PINE BUSH – With an old-fashioned sort of winter in progress, the Main Street commercial community in Pine Bush has discovered their Achilles heel in terms of shopping. Just parking on Main Street recently has become a tricky proposition because the layers of snow and ice have built up now to Canadian proportions. Moving from one side of the street to the other becomes almost impossible and clambering over the mounds of filthy ice is difficult and even dangerous.

Ellen Quimby took matters into her own hands, and with metal shovels dug out half the frontage of her store, while other store owners managed to break holes in the great wall of ice. "I got that far," said Quimby, "and I was done. This stuff is heavy and it's frozen hard."

Meanwhile, the ice has occupied about half of a lane on the roadway, which has slowed traffic and made getting in and out of parked cars more hazardous.

The Town of Crawford has not been ignoring the situation. Supervisor Charles Carnes said, "We told the Chamber [of Commerce] that we've contacted the state to see what can be done about this. We're not expecting the state to come in and take it all away, but if we could just get them to break holes in it, make it passable to people, that would do. We're seeing if we can get something done that's reasonable."

Town Clerk Kelly Eskew has written a letter to the state on the topic. At press time, she had not yet received a reply, but she said, "I'm definitely going to call them if I don't hear back from them by Wednesday [February 4]."

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