Editor’s Note: Lou Sanders, who has his journalism degree from NYU, and his wife, Grace, a graduate of Adelphi, founded the Mineola American in 1952, giving the village its first successful newspaper. Lou and Grace have lived in Mineola for 60 years, and his popular column is a signature feature of this paper.
There were three great friends in Mineola High School—Gerard Terry, Judy Randall and Tom DiNapoli. Judy became an editor of the Richmond Hill Advance newspaper. Tom is the New York State comptroller, and Gerard became the boss of the North Hempstead Democratic Party. Gerry resigned his position after it was revealed publicly that he owes a large amount in back taxes.
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Did you know that the Long Island Road first began operations in 1843?
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Bernie Sanders is a fine, honest and sincere man, but a dreamer. He reminds me of Don Quixote—dreaming the impossible dream as he was launching his attacks on the windmills. Senator Sanders’ ideas for a single-payer healthcare system and free college tuition for all community schools are great ideas. But no matter how high he would make the taxes on the wealthy, and no matter how many loopholes he would close, his ideas seem more like financial impossibilities.
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We here at The Bristal in Westbury had the pleasure of hearing the Bishop Kellenberg Glee Club when its members came here to entertain us. Also joining us at The Bristal were the ballroom dancers from Hofstra University.
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Watching Channel 12, I often see something about State Senator Jack Martins. We feel Jack will be moving up in the political ladder in the near future.
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I met a woman recently who reminded me so much of Alice Grom. Alice and her husband Stanley lived on Arlington Street. Alice worked as a waitress until she was 88 years old. Incidentally, she is a direct descendent of Walter Raleigh.
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Mary Ann Guarino is recovering very well after her recent heart surgery.
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The expression, to “read someone like a book,” comes from the early frontier days when there were very few books beyond the Bible and Webster’s speller, which were read and re-read until they practically fell apart. Hence, the expression to read a person like a book, meaning to know and understand that person completely.
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“A cock-and-bull story.” Long before there was the printing press, computers, and of course Skype, people in the early days communicated by telling stories. When children told them, they often were based around the lives of farm animals and included such implausible characters as singing cocks and talking bulls. Today when someone gives an interesting, but implausible excuse, they may be told, “Don’t give me that cock-and-bull story.”
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You know what amazes me is that among the two people running for the presidency in the Democratic party and among the 16 who were once in the running for the Republican nomination, rarely do any speak about climate change. Climate change is probably one of the most vexing problems in the world. In just the last few years we have seen the ice caps in the Artic disappear and rising sea levels could cause islands to completely disappear. Many of the islands of the Pacific are already close to going under.
