Mountain Home, December 2020

M O U N T A I N

HOME Pennsylvania & the New York Finger Lakes

A Doggone Miracle It Takes a Village to Find Lost Dogs

E FREwind

By Gayle Morrow

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as th

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Volume 15 Issue 12

5 Merry Christmas!

A Doggone Miracle

And Happy Anniversary to Us

By Gayle Morrow

It takes a village to find lost dogs.

By Michael Capuzzo

18 Mother Knows Best

By Don Knaus

Boys learn a lesson from mom’s big buck.

24 Trimming the Tree

By Maggie Barnes

You’re probably thinking that means lights and tinsel...

6 May Your Days Be Shiny and Brite

28 Serious Hunters on Your

Christmas List?

By Karey Solomon

By Roger Kingsley

Wellsboro’s Christmas on Main Street sports a new bauble.

Tuck a FAT wrench or a WIZZ seeder under the tree.

34 Back of the Mountain

By Curt Weinhold Stars of wonder.

14 North Central Sight Services

By Linda Roller

Far-sighted folks making a difference for our communities.

Cover by Gwen Button. Cover photo of Entei by Krys Knecht. This page (from top)

by Lori Ranck; by Teresa Capuzzo; Mary Crawley administering a vision screening, courtesy North Central Sight Services.

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w w w. m o u n ta i n h o m e m ag . co m Editors & Publishers Teresa Banik Capuzzo Michael Capuzzo Associate Publisher George Bochetto, Esq. D i r e c t o r o f O pe r a t i o n s Gwen Button Managing Editor Gayle Morrow S a l e s R ep r e s e n t a t i v e s Joseph Campbell, Shelly Moore, Richard Trotta Circulation Director Michael Banik Accounting Amy Packard Cover Design Gwen Button Contributing Writers Maggie Barnes, Mike Cutillo, Dave DeGolyer, Melissa Farenish, Carrie Hagen, Roger Kingsley, Don Knaus, Janet McCue, Dave Milano, Cornelius O’Donnell, Brendan O’Meara, David O’Reilly, Linda Roller, Jan Smith, Karey Solomon C o n t r i b u t i n g P h o t o g r ap h e r s Bernadette Chiaramonte, Diane Cobourn, Lonny Frost, Nigel Kent, Roger Kingsley, Christy Lamb, Beate Mumper, Jerame Reinhold, Peter Rutt, Jody Shealer, Travis Snyder, Linda Stager, Mary Sweely, Sarah Wagaman, Curt Weinhold

D i s t r i b u t i o n T eam Brian Button, Layne Conrad, Grapevine Distribution, Duane Meixel, Linda Roller, Phil Waber T h e B ea g l e Nano Cosmo (1996-2014) • Yogi (2004-2018) ABOUT US: Mountain Home is the award-winning regional magazine of PA and NY with more than 100,000 readers. The magazine has been published monthly, since 2005, by Beagle Media, LLC, 39 Water Street, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901, and online at www.mountainhomemag.com. Copyright © 2020 Beagle Media, LLC. All rights reserved. E-mail story ideas to editorial@mountainhomemag. com, or call (570) 724-3838.

TO ADVERTISE: E-mail info@mountainhomemag.com, or call us at (570) 724-3838.

AWARDS: Mountain Home has won over 100 international and statewide journalism awards from the International Regional Magazine Association and the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association for excellence in writing, photography, and design.

DISTRIBUTION: Mountain Home is available “Free as the Wind” at hundreds of locations in Tioga, Potter, Bradford, Lycoming, Union, and Clinton counties in PA and Steuben, Chemung, Schuyler, Yates, Seneca, Tioga, and Ontario counties in NY. SUBSCRIPTIONS: For a one-year subscription (12 issues), send $24.95, payable to Beagle Media LLC, 39 Water Street, Wellsboro, PA 16901 or visit www.mountainhomemag.com.

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B A C K O F T H E M O U N TA I N

EinEd FasR the w

The Basket Babies

In Gaines, Catherine Shinaberry and MU Professor Lee Stocks Solve a 100-Year-Old Family Mystery, and Find a Tragic Piece of World History

Sleepy Screecher

By Sarah Wagaman

By Carrie Hagen The Highlands Come to Dundee A Conspiracy in Mansfield A Just Cause at the Tioga County Fairgrounds

SEPTEMBER 20191

T

his owl—we call him Mr. Who Who, we presume he is wise, and we think he is a red-phase eastern screech owl—is not troubled by human guests. He took up residence in this old tree near the house, and seems content to rest here until it’s time for his next meal. His beautiful cyan-colored eyes are the only part of him that doesn’t provide camouflage.

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Merry Christmas!

And Happy Anniversary to Us

By Michael Capuzzo

H

igh on the Allegheny plateau fifteen winters ago, snow fell on the village of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, the gaslights shone on Main Street, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol played in the theater, and shoppers crowded into Dunham’s for Christmas gifts for the 99th consecutive year. That December a new publication appeared in icy bundles in the restaurants and shops and in camps and farmhouses amid the hills and creeks for miles around: Mountain Home, “Free as the Wind.”

The artist Tucker Worthington illustrated the first front page with a Dickensian barker beckoning the reader to the town’s famous Dickens of a Christmas celebration. On the fifteenth anniversary of Mountain Home, my wife and I—she is Teresa Banik Capuzzo, the editor and publisher—look back now with gratitude from the vantage point of 180 consecutive monthly issues and, according to the pencil marks I see on the back of my napkin, more than ten million readers later.

We have too many readers, advertisers, writers, artists, photographers, and wellwishers, from Wellsboro up to Corning, over to Coudersport and Towanda, farther up to the top of the Finger Lakes,

over to Ithaca, and farther down below Williamsport, to thank on these pages.

So I picked four out of a hat. First is Thomas Putnam, the great impresario of Wellsboro’s Hamilton-Gibson theater, who introduced us to our late art director Tucker.

Second is our photographer Sarah Wagaman, an elementary school art teacher in Wellsboro, who just won a top photography award from the International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA).

