Thursday, March 19, 2015

TIME MACHINE ... This Sunday's Preview.

1920.. Crisfield churches hold prayers for tax relief; 1999..Collision with gasoline tank truck results in large fuel spill in Salisbury; 1958.. Pocomoke City's Marva Theater has new owners; 1900.. Hotel Pocomoke is open (newspaper ad); 1902.. Snow Hill businesses get lighting; 1911.. An ad for a beverage being promoted as a substitute for coffee (clue: P_ _ _ _M.) 

It's this Sunday right here at The Pocomoke Public Eye!  

Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about?  It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish.   Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Easter Egg Hunt

Chief Kelvin Sewell would like to invite you to join us for our Annual Easter Egg Hunt! Please spread the word. Thank you.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Many thanks to the following new & renewing PACC Members!



Wal-Mart
Worcester Community Work Experience Program

Believe It Or Not!

     Although Spring doesn't even officially begin until this Friday, we are already thinking ahead to the annual Cypress Festival to be held this year on June 17, 18, 19 & 20.

     The Cypress Festival is the main fundraiser for the Pocomoke Chamber of Commerce and the signature festival for Pocomoke. This event could not come together without the support of the local business community.

     This year marks the 40th year that the Cypress Festival has been held.  We are in the process of planning and creating the official program for the event.  Board members are taking orders now for paid ads that local businesses wish to place.  Sponsorships are also an option.

     We appreciate you for advertising in this year's Cypress Festival Program.  Beginning in May, over 2500 full color copies of the program will be distributed.

     If you wish to place an ad or be a sponsor and have not been contacted by a Chamber Board member, please call Deb at 410 957-1919 or email at pocomokechamber@gmail.com.
     
Ad orders & payment are due by April 15, 2015.

March General Membership Luncheon



Wednesday
March 18, 2015
(12:00 - 1:00 PM)

Don's Seafood & Chicken House
1344 Ocean Highway
Pocomoke City

Featured Speaker:
Michael Franklin
CEO
Atlantic General Hospital

Menu Choices
Flounder Sandwich w/ Chips

Pork BBQ on Kaiser Roll w/ Cole Slaw & Chips

Turkey on Kaiser Roll w/ American Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato & Chips

Large Garden Salad

Register
online at
Call Deb 410 957-1919
OR
email at

Raiding Md.'s Pension Piggy Bank

gov office larry hogan


In Case You Missed It:

Raiding Md.'s Pension Piggy Bank

From The Washington Post

Editorial Board - "That boils down to a short-term payoff to core Democratic constituencies, especially teachers unions, that will burden taxpayers down the road."
____________________________________________________________________________________

Editorial Board
The Washington Post
March 14, 2015

"WHEN THE big bond-rating agencies took Maryland’s financial temperature last month, they found the state in robust health — with the notable exception of Maryland’s undernourished pension fund. The fund needs a sustained infusion of cash if the state is to meet its long-term promises to retired teachers, police, judges and other public employees — a $20 billion infusion, to be precise.

"So how did Democrats, who control the state legislature, respond to this red flag? A week after it was raised, they advanced a plan to make the situation worse — to raid the fund in order to forestall cuts in next year’s budget proposed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R). By grabbing pension dollars to plug immediate budget holes, lawmakers would risk the state’s future knowing that most of them will no longer be in office when the bill comes due. ...
"Nonetheless, bad old habits — raids on money earmarked for the fund — returned last year and now seem to be accelerating. In an effort to block relatively modest budget cuts proposed by Mr. Hogan, mainly to schools and public employees’ wages, Democratic lawmakers in Annapolis are pushing a plan to revamp the formula for scheduled contributions. According to Comptroller Peter Franchot, one of the few prominent Democrats who opposes the scheme, it would shift $2 billion into the general budget over the next decade, then cost the state $4.5 billion in the following dozen years — meaning Maryland would face a net $2.5 billion in additional costs over time in order to keep its pension promises.



"That boils down to a short-term payoff to core Democratic constituencies, especially teachers unions, that will burden taxpayers down the road. And if the pension fund’s investments underperform officials’ rosy projections, the result will be fiscal calamity — and big trouble for the employees the legislature is purporting to help."

 

Sunday, March 15, 2015

TIME MACHINE ... 1896, 1935, 1981, 1922, 1914, 1971.




"Friendliest Town On The Eastern Shore."  Our tradition runs deep.  Excerpt from a letter to the editor from a visitor to Newtown, (former name of Pocomoke City) published in the Baltimore Sun, April 28,1847.

