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New Year's a little early folks!

Moving to 2016 on Dec. 17, 2015.

Ironically, a major local industry appears to have sprung up around government paid petitioners being paid to petition the government for money!

We'll take care of this nonsense.

[Thanks to a little birdie's email tip outing by name the three aligned against us who are fighting us with outside funds while pretending to be our comrades in local business.]

Of course Mary knows her collectors very well, so just from the person's browsing pattern in her back room she immediately knew something was amiss and would not even let them pay for a painting!

A subsequent email test also found them lacking.

People wishing access to the current $100,000.00 budget must first get on the agenda and show up at a Guild meeting to formally present their case.

In order to add toxicity to the piece so the person cannot use it as proof they are an Endico collector (much less know anything about the arts), here is the watercolor in question:

If someone shows you this painting, be aware they are not an Endico collector, nor do they know the first thing about the arts ... though they may be pretending to both!

The list of Guild well wishers continues to be assembled ready for publication at the first of the year.

The Sugar Loaf Guild is currently the one and only Sugar Loaf centric public community organization being run in accordance with democratic ideals reaching back to the United States Constitution.

Therefore, it is our reluctant duty to keep a clear light shown on the remnants of the now defunct Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce and their last gasp illegal activities.

Currently they are running an illegal lottery (check with any lawyer), and they are trying to entice a licensed electrician to throw away their career by placing illegal electrical outlets on Orange & Rockland property.

Of course there is still no publicly available information regarding their hidden sequestered clandestine activities, no publication of any supposed membership, no publication of meeting dates, time and place, nor any publication of their process.

Certainly there is no public record of the accounts, where the money comes from, and best guess is they have no intention of ever delivering on their promises other than pocketing a large percentage of the monies derived from fraudulent use of the Sugar Loaf name.

Their website remains hopelessly out of date, still showing people as business owners who have been gone so long they probably don't even remember passing through Sugar Loaf.

On the other hand, the Sugar Loaf Guild conducts weekly open to the pubic meetings with published minutes which include proof of life photos!

Plus the Sugar Loaf Guild website is also reviewed and brought up to date weekly.

Hopefully some of the actual businesses in town will make sure the next iteration of that loathsome Chamber of Commerce pseudo-organization is at least being run by somebody with a clue.

Worst case scenario, I myself would certainly be willing to volunteer running their meetings in the correct manner, while Mary is also willing to serve in that capacity.

No more pretending there are no volunteers (in order to keep the pocketed money out of the limelight) ... there are plenty of volunteers.

The Chamber assholes will just have to own up to their prejudices and admit they want to keep things under their own closed subversive criminal control.

You have no power here ...

We are assembling a thank you list for year's end.

Maybe somebody with class and substance such as Kat Parrella will volunteer to take over the hopefully soon vacated Chamber Presidential spot.

She has to be aware that the amount of time required to run a true organization (when not focused on kickbacks, payolla, and fraud) would be quite minimal indeed.

Kat could usher in a new Sugar Loaf prosperity.

Read another Canvas article about the excellence found in Sugar Loaf:

Cookie Boone

Neither did the Sugar Loaf Guild.

The Canvas just likes to write about excellent people, does it for free, and only asks the Sugar Loaf Guild to point out the pockets of excellence.

We were more than happy to mention Cookie by name, and so apparently was the reporter.

Fact check: Actually Cookie does not sing at "weddings and funerals" but maybe mentioned her grand-daughter Kristen is available to do so; though maybe I'm also guilty of getting something wrong here.

Location: Ava's Hope Chest

Extra thanks to Matt Feichter for helping us cap this off.

Don't believe the rumors (lies really) about how impossible it is to find somebody to run the festivals and meetings correctly.

The Guild is currently 21 members strong, and Mary and I maintain a list of willing Sugar Loaf property owners who offer use of their properties free of charge for high level events.

Mary Endico ran all the shows the first 8 years she was in Sugar Loaf (starting at 22 years of age), and she has agreed to do it again but has been ignored (in fact derided) for the last ten years.