This is especially impressive because the association of the top regional magazines in North America includes legendary photography magazines like Arizona Highways. Sarah won for a remarkable photo of a red-phase eastern screech owl who “took up residence in this old tree near the house,” and, unperturbed by humans, appears to be snoozing in the hollow of the tree, with slits for eyes. “Mr. Who Who,” she calls him.

Third, please put your hands together for…Carrie Hagen, a Philadelphia journalist and author. Carrie just won a top IRMA award for “Public Issues” for our September 2019 cover story, “The Basket Babies,” about a Gaines woman who discovered a hidden graveyard of babies

buried in baskets in the family cemetery, all victims of the 1918 Spanish flu. “A well told story that sadly, holds extra weight this year,” the judges wrote. “We would be wise to learn from histories such as this.”

Mountain Home has always felt like family. Something unique in all of American journalism, we write it and publish with you, our readers, out of an old house by a creek with a view of the town green. Family forgives, right? So I’m going to cheat, like Time magazine does when it’s Person of the Year is a universal (American Women, 1975; the American Soldier, 2003). So the fourth “person” we’d like to thank are the friendly, spirited, talented, ever-welcoming people of Wellsboro, 216 years old this year, never much more than 3,000 residents in any decade, for showing us by example in this season of light that the Dickens Festival will return. So will the Christmas toast over the groaning table, the laughter in the theater, the roar of the football crowd, the handshake and the hug, as surely as Mr. Who Who will open “his beautiful cyan-colored eyes” in the hollow of the tree near the house.

Lucky us, to be here with you to tell those wonderful stories.

5

6

Lori Ranck

Miracle meeting: After a call-in sighting by a local resident, Emma Lynch was reunited with missing HoSoon.

A Doggone Miracle

It Takes a Village to Find Lost Dogs

By Gayle Morrow

E

mma Lynch remembers the day she came home to no boyfriend and no dog.

“I couldn’t find either one,” she says. It turned out that Kyle Viehmeyer, her boyfriend, was out looking for HoSoon, their dog, and the search was not going well.

Emma, Kyle, and HoSoon live in Arnot. Before HoSoon, who is a jindo (also known as a Japanese or Korean village dog) mix, came to live with the couple, she lived in South Korea, on a meat dog farm. The Humane Society International (hsi.org) rescued her, along with her six puppies and the father of those puppies, several months ago as part of an ongoing effort to eliminate the dog meat trade throughout Asia. HSI had arranged with a number of shelters to take the dozens of dogs they’d rescued; HoSoon wound up at Animal Care Sanctuary in Wellsboro late in the summer, about the time Emma and Kyle were considering becoming dog parents. Emma says she had never had a dog of her own, and that Kyle’s long-time dog friend had died a few years ago. The couple had just bought a house together, and thought they and their cats might be ready to share their lives with a canine companion. In August Emma started seriously looking, and found HoSoon’s profile at ACS. HoSoon had spent the first two years of her life “in horrible conditions,” Emma says, and was not socialized in any positive ways toward humans. But something about her tugged at Emma’s heart, and, within two weeks after first meeting her, Emma and Kyle brought her home.

See Doggone on page 8

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Doggone continued from page 7

Bella "Maxine" Andujar

Lynda Barron

They knew HoSoon had some special needs—she was afraid of other dogs, she was afraid of men, and she didn’t know her name. Everything about her new life was unfamiliar, and she was anxious. On the plus side, she “essentially housebroke herself,” Emma notes, adding “she never once had an accident in the house.”

On the day HoSoon ran away, Kyle had had her outside.

They’d been using a harness to walk her, but, Emma says, she “was still in the mindset of being scared and associating it with Kyle.”

She was able to slip her harness, and then she bolted.

The couple searched the neighborhood with no success.

Emma says Kyle’s reaction was “kind of heartbreaking to watch”— for him it was like losing his own dog all over again. He even put chicken on the stove to cook and left the door open, hoping the smell would entice her to return. It didn’t.

They continued searching. They did all the right things. They put it out on social media—Lost Pets of Tioga County is one of the local go-to Facebook sites. They printed flyers. They talked to neighbors and co-workers and family members, who in turn passed the word on.

HoSoon, in the meantime, was doing some traveling. “People were seeing her,” Emma says. “I was getting phone calls every day.” She was spotted in Morris, Nauvoo, and Blackwell, more than twenty miles away, then, finally, back again in Arnot. On the magic day, over two weeks after HoSoon went Perfect pack : Although missing, Emma had a call from a neighbor in Arnot Entei (top) is waiting telling her HoSoon was in his yard. She drove over for a family, he is safe and “didn’t even bother turning off my car” before and happy at Second she got out.

Chance Animal “I managed to get a slip leash around her, then Sanctuary, here with started a food trail home [HoSoon is especially fond Laura Clarson, while of hot dogs], as she wouldn’t let me pick her up. You BamBam (middle) and could see her hip bones and her spine.”

HoSoon (bottom) have That was September 17. In the months since, been happily reunited with their humans.

HoSoon has made wonderful progress.

“She’s taken to following me around the house— she wants to be affectionate and loving,” Emma says. “We do have a long way to go with her, but we just have to keep proving to her that she can trust. I will not give up on her. She’s not even four yet, and she’s been through so much.”

Emma adds that HoSoon does know her name now, but she doesn’t always answer to it.

“She’s spending way too much time with our cats,” she laughs.

Lori Ranck

BamBam

8

Animal lover Lori Ranck says it was COVID-19 that led to her initial finding-lost-dogs foray. Everybody was in lockdown and “there wasn’t anything else to do,” so when she saw on Lost Pets of Tioga County that a dog named BamBam was missing in Wellsboro, in her neighborhood, she got involved.

She wasn’t the only one.

BamBam, a twelve-year-old pit bull who, unbeknownst to everyone, was deaf, wasn’t a local pet—he had come to town from the Bronx with his human, a tractor trailer driver making a delivery—but that didn’t stop the community from getting out in force to look for him.

“I started because I had contact with BamBam,” Lori says.

