Middle Island
Mail
February 19,.
1936
Weather Report from Yaphank
Flash!
During the recent record breaking cold spell, low cold weather
records were registered from many parts of the country. But the
cities and villages that entered in the Olympic-like cold weather
marathon conducted by the radio announcers, have nothing on
Suffolk’s dear old homelike Yaphank. “No siree, by gosh” declare two
charter members of Yaphank’s Hot Stove League, John “Ed” Davis and
James Coomes.
Our inquiring reporter last
Saturday decided to break a trail through the snow drifts and learn
if reports emanating from Yaphank regarding low temperatures and a
flock of wild ducks starving to death there were true. We broke
through all right- in fact, sped there, for by that time old Sol had
melted the snow sufficiently to enable a car to turn a corner
without skidding. When we arrived at the headquarters of the League
we found Davis shoveling a path through the snow from Yaphank
Boulevard to his property.
He became indignant when we
questioned his reported statement that thousands of wild ducks
frequenting Yaphank pond, were so weak from lack of food they might
be caught by hand, dropping his shovel he directed us to drive to
the rear of the local school so he could prove his statement. About
50 feet of open water separated the north shore from ice that
covered the remainder of the lake as far as the eye could see. This
ice was doffed with wild duck of four varieties. And, strange to say
they did not take flight although only5O feet separated them from
us, until an airplane flying overhead frightened them. After flying
about 1,000 feet they alighted on the ice, further east. True, they
were not so starved but what they could fly but it was the closest
we had ever been to wild ducks without scaring them and nobody could
be found in Yaphank who should remember similar happening. We did
not have time to count the ducks but we will agree there were
thousands.
This fowl question settled, we
repaired to the headquarters of League where we found Coomes and
another member in session. The League has plenty of time during the
cold spell to decide the issues of say, being in constant
communication with Albany, Washington D.C and foreign nations with
the aid of the radio, Naturally, the question of cold weather had
been debated pro and con, and, we, being a neutral party, were
promptly selected by the League to decide an argument that had
continued since the middle of the cold spell.
Davis
said he experienced more cold than Coomes did and the latter
insisted otherwise. After hearing both sides we left, promising to
take the questions under advisement and render an opinion in our
next issue. In the interval we respectfully request our readers to
assist us by writing their opinions, Here are two “whopping” cold
weather stories from Yaphank to be judged.
Davis claims, one morning, two
weeks ago, upon failing to notice smoke coming from the kitchen
chimney of the Coomes homestead, he became alarmed, because Coomes
arises every morning at 5 o’clock, Hastening into his clothes he
races over to Coomes’ homestead and peered through the glass door of
its living room which is heated by a large oil burning heater. To
his surprise he saw Coomes down on his knees on the floor, one hand
holding the frozen flame of the heater and the other an axe, with
which he was attempting to chop the icicle-shaped flame off the wick
so he could relight the stove.
“You call that cold?” sneered
Coomes. And he told this one. The day after the flame of his oil
heater froze up he decided to walk over to Sweezy’s pond to test the
thickness of the ice before taking a swim, Upon reaching the pond he
saw Davis standing on the 26-inch ice beside a hole he had cut in it
and swinging with both arms a baseball bat. As he drew nearer he
learned that Davis was not practicing batting, neither was he
fanning himself. Davis, after cuffing a hole in the ice stuck a long
pole in the mud bottom of the lake and tied a bunch of worms to it,
about five feet above the ice. As the hungry fish leaped from the
bottom of the pond to grab the worms, Davis would slay them with the
bat.
(Editor’s note – Only one opinion
to a reader. Address Inquiring Reporter)