By the Numbers, Or Not

CATS BACK. There WILL be another Cat ‘n Around show next summer. Directors of the Catskill Chamber of Commerce decided (10/21) to go ahead with a promotion that is geared to the Hudson Valley’s quadricentennial celebration. Riverside communities will be invited to sponsor cat designs that evoke distinctive traits of their municipalities. And (in keeping with a brainstorm from merchant David Miles) Main Street will be dressed to evoke the majestic Hudson River, with crosswalks painted to resemble the various bridges.

25,000=dollars to be distributed to good causes, by Catskill’s Chamber of Commerce, out of profits from this year’s Cat ‘n Around auction. Recipients will be the Barry Hopkins Memorial Scholarship program (for a Catskill High School graduate pursuing an arts-releated higher degree), Animalkind, the Aging Services Foundation of Greene County, four families chosen by the Community Action agencies (help in the “Here Comes Christmas” program), the Love ‘n Care pet sanctuary, the Catskill Soccer Club (to help build a new field on land donated by Holcim Cement, at the corner of Route 9W and Embought Road), the Fortnightly Club (to replace Elliott Park playground), and the God’s Storehouse food pantry.

62=number of families that received food supplies from God’s Storehouse, a Catskill Wesleyan Church program, last January.

352=number of families, as tallied by Mary Ivers, that received food supplies from God’s Storehouse last month.

NEW O’. The Catskill luncheonette that had been O’Fratello’s (“Squat & Gobble”) until recently now is O’Henry’s. Proprietor Henry Tice of South Cairo brought that name along from his former Saugerties establishment. The interior look has improved. Open from 5:30am to 3pm.

4700=dollars raised by Catskill Kiwanians at auction and dinner last Sunday (10/19), at Catskill Golf Club, thanks to donors of goods and services (and cash). The money will be recirculated to kid-related good causes.

17=cents of quarterly dividend per share just declared by the parent company of the Bank of Greene County. It’s not a piddling sum. If total dividends for the year are 68 cents (17 cents every quarter), then the return for shareholders, based on the current market price ($11.50), would be close to 6 per cent. Moreover, the bank’s impending earnings report will be salutary. Community banks, unlike the biggies, are doing OK.

333=our guess of the number of Electoral College votes, out of 538, that will go, in consequence of the November 4th presidential election, to Barack Obama. Moreover, seven U.S. Senate seats that are currently occupied by Republicans will be won by Democrats, and 17 seats in the House of Representatives will pass from Republican to Democratic hands. If those numbers do eventuate, they will vindicate what we predicted eight months ago (Seeing Greene, 3/3/08).

DAILY MAUL --“Each year there are a vast number of….”

--“ State Police charged Deandre Hall, 34, of Catskill, with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct after refusing to leave room number 28 of the Catskill Inn.”

--“Besides his militia service, Hale was also active in public service before….”

--“Firefighter Bob Abahamson walks passed a line of fellow firefighters….”

--“The principle focus of chiropractic care is assessment and manual treatment of the …spne.”

--“Statistics show back pain incurs an enormous burden on society….”

RUMORS DEPT. >>>That a new DVD-peddling store will open soon in GreeneLand, run by a known smut peddler. >>>That a leading GreeneLand car dealer’s divorce was extraordinarily bitter. >>> That those extended hours at Catskill High School have been meagerly utilized so far. On a recent night when the place was staffed by two monitors (at $14-$16 per hour), by a teacher aide ($16), and by a teacher ($27), one kid came in to shoot baskets. >>>That Gov. David Paterson is afflicted with Dangling Constructionitis. Symptomatic of that malady are successive sentences in an e-mail message he dispatched (10/16) to “Friends”: “As a graduate of Hempstead High School and Hofstra Law School, it felt like the debate took place in my own backyard. And as the proud Governor of New York, the commission could not have picked a better state for the final debate.” >>>That the publisher of Hudson-Catskill Newspapers will subject present employees and future hires to a literacy test. (Many rumors, remember, are false).