Hats off to Warden Lowe

We hear so much these days about deplorable conditions in prisons and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Visiting the Pike County Correctional Facility yesterday with a group from Delaware Valley Action! was a refreshing experience. Our concern for ICE detainees led us to visit the facility in order to gather information and to find out how members of the community could help detainees know that they are not forgotten and that there are people who care about them. What we found was that, in Pike County, ICE detainees have very clean accommodations and a wide variety of programs that they can participate in while waiting for their cases to be processed. Hats off to Warden Lowe and his dedicated staff!

Cordell and Marlene Bowman
Shohola, PA

Kudos and concerns

It might be my imagination but The River Reporter has been changing and updating the print edition and visibility online. And it’s great. In the past, I haven’t been a fan of Jonathan Charles Fox and his IMHO column, but over the past year he seems to have made an about face and shared some personal viewpoints about life, making me now look forward to reading his articles. The editorials and especially the local viewpoints (Narrowsburg News, Honesdale News, etc.) are wonderfully written and offer different insights to living in our community.

But, unfortunately, the Lake Huntington News, penned by Eileen Hennessy, is, in my opinion, an embarrassment. Aside from posting local happenings, the front of her column consistently refers to musings about her friends and relatives, alive or dead, hawking the services of clairvoyants or delving into too much detail about her illnesses and health conditions. I’m sorry, but Lake Huntington is my neighborhood and deserves a professional representative in my paper.

David Skovron
Cochecton, NY

Big firemen uniform news

As new blood, young firemen and women, join our volunteer fire departments, they are eventually form fitted with new uniforms so they can proudly march in parades or attend other firematic services. That is as the department budget will allow.

Obviously, the main concern is instantaneous response to fighting fires, attending automobile and truck accidents and other emergencies, practice drills and frequent maintenance of the engines and equipment.
However, as the years pass, many firemen and women get larger and their multibutton uniform jackets get harder to button. For a fireman to turn in or exchange their uniform is a delicate procedure. You can only discreetly let out a fireman’s dress jacket so much.

This 40-year-fireman waist imperceptibly grew over the years. If I button all of the buttons on my fireman’s jacket, I could inhale but not exhale. I was buying a new fireman’s shirt at Everyday Apparel in Monticello, NY. The old Grahamsville Fire Department patch had faded. The owner, Bryce Flynn, admonished that you never wash —you only dry clean a fireman’s shirt to preserve the colors of the patch and flag.

When I bashfully admitted that I couldn’t button my fireman’s jacket anymore, he referred me to First Class Formalwear across the street, where they rent and alter tuxedos. The owner Russ LaSpina said “no problem.” He said there was not enough cloth in back to let it out. So he measured me in front and just moved all the buttons closer. The comfortable jacket with the moved buttons and re-ironed was ready in a few days and cost $30.

September is Fireman Parade season. This information might be helpful.

William A. Brenner
Grahamsville, NY