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The Amity Star
A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the Best Interests of Bethany and Woodbridge
Editor and Pubisher
George D. Vaill
Business Manager
Alice M. Vaill
Subscription Rates
Full year - 52 issues - $4.75
6 months - 26 issues - 2.40
3 months - 13 issues - 4.20
Single copy - .10
Litchfield Turnpike, Bethany, Conn.
Vol. I, No. 8     Thursday, January 18, 1951

Progress Report
As the eighth number of this paper goes to press, we are happy to report that things in general are encouraging. The subscription list is growing. Additional advertisers knock on our door (or slip in by telephone) each week. More and more peoplse are sending in news and keeping us informed about what is happening in the two towns. We have very few grounds for complaint.
This issue (like last week's) is going to R.F.D. Boxholders in Seymour, since a good many Bethany and Woodbridge families are served by the Seymour Post Office. Later issues will be sent into other nearby communities, where already there have been requests for news coverage. If our circulation experiments prove successful, we may yet turn out to be an area journal. This would, we feel certain, result in a greater bond of understanding and neighborhood co-operation between towns. These are important factors in times of common danger, such as those which we may be facing.
The kinks have now been fairly well ironed out in our mailing department, and we trust that all subscribers are receiving their copies, on time and properly addressed. During the month of December a certain amount of confusion reigned in the office, and it is possible that some out-of-town subscribers did not receive copies of every issue. If that is the case, and if they are intenrested in seeing back numbers which they misssed, we shall be happy to mail them out as long as the limited supply lasts. Let us know wwheich ones you failed to receive. (We have published each week since December 1.)

Communication
To the Editor:
Can the "Amity Star," in its role of historian, unearth the reason why the franchise for a United States Post Office was discontinued in Bethany? The book Bethany and Its Hills, by Mrs. Bertha Lines, shows a picture of the Post Office located in the John E. Hinman house on Amity Road about forty years ago. Bethany has certainly not grown smaller in either size or importance since that time, and it would be interesting to know why we now must go seven or eight miles to a P.O. Of course the Rural Route delivery answers the most obvious part of this need, but a country Post Office used to serve as much more than a mailing center.
A New Resident and Well Wisher

Bethany Notes -
(Continued from Page 1)
as follows: Trial Justice, Edward R. Hinman; Alternate Trial Justice, John Edmondson; Prosecuting Grand Juror, Malcolm H. Brinton; Clerk, George D. Vaill.
The Bethany Grange will hold its regular meeting at the Town Hall on Thursday, January 18. The meeting will be in charge of the Home Economics Committee -- Mrs. Clifford I. MacDonald, Mrs. Marie M. Jehan, and Dorothy Carroll. The committee in charge of refreshments consists of Miss Catherine E. Todd, Mrs. Leonard Todd, and Mrs. Grace I. Markham.
In a recent sweimming meet against West Haven High School, Peter Ould, son of Mr. and Mrs. Barnard P. Ould of Beacon Road, won second place for Hillhouse High School in the 100-yard breaststroke race.
The Board of Trustees of the First Church of Christ, Congregational, met on Monday evening, January 15, at the Church.
The Eight O'Clock Club will hold its regular meeting on January 25 at the home of Mrs. Harry W. Austin on Litchfield Turnpike. They will have as their guest Mrs. Charles Markham, who will talk to the members about the Southbury Training School. The group will discuss the possibility of giving aid to Southbury School as a Club project for 1951.
Several of the leaders of 4-H groups in Bethany attended the meeting of the New Haven County 4-H Leaders' Council at the Extension Service Office at 335 Prospect Street in New Haven on Tuesday. "Understanding the Adolescent" was the topic of the evening. Miss Fay Moeller, Family Life Specialist with the University of Connecticut Extension Service, led a discussion on "What Makes Teenagers Tick."
The Annual business meeting of Christ Church was held on Sunday afternoon in the Town Hall. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: Senior Warden, Wallace S. Saxton; Junior Warden, William F. Brucksch; Clerk of the Vestry, Mrs. Warren H. Downs; Members of the Vestry, Warren H. Downs, Mrs. Bertha H. Kinney, Mrs. Wallace S. Saxton, Mrs. Harry E. Johnson, Mrs. Grace I. Markham, Norman H. Peck, and Mrs. Warren H. Downs; Organist, Mrs. Grace I. Markham; Sexton, Harry E. Johnson; Delegates to the Diocesan Convention, Wallace S. Saxton and Donald Marsh, who will be succeeded by William F. Brucksch in June; Delegates to the New Haven County Archdeaconry, Mrs. Stanley H. Downs and Mrs. Warren H. Downs.
On January 28, the annual Theological Sunday will be observed in Christ Church, at which time a special collec-
(Continued on Page 3)