See Doggone on page 10

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Doggone continued from page 8

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“I actually, physically saw him. I had him by the collar on the sixth day, but I lost him.” By this time, there were dozens of folks, local and otherwise, on BamBam alert (his owners had to return to the city)—everyone from veterinarian Dr. Lenny Kreger to some out-of-town electric workers. There were all kinds of sightings, but almost a week had gone by, and, as Lenny notes, when it comes to dogs on the run, “some just keep going.” Thankfully BamBam was not one of those dogs. Though he travelled over two miles from where he was originally lost on East Avenue, he was successfully trapped, and Lori happened to be first on the scene that morning.

“I was like a little kid on Christmas,” she says. “He started barking and I started bawling.” BamBam has since been reunited with his family.

The Bernie Entei, however, is waiting for a new family, but he’s waiting in a safe place— Second Chance Animal Sanctuaries on Gee Road in Middlebury Township —where he’s getting lots of love and attention (full disclosure—I got to help give him his first bath!). The Bernese Mountain Dog’s journey began over a year ago—at least that’s when people around the Yellow Basket Shop/Stony Fork School Road in Delmar Township,

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CNB-0203 - Mountain Home Magazine, Nov/Dec._v2.indd 1

9/30/20 2:25 PM

Lori Ranck

Tioga County Cat Project

P Feeding finds: using food to entice lost animals is a great tool for getting pets home. Weis Market's meat department and Papa the Butcher helped with their meat donations.

outside Wellsboro, say they started seeing him. Lori—who with an expanding team of helpers that included her husband, Gary, Lynda Barron (who had helped on the BamBam and HoSoon rescues), Jim Melko, George Slupski, and Gary Gerges—was in on this rescue, too. Entei (Laura Clarson, animal care manager at Second Chance, named him for a Pokémon character who is constantly on the move), AKA The Bernie, travelled between three different properties in that area, and “every single person thought he was somebody else’s dog,” Lori says. It wasn’t until a resident posted a picture of him in mid-September eating a roadkill that it became clear he didn’t belong to anybody.

“Then, everyone became so concerned for him because, lying down, he looked just like a bear,” Lori says. And bear season was coming up. So, the next question became: How are we going to catch him?

Food seemed an obvious enticement.

The team put dog food in the roadkill, but that attracted animals they weren’t trying to catch, and, by then, the dog had eaten most of the deer anyway. Lori laughs when she talks about trying to figure out who to ask to get more roadkill. “Here I am, trying to get someone to drop off a dead deer for me,” she says. They set up trail cams, and then tried baiting their first dog trap. Weis Market’s meat department began donating to the cause, as did Papa the Butcher from Mansfield, so there was a ready supply of fresh meat, but Entei was smarter than the trap. They trapped a bear cub one night, but no dog. They borrowed a bigger trap, but that didn’t work, either. Entei had been spending a lot of time on Jim Melko’s property, and they were able to trap Jim’s cat a few times, but Entei refused to walk on the board that would trip the door and capture him. One trail cam recording showed the cat in the trap, with Entei on the outside—keeping the cat company, maybe.

Del Schriner, who has a commercial fencing business,

als Laura Clarson and Kelly Stemcosky have been making the rounds to borough council meetings throughout the county, and they’re having some success in gaining support for their cause—that being improving the lives of cats via the Tioga County Cat Project’s TNR program.

“Our goal is to address the entire county,” says Laura during a recent presentation to Wellsboro’s borough council.

“We’re kind of trying to focus on a couple of specific areas, get the problem contained, and then move on.”

That “problem” is stray and feral cats. Some communities have hundreds of them—it’s no wonder, given the fact that cats can begin reproducing at four months. In an ideal world, every kitty would have a home, and responsible owners would make sure their feline friends were spayed or neutered, but that’s not the case. So it’s a problem partially of our own making, right? Enter a solution: TNR and the Tioga County Cat Project.

TNR is trap/neuter, spay, vaccinate/return, and it is, in the words of these dedicated young women, a way to “help create a world where cats and people can live in harmony.”

The Tioga County Cat Project is a volunteer organization, started unofficially in 2019 and becoming official in 2020 as a 501(c)(3), and already responsible for getting over 400 Tioga County cats spayed or neutered.

Feral and stray cats are humanely trapped, transported by volunteers to a veterinarian for spaying, neutering, and often other minor procedures like vaccinations or flea/tick/ ear mite treatment, then returned to their original location, all at no cost to the caretakers. Returning them deters new cats from moving into the territory, and having a colony of felines who are spayed and neutered means less fighting, less stinky spraying, and, best of all, fewer unwanted kittens.

And, with donations from municipalities and individuals—Mansfield Borough committed $5,000, and a Tioga resident gave $1,000—plus the vets’ willingness to do the surgeries for a bargain price, it will be possible to continue the work.

In Wellsboro alone, Laura tells council members, “we have a list of people who have contacted us [for assistance]— there are probably twenty or thirty people on the list.”

“Any kind of support would be appreciated,” Kelly tells borough council members.

Find out more at tiogacountycatproject.com, on Facebook, or send an email to tiogacountycatproject@gmail. com. ~Gayle Morrow

See Doggone on page 12 11

Doggone continued from page 11

studied the problem and came up with a bigger kennel that might work; Lori's husband, Gary, figured out a better mechanism to spring it, so the plan then was to continue feeding the dog and let him get comfortable with the new kennel/trap set-up.

“We fed him really well the last six weeks to keep him in the area,” Lori continues.

“I’d see Jimmy going down there at 6:30 in the morning to feed him,” says George Slupski, one of the property owners who was watching Entei. “I just kind of kept tabs on him,” and he’d then report sightings to Lori. “I was close to him several times.”

The team also devised a solar alarm system—one alarm would notify Lori if the dog was approaching or leaving the kennel, and the second would go off if he went inside. They had more than one false alarm, and a few setbacks when the trail cams seemed to be malfunctioning. But they all knew “this dog has a pattern.” Jim (Melko) “knew this dog,” Lori says, and he was telling her to have patience.

It was early November, and, on this particular Sunday, they had set the trap again, baited it, and waited. And waited. Alarms went off; Lori is texting the other volunteers who are around the scene; everyone is “on standby” and nobody is sure if the dog is in the trap or not, but Lori thinks she can hear whining. Then Jim thinks he can hear whining, too. Then they could hear the dog howling, and knew he was in the kennel. They called dog whisperers Krys Knecht, who serves as the county’s Humane Officer, and Laura Clarson; when they arrived, they “walked right in,” put a leash on him, walked him out and down the road, and put him in the back of a vehicle (see them on the front cover).

