address. For example, when I need to place an order for some totally unnecessary mail order item over the phone. Then it’s the full, C-A-R-Y  B-R-I-E-L, 1570 Coon Hill Road, S-K-A-N-E-A-T-E-L-E-S, New York. If you live in Skaneateles, you know the drill well. It doesn’t matter if your name is Joe Smith, you’re still spelling out Skaneateles to every non-local. You may also notice that whenever Skaneateles is in print, you will often see a pronunciation key (such as, skan-ee-AT’-les), so that people outside of the area don’t suffer a brain implosion trying to pronounce the word. Today I found a pronunciation key on Newsday.com, but not in a good way. The article was detailing the William Milham sentence, a story apparently sensational enough to find its way to AP syndication. Read the article here, despite the unappealing promotion of Skaneateles, including a pronunciation key, to be sure that people will pronounce our town name correctly when talking about the issue.

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