The so-called Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce finally proved disastrous, and the cabalistic hidden way they were conducting business was virtually indistinguishable from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), so real businesses in town generally never bothered to join.

On the other hand, the weekly (10:30 a.m. Wednesday) Guild Meetings are exemplary models of excellence for open community organizations following best practices democratic process.

For Sugar Loaf startups: the Sugar Loaf Guild is here for you and can marshal considerable resources to help anybody who is serious about having an actual business.

All Sugar Loaf Guild services are offered free of charge as volunteer community activism and advocacy projects.

In the meantime, we have our own businesses to tend, and customers to make happy.

Therefore, our current posture is less outreach and more uptake ... less pounding the bushes looking for projects and more watchful readiness willing to provide helpful action.

As for those who would like to be more profitable in the unique business environment which is Sugar Loaf: 1) make it yourself, 2) open your studio to the public, 3) keep full-time hours.

Be surprised what a focused committed effort can achieve.

The best part about it is when we not only get to meet and talk to the artist, many times we can actually watch them work.

I had hoped that Mary and Bob had exaggerated the state of things in Sugar Loaf, but sadly that was not the case.

Many of the stores consisted of items that are just resold crap made overseas, or things I have seen locally in Ohio.

Why would I drive 6 hours each way to buy crap I can get at Wal-Mart or at a local crap (oops, meant craft) show?

Other stores had handmade items, but the stores were either not open, or the person making the items did not make themselves available when potential customers came into the store (and in many cases, we were the only customers).

The town needs more people like Mary & Bob from Endico Watercolors, Ada & Doug from Pisces Passions, Sharon from East Ridge Pottery, and other people we may not have met, who care about Sugar Loaf and the other artists in the area — working toward the common goal of attracting people to the area due to the fantastic workmanship and skills evidenced like the places I mentioned above.

The artists in those places took the time to talk to us, show us their work, and make a connection with us that will ensure we will be their customers for life.

I am trying to think what I can add, but you have pretty much said it all.

Given your experience (and the experiences of every other shopper in the 3 recent tour groups), we are immediately putting Guild promotions on hold in order to avoid throwing good money after bad.

You might try copying your review to the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce Facebook page, just to enjoy seeing how fast they delete it.

They don't want to know shit about actual business, actual customers, and the reality they have established.

They also have a contact page (which as far as we know goes nowhere, given the number of people who have told us they never get a response).

The Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce is totally defunct, destroyed, and gone as far as we know ... no published open to the public: meetings, agendas, minutes; and your guess is as good as mine where their "money" comes from.

Also as for copy/pasting your comments elsewhere, can you say Yelp, Manta, TripAdviser, and Warwick Valley Chamber of Commerce?

Look at that!

I did come up with something to add.

Yay, me!

I would judge your willingness to state the truth right-out-loud absolves you of the three hours coding nightmare you handed me by finding the problem on the Endico website.

You are a Sumo Coder, my man, a Ninja truth sayer.

No wonder that giant company pays you massive amounts of disposable income for your IT work.

BTW: I have observed your posting IP# on the Guild website 6x since 08/29/15.

Anybody who has a problem with Matt's post, can speak to his wife, Off With Their Heads Cheryl, at:

Or post a comment to the 13,000 member German Shorthair dog group she administrates ... she loves comments, but be prepared to adopt a mutt, and be aware that comments receive top priority only when they come with a generous cash donation to the rescue efforts.

Which reminds me, Matt and Cheryl also bought some stuff over at Diva Dog Pet Boutique, in Warwick (though I hate to mention Warwick, Sugar Loaf's Cafeteria, by name).

Point of interest, Cheryl made this ceramic tile which hangs in our private collection next to one of Ada's Lipstick Ladies:

Cheryl Feichter
tile

It is hand painted using an alcohol ink process, and ... oh, for cryin' out loud, go ask Cheryl yourself; she'll tell you all about it.

It was such a great experience to have these two people come check out my work and then purchase one of my lipstick ladies!

I want one of those shirts! Lol

-Ada Jo Hunter

Lipstick Lady #8
Foot Fetish Collection
- Ada Jo Hunter

Extra thanks for the thanks, Ada!

