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An undated photo of 183 E. Main St. from the Webster Museum website

If you ask 100 long-time Webster residents about their memories of the Firemen’s Carnival, you’d get 100 different stories. People talk about spending hours at the carnival as a teenager, or being there as a young child, then returning years later with their own children.

I’ve heard a lot of stories this week. I’d like to pass along one of them today.

It’s about Jeannette Chambers, who currently lives with her daughter Paige at 183 East Main Street in the Village of Webster, at the corner of Curtis Park. You probably know the house; it’s one of the most stately and beautiful homes on East Main, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places It was built in the mid-1900’s by William C. Jayne, a prominent banker at the time. Inside it features five bedrooms, a maid’s quarters, stained glass windows, a huge living room, sitting room, library, attic, and seven porches.  (Click here to read more about the home’s history on the Webster Museum website.)

Jeannette Chambers (right) and her sister Joyce on the porch of their childhood home.

Jeannette has been living in the house since 1969, the year her parents Granville and Silvia Chambers purchased the property. Its location right on Main Street made it the perfect viewing spot for the annual Carnival parade.

Each year for the last 50 years, she and her siblings did just that. The house has a spacious porch, but that was too far away from the action — even though, Jeannette said, “every year my mom would have me sweep and mop the porch, but we always sat out there.”  They would perch in the grassy area in front of their childhood home, watching the fire trucks, Scout troops, clowns and wagons stream by.

Thursday was the last time she’ll be able to do that.

Jeannette has had to sell the grand old house, where she grew up and raised her children. But that didn’t stop her from having one more parade-side celebration on Thursday. She invited several friends to mark the 50th-and-last viewing year with snacks, drinks, fresh-grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and socializing.

As an adult, Jeannette clearly loves the event as much as she did as a child.

“I love that the town still gets so excited about it,” she said. “They’re out there two days ahead putting out chairs.”

She also clearly enjoyed hosting friends old and new for her small party. It was not something she’d ever done before, but explained, “after 50 years of watching the parade we had to celebrate it differently.”

When the parade comes back to town next year, chances are — for the first time in 50 years — Jeannette Chambers won’t be watching it from the lawn of her stately old home. But keep an eye out for her, because she’ll definitely be sitting somewhere.

Old habits die hard.

Jeannette and Joyce with friends and family who came to celebrate 50 years of parade-watching on Thursday night

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This awesome aerial photo of the Firemen’s Carnival is courtesy the Webster Volunteer FD Facebook page.

This coming week is one of my favorites of the entire Webster year, because this it’s CARNIVAL WEEK!

The 2019 Webster Firemen’s Carnival will open up shop this coming Wednesday night at 6 p.m., then run Thursday and Friday night from 6 to “close” (not sure when this is, but I know the entertainment ends at 11), and then all day Saturday from noon to midnight.

For details about every day’s activities, visit the Carnival’s Facebook page or web page. But here are some highlights:

• Wednesday July 10 is Craft Beer night featuring wine and lots of local breweries. Entertainment by Claudia Hoyser from 7 to 10 p.m., rides, games, food and drink all night.
• Thursday July 11, the HUGE Firemen’s Parade kicks off at 6:30 p.m. from Phillips and Main, and travels west down Main through the village to Firemen’s Field. This is a don’t-miss event, especially for kids. Lots of fire trucks, candy and clowns.
• Friday July 12, entertainment in the beer tent is provided by Stateline from 8 to 11 p.m.
• Saturday July 13, the Kiddie Parade starts at Spry Middle School at noon. Registration begins at 11 a.m. Even if your family is not participating, this is a great parade to watch, and there’s lots of candy thrown (sometimes at high velocity. You might want to consider a helmet). At the festival proper, there are bike and grill raffles at 4:30 p.m. for kids 16 and under, and live entertainment is provided by Knight Patrol. The festival concludes with a huge fireworks display at midnight.

Pre-sale ride tickets for every night are available for a discounted price, so check out one of the websites for more information about that.

