Last year, two weeks before Christmas, I was getting all the usual last minute details together for my annual holiday party. My family was coming from Florida with their kids.
The downstairs was already decorated “to the hilt.” My last minute shopping and wrapping was finally done. The Christmas tree was exquisite. The house smelled great with Bayberry scent. I had invited fifty of my closest friends and family to enjoy the party. I wanted everything perfect for my expected guests. I even bought new carpeting.
Suddenly I realized that I had not seen my cats - Skippy and Jonesy - for a while. I called my cats' names, but found only Jonesy. I searched high and low for Skippy and in the guest room, I saw a tail sticking out of the HVAC floor vent.
I ran to grab the tail to try to pull him out, but I must have scared him and the tail disappeared into the duct. I tried sticking my hand into the vent to reach into the duct with no luck. My cat was meowing and suddenly, he left an odorous present inside the air duct! My entire house filled with the smell.
In desperation, I called the fire department. Within minutes, my house was flooded with police and firefighters. It was a nightmare!
The police used infrared heat sensors to find the cat. They agreed to cut the upstairs guest room floor. We still could not find Skippy. Using the heat sensor again, they located him the next room but I was not about to let them cut another hole in the floor.
They suggested I call his name and shake cat food to coax him to the hole. There I was, in a house full of macho firemen and police shaking cat food, calling Skippy, Skippy, Skippy. I wanted to die from the embarrassment and the awful smell.
Skippy came meowing to the light and I grabbed him and put him in my bedroom. I thanked everybody and went to get plywood to patch the floor before the carpet men came to install the new carpet.
The smell stopped, the new carpet was installed and my nightmare was over. I was finally ready to start the holidays.
Tucker Burns
General Manager, Engineers
Country Club
Roslyn Harbor
Open Door Policy?
Help! Why is the MET Supermarket located at 102-21 Queens Boulevard and 68th Avenue leaving the doors open when it's 39 degrees outdoors? The elderly had to leave the store it was so cold and called other shoppers to boycott it. The cashiers wear coats most of the time. But in the summer there is little air-conditioning.
Can you help us?
Ron Spiwack
Forest Hills
C-Grade For Access-A-Ride
At last month's City Council hearing on Access-A-Ride, the MTA's program for New Yorkers with disabilities that prevent them from using buses and subways for some or all of their trips, New York City Transit officials insisted all is well with the paratransit program.
Access-A-Ride now provides over three million rides, a long way from the days when empty vans plied the city's streets. But it has a long way to go.
Queens senior service providers operate more than 100 vans, which with little public funding, provide limited transportation to senior centers, medical appointments and shopping. But they do not have the resources to provide for the everyday transportation needs required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. For many seniors with disabilities, the only choice is Access-A-Ride.
Riders - young and old - complain of long waits, especially for return trips. Seniors, especially, become so fearful of being stranded that they give up on the service altogether. Riders routinely report hours-long, circuitous trips that take them through two or more boroughs before reaching their destination. For seniors with cognitive disorders, these problems with Access-A-Ride can be insurmountable.
Queens Access-A Ride customers also tell us that their eligibility for service limits their destinations to Queens or to the other boroughs only.
Queens riders face still another challenge - the inability to travel across the Nassau County line without making a cumbersome and extremely difficult transfer between Access-a Ride and ABLE, the Nassau service.
The Padavan-Weprin bill would authorize Access-A-Riders to travel five miles into western Nassau. Unfortunately, Governor Pataki vetoed the bill, which was unanimously passed by the Senate and Assembly.
Queens riders hope that Governor-elect Spitzer will sign the Padavan-Weprin bill, which Senator Frank Padavan and Assemblymember Mark Weprin plan to re-introduce in January. Advocates for people with disabilities have asked the legislators to include a similar extension into southern Westchester.
As a veteran of almost fifteen years of working with seniors with disabilities who need transportation, I'll give Access-A-Ride a grade of C-minus with room for improvement.
Patricia Dolan
Director, Queens Connection
A Program of the Forest Hills
Community House
Kew Gardens
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