“He was never once aggressive toward any of them,” Lori marvels.

When Lassie Doesn’t Come Home “Where’s the dog?” That’s a scary question no pet parent wants to have to ask. So what happens when our furry friends get lost, and why do they sometimes not come home on their See Doggone on page 30 12

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May Your Days Be Shiny and Brite Wellsboro’s Christmas on Main Street Sports a New Bauble

By Karey Solomon

W

ellsboro’s Christmas on Main Street is a Shiny Brite festival— literally. Held every year on the second weekend in December, the festival invites locals and visitors to explore Main Street shopping opportunities while learning about the town that saved Christmas for countless American families.

By now it’s become a legend—and while the story points to Wellsboro’s glorious past, this year it also points brightly toward the future.

In the late 1930s, when handblown glass Christmas ornaments became impossible to import from Germany, decorating possibilities looked bleak for many American Christmas trees. At a time when strings of electric lights on a tree weren’t as plentiful, the beauty of most trees depended on the sparkle of glass ornaments.

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But in the Corning Glass Factory in Wellsboro, where the light bulbs invented for Thomas Edison, and glass radio tubes were being manufactured on glass ribbon machines, and machines were also being built to supply other glass factories, the engineers decided to re-tool a line to create round glass ornaments.

Like the light bulbs, they were manufactured of clear glass. Then the decorating department took charge, coloring the insides and later, ornamenting the outsides of these bulbs. Their clear glass exteriors made the inside colors magically luminous. The American-made ornaments were a hit and became a staple on trees across the country. They were sold as “Shiny Brites” as well as under other names, as the Wellsboro factory had numerous large customers who sold the ornaments under

their own brands. Sellers were differentiated by the metal cap that finished the end and provided a hanger. It should be noted the Wellsboro factory eventually created other shapes as well, including Santa Clauses and “Double Dimple Reflectors.”

Over time, the decorations of the ornaments became more varied. In the 1970s, a process of printing images on thin plastic film was developed. The likenesses of sports and movie celebrities, Disney characters, and Currier and Ives scenes were imprinted on this plastic film and heatsealed like shrink-wrap to the outside of the ornaments. These were also sold across the country.

After the production of Shiny Brites ceased in Wellsboro in the 1980s, and the factory closed in 2016, eBay and antiques See Brite on page 16

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Brite continued from page 14

Wellsboro’s

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stores became the best source for the ornaments. Many Wellsboro residents are collectors. Civic pride and/or a family member formerly affiliated with the factory provide two great reasons to enjoy the variety of local craftsmanship.

The Christmas on Main Street weekend is an occasion to celebrate Christmases past, in part by putting the ornaments on display in shop windows and incorporating them into store displays.

“Different businesses throughout Wellsboro participate by displaying family collections and other collections they’ve accumulated of the Shiny Brite and other ornaments made in Wellsboro,” says Ellen Bryant, one of the Christmas on Main Street organizers. “We have a guidebook on the history of these ornaments each year.

We’ve focused on a history of people who worked in the factory or on the different shapes thatwere used [or some other aspect of the Shiny Brite heritage]. People can go to different businesses and see the displays of the ornaments.”

This year, for Christmas present, and Christmas presents, there’s additional eye candy and more reasons to celebrate.

Visitors will have an opportunity to view and purchase vintage ornaments made in the Shiny Brite tradition, thanks to Richard Pope, a long-time proprietor of the recently-closed Glass Menagerie in Corning and a former Corning employee.

Some years ago, Richard got the rights to continue producing Currier and Ives ornaments like the ones formerly manufactured by Corning in Wellsboro.

Unlike the traditional Shiny Brites, these glass ornaments are 3¼ inches in diameter, Richard explains. He established Vesta Art Glass Company to manufacture and distribute the Currier and Ives ornaments, plus some others, including pieces licensed from the Norman Rockwell estate and two designs commissioned from Norman Rockwell’s niece, Eve. With retirement in his sights, and anticipating closing the Glass Menagerie at the end of 2019, Richard offered ornaments for sale. About half went to Wellsboro’s Christmas on Main Street group via the Wellsboro Area Chamber of Commerce. He also donated an additional 775 ornaments to the group. Many will be displayed at this year’s event, offering a new visual treat and buying opportunity

for attendees.

And then there’s Christmas future.

Less tangible than the glass ornaments, the Wellsboro glass factory’s ribbon machine crews produced camaraderie and a pride in their work that outlasted the factory. Despite retirement, former plant manufacturing engineer Skip Cavanaugh has kept in touch with former co-workers and remained aware of some of the ribbon machines he’d helped build and maintain at the Wellsboro plant. Some of those went abroad, some went to other companies around the United States.

Last Christmas, through a former colleague, he heard of two ribbon machines in a now-shuttered factory in Kentucky.

The building was scheduled for demolition, the machines sold to a scrapyard. He was able to contact the buyer and purchase them back from the scrap dealer with the assistance of Growth Resources of Wellsboro. They arrived back in the place were they were “born” in early November— no small feat because they’re so large they could only be removed from the building that housed them after part of the wall was torn down. Two massive flat-bed trucks were needed to bring them home.

“It was like seeing old friends return,” Skip says.

They’re currently in storage, but Skip hopes one day they’ll be on public display, highlighting Wellsboro’s century-long history of producing glass for the world.

The old glass furnace from the factory is gone, so while Skip could get the machines going again, there’s no source of glass to feed them.

“We would like to have a museum dedicated to the Wellsboro glass manufactory,” he says, pointing to Wellsboro’s century—1916-1920—of glass making. The machines would be the backdrop to the history, “a story of glass people could come and look at. We have a tremendous amount of stuff that could tell the story.” More than 100 years later, it’s still both shiny and bright.

A long-ago glassmaking class increased Karey Solomon’s appreciation for the artistry of glass and convinced her to pursue other forms of self-expression.

