We know, from first hand experience, that the village crew has been working to widen the streets.

In fact, we took umbrage at the results of their efforts in front of our house. Fortunately, they returned to the scene of the clean up to clean up the mess that was left on our sidewalk. And for that we are grateful as the removal of snow on the sidewalks remains, if we understand it correctly, the responsibility of the property owner. Having said that, we readily agree that keeping the sidewalk in pristine shape is often difficult at best, especially when the melt and freeze routine kicks in. But it would be nice to think that everyone at least attempted to keep the sidewalks in a passable state.

We were somewhat amused this past week when, on one of our numerous checks of weather.com, we noticed that there is a section of the website devoted to "Rush hour traffic conditions" for Cooperstown. Naturally, we had to check it out and indeed did discover that weather conditions for the morning rush hour from 6 to 9 a.m. and the evening rush hour from 4 until 7 p.m. were listed. We have to admit that we never considered that Cooperstown has traffic rush hours. We do know that there are more cars on the street when people are coming to and going from work. However, we never thought it would be considered "rush hour" traffic, at least not as we used to know "rush hour" traffic when we lived around Detroit, Mich. Now that was "rush hour" traffic! We have decided to put it down to just another example of the fact that the concept that "one size fits all" really doesn’t. There is still a very big difference between urban areas and rural areas even though, as weather.com goes to show, that distinction is recognized less and less.

Congratulations and best wishes go to Jeanette Hansen, of Greenough Road, who recently celebrated her birthday with family and friends at a get together at the 1819 Tavern which, we must admit, we thought was a most appropriate place for the gathering, as Jeanette and her late husband, Bill, used to live in that house before it was sold and became the 1819 House, home of the 1819 Tavern. We must confess that we were most pleased to be included in the celebration. And for those who wish to know, we believe that Jeanette was 39 ... again.

The next meeting of the Literary Discussion Group, sponsored by the Women’s Club of Cooperstown, will be held on Thursday, March 22 at 2:30 p.m. in the Village of Cooperstown Library. The book for discussion will be "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood. The meeting is open to the public and anyone interested in the book is cordially invited to attend.

It has come to our attention that the 2007 Village of Cooperstown Bicentennial Committee would like to introduce descendents of the 1907 Village of Cooperstown Centennial Committee at an event scheduled for April 21. We recall that we asked in a column sometime last year if such descendents were still in the area. At that time we came up with a list that included Hugh MacDougall, Eleanore Ellsworth MacDougall, Bob Lettis and Chip Dunn. Of course the wee-we, who is not so wee anymore, is also a descendent of a Centennial Committee member. And, given that a number of names in the centennial book are still very much around today, we have to think that there are more area residents who could be added to this list. Therefore, if you are, or if you know of someone who is, a descendent of the centennial celebration committee, please let us know so that we can compile as complete a list as possible.

In closing, our computer is telling us that we have written, as of this point, 836 words. We try to make each column to be about 1,000 words, which means we are now, since we have passed the 836 word mark, 138 words short. Normally, we do not have any trouble coming up with what now needs to be 120 words. But we must admit that this week we are, surprisingly, at a loss for words. So we find ourselves ending this column 84 words short. We shall try to make it up next week.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

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