BACK WHEN

50 YEARS AGO


New post office planned for Island


Lending an air of authenticity to the adage “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” a joint announcement by Mrs. H. Otis Dickerson, postmaster of Shelter Island, and George H. Wolff, Real Estate officer of the General Post Office in New York, this week pinned down the long-rampant rumor that a new post office [in the Center] for this community is in the making. • DECEMBER 5, 1959


25 YEARS AGO


Merlin called to correct phone woes


You’re calling Town Hall looking for the Receiver of Taxes, you dial the right number, but instead of getting tax receiver Norma Edwards, you get the Supervisor instead. He tells you to hang on and hollers down the hall, “Norma, it’s for you!” Though a hypothetical example, this example is not an uncommon one. The Town Board, at its work session last week, decided to end the town’s phone woes and install an AT&T Merlin system, which in two years will pay for itself and save the town a guaranteed $3,708 a year in phone bills. • DECEMBER 6, 1984


10 YEARS AGO


Editorial


According to Supervisor Gerry Siller, the Island’s newly-organized bow hunters are making some progress toward reducing the size of the deer herd. Working with the town they’ve been able to get an okay from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to implement an “antlerless” deer hunting season that allows bow hunters to obtain another hunting permit for each antlerless deer they turn in. Why target Bambi’s mom? Well, although hunters like to get a well-antlered deer head as a trophy, the fact of the matter is that if the object is to reduce the size of the herd, it’s the does that have to go. • DECEMBER 2, 1999