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17

Courtesy Don Knaus

Mother Knows Best

Boys Learn a Lesson from Mom’s Big Buck

By Don Knaus

“M

other knows best” is an expression that may go as far back as Moses’ mom in ancient Egypt. Old as it is, it’s still good advice. The mother in this tale is Tori Custred. She’s a Tioga County gal, born in Wellsboro, raised in Mainesburg, and graduated from Mansfield High. Tori left her beloved Endless Mountains to pursue higher education in the Pocono Mountains.

She chose a grueling and demanding year-round nursing course and was a registered nurse at age nineteen. That RN degree was nice, but the topping on the cake for her stint in the Poconos was meeting her husband, Bill. Now Tori serves

18

as one of God’s angels on earth as an RN oncology nurse at the Wellsboro Cancer Center.

Tori started hunting as soon as she legally could. She took the Hunter Trapper Education Course and got her first hunting license when she turned twelve years old.

She says she hailed from a family of avid hunters, adding, “I guess you could say I grew up around hunting—mostly deer hunting.” The farmers and their families on the Old State Road gathered to put on deer drives. The familiar names of farms and farmers like Tice, Thomas, Morgan, and Baity tripped off her tongue as she remembers hunting in her youth. She smiles.

“One of my most precious memories is standing with my grandfather. I guess you could say I hunted, but my husband showed me what hunting really was besides deer. We bred and trained beagles; we hunted rabbits; he showed me the joys of pheasant hunting, calling turkeys.

We trained the beagles year-round and traveled to field trials all over. We still have descendants of our field trial dogs. We have that blood line in their great-granddogs.”

So, life was nice but the call to her roots continued. She quips, “It took me thirteen years to get him to move to Mainesburg.”

“I learned to still hunt on our place from my husband, Bill,” she continues.

See Mother on page 20

welcome to

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Mother continued from page 18

“We own a small forty acres, but we have worked to maintain animal habitat. We have created trails, food plots, and thickets.

We even make sure there’s brush for rabbits and grouse. On our place, we see deer all day, every day. It was work, but our efforts are worth it.”

Their land has been a great place for their sons to learn about hunting, dog training, and habitat management. Last year, they hunted deer—but only when mentored by a parent. Tori and Bill have rules for the boys when it comes to deer hunting. Dad has a ground blind stand and Mom has an elevated tripod stand. The boys must be with a parent at the stands. Traditionally, deer activity is better at Dad’s stand. The boys switch off—one day with Dad, the next hunt with Mom. On the Friday before the last Saturday of buck season, both boys were determined to sit with Dad. But, to keep it fair, they enforced the “take turns” rule. Frustrated, the boys began arguing, and then both decided not to go out at all.

“The next morning we offered to take them to stands and they both refused to go out,” Tori recalls. “My husband and I decided to sit in our stands, anyway. I left the boys with a teasing, ‘You might be sorry. Are you sure you don’t want to go?’ and headed to the woods.”

It was just before first light. Tori settled herself into her stand. It was chilly. Thick frost covered the grass. She noted the ideal conditions—still with no wind. Her stand overlooked high grass on a well-used deer trail. She watched the trail between an established feed plot and a thicket that served as a bedding area. As she tells it, “The buck presented himself at the edge of the thicket at 7:15 a.m., about one hundred yards away. He was traveling from feeding to his bedding area, moving slowly toward the thick stuff.”

Tori and Bill had always agreed that, if one of the sons was with them and a shootable deer appeared, the kid got the shot.

This day would have been son Ben’s turn to sit on stand with her.

“It took me a second or two to move my position for a shot,” she says. “It was obvious that the buck was not going to get any closer, so I took aim. I remembered my husband telling me to take three deep breaths and relax before the shot. I did. I blew out half the air and slowly squeezed the trigger of my .243. The deer disappeared. I was sure he had dropped. I feared that he might not have as big a rack as I thought. With the tall grass and slight hump I couldn’t be sure. I was amazed at how calm I was until the shot. Then adrenaline took over. I started shaking. I was glad I was alone to have time to get back my composure.”

These are the days of omnipresent cell phones. Before she could get down from her stand, Bill called, asking if she’d gotten a deer. Tori replied that she had a buck down, and asked for help.

After field dressing, they pulled together on the drag, but couldn’t budge the buck. Bill went to get the tractor and to round up the boys. With the deer loaded in the tractor bucket, Mom simply said, “See boys. Never give up. You have to go in the woods to get a deer.” The sheepish looks on their faces indicated that they had learned the lesson. Mother knows best.

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Lifelong sportsman Don Knaus is an award-winning outdoor writer and author of a collection of short stories on hunting, fishing, and the outdoors.

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A HOLIDAY JEWEL BOX AT A COUNTY GEM: Quilts, Silver and Jade at the Taber December 4, 2020 – January 16, 2021

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Many feature Millionaires’ Row houses as interpreted in cloth and lace. The shimmering beauty of silver and the exotic splendor of jade from the Eccles Hall Collection will add to the jewel box quality of the exhibit.

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e

ur c e S

DOCUMENT SHREDDING

Proceeds from our business services provide prevention of blindness programs, employment, & services for people who are blind or visually impaired to live more independently.

2121 Reach Road Williamsport, PA 17701 570-323-9401 ncss-documentshredding.com shop.ncsight.com Follow Us! @ncsight

21

(3) Courtesy North Central Sight Services

North Central Sight Services

Far-Sighted Folks Making a Difference for Our Communities

By Linda Roller

T

he building on 2121 Reach Road in Williamsport looks like many of the other manufacturing plants located there. Even the lobby, with the sign-in log, the waiting chairs—all standard issue. But walk through the doors of the plant, and there is a difference, and an organization that has made a difference for decades for people with sight problems.

“People remember us for services we did twenty to thirty years ago—rubber mats and brooms, reading to the blind. Now we’re getting known for shredding services,” Katie Coffey, quality and marketing director of North Central Sight Services comments as we wandered through the 68,000 squarefoot-shredding, packaging, and distribution center. It’s a long way from the four-story building in a residential area of Williamsport, where the mats and brooms were made, both in terms of facilities and in the range of services provided to government, industry, and the public.

