webster on the web

I’ve recently been taking a nostalgic look through all of the blogs I’ve written in the (almost) past 20 years since I began this blogging journey. I naively have been thinking that I should collect some of them into a book for my kids to read after I’m gone.

Well, I don’t know about them, but I’ve really been enjoying revisiting them, and some of them still make me laugh out loud (is it OK to laugh at your own writing?) Every once in a while I come across one which I think you all might also enjoy reading. Some of you might recognize these “oldies but goodies,” but I’ve gained so many new readers in the past few years, for most of you they’ll be brand new.

This has always been one of my favorites, drawn from my frequent walks along the bike path adjacent to Rt. 104 in the village. I originally posted it four years ago this week.

The Tale of the Wandering Box Spring

I bring you a short modern fairy tale today about loss, but ultimate redemption.

Our story begins last summer, when a lone box spring appeared in the wooded area along the pleasantly shady and tree-lined path known to local residents as the Trail of Bike. It rested comfortably along the north side of the Trail, only several feet from where cyclists and walkers would pass. It probably would have found its way deeper into the brush had a metal chain-link obstruction not halted its progress.

Clearly, the poor box spring had lost its way ‘twixt the small brick village nearby and Ye Olde Dumpstre.

One day, as I took a stroll along the Trail of Bike, I saw that some simple traveler (or perhaps a Box Spring Fairy?) had taken pity and extracted the wayward box from the wooded area, placing it on the grassy yard near the small village’s courts of tennis. Surely someone would notice it lying there and return it to its home — or at least help it finally find Ye Olde Dumpstre.

Alas, the poor box lay there through the rest of the summer, through the cold winds of autumn and blustery snows of winter, still lost and alone. And three weeks ago, as the spring flowers returned to the trees, it lay there still, filled with water from the melting snows.

One day, the Box Spring Fairy apparently took note, pushing it closer yet to the the courts of tennis. Perhaps finally some administrator from the small village would see it and take pity.

Huzzah! It did get moved one day! The laborers assigned to trim the grassy yard moved it aside … then moved it back.

Last week, the Box Spring Fairy tried once again, flipping the box head over heels several times until it came to rest standing against the fence surrounding the courts of tennis.

Today, it is gone. A happy ending.

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(posted 5/13/2026)

email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

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A hearty congratulations to three Webster Schroeder students who have been recognized for excellence on the stage.

Brodie Walrath, Lilah Kastrinos and Rory Goodwin were all recently nominated for “NYC Bound,” a competition to choose two students to represent Rochester at the prestigious Jimmy Awards in New York City. The three exceptional young actors were recognized for their outstanding performances in Webster Schroeder’s production of On the Town in February.

The Rochester Broadway Theatre League’s (RBTL) Stars of Tomorrow evaluators reviewed more than 300 individual roles this year, performed by high school students in musicals throughout the region. Nearly 200 of those students chose to be considered for the NYC Bound track. To qualify, students had to perform an eligible lead role and be judged separately from their school’s overall production. From that massive talent pool, evaluators culled the nominees down to just 40 exceptional young musical performers, including our very own Webster Schroeder stars.

The community has two upcoming opportunities to celebrate and support these talented students:

• May 8 – Stars of Tomorrow Gala: Often described as the “Tony Awards for high school theater,” this ticketed gala brings together all 200 performers and cast members to celebrate participating local students. The Webster Schroeder On The Town cast is one of 47 schools that will perform a selection from their musical on the RBTL Auditorium Theatre stage.

• May 21 – NYC Bound Competition: The 40 top nominees will compete to represent Rochester at the Jimmy Awards, with the two winners announced at the close of the evening. This event is free and open to the public.

While I didn’t get to see the final production of On the Town, I did crash one of the dress rehearsals, so I can rightfully say that I’m not surprised that these three were recognized. (You can read my blog about that experience here.) It’s been a pleasure watching them grow as actors through their high school careers. And in the case of Rory, who’s just a sophomore, I look forward to seeing him grow even more in future productions.

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(posted 5/5/2026)

email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

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Time is running out to achieve the ambitious Mail Call: Letters From Home goal set at the beginning of this month to collect 1,000 letters and notes for our deployed service members.

During this month-long challenge — an initiative of Wreaths Across America Webster — community members have been encouraged to stop by one of a dozen businesses throughout Webster which are hosting mailboxes (like the one above at the Webster Recreation Center) and fill out a card with a simple message of thanks, or we’re thinking of you, or we’re proud of you. The messages will then be sent overseas this June inside care packages prepared by the Blue Star Mothers of Rochester. It’s a simple way to spread some joy to our local service members stationed abroad.

The community has already been very supportive (thank you!) and the mail boxes are beginning to fill up. But many more cards need to be written if we want to achieve that ambitious goal. Think about maybe doing some at home as a family project, or as a class project in school. Or maybe ask your church group to make cards. Let’s get everyone involved!

