We knew it would come to this. We would sit down at the computer, ready to write the column and the computer would tell us, enough already. Our trusty companion in the writing world for the past five and a half years has bowed out, as it were, leaving us in the lurch for this column. It’s not that we can’t write on the blasted machine.

We just can’t access our information so we have no idea what we might be wanting to write about. Fortunately, we had the foresight to e-mail the information to ourselves at our computer at work so we are hopeful that once we put in an appearance there, we will be able to continue with this column.

Of course, another choice for this column would be to forget about using the missing information this week since we think there is a good possibility that it would still be usable next week. Instead we could attempt to go forward with this column using a technique that we used many years ago when we found ourselves coming up short in the information department.

In those days we would take the preceding week’s paper, scan it carefully in hopes that there would be something on which we could do some follow up commenting. It worked then, so perhaps it will work now.

Of course, this particular technique is dependent on our actually receiving a copy of the preceding week’s paper. And quite frankly, we do not seem to be having the best of luck when it comes to getting a copy of the Crier.

Two weeks ago, our free copy was tossed into the front lawn, unprotected from the elements, where it was completely soaked through by unnecessarily heavy rain. And although we tried valiantly to separate the pages and lay them out to dry, it was to no avail. We called the circulation department to alert them to our difficulty with the paper. Our call resulted in a second paper being placed that very day on our front porch.

Last week, Thursday came and went with nary a paper in sight and once again we called the circulation department. This time we thought our call went unheeded as no paper appeared on Thursday. But, lo and behold, Friday morning found a copy of the paper placed squarely on our front porch. And not a moment too soon as we now find ourselves searching diligently through it for something about which to write.

While reading the front page we were interested to learn that Dale Petroskey, president of the Baseball Hall of Fame, is a big Detroit Tigers fan. We hasten to point out that our stepmother is also a big Tigers fan.

And she has managed to make our father, whom, when we were growing up never paid any attention whatsoever to sports, a big Tigers fan. In fact, we called the parents in Grand Rapids one Saturday afternoon only to learn that they were glued to two television sets, one of which was showing a Tigers baseball game while the other one was offering up a football game between Michigan and Michigan State. We found it to be a bit zealot-like.

But we really couldn’t say much since we were watching the Michigan/ Michigan State game ourselves here in Cooperstown. And, of course, the wee-we and Annie were watching it in Ohio. All of this should be a good indicator of what the family will be doing during the Michigan/ Ohio State football game later in November.

We were also interested in the story about outdoor wood furnaces which was found below the fold on page one. We had no idea that the village zoning law addresses the issue of smoke emissions.

And we certainly had never heard of the Ringelmann Smoke Chart from the U.S. Bureau of Mines. And we are absolutely, positively convinced that we would not want to be the person in charge of determining if any given smoke was darker or more opaque than number one on the smoke chart. Talk about a job going up in smoke.

We cannot imagine making such a determination. However, we must point out that we were somewhat amused by the fact that although the village has put its outdoor wood furnace on hold, it does continue to sell firewood which we have to think means that smoke is going to rise from somewhere. Is it possible that smoke from wood burned indoors is less of a problem than smoke from wood burned outdoors? Obviously the community has yet another burning issue in the making.

In closing, we trust that we will have located our missing information for this week’s column in time to include it in next week’s column which we hope will be written on our brand spanking new computer. This, of course, will be dependent upon our being able to understand the workings of our brand spanking new computer. And we must admit, about that we have our doubts.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.

Anyone experiencing delivery or other circulation related problems should call the circulation department at 1-800-721-1000