Many things changed with the move

22

in 2007. The brooms and mats are long gone. Now North Central Sight Services is a government contractor for CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, and other office supplies. According to Katie, that program is launching a commercial site so the public can also purchase these items from NCSS. Through ncsight.com, over 40,000 products are available. “It’s hard to compete with the ‘big box stores,’ but all the [profits] go to the community,” she says. With the difficulty in obtaining masks and hand sanitizer, NCSS swung into action, finding suppliers in the U.S., and making these vital items available to the region at a reasonable cost, with the profit supporting our region.

Then there is the vending program, with trucks from NCSS filling machines throughout the seven county service area.

That, along with the bottleless water cooler service, keeps NCSS trucks busy all over the region.

But the “star” of the show these days is document shredding, a service in over

twenty Pennsylvania counties. NCSS provides a secure storage area, used for short term holding of material for shredding.

Organizations can also contract longterm storage for business files. A company can even use NCSS to store information until the date that the company wants it destroyed, then have it shredded on that date. They provide a pick-up and delivery service, a barcode tracking system for a business, and file boxes for material. There is even a walk-up service, where anyone can bring papers and electronic media to be shredded, watching as their documents become confetti for thirty-five cents a pound. The area is secure and even the personnel is secure, as the employees who handle this material and run the shredding machines are visually impaired. No one sees sensitive documents.

NCSS’s varied services not only fill government contracts and provide services to businesses in the region, but also provide employment for people who are blind or

visually impaired. Around sixty percent of the staff is visually impaired. Even the trucks are staffed by visually impaired people, with sighted people driving the truck to the work site or company that has contracted for the NCSS service. Visually impaired people work the vending service, again with a sighted co-worker. Even the CEO of North Central Sight Services is visually impaired.

The employment opportunities are important, as the majority of people with sight problems in this country are unemployed. Here, work stations are set up for people who cannot see. It’s a plant designed for the visually impaired to work in a modern service and distribution plant.

The employment opportunities are only half the story, though.

For this organization, through the work it does, generates money for the services it provides, like vision screenints, to the seven county service area and beyond. Currently, the NCSS program serves Head Start in Towanda, Canton, and Troy. They also provide the service to the Northern Tioga School District, along with sites in Lycoming and Clinton counties. They are working on getting vision reports from various school districts, to improve the service in K-12 across the region. NCSS screens 5,000 children a year.

The screening goes beyond children. North Central Sight Services provide health fairs in places like Truck-Lite in Wellsboro and Con-Agra in Wyalusing. The Tioga Downs Casino in Nichols, New York, recently provided $30,000 for mobile labs used by NCSS to serve the communities of the area.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed some of what NCSS offers to the general community.

“Vision impairment is isolating, and the pandemic has made that worse,” Katie explains. “We have adapted to the changes.” Client care specialists at NCSS call people Adapt and overcome: regularly to check on them and provide a friendly voice Kenny Bower (above and below) has worked in a world that feels more distant and unavailable.

Then, there are the electronic and mechanical helps for the agency for for the blind and visually impaired. Technology has thirty-seven years. His changed these tools, even as the large clocks and numbers job title is Shredding are still used. Now, new large monitors and software Operator, fulfilling one of the most important can magnify print so that someone impaired can read positions in today's any document as it is displayed on a computer screen. agency.

There’s even an app for phones that can take a picture of some printed material and read the label verbally on cans or containers. These computerized helps bring a new level of independence to the everyday life of those who have lost their sight and helps to fight the isolation that a lack of sight can create. NCSS helps visually impaired people, who are often on a limited income, afford these important aids to a richer, more independent life.

It’s a long way from reading to the blind, a service that North Central Sight Services provided back in 1957 as the Blind Association. But the idea of serving the visually impaired and the community at large remains the same. Through technological help, vision screenings, education, and personal support, North Central Sight Services provides and protects a more independent future for those of us with vision problems, and, through that care, to the entire community.

Find out more at (570) 323-9401 or at ncsight.org.

Mountain Home contributor Linda Roller is a bookseller, appraiser, and writer in Avis, Pennsylvania.

23

Trimming the Tree

You’re Probably Thinking That Means Lights and Tinsel…

By Maggie Barnes

“I

t’s gone?” There are rhetorical questions like, “Is it raining?” when your slightly damp friend comes in.

Then there are rhetorical questions like, “It’s gone?” when you are looking at your spouse across a yawning abyss in the ground where an evergreen tree was supposed to be.

Ro b e r t , t h e c r ow n p r i n c e o f understatement, responded with, “It would appear so.” My shock quickly gave way to anger.

“Somebody stole our Christmas tree!”

“Stole” was probably too strong a word, as we hadn’t technically paid for it yet. But we did adorn the spruce with fluorescent yellow strips of plastic, each bearing our last name, in the proud tradition of tree-taggers

24

throughout the millennia. Lots of yellow tags. That thing looked like a unicorn at its tenth birthday party.

“Who steals a tagged Christmas tree?”

I demanded of the gray sky above the farm.

“That’s a puppy-kicker for sure. Anyone who steals a tree is an orphan-beating, nuninsulting, puppy-kicker!”

Bob hiked an eyebrow. Living with me, that eyebrow gets a workout. He really should attach his Fitbit to it.

Whatever my opinion of the low life scum that took our tree, we were faced with the same dilemma. It was already the second week of December and we, a family famous for their yuletide festivities, were without a tree. An extensive search of the tree farm

was undertaken. I was half-hearted about it. This was the holiday equivalent of going to the prom with your second choice. I was going to make the best of it, but I was not happy.

We found a tree that was perfectly lovely and near to fourteen feet tall, a prerequisite for making the cut, so to speak, for our home. As usual, it took the two of us to pull it out into the road the farm folks had plowed around the rows of trees. In fact, it took the two of us and two of them. And a sled. Pulled by a four-wheeler. Truth is, it was one of the harder extractions I could recall. I was sure it was my frustration with the day that was draining my strength.

See Trimming on page 26

25

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Trimming continued from page 24

Once home, we attempted our usual dragging of the tree through the front door. It barely moved. We took a little break, held on tighter, and pulled harder. It came this time, but we were both breathless with exertion before we cleared the foyer.

Straightening up, Bob gasped, “This thing has to weigh 300 pounds.”

Having never tried to lift 300 pounds before, I had to take his word for it.