Due to the fact I am the Doug beneath Mary's wings, I am taking the opportunity to respond to your thanking her.

As you know, the Guild's work with Social Media netted a total of 4500 man-miles traveled last week, with 60 state line crossings, in order for people to come meet us and see Sugar Loaf in person (having read the intriquing Guild stories and Forum postings), and those people poured nearly $15,000 into the local economy.

What was most surprising was the aesthetic response Mary and I observed in all of our visitors.

One of the most striking was Cheryl Feichter's response to seeing your work.

Mary is extremely skilled at identifying a strong aeshetic reponse (her livelihood has depended on it for 40 years), and what she observed was deemed shockingly strong.

On their self guided tour through Sugar Loaf, Cheryl and her husband Matt had missed your studio because the window displays show nothing about a local artist in residence producing work there, so Mary took them back over.

In fact when Cheryl and Matt had come back from their solo tour, Cheryl asked where the Lipstick Ladies paintings were because she had read about them in the Guild Forum, and she had seen her own painting (she is an artist) hanging next to one in our collection upstairs to the studio.

Mary said that when the Feichter's went through the front door of Pisces, they were still in ho-hum mode (seeing stuff they could easily find anywhere else in the world), but when they stepped into Ada's work space, "Cheryl's focus alerted strongly and immediately on Ada's art work!"

Mary partly describes that sort of aeshetic response as, "A quick sharp narrowing of the eyes focused like a bird of prey," and Mary watches for it daily in her own studio.

When Mary sees that response she doesn't even bother with a sales pitch; she just stays out of the way (though close enough to answer questions if needed) and lets the work sell itself.

Quiet attentive focus on customers' needs is the secret ... decidedly not what is taught to wannabee branders and sales help in the big-box stores, but to be fair to those stores, they need to use aggressive sales techniques to sell commodity products that can be purchased anywhere.

If Mary doesn't see an aeshetic response, she just walks out the back door and starts throwing the stick with her dog (Brat CGC Therapy dog, who was a prime motivator in bringing the Feichter's to town).

In any case, Cheryl wanted one of those lipstick ladies; in fact she needed one.

And her husband Matt exhibited the same response throughout town.

Later I will write about aeshetic response (and what it means) ... some people have it, some people don't.

It is somewhat akin to a sense of humor, such as was evidenced by yours and Doug's wide-eyed gaping-mouth howling laughter when you saw Matt's T-shirt (the one you said you want).

Matt put that shirt together by his own volition, and it pretty much proves his own claim to artistry.

Matt said he will make more for the people who want them.

spokesmodel
artist/collector
Matt Feichter

At dinner in Middletown later (Mix N Mac), Mary said, "Cheryl and Matt said they just loved Ada," to which I replied, "Who doesn't?"

I spent money in every establishment that I went into (missed some by lack of interest but mostly due to time).

It is a wonderful town that I would have never found if it were not for Mary, Bob, and Brat

Nobody ever uses it.

Gives lots of time for wine & whine.

If they get bored with that, there's always sip & bitch (usually associated with some pretend artistic endeavor).

I just love it when somebody saves me time by writing a relevant article themselves.

I just found a great one.

Finding it has made me so happy that I am offering a $50 dollar prize for anybody who can spot the subtle difference in communities described as similar to Sugar Loaf to the actual reality of Sugar Loaf.

It is a difference that once again points out the truly singular truth which makes Sugar Loaf stronger, better, and more resilient than any other artist community.

The first person in Sugar Loaf who points to the difference glossed over in the article wins fifty dollars!

Here's the article:

In any case, kicking Warwick's ass was easy (they fell right over).

Beheading the now defunct Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce was easy (once the membership saw the truth, they beheaded themselves).

Laying waste to every so-called arts community on the planet took a little more effort (but we pulled it off).

If you know Sugar Loaf and understand the top successful businesses here, this is going to be a no brainer ... found money.

Contest ends at opening of:
Oct. 21, 2015 Guild Meeting

All Guild Meetings are open to the full public, no membership required (except for voting).

