May has been a banner month for the Port Byron school band. First, the Jazz Band made its return May 13 at the spring concert. The skilled group of 13 did a fine job of entertaining all in attendance. Then the entire school concert band took to the streets as it marched in the village Memorial Day parade. This was the first time in many years that the band played in the parade.

Overall, the entire program has been steadily improving under the tutelage of band director James Bearup. The school once had quite a good band, as evident by the many trophies in the display case outside the auditorium, and I hope to see a return to the glory days of the Port Byron music program.

So when you see a band member, give them thanks. They deserve it. If you see Mr. Bearup, take a moment to thank him too.

There have been lots of comments about the village police over the past few months. It seems they have been pulling over more people lately, and I, maybe as the only person in the village, say thanks and job well done. The speed limit is 30 MPH, and if you go 30, you won't get a ticket. But if you want to zoom through the village, well, you take your chances. But the ticketing of the high school ball team was a bit over the top, and whatever dunderhead thought that giving the team a bunch of parking tickets was a keen idea owes the team an apology. I bet they would have moved their cars if they were asked.

I would be remise if I took over this space and did not acknowledge the former writer, village historian Penny Helzer. Penny did a great job of collecting family histories and other useful information, which she placed in notebooks and files. I was delighted to find that her family made the generous donation of her study materials and books to the Port Byron Library. Now these materials are available to everyone in the history room and will be useful to many generations to family researchers. The entire community is indebted to Penny, and her brother, Peter Kilborne, and her sons, Bill and Steven.

The Heritage Days are a-coming - Aug. 1 and 2. It is really pulling together as quite a show. The main event this year will be the Central New York Garden Tractor Pullers. These guys hold pulling competitions that are a lot of fun to watch and listen to. In the morning, I will be leading a village walk looking over canal and historical sites, and Kathy Wilt is hard at work putting together an afternoon cemetery walk.

It is nice to see the community getting behind this local effort. It is sure to be a good time. Watch for details as the time grows near.

I recently stumbled across a newspaper account of a Port Byron business I had never heard of. The Citizen #- Advertiser of April 11, 1944 reported that the Columbian Rope Co. opened a branch shop in the Lowe building to work on airplane parts. Apparently, the workers could not get to Columbian Rope plant in Auburn, so the business came to them. It was made clear that the plant would close as soon as the “emergency” was past.

Anyone know anyone who worked in this plant? As gas prices continue to increase, might we see something similar in our future? Could we be ready for a rebirth of smaller community manufacturing?

Michael Riley is the Mentz historian