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Thank you to the Webster Public  Library and the Friends for saving me on this it’s-way-too-hot-to-garden day!

The original start date of July 8 for the 104-to-590 flyover ramp construction has been pushed back, per information received from the Laurelton Fire Department. Work will now not begin until July 11.

Bad news is… it might last longer than expected.

It’s not really summer until road construction begins.

July 8 is going to throw us a real doozy. The east-bound access ramp from Rt. 104 in Irondequoit to Webster will be closed beginning July 8 for about a month.

As it stands, the flyover ramp leading eastbound motorists from Route 104 in Irondequoit to the Irondequoit Bay Bridge will be closed for about a month so that workers can complete deck repairs and joint replacement.

The Bay Bridge itself will not be closed, and westbound traffic won’t be affected. Drivers will be detoured south on 590 to Empire Blvd., then back north. You can read more about that headache, and see a map in this D&C article.

That same day, a portion of Lake Rd. will be closed between Pellett Rd. and Whiting Rd. for culvert replacement. Detours will be posted directing drivers to Whiting Rd., Klem Rd. and Bay Rd. Read more about that on the Town of Webster website. That one, at least, will only be for a few weeks.

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Drill participants were all required to wear a yellow piece of tape on their shoes to prove they belonged in the hot zone.

Yesterday definitely ranks among the top 10 most interesting days of my entire life.

As (I hope) you know, on Thursday, the Webster Central School District (WCSD), in partnership with several local emergency responding agencies, staged a large-scale “aggressively deadly behavior/active shooter” drill at Schlegel Rd. Elementary School. I was fortunate to be invited to participate in that drill.

“Fortunate” might not be a word you’d expect me to use, but that’s kind of how I felt. It was a fascinating experience to be on the inside for one of these drills, and see first-hand the professionalism and tactical skill exhibited by our area police, fire and EMT departments.

For four hours yesterday morning, Schlegel Elementary became Webster High School. A female student, upset that she would not be allowed to graduate, came back to visit the school and took out her frustrations with a gun (which was fake). (The student was played by a law enforcement officer from outside the district.)

When the “shooting” began, the office secretaries immediately tripped the lock-down alarm. Several people were in the halls, and some of them did not survive. Others were just injured. About 60 other “teachers” and “students” were divided among three classrooms spread around the school, safely locked inside their rooms as soon as the alarm was sounded. Still, the shooter was able to tally 13 “victims” before she was overpowered.

It didn’t take long for police officers to subdue her. The classroom I was huddled in was toward the back of the building, so we weren’t really able to hear much in the way of gunshots or screaming, but we could hear officers’ voices outside the door. It seemed less than 20 minutes before they were in control of the scene and they began to clear all the other classrooms to secure our side of the building.

We knew it was a drill, of course. But it seemed real enough when two officers came into our room, (fake) guns raised, told us to put up our hands and escorted us single file to the library. We walked by one bloodied victim still lying in the hallway, and were seated together not far from several other victims with varying degrees of injuries.

Whoever did the makeup, by the way, was pretty masterful. The gunshot wounds were quite convincing. And the staff members who portrayed those victims who were injured but still conscious did a great job of whining, moaning and groaning as they waited for transport to ambulances.

I’m sure you get the sense by now that this was an extremely ambitious event, and it took more than a year to organize. More than 100 WCSD staff members, high school students, student summer maintenance workers and community members participated, acting out a dozen different roles. Five area fire departments alone responded, in addition to the Webster Police Department, Webster Emergency Medical Service, Northeast Quadrant Advanced Life Support, and even the New York State Police. Coordinating such a large response, and making sure all those agencies could communicate with each other was the main purpose of the drill. 

As it turned out, that also proved to be the biggest challenge. Thanks in part to communication issues, things got started a little late, and there were a few re-boots when the scenario had to be re-set. So things didn’t go completely according to plan, but that was to be expected, especially considering the scope of the event and its being the first of its kind in the district.