BTW: Why haven't you been pretending to be me?

I haven't been pretending to be you because there has not been a need.

It's like calling in Batman: one doesn't want to abuse the privilege.

Now that you're here though, I have an assignment for you which will be just your thing.

I set Clay up with one of my old computers using the mouse, keyboard, and monitor he got from his mom.

The new Boone book is in the works.

That computer has never seen, and never will see, the light of day on the Internet … for good reason.

Therefore, we need somebody else to do some Internet research with regard to possible FRAUDULENT use of the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce letterhead and name.

You know, like the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce letter of lies (page 2) that they sent to me.

Sugar Loaf
Chamber of Commerce
letter of lies p. 1

Sugar Loaf
Chamber of Commerce
letter of lies p. 2

I just emailed a government organization to find out how to research such stuff, and they sent back a link which I would imagine is right up your alley.

Here's the link:

See if you can track down some instances of people FRAUDULENTLY using Sugar Loaf's name along with the name of the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce in order to get grants for using my own tax dollars purchasing letterhead stationary and then attacking me with lies like they did with the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce letter of lies (page 2) linked above, and I guess below.

Sugar Loaf
Chamber of Commerce
letter of lies p. 1

Sugar Loaf
Chamber of Commerce
letter of lies p. 2

Clay told me that Vince Herlihy complained greatly of misappropriation of funds when he was President of the Sugar Loaf Foundation at a time they were trying to combine forces with the now defunct, totally destroyed, Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce.

You can report your findings to Clay, and he can bring the info to a Guild Meeting when he gets the time.

Sorry I haven't been pretending to be you as much; I've been having a life.

BTW: You will want to use the government site (linked above) from your laptop, not your phone.

What would that be like?

But just to be sure, I have begun sending the following email to various government and law enforcement agencies:

Is there a way to do a generalized search to find out what grants (if any) have been applied for and/or approved for a given agency, such as for the Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce, Sugar Loaf, NY?

I recently accepted the position of Assistant General Counsel and chief litigation attorney for the Florida Department of State. Our offices just happen to be in the R.A. Gray building that houses the Museum of Florida History. They actually let us choose artwork for our offices from the paintings that are not currently being used by the museum, but – thanks to Aunt Mary – I didn't need the help.

The picture shows what I see when I sit at my desk. So Mary's paintings are still my 'happy place'.

Endico paintings
special arrangement

BTW, getting back to our much earlier discussion about 'walking yourself well' I have continued to improve so much in my back, neck, knees, etc., that I have taken up backpacking again. Since June I have walked over 80 miles on the Appalachian Trail with a full pack. With zero neck, back or knee issues. It's like a freakin' miracle as I had pretty much given up backpacking for life. I just got back from an overnighter on the AT with my middle son and his wife (the one getting a doctorate in physical therapy) and their trail dog (see pic). We did 27.3 miles, most of it in the rain, and had a blast. The picture is from the second day on the lookout tower on top of Wayah Bald in North Carolina.

Wayah Bald
special people

Anyway, just wanted to check in with you and let you know what Mary's paintings have been up to here in Tallahassee.

Take care.

D. Fugett

You keep hanging out with those people.

One of the women we walk our dog with in the local parks has been winning her age group in races and just placed 4th for her age and 167 overall in her first 1/2 Marathon of 1500 people ... she left it up to us to calculate how many men she beat because she's "not competitive".

A while back she was telling me how she was doing one legged stiff-legged deadlifts and I tried one ... couldn't come close with my left.

"Hmmm," thought I and began trying one every time I picked up the dog's stick during park walks.

Eventually I expanded what was learned into climbing and descending stairs with groceries, standing up from chairs, and the toilet etc.

Long story short my left hip is like a new creature, and I can now feel this big puffy pillow (which is my ass and gluteus medius) catch my hip like a giant cupped hand and stop it from escaping to the left.

I never even knew there were muscles there before ... didn't know I was trying to hold my hip stable with my knee (small muscles on the wrong end of the lever do not do the job; just makes you wonder why a nail gun keeps hitting your knee in random spots periodically).