We looked at the cleared spot in the front room, looked at the evergreen, and looked at each other. Bob shook his head in resignation and said, “We’re gonna need mutual aid.”

For those of you who grew up in non-EMS families, allow me to elaborate. Mutual aid is the term used when a fire department is facing a situation that requires more staffing and equipment than they can throw at it. The surrounding departments bring their people and stuff and together they work on solving the problem. Bob loves mutual aid as an emergency response tactic. He hates it when it comes to asking for help at home.

So, we made some calls. Pals Derrick and Rob were the only idiots, I mean, the dear friends who actually answered their phones. Standing in the foyer, the two of them tugged at the tree and gave us a look that said, “How did you ever think…?” I told them I had never had a hernia and wanted to try one out.

I did some guiding and some pushing, but the menfolk did all the heavy lifting. What looked to be a nice, full evergreen in the forest had rapidly become dense and impenetrable in our living room. By far, it was the heaviest tree we had ever brought home, and we all breathed easier once it was in place and restrained with yards of high-gauge fishing line.

We had missed noticing that the shape was not ideal. (I told you my heart was not in it!) In fact, several branches poked out oddly on all sides, giving the tree a disorganized look that hardly jived with ‘peace on earth.’ Bob keeps a pair of heavy-duty clippers on hand for matters such as this, and I handed them to him.

But he shook his head and started up the See Gone on page 33

26

CORNING’S GAFFER

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VISIT & VOTE Make The Rockwell Museum part of your family’s holiday tradition!

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27

Serious Hunters on Your Christmas List?

Tuck a FAT Wrench or a WIZZ Seeder Under the Tree

By Roger Kingsley

I

t was Thursday, December 12, 7:27 a.m., when the text signal from a female hunter popped up on my cell phone.

“One down!” She and her friend Dave were sitting in the Hotel—one of the best deer stands on our farm. The couple had been instructed to contact me if they got a deer so I could help with recovery. Dave and Diane were standing in the twelve o’clock shooting lane when I arrived on my Kubota side-by-side. They were excited to share their morning hunt, and the “one down” text had me smiling, too.

Dave and Diane are fanatics about videotaping their hunting adventures, so Dave immediately pulled the film up on the camcorder for me to see. Filming such episodes not only verifies exactly where the targeted animal was standing (when poor tracking conditions exist) but, just

28

as important, shows how the animal reacts to the shot. After watching the video, I was certain that Dave had missed the doe, since she stood her ground momentarily after the shot before leaving in an alert and non-hunched manner. Dave, on the other hand, clearly remembers the sandbag rest he had when he centered the crosshairs of the 4-14 power scope on the deer’s vitals at approximately 130 yards downrange—no way he could have missed! Confused by it all, a thorough search of the area ensued, which ultimately revealed no spoor, let alone a carcass.

Two days later, while checking the fuel gauge on the Kubota, I spotted something underneath the seat—a steel clamp from a scope mount. Uh-oh! I knew there had only been one rifle riding on the gun rack above the seat, and I remembered who had

recently hung it there. Texting a picture of the part to Dave confirmed it was his. And to add insult to injury, when the video of the shot was viewed on his large screen TV, it was obvious he had made a clean miss.

Since this was Dave’s first hunt with his brand new 6.5 Creedmoor rifle, what were the chances that one or more screws on it wouldn’t even qualify as finger tight?

Back in 2009, I purchased what is known in the gunsmithing industry as the FAT wrench—a product of Wheeler Engineering. The letters F-A-T are actually the initials for Firearms Accurizing Torque.

The FAT wrench is a handheld six-inch-long screwdriver-style tool that eliminates all guesswork when it comes to seating screws to the proper tightness. That’s because it can be manually set to apply repeatable, precise pounds of torque to each screw based

on a manufacturer’s recommendations. Now, double-checking scope mount screws, mounting a scope, or tightening any other screws on firearms can be accomplished worry-free since Wheeler Engineering provides a list of approved torque settings for different applications.

Failure to tighten screws securely could send you down the same road that Dave travelled. On the other hand, snapping a screw in half because of overtightening can be a very upsetting situation—one you won’t have to experience when using this special device. Bass Pro/Cabela’s lists the FAT Wrench for $49.99.

It comes with a ¼” square drive adapter that the nine most commonly used bits (included) slide into. With Christmas just around the corner, put this tool on the top of your list for that hunter or shooter.

Did you ever run across a product that had you saying, “Why in the world didn’t I think of that?” I know I have, and the most recent episode was when I discovered the WIZZ in Walmart’s lawn and garden department. It didn’t take much time contemplating its usefulness before making a beeline for a checkout counter.

The WIZZ is a product of the Ohio-based Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. Appropriately named, I immediately visualized the WIZZ as a much more accurate way to spread lawn grass seed than the toss it by hand method. And boy does it work slick!

Just determine the proper setting on the dial that regulates the opening, pull the trigger, and start walking as the lightweight AA battery-powered unit spreads the material effortlessly. Handheld units with a crank have to be operated with both hands, but the WIZZ frees up a hand to carry extra seed, tools, or to move something in your path.

After using it a few times, I was so impressed with its performance that I bought another one as a backup in case of a breakdown. That was ridiculous, because my original purchase is still on the job. Aside from the even application of seeds that the unit can spread, it can also be used to broadcast anything granular such as fertilizer, weed control, and ice melting products.

While its occasional use around our house and yard has proved its convenience, out in the field is where its versatility really shines.

Last count, my brother Ronnie and I were maintaining seventeen wildlife food plots ranging from tiny to a few acres. The bull work for our plots is accomplished with our tractors and heavy equipment, but the two-pound WIZZ takes over to reseed bare spots, plant secluded areas, plus frost seed and fertilize shooting lanes and trails.

Level full, the unit will hold between six and eight pounds of a variety of small grains like buckwheat, oats, or rye, to nearly ten pounds of clover or brassica-size seeds. With the trigger engaged while slowly swinging the unit back and forth as you walk, a fifteen-foot swath can easily be covered in a single pass. Major garden centers will most likely have this on their shelves, but if you’d rather shop online, Amazon shows them at just shy of $20.

Great gift! What are you waiting for?

