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This Week in Rockland: Newspaper Excerpts: Flashback Friday: Week of December 29

December 27, 1873 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

AROUND HOME

A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
   ☞ On time—the storm on Friday morning.
   ☞ Our village was a model of sobriety on Christmas.
   ☞ Be sure you come home sober on New Year’s day.
   ☞ Wanted a copy of the Journal of March 29th, 1873.
   ☞ The steamer Chrystenah has hauled off for the season.
   ☞ Sadness reigns among our boys because skating is not.
   ☞ Hezekiah pulls the wish-bone with his Jemima this week.
   ☞ “Paying teller” is the name applied to money-spending wives.
   ☞ The State Canvass will be given in supplemental form in our next.
   ☞ Get rid of enmity, hard feeling and “sich” before next Thursday.
   ☞ Don’t let your tables be disgraced with intoxicating liquors on Thursday.
   ☞ As the mercury goes down the hopes of our ice men ascend, and vice versa.
   ☞ Wallace Bruce will deliver the next lecture in Warren Village, January 8th.
   ☞ Save your liquor and cigar money and you can buy a lot by this time next year.
   ☞ Santa Claus was traveling through our village at a lively pace on Christmas Eve.

December 29, 1923 – 100 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Times

ROCKLAND FOG BELL HEARD AS IT WARNS MARINERS
[Image: Rockland Lighthouse, end of Palisades, Hudson River. Color postcard, lighthouse, ca. 1912. Courtesy of Nyack Library via NYHeritage.org.]
       During Thursday night the fog on the river was of sufficient density to cause the automatic fog bell at the site of the former Rockland light house to sound frequently. The apparatus controlling the bell is worked by an appliance in which three human hairs are the main factor. Atmospheric conditions register upon the mechanism and human hair being most suitable in this particular. It is used in the delicate device which causes the bell to sound its warning.
       The warning notes of the bell are not particularly annoying, inasmuch as the tone is soft and pleasing to the ear, It is the monotony of nocturnal tolling that may grate upon the nerves of some, but these folk should remember that the lives of others might be menaced if the bell did not perform its duty. —Ossining Democratic Register

December 29, 1973 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

FUEL CRISIS PUTS CONGERS DEALER OUT OF BUSINESS
       Independent service station owner Bert Kimbark is having a personal energy crisis, and it’s putting him out of business.
       The owner of the Lake Road Garage in Congers has received only one delivery of gasoline since Oct. 28. His supplier, Garoil Co., Inc., of Sparkill sent a truck on Dec. 5 with less than 1,000 gallons, but Kimbark used to sell 20,000 gallons a month.
       He has taken a full-time job at the Materials Research Corp. in West Nyack, but the money he makes there is still not enough to pay the mortgage, tax and insurance for the now idle station.
       Kimbark spends much of his free time writing letters and making phone calls to the federal and state agencies that deal with gasoline allocations. His name is well known in the offices of Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-25) and his problems have been filed with the regional office of patroleum allocation, but still no gas.
       Kimbark has been in the gasoline business for more than 30 years and he says that the big oil companies are trying to put independents out of business, because they can make more of a profit off company-owned-and-run stations.
       He sees himself as one little guy fighting the giants, and he has taken his fight very seriously. He puts in hours reading and re-reading federal and state allocation regulations in the hope that he will find something that he can use to force his supplier to give him the precious fuel.
       His vacant station has signs that read “Oil Co.s Kill Small Business Men” and “Forced Sale—All Offers Considered.”
       Garoil says it is so exasperated with hounding from the Congers gasman that company spokesmen will not discuss the situation. Repeated phone calls over the past two months have produced only a terse “no comment” from the company.
       Kimbark says Garoil made its one December delivery so that the various agencies that Kimbark has alerted would relax their vigilance. He backs up this theory with a copy of a letter to Gilman from the associate director of congressional affairs, Robert E. Bradford, which says: “I am pleased to note that on Thursday. Dec. 6, Citgo did begin to resupply in a limited nature Mr. Kimbark’s station and he is planning to reopen on a limited basis the week of Dec. 10. It is hoped that the supply chain will continue to supply his station.”
       The supply chain did not, according to Kimbark.
_____

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