The new hip strength has given me a whole new more balanced standing position on my bike for hills ... stretch high and lightly toss my handle bars left and right.

Plus I have made inroads stopping my right hip rotating forward while riding seated.

And your cousin, John Mitchell, reports he avoids driving anywhere that he can ride his bike, and he was just not too long ago sitting in the canopy somewhere down in the Amazon after rope climbing up and into it with some friends.

Hearing all this stuff makes my life more or less complete!

If it is ok, I will drop your email (with name) into a few of my Forums.

BTW: Couple weeks ago Mary sold $14,000 worth of paintings in five days to random people who walked into her studio, so she has become extra feisty on her bicycle.

On the other hand, those sales are going to pale in comparison to her excitement seeing your more than perfect display of her work that you have crafted (or your wife did if memory serves) ... not to mention the story.

WOW!

-b

We are off to the races!

The next generation Sugar Loaf Guild Juried Shows are a reality.

After giving the last remnants of the now defunct and totally destroyed Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce their last and final chance to totally screw up the remainder of the horribly destructive festivals perpetrated in a string over the last 20 years, they managed to so successfully reveal their ineptitude that the entire Sugar Loaf community has now come to the aid of the Guild ... full force.

Just this morning Clay Boone offered his property as FREE booth space with added artist support (lunch, electric, etc) for the new Guild shows that are replacing the atrocities of the past.

Details will be presented at the regular weekly Guild meeting on Wednesday.

See the Meetings page for the agenda, time, and place.

On the other hand, they were warned.

FB is not open to the public, so lots of important information gets overlooked by the world at large.

Certainly Facebook is not designed for business use, but everybody seems to have caught on to that fact already.

Below is a note from Mary (as Peg Conner) tagged to her sounding board friend (soon to arrive in Sugar Loaf as a visitor).

Get this.

Two days ago I threw another advertising salesman out on his ass.

This one was representing a start-up local "magazine".

Told him I was too busy and did not need to advertise, "My success is fueled by happy customers and word of mouth referrals."

Told him I might, however, let them do a cover story about my career and work and handed him some brochures with the suggestion, "Give these to your publisher."

He left and immediately came back with the "publisher" who, on the verge of tears, was just tossed outta the Candle shop by the candle maker because he was too busy for their nonsense.

Next day their "reporter" showed up unannounced at my desk.

I gave her my time because I had not started painting yet, thinking the two of you might show up early unannounced with a bad case of diarrhea.

Anyhow, after trying to explain to the "reporter" that what works in Sugar Loaf (always has) is people making their own product, I showed her around town.

And P.S., I told her these people are really, really busy and not interested in, have no need for, and are totally opposed to branding and marketing in the current sense.

By current sense, of course, I mean a small local business trying to be Coke and Pepsi using the same saturation style branding techniques where the local business has neither the capital nor the need for such.

Of course the artists that we dropped in on were too busy to engage in idle chatter about how wonderful they (we) are, only said thank you, don't need it, and continued with their work.

Our conversation continued after we got back to my studio, but sadly the "reporter" still did not get it, and even went so far as to send a rather insulting email to Mr. Ol' Peg later in the evening (after he went out of his way to try and help her "get it").

The bottom line is that Sugar Loaf can NOT be explained in an 800 word blurb-article, never mind submitted under duress with a decided lack of doing one's homework.

Mr. Ol' Peg was involved because at one point I had screwed up and disturbed him by asking him downstairs to help explain technical aspects of the Guild website, but the first thing he said was to me, "I just watched on the security cam as you ignored two people who came in saying, 'We have one of these watercolors at home and should probably take a picture of it.'"

Ol' P's second utterance was a question to the "reporter" asking her why she was here gumming up our business before having done the homework and making an appointment.

To be fair to myself, it is an ongoing struggle – trying to stay open for business, accessible to art lovers, and at the same time keeping the hangers-on off my back.

Peg Conner (aka: Mary Endico)

They got to see several Sugar Loaf artists working whom they would not otherwise have even known existed.