An award winning writer, Roger Kingsley’s articles and photographs have appeared in numerous publications, including Country, Quality Whitetails, Farm & Ranch Living, and Pennsylvania Game News.

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own?

Dogs, according to missinganimal response.com, can leave home for several reasons. They may be opportunistic (someone left the door open and what’s a dog to do but walk out?), they are prone to wanderlust (think hound with his nose to the ground), or they’re in a blind panic (a noise or some other frightening event set them off).

“It depends on the dog,” says Laura Clarson. “Dogs can get spooked by things we wouldn’t necessarily consider scary. Some need some guidance to get back to where they need to be.”

Once they’re on the lam, common sense, even by dog standards, does not always prevail. A panicked dog may not come to his owner, indeed may not, for reasons we as humans don’t quite understand, even recognize his owner.

A dog who has been on her own for a period of time may revert to a semiwild state, again for reasons we don’t completely understand, and may, rather than remembering that she is a predator, consider all those humans calling her and chasing after her as the predators and decide it’s in her best interests to keep on going.

That’s one reason you’ll see on the lost dog posters “do not call, chase, or even acknowledge.” The dog in question may not realize you’re just trying to help.

If your dog runs away, Laura suggests that you “don’t panic” and don’t chase or yell. If Fido repeatedly wanders but eventually comes home, give him a reward for returning (yes, that’s counter-intuitive, but what dog is going to return if he gets yelled at or swatted?). If it’s a stray or a dog you’re unfamiliar with that you’re trying to catch, try setting up a feeding station.

The idea is to encourage her to stay in one area to make for easier humane trapping, so make it a safe space— you want the dog to feel comfortable hanging around. Luring works better than chasing.

Lori offers a few tips, “learned over the last few months while rescuing dogs.”

You need one lead contact person and a phone number someone can call day or night, and you need as much animalidentifying information as possible

Contact all local animal shelters so they can post on their social media. Contact local radio stations, local news outlets/social media, and police departments. Talk to the mail person, along with UPS, Fed Ex, and school bus drivers. You have to get the word out that this dog is missing.

Make flyers indicating not to call, yell, whistle, or chase the dog.

Talk to the neighbors where the dog was last seen.

Carry dog treats (liver seems to be a favorite), canned and dry dog food, and cooked hotdogs. Carry a slip leash.

If he has been out for long, he may have lost weight and his collar, if he still has one, may slip off with a regular leash.

Leave clothing with owners’ scent or the dog’s favorite toy at the last spotting, along with food and water. The owners can sit quietly in that location to leave their scent. If you’re using a trap, leave the area but keep checking the trap regularly from a distance.

If possible, use trail cams to monitor the animal’s behavior.

“BamBam made it 2.5 miles away from where he was lost in six days,” Lori says. “HoSoon traveled forty miles in three weeks.

And, the Bernese Mountain Dog traveled thirty miles in a year.

Therefore, it’s important to check the surrounding area for any vacant homes. It’s quiet and they feel safe and comfortable. No one is chasing or shooting at them.”

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As the experts say, when you’re looking for a missing pet, you’re really looking for people—the people who have either seen your dog or cat, or who have found them.

“I never could have done it alone—there’s no way I would have been able to do it,” Emma says of the help and support she and Kyle received while HoSoon was missing. “I could not have done it without the community.”

“You can’t do this without volunteers and community support,” Lori says. “I couldn’t do it without Laura and Krys’s expertise. It truly takes a team effort.”

“Lori and I—we’re a team now,” says Lynda, who was out looking for another dog on the rainy and chilly Sunday afternoon I got her on the phone. “She’ll call and say ‘Lynda, where are you and what are you doing?’ We’re two crazy ladies that love animals and would do anything to help them.”

Lori reflects on what she told me when I first spoke with her a few weeks ago about the reason she started doing this—helping to find lost dogs and rounding up feral cats to get them spayed/ neutered. She said then that during the COVID lockdown in the spring there wasn’t much to do. She’s since had some time to think, and she’s been involved in a few more “lost and founds.”

The reason she gives now sounds more like how it really is.

“Somewhere along the line, a human failed these animals,” Lori says. For some of the animals she’s helped to find, “there was nobody,” and for a person who loves animals, that’s just not acceptable.

“It takes a community to get involved,” Lynda adds.

Making miracles is a whole lot easier with help.

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Gone continued from page 26

stairs for the garage.

That is when I started to worry.

My apprehension was justified when my beloved pushed back through the door with the hedge trimmers—the massive, powerful, meant-for-outsideuse-only hedge trimmers, complete with forty feet of orange industrial extension cord.

Nat King Cole was trying to tell us about Jack Frost nipping our body parts, but the roar of the trimmers drowned him out. It was a surreal juxtaposition to view the silent gentleness of the snowfall and the serenity of the Holy Family nestled in the manger all the while dodging branches that were ricocheting around the room.

“Yuletide carols being sung by a…”

“Look out!”

“ZROOOOMMMMM!” “Watch your head!” “…and folks dressed up like…”

“Incoming!”

“ZROOOOMMMM!” While I buried my face behind a couch pillow, Derrick and Rob were leaping about the room, catching severed tree parts in mid-air and directing Bob to the spots that were still asymmetrical.

They were snapping photos of the operation, admitting that they had never thought of bringing power tools to such a mundane task, and praising Bob’s carving skills. (To the women in their lives I now apologize, belatedly, but sincerely.)

Once the tree was declared “even,” the guys helped us clean the wreckage out of my living room, shook the remnants out of the trimmer, and wound up the orange cord. Which was good, as the clash with red and green was making my head hurt. Thanks and handshakes all around and our helpers were heading for the door.

Rob did make a point of saying that whenever we were planning to get our tree next year, he was busy that day. Odd. But all in all, it was a grand night for mutual aid.

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B A C K O F T H E M O U N TA I N

Stars of Wonder

I

By Curt Weinhold

t was just me and a camera on this starry night, only three days before Christmas at Cherry Springs State Park. Snow allows the camera to see more details than we ordinarily have at night and brings to mind the line of a song: “All is calm, all is bright.” It truly was!

34

Don’t Assume Your Best Deal Comes From The Big Home Center...

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