When you’re ready to drop them off, you’ll find mailboxes at these locations:

• American Legion Cottreall-Warner Post 942: 818 Ridge Rd (back entrance).
• Jersey Mike’s Subs: 975 Ridge Rd.
• KeyBank: 1848 Empire Blvd.
• KeyBank: 980 Ridge Rd.
• Lowes Home Improvement: 900 Five Mile Line Rd.
• M.O. Pasta: 5 E. Main St.
• Lala of Webster: 38 E. Main St.
• Village Quilt Shoppe: 21 E. Main St.
• Webster Recreation Center: 1350 Chiyoda Dr.
• Webster Town Hall: 1000 Ridge Rd.
• Kittelberger Florist: 263 North Ave.
• The North Bee: 27 North Ave.

And if you’ve asked yourself whether this project is worth the effort, consider this story: One service member said he kept a young student’s card in his backpack throughout deployment. “Whenever I was scared, and didn’t feel like I could go on,” he said, “I’d take out that crayoned card, and knew someone was thinking of me.” You can imagine the joy we can all spread with 1,000 cards and letters. THAT’s what the Mail Call challenge is all about.

Messages will be collected through the end of April, so please stop by a mailbox soon and spend a moment to brighten a service member’s day.

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(posted 4/21/2026)

email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

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Three young Webster Girl Scouts are asking the Webster community to help them complete their Bronze Award project.

Junior Scouts Julia Meyers, Penny Patterson and Lily Pettit from Troop 60344 — all fifth graders from Klem North Elementary School — are collecting games, puzzles, children’s books, colored pencils, crayons, markers and craft kits for children in need.

It’s a project that’s been in the works for several months. Plans started coming together last fall when they and several other members of their troop discussed possible projects they could work on for their Bronze Awards, which must be completed by September 30. At first, Julia, Penny and Lily thought about collecting books, but got stuck deciding where the books would be donated.

Then one of the den leaders came up with an idea to collect games for children in need. A lot of people have unused games in their attics or basements, she suggested, and they might appreciate a way to put them to good use. And now, when people are doing their spring cleaning, would be an especially good time to collect them.

The young Scouts latched onto the idea and ran with it. Before long, the wish list of items had expanded beyond just games to other entertaining items children would enjoy, like puzzles and crafts.

Julia, Lily and Penny are each required to commit at least 20 hours to the project, and they’re already well on their way to meeting that goal. They designed flyers to hang around town and post online, they arranged for the Webster School District to send a notice about the collection home to all of the district’s families, they filled out forms and wrote letters to get approval to place their five collection boxes, they made a promotional video and they’ve already booked a date in early May at the Gathering Place Webster to sort the donations and pack all the “entertainment kits.”

Once all of the kits are completed, they’ll be donated to Family Promise of Greater Rochester, an organization dedicated to keeping families together by preventing family homelessness.

Five donation bins have been set up around town: one at the Webster Public Library, another at St. Rita Church, a third at the Webster Recreation Center, and two at Klem North Elementary School. Items will be collected through April 30.

If you don’t have anything to donate but would still like to help, the girls have put together a brief Amazon.com wish list for drawstring backpacks and cloth shopping bags which they can use when they pack the kits. More items might be added to that list in the coming weeks, so keep tabs on it!

Here’s the video the gals have put together to tell you about their project:

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(posted 4/3/2026)

email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

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About a week ago, I posted a blog about our One Webster SparX 1126 robotics team, which was preparing to take part in the Finger Lakes Regional First Robotics Competition at RIT. The event was held last weekend, and I recently received a follow-up from the school district about their strong performance.

It was a big, very competitive field. Despite the “Finger Lakes” name, the regional event drew an international crowd, including 56 teams from as far away as Ohio, Canada, Hawaii, and even Chinese Taipei.

SparX finished the weekend ranked 14th out of 56 teams, boasting a 7-3-0 record. Over the course of 10 matches, the team achieved a respectable high score of 358 points.

“It was a great competition, great learning!” said head coach David Schenk. “Our intake and shooter systems performed flawlessly. We helped our alliance win in semi-finals Match 9, and we competed against some of the best teams in the area.”

This year’s action-packed FIRST game, titled Rebuilt, features an archaeological and restoration theme. Teams are challenged to build industrial-sized robots that can recover “artifacts” (represented by yellow, 6-inch foam balls) and power up their alliance’s central scoring structure, the “hub,” by placing or throwing the artifacts inside. The field is also littered with obstacles, requiring robots to navigate over bumps or drive under a trench if their design is short enough.

Team 1126 is already preparing for their next challenge. They’ll travel to Albany on April 16-17 to compete in the Tech Valley Regional, where they hope to further improve their ranking. Fans and supporters are encouraged to follow the team on Instagram for live updates during the event.

“We’re already planning improvements and can’t wait to compete again!” Schenk added.

About SparX Team 1126

Team 1126 SparX is comprised of high school students from Webster Schroeder and Webster Thomas high schools. The team has been a dedicated participant in FIRST® for 24 seasons, dating back to 2003, and has won 30 awards throughout its history.

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(posted 3/19/2026)

email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Subscribe” link on the right side of this page (or all the way at the bottom of the page if you’re on your phone).

I got an email recently from a reader, who asked an interesting question: Since he’s not on any social media platforms, is there any other way I could share my large photo galleries from special events other than posting them on Facebook?