If the tour had been handled by one of those sinfully self-serving small time avaricious losers from the former (now decidedly defunct) Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce ... not one of the true artists would have been mentioned, let alone convinced to allow a reporter/ad-rep to come through their doors.

And that despite the fact the artists are the real draw to this hamlet!

Plus even though being rebuffed by several busy artists who explained, "I don't need to advertise, I am already too busy; you can look around, but I have to get back to work," unfortunately the "reporter" still did not seem to get it.

Maybe it was not fully their fault because the current trend is for every bedroom community in the U.S. to have "Artist Studio Walking Tours" where hobbiest crafters open their doors a few days a year in order to complain about the economy and attest to the fact they cannot sell their work.

Therefore, when somebody wanders into a true artists' enclave, where highly performing skilled workers are independently producing and living off steady sales of superlative work to an adoring walk-in public, well, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to people.

In any case, I explained to Mary that being a "publisher" these days is not the same as she remembers from her youth.

The bar used to be set higher.

Now slick glossy magazines are produced by templating cookie cutter ready mades, and they come pre-filled with generic copy/paste articles and pre-packaged advertising provided by numerous aggragating services.

You only need to sign up, give them basic information for boilerplate covers and front matter; then have a cheap short run printed on-demand, and there you go: "You're a publisher!"

Want to move into a new market?

Swap in a variable cover.

The overarching print services make plenty of money selling a dream to people who are then expected to provide only a few poorly conceived, poorly researched, super-short promotional-blurb "articles" in standard blog format.

It all seems easy enough until the new "publishers" run into the mountain of other publications being spewed out of production printers all over the country, all in the same manner, all with the same advertising and the same copy/paste articles.

Contrast that which is typical to the alternative which is the circumstance of the Delaware & Hudson CANVAS.

The CANVAS has been around awhile, and the people involved with it have been around (and around) the block a while longer.

It remains the only serious regional publication that is truly focused on the arts.

It has actual highly skilled writers on staff, a top-notch editorial board, and they have been running monthly 800 word articles each dedicated to a single Sugar Loaf artist (under the Guild Banner) going on three years now.

Did I mention "actual writers", and that every Sugar Loaf artist who has been interviewed has been speechlessly happy with the results?

Plus the CANVAS has been doing it for FREE because they understand "content is king" ... not marketing, and not branding ... CONTENT!

Ok, so maybe they fucked up once and sent Irisha a come-on to purchase a display ad at the same time they were making arrangements for her upcoming interview, but we assured her it was discretionary and not at all needed for the publication of an article under the Guild Banner.

Even the Guild doesn't pay for the space, and our only involvement is to keep our boots on the ground, ferret out the hidden treasures, and pass along suggestions as to "what's next" — and the queue currently stretches 5 months into the future.

Like I said, content is king, and Sugar Loaf is king of content!

Clay just got back from Wyoming and was looking for a misplaced fishtail gouge which he was certain I would have saved for him if I came across it.

He knows I always do the right thing.

He was just a little disappointed saying, "No ... not in there ... that room is completely empty."

It is one of the final warm sunny days of the year, and I was trying to get her to go out for a bike ride.

While I was putting my bike on the car rack a tall good looking gentleman drove up and walked into the studio.

I knew Mary would think the studio doorbell was me, so I whistled for her off the side deck.

After everything was all said and done, she said, "See!? That guy drove a long way to get here unannounced to pick up his paintings. What if I was out on my bike, and he got here to a closed shop? Then what?"

Pretty cool realizing the region's only high powered serious arts publication is firmly in our corner!

Merrily sign
projected colors

Merrily opened today for the first time and is now ready to serve the public!

In the great Sugar Loaf Guild tradition, we are not waiting for a bullshit self-serving conflict of interest Warwick Valley Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting in order to tell everybody.

Here in Sugar Loaf we have actual skills to which branding, marketing ploys, and all that other nonsene takes a back seat.

Actually, I feel kinda sad for Warwick and its lowly status as "Sugar Loaf's cafeteria" ... without a table for the cool kids of course.

avid stalker
quick peek

It is always good to get the jump on the rest of the media, and the last thing we need is another business waiting for their "Big Ceremony" to open their doors ... then never showing up for work again.

