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.
Gavin Duffy and his wife, Irene, and sons, Cody and Tigue, live on Beebe Road. Gavin worked as an undercover cop in New York City for many years. The other day Gavin was kind enough to visit us at The Bristal in Westbury and brought me a copy of Sports Illustrated where the feature item was about the old New York Americans, the state’s first hockey team which played from 1925 to 1941. When I started this newspaper, I named it the Mineola American because of my love for this team.
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The Long Island Conservatory of Music entertained us here at The Bristal playing music from Beethoven, Mozart and Johannes Strauss.
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In our current events session at The Bristal, we learned that Elizabeth, the English queen, is 90 years old and has ruled longer than anyone, including Victoria. We noted that Queen Elizabeth has no real power and that the real power rests with the prime minister. Someone joked that while England has a queen and prime minister, we have a president and the Kardashians!
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I heard a man say the other day, “He doesn’t take nothing from nobody.” I hope he is not a graduate of the Mineola schools!
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All of Mineola was saddened by the death of Joe Skowronski. Joe had worked as a detective in the Nassau County Police Department and was also later attached to the Third Precinct. He had a total of 32 years on the force doing dangerous work, only to be killed while crossing Old Country Road. Our condolences to his wife, Rosemary, and the rest of the family. Joe lived on Beebe Road.
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Mary Ann Primiano lives on the border of Mineola and after 15 years is leaving her job at The Bristal. She has a new job in a hotel.
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Vinnie Scalia has worked at Alpha Collision on Herricks Road in Mineola for 50 years.
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Mary Ann and Nugent Cantelino of Beebe Road have been parishioners of Corpus Christi Church for 57 years.
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Dennis Liberatas and Leno Ferrara of The Davenport, aided by Dennis’ sister Fatina, served 520 dinners for Mother’s Day.
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Bill Dempsey, Jr. is a graduate of the University of Scranton and is now doing his master’s at Fordham majoring in social work.
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Scott and Linda Fairgrieve are enjoying their grandson, Harrison. He is the son of Ross and Ngoc Fairgrieve who live in Jersey City.
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Russell Reilly lives on Mineola Boulevard and has worked for 15 years for Franwin Pharmacy.
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Frontiersman let their hair grow long and would tie it with rawhide. When it got too long, they cut it off with a knife. The frequently uneven job led them to be called the “roughnecks.” The term is now used to refer to people who do hard manual labor.
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To brood. Birds would sit on their eggs until they hatched and then would keep them warm. Brood was the Anglo-Saxon word for “breed.” Thus it has come down that anyone who sits and thinks is said to “brood.”