The Star Reporter
One day last week we packed a hamper of bread and cheese, climbed into our chain-drive Maxwell, and drove down to Lake Dawson to have a few words with the Norway Spruce. We found him pleased and somewhat amazed at all the furore which has been occasioned on his behalf. No one had told him, he said, that he had been the object of heroic civic efforts during the holiday season. He had found out about it by the merest chance: a group of picknickers ate their lunch under his lee side on Thursday, and one of them happened (as picknickers will) to leave behind him the newspaper in which he had had his sandwiches wrapped. The Spruce just accidentally looked down and saw "The Elm City Clarion" column of which he was the subject. After reading it over several times, he tucked the paper under a piece of loose bark, for future reference. He wants to show it to a couple of smart young seedlings who have been boasting that they were looked over pretty thoroughly by Christmas-tree hunters early in December.
Photo by Benedict
The famous Norway Spruce, still untouched by the woodsman's axe.
We told the Spruce about the plan to make him an Honorary Citizen of both Towns, but he said he thought it would be unwise to go through with that, in view of the possible legal technicalities involved in the double franchise which would be conferred upon him. He wouldn't know, he said, whether to vote in Bethany, because his rescuers lived there, or in Woodbridge, where he has had his roots pretty well down for quite a number of years.
After a very pleasant visit with him, we scattered a few papers and tin cans around (just to show that we had been there) and returned to the hurlyburly of Bethany.
We were pleased to have "The Elm City Clarion" quote us as they did last week, and we do not mean to be impertinent in suggesting that copies of the paper were discarded in an off-hand way about the countryside, but it brings to mind the age-old lament of editors: that today's headaches, hard work, sweat, and tears will be used to wrap someone's lunch tomorrow. And when the paper is tabloid size, like this one, it is useful for wrapping only very small lunches. It is most discouraging to exist under such a handicap.
Continuiting our study of the "Small Beer and Soda Water Factory," we have discovered two additional owners of "U. and I. D. Clinton" soda water bottles -- but as yet no one has come forward with a beer bottle, small or otherwise. Webster fives two definitions of "small beer" -- (1) weak, watery beer, and (2) something or someone of little importance. If no beer bottles are forthcoming, we shall be forced to the conclusion that the Clinton product was either (1) unusually weak and watery and therefore not widely consumed in the area, or (2) so unimportant, in cmpetition with the soda, as to have been discontinued by the makers.
It is interesting to speculate on the possibility that perhaps the factory produced people of little importance, in accordance with part of the definition. It may have been a sort of unfinishing school, where persons of no account learned nothing and were turned loose upon the world, to lead unimportant lives working in small beer factories. If you give your imagination enough rope, you can come up with almost anything.
The armed services have reached into our midst again and have snatched Mr. Henry Fiengo from the teaching staff of the Bethany Community School. Last week Mr. Fiengo told Principal James Warburton, in great secrecy, that he was planning to give his 7th and 8th Grade room a surprise party, as a sort of farewell gesture before putting his uniform on again. A short time later a delegation from the 7th and 8th Grades called upon Mr. Warburton to tell him, in greate secrecy, that they were planning a surprise party for Mr. Fiengo, as a sort of farewell gesture before he put his uniform on agian. Mr. Warburton reports that he spent quite a while on the horns of this dilemma, not knowing whether to vie each side the other's secret or to let everybody proceed with his own plans and thus run the risk of having the School submerged under a deluge of soda, ice cream, cake, cookies, peanuts, and other party fodder -- for each host was making lavish preprations designed to leave no appetite unsatisfied. He finally decided that the importation of this double bounty might tax the building and its occupants excessively, so, in great secrecy, he revealed each side's plans to the other. The party was, therefore, a surprise to only a few, but it was a great success. Mr. Fiengo furnished soda and ice cream, and his pupils conributed a highly-decorated cake of such massive proportions that 37 pieces were sent down to the 4th Grade after the 7th and 8th graders had reached the bursting point. Mr. Fiengo departed on Saturday. A popular and effective teacher, he wil be missed at the Bethany School.

Woodbridge Notes
Mrs. Henrietta Egan, Worthy Lecturer of Woodbridge Grange, No. 108, has announced that Edward J. Coady, Assistant Director of Civil Defense for the State of Connecticut, will speak at the Woodbridge Memorial Hall on Wednesday, January 24, at 8:00 P.M. All who are interested are invited to attend. Refreshments will be served by a committee under the direction of Ruth and Roland Dahlin.

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Bethany, Ct.
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