The Internet is rife with images of orphaned Warwick Valley Chamber of Commerce ribbon cuttings which turned out to be the only thing a long gone business ever did.

We have seen far too much of that crap; good to see Merrily bucking the trend.

So, Jimmy, make sure everybody gets on over there right away:

And say hi to your pal Superman for us, plus mention he might like to show up for a Guild meeting since Santa Claus already came to the first one.

I guess you have to call this one "Close Encounters of the Typical Kind" with the subtitle "listen to your customers and learn".

After yesterday's Guild Meeting we were going out for a doggie swim at the way over yonder dog beach — chase your stick till you drop or the stick sinks waterlogged deep into the super clean, super beautiful lake with views.

On the way out of town we saw Clay (just returned from 6 months of hunting elk in Wyoming) as he was beginning his truck's standard giant "K" turn into the parking lot of the now closed Barnsider then backing across Kings Highway and tucking into his space in front of his house.

So we stopped to see if he wanted to come along for a once in a lifetime look at the county's premiere splash dog.

While Clay was giving excuses about too much work with everybody already mad at him because they want their wood carvings done, and done right now yesterday, so he can't leave for a minute (but has to get on the bench and wrangle some tools ... to "move wood" as he tells his students again and again), Mary saw a guy in the crosswalk coming over from Romers' Alley and thought, "Uh oh, Bob smiled at somebody again, so here we go."

And go we did.

Brooklyn family
loving Sugar Loaf

The family in the photo above was from Brooklyn, up for the day visiting somebody's dad's place in South Fallsburg, but out for the day because everybody loves these weird little towns ... and Sugar Loaf was certainly providing one of those for them.

The joke at that moment (among many) was when the smiling guy on the right had said, "This sure is a peaceful little place," to which I quipped at Clay, "Hey, quit deep throating my dog's tongue and turn around and listen; this guy thinks this town is peaceful."

"Whoa!," says Clay, "I just got back from Wyoming, and I have to tell you it is far too noisy here," (as evidenced by the guy's wife reacting to a truck avoiding repair work on the bypass by driving through town behind Bob on the left), so we were having a rollicking good time comparing the relative perceptions of somebody just up from Brooklyn and somebody else just fresh in from Wyoming.

Then Clay jumped into a rant about how a couple days ago he got so mad that he drove several blocks the wrong way down a street in Manhattan after a traffic jam turned his 20 minutes early into 40 minutes late.

The guy from Brooklyn was commiserating having had lots of that sort of nonsense break up his days, though he did not seem to have ever driven a long ways backwards down a one-way street ... wanted to lots of times though.

Just before the photo the guy had told me he and the people he was with were really enjoying walking around the hamlet but unfortunately couldn't go into any of the shops because of the kids.

I growled (ready to go kill one or more of my neighbors), "Who?! Who won't let you come in with the kids?"

He calmed me, "No, we are allowed to go in, its just that they're kids, and you have to watch them all the time to keep them out of trouble. Besides what do they care about soap anyway?"

Right.

So I let my neighbors live another day and Mary snapped the photo because the three of us had on such funny hats.

Otherwise, excuse me for having munged a whole bunch of details about whose dad, and whose property, and whose wife was whose wife (there were a lot more people in the group).

I didn't get a lot of actual info due to the fact I went immediately into auto-mode jumping from one entertaining one-liner to the next competing with the guy from Brooklyn because he was City smart and FUNNY!

In any case, I do have the gist correct, and this is a pretty good start on the 2015 4th Quarter Forum postings.

I hope our new focus on the Wednesday meetings will mean I don't have to write so much and will not have to split the Forum again.

All these sorts of things (forums, websites, initiatives, etc) have shelf lives, and ever since the now defunct, destroyed, stupid-ass Sugar Loaf Chamber of Commerce realized they were never going to beat me, attendance on the Guild site has dropped off considerably.

Who knew people were reading the Forum just to see if they could figure out how to stop me.

Sorry, folks; can't be done.

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