This place (Newtown) is a pretty snug little village, containing about 500 clever and hospitable inhabitants; it has good wide streets, quite clear of that "eye sore," known mostly over the Peninsula by the name of "deep sand"; the houses, though built of frame, are generally built substantially and with some discretion and taste; there are two neat, new, and quite handsome frame churches in it; as for the merchants of the place, suffice it to state that they are very clever and hospitable.  F. Mezick, Esq., the landlord with whom I stopped, and his very obliging and jolly assistant, are richly deserving of a passing notice, for the good treatment and the extension of the many civilities to "the stranger."


(Reader-friendly viewing of news archive/historical archive material)

September, 1896
Peninsula Enterprise (Accomac Court House)

An Exchange of Shots

PRINCESS ANNE, Md., Sept. 8,-  Mr. E. D. Young, the day operator of the N.Y.P & N.R.R. at Princess Anne, and Mr. Tazewell Jones, proprietor of livery stables at this place, had a dispute yesterday over the delivery of a telegram.

During the dispute, insulting epithets were passed and this culminated in Mr. Young assaulting Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones drew a pistol and fired several shots at his antagonist to defend himself from the assault. Mr. Young also drew a pistol and fired once at Mr. Jones, but without effect.

After the affray it was found that Mr. Jones had received a flesh wound in the thigh. The bullet was probed for by Dr. Wainwright and was removed.- Balto. Sun.

Mr. Young is from this county (Accomack), son of Mr. John Young, Belle Haven, and was operator at Keller a few months ago.  


February, 1935 (Time Machine archive)
(The Denton Journal)

(Excerpts)

For the first time since 1888 the upper Chincoteague Bay which laps tidewater Worcester County between South Point, near Ocean City, and the Maryland-Virginia boundary, is a solid field of ice.  Approximately 90 square miles of the bay is frozen with ice ranging from 6 to 10 inches in thickness, which extends between the mainland and the beach peninsula.  Last week several Stockton and Girdletree fishermen walked seven miles across the ice to the beach, chatted with Coast Guards isolated at the Green Run station, and returned without mishap.  Ice skaters at Public Landing ventured miles out across the ice covered bay.  Older residents, recalling the freeze on the bay in 1888, tell tales of horse-drawn vehicles being driven over the ice from Chincoteague, Va., north to Ocean City, Md., a distance of 40 miles.


December, 1981
The Star Democrat (Easton, Md.)

(Excerpts)

Three Shore A&P stores to close

Three Eastern Shore A&P Food Stores are among 21 the super market chain is planning to close in the Maryland area in mid-January.

A&P stores are to be closed in Cambridge, Pocomoke City, and Seaford, Del.

The closings are necessary "in order to eliminate the continuing losses," and improve operating efficiencies, according to a letter W.E. Zentgraf, regional director of personnel for A&P, sent to union officials.

Managers of the three Eastern Shore stores said they could not comment on the closings.


1922..



                                                           1922 newspaper ad. 


April, 1914
The Delaware Pilot (Lewes, De.)

Boring for Oil Near Ocean City

Men who are boring for oil on the Isle of Wright, near Ocean City, which is owned by David L Levy and Morris Roos of Wilmington, have struck oil producing rock and there are many traces of oil. According to experts, oil will be struck in less than a month. Experts from the Texas oil fields have visited the island and claim the soil strata is the same as that found in Texas and Mexico oil fields. The Isle of Wright comprises 500 acres exclusive of the riparian rights, and is separated from Ocean City by a stretch of water. Some persons believe there is an oil belt stretching from Parsonsburg to Ocean City on the Eastern Shore. Boring for oil is not going on at Parsonsburg. 

January, 1971 (Time Machine archive)

Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher Ed Watt was scheduled to be guest speaker at a Pocomoke Little League meeting designed to generate enthusiasm among parents and eligible players.  Little League president Louis H. Kragler Jr. said plans were for eight Little League teams and four Senior League teams in Pocomoke involving 180 players for the 1971 season.  


Orioles Ed Watt



Do you have a local memory to share with PPE readers.. such as a big snow storm, a favorite school teacher, a local happening, something of interest your parents or grandparents told you about?  It can be just a line or two, or more if you wish. Send to tkforppe@yahoo.com and watch for it on a future TIME MACHINE posting!



PPE remembers JMMB.