Enjoying lunch at Churrasqueira were County Executive Tom Suozzi and Deputy County Executive Arthur Gianelli. Arthur comes from an old three-generation Mineola family from Garfield Avenue, home of his parents Arthur and Barbara.

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Alex Ramalhete of Liberty Avenue has worked in the Park's Department for the past 23 years. Alex is of Brazilian-Portuguese origin but tells me he is now 100 percent American.

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Is Alice Grom going soft? Since her recent operation she works twice a week 11 to 3 and Sundays 9 to 3 waitressing at the Jericho. Alice is 84 years old.

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If you go to the library ask for John Herling; he is a great help. John and his wife Paula live on Dow Avenue.

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Maryann Ferron tells me that C & J Gifts on Mineola Boulevard are now carrying religious articles - many in stock and more coming.

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Pat Tobin and Hilda Lees had dinner at the Davenport. Pat is active in the ambulance corps and has run for the school board and the village board in the past.

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Laurie McCarron, Ron Rental, Florence Petersen, Stuart Goldstein and Andy Ruggiero continue to do an outstanding job as our parking enforcers.

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Frank Zuniga works at the Maximum Station on Herricks Road. He also has a lawn care business called "Frank's Lawn Care." He and his wife Charlotte live on Latham Road. Frank was formerly the maintenance foreman of the Chrysler Building in the city.

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Kitty Connors of Mineola likes to eat lunch at Panera Breads.

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Jane Weimer of Mineola is a good customer of The Cuttin Club in Williston Park.

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Brendan Campbell of 2nd Street is a retired baker. Brendan is active in the Irish-American Club and always marches in the local St. Patrick's Day Parade.

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Linda Stewart of Horton Highway works as a dental hygenist in Garden City. Linda went to Mineola High with our oldest son Richard who is now the executive news editor of People.

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Kevin Murray of Harrison Avenue is a town plumbing inspector and a fine athlete. He has done a bit of boxing and hockey playing. Kevin had tryouts with the St. Louis Blues and the Quebec Nordics.

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Have you ever been to San Francisco? What a great place it is with its real Chinatown which is like entering a separate city. Frisco has the largest Chinese population in the Western World. Then there are the steepest streets in America and its great network of cable cars. It's different than any place else in the US.

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Our recent mention of the demise of The Brooklyn Eagle resulted in a couple of comments. The Internet gave us a complete story.

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The Brooklyn Eagle was founded in 1841 by a group of Democrats, with Henry C. Murphy, later mayor of Brooklyn, as editor. Walt Whitman edited it from 1846 to 1848, and so vigorously did he oppose the extension of slave states that he was forced out of the editorship; shortly afterward Whitman joined the staff of the radical Brooklyn Freeman. In recent years the Eagle acquired the Brooklyn Times-Union which had been the Brooklyn Daily Times until its acquisition of the Brooklyn Standard Union.

On Dec. 30, 1900, The Brooklyn Eagle invited its readers to behold the new century. And such a century the Eagle unveiled! In dazzling, 16-page section, writers prophesied social and technological advances that must have struck Brooklynites as audacious - or daft. Electricity replacing steam power. Garbage removed by motorized vehicles. Women with the right to vote. A tunnel to Manhattan. X-rays. Airplanes.

When the new century arrived, the Eagle claimed a Sunday circulation of 50,000, and Brooklyn had a population of 1.1 million. Only two years earlier, it had been the fourth largest American metropolis, before voting to join New York City. Perhaps understandably, the Eagle failed to foresee its own fatal tailspin. On March 16, 1955, the paper perished, though another publication bearing the name has operated the last couple of years focusing on real estate and neighborhood news. The new paper is called The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

For the mournful staff of the original, the only consolation of the closing may have been that the Dodgers abandoned the borough two years after the paper folded and the Eagle didn't have to write the obit.

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Marge Irace likes to shop at Food Basket in Garden City. Marge and husband Izzy live on Horton Highway. He is a former village trustee.

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Michael Vezzi says there's open enrollment for the Son's of the Desert (an old Laurel and Hardy movie). Call Dennis at 484-7877 for details.