Despite the hiccups, Brian Zimmer, Webster’s Director of Technology and one of the organizers, said he was “extremely ecstatic” about how well the drill went. “To bring all these agencies together was just a huge win for us,” he added.

“During the drill today we really focused on our communication and our response to a large scale incident,” Zimmer said. “We had a lot of great takeaways from it, we have a lot of good working points and learning points and we’re excited to continue to move forward to make our agency and community even stronger.”

In the follow-up press conference, Webster superintendent Carm Gumina reiterated the significance of the day’s event.

“These drills are important not only for our first responders,” he said, “but also really important for the district to understand our role and all the steps and procedures that we would need to follow in case of an emergency in any one of our 11 buildings.”

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s a sad state of affairs these days that, statistically speaking, a school is much more likely to experience a mass shooting than a fire. We run drills for both, but the shooting possibility is much more frightening.

As a Webster school district staff member, I was comforted to see up-close-and-personally how our staff and students will be kept safe if that were to happen. Glitches or not, district personnel, emergency personnel, officers, firefighters all performed admirably and I left for home that afternoon confident that we were ready.

The district hopes to do another drill in a few years, in a different building with a different scenario. If and when they do, I hope to participate, partly because it’s a unique experience, but also because I like knowing that my small role may someday help keep our schools secure.

WHAM-TV Channel 13 was there for the post-event press conference. Click here to see their story.

The post-event press conference with school district and emergency responding agency representatives.  

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Blood donations tend to drop off precipitously in the summer as people start taking vacations or decide they’d rather hang by the pool. But the need for blood does not. That’s why it’s especially important to try to make one of these drives coming up in the next few days:

Tomorrow, June 28, there are two drives not far from us here in Webster.

• One is at St. Ambrose Academy of Peace of Christ Parish, 31 Empire Blvd. (across the street from Donuts Delite) from 2 to 7 p.m.
• A second one tomorrow is at the Penfield Community Center, 1985 Baird Rd., from 2 to 7 p.m.
• On Monday July 1, there’s one even closer to home, at the American Legion, 818 Ridge Rd. in Webster, from 1 to 6 p.m.

You can make an appointment by calling 1-800-RED CROSS, or just walk in. They’d love to see you either way.

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

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A quick shout-out this morning to some unsung heroes.

My friend Jim Lockwood sent me this photo a few days ago of several members of the New York National Guard unit from Queens, helping out at the lakefront. He wrote,

I watched these young National Guard soldiers sandbagging along the shore of Shipbuilder’s Creek lake outlet ( Forest Lawn) this morning. The sandbags really get heavy! The work is hard and the morning sun was getting warm. These young and some not so young troopers eagerly continued with today’s mission to shore up creek to prevent further flooding. I did chat with them for a minute, they are glad to be here and able to help.

These fellow were among many others helping out Wednesday. Thank you for all you’re doing!

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

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And they’re off!

Wednesday was a glorious day for a marathon!

At Plank Rd. North Elementary School, the entire student body came out to cheer on the school’s pre-K and kindergarten students as they completed their first-ever marathon.

The young racers have been working on the daunting distance since the beginning of the school year, running as much as a quarter mile every time they went outside. On Wednesday, they finally finished the whole 26.2 miles by running 1/8-mile laps around a coned-off track (one lap for pre-k and two laps for kindergarten).

In addition to having hundreds of fellow students and parents cheering them on, each runner was given an official numbered bib provided by Fleet Feet and — like real racers — began and ended their laps under an official Fleet Feet inflatable starting gate. Plus, each one received a medal after they completed their laps.

It was an exciting day for the whole school, but especially for these youngsters who are just now learning about the joys of running and the importance of staying healthy and fit. (I’m glad I wasn’t racing them. Some of them were REALLY fast.)

Here are a few more photos from the day:

And before I forget again, here are a few photos, courtesy Maureen Throumoulos, from the Special Olympics Annual Track and Field competition hosted at Webster Thomas High School last week.

About 500 athletes from nine area school districts took part in the event, which Webster hosted for the second year in a row.

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

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.