Liverpool’s trustees figured it was about time that the village contributed some money to the Liverpool Clock Campaign spearheaded by local businessman Jack Fisher. When Fisher’s year-long fund-raising effort came up $5,000 short of its $35,000 goal to erect a Victorian-style timepiece at the eastern end of Washington Park, at their June 17 meeting the trustees voted unanimously in favor of making up the difference with village taxpayer dollars.

“It’s going to be a really nice thing for the village,” Mayor Gary White explained.

Trustee Jim Rosier supported the measure as did his fellow board members Bob Gaetano, Dennis Hebert and Nick Kochan, but Rosier wants to make sure the village gets some bang for its 5,000 bucks. Many of the clock campaign’s contributors gave $50 