It got me thinking that there are probably a lot of other people in the same boat. Even though I might take dozens of photos at certain events — like the recent Wreaths Across America Day and It’s a Wonderful Run 5K — I only put a few of them into the actual blog. It would be too cumbersome to post them all, so I dump them into a Facebook gallery. But not everyone can access Facebook, so they miss out on a lot.

So I pondered that problem a bit and came up with a solution: a shared Google file. Anybody who has the shared link can access it and see the photos.

So that’s what I’ve done, and I invite everyone to check out this link to make sure it works for you, especially if you’re not on Facebook. Right now it’s just one big file with sub-folders for individual events. But as I add more and more events, I’ll start offering links for just the sub-folders as well. And every time I put up a new gallery, I’ll include the link again.

Thanks for asking, Bruce!

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Subscribe” link on the right side of this page (or all the way at the bottom of the page if you’re on your phone).

(posted 12/19/2025)

Neither snow, nor rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night, nor biting cold will keep the Webster Village Runners from enjoying a fun wintry run together, and Saturday afternoon was no exception.

Once again this year, the Webster Village Runners were extremely well represented at the 2025 It’s a Wonderful Run 5K held in Seneca Falls Saturday evening. It matched the largest group we’ve ever had participate (at least four cars and a packed van made the hour-long trip), and a few had never experienced this race before — so that made it even more fun. It always draws thousands of runners (this year the total was almost 4,400), and almost everyone dresses up in holiday attire, including bells, Santa hats, elf costumes and Christmas lights. I saw people dressed as Christmas trees and snowmen, the Grinch and a Yeti, and lots of tutus. Everyone is in a jolly mood.

This is a must-do run for any fan of the Jimmy Stewart classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s generally accepted that Frank Capra based his movie on the charming little village. There’s an It’s a Wonderful Life Museum, and the race begins adjacent to the bridge believed to be the inspiration for the one in the movie — plus, 85-year old Karolyn Grimes herself (who played Zuzu) starts the race by announcing the famous line, “Every time a bell rings, a angel gets his wings.”

The run is the culminating event of Seneca Falls’ annual It’s a Wonderful Life Festival, three days of activities and events including an art show, films, a breakfast, a parade and autograph sessions with three of the original actors: Karolyn Grimes (Zuzu), Jimmy Hawkins (Tommy) and Don Collins (young Pete Bailey).

True to its name, the It’s a Wonderful Run is more a run (or walk) than a race. For sure there are many runners who wiggle to the front of the pack to do their 4-minute miles, but many more thousands of us are content to walk most of the route, to experience everything there is to see and do along the way.

Seneca Falls village residents come out in force for this event. They set up fire pits and ring cow bells and give high-fives to all the runners. They hand out Fireball shots, vodka shots, whiskey shots, mudslide shots, pudding and Jello shots. At one house, they were grilling hot dogs and handing them to the runners. And all through the beautiful little village, the houses are ablaze with Christmas lights and Christmas music blares from the porches.

So there’s not a whole lot of running involved; there is a lot of stopping and sampling the treats and taking photos of the beautifully decorated homes along the route. But this is not a race for time. This is a run for fun. And doing it every year with my Village Runners buddies makes it even more enjoyable.

If you’re interested in seeing more photos from the event, click here for a Facebook gallery. (Or if you don’t have Facebook, click here.) I tried to capture some of the more outlandish costumes, and the sense of community generated by Seneca Falls as we all celebrate one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Subscribe” link on the right side of this page (or all the way at the bottom of the page if you’re on your phone).

(posted 12/15/2025)

Breaking news!

I just learned that the Wreaths Across America truck — carrying Webster’s 1,360 wreaths for Wreath Day on Saturday — should be arriving in Webster this coming Tuesday morning, Dec. 9. (At least that’s the tentative schedule we have right now.).

The truck’s first stop will be at the Roseland Fire Station (corner of Salt and Plank), where it will be met there by a police escort, and then head to Webster Union Cemetery to drop off the wreaths for that cemetery and Union Hill. After leaving the fire station, the truck will travel north down Rt. 250 through the village’s four corners. It would be great to have as many people out there on sidewalks cheering the truck and its special cargo.

The truck is part of the Wreaths Across America “Honor Fleet,” made up of hundreds of trucking companies who volunteer their drivers, equipment and time to deliver more than three million wreaths every year to every corner of the country.

Even if you can’t be there to cheer on the truck, plan to attend this the Wreaths Across America wreath-laying ceremony at Webster Union Cemetery. On Saturday Dec. 13, community members will gather to lay 2,100 wreaths on veterans’ graves at Webster Union, Union Hill, Webster Rural and Holy Trinity cemeteries. It’s a solemn ceremony designed to remember these servicemen and women and to thank them for their sacrifices.

I’ll post updates on my Webster on the Web Facebook page about when exactly the truck is expected to arrive as the details are finalized. So keep an eye out for more information!

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Subscribe” link on the right side of this page (or all the way at the bottom of the page if you’re on your phone).

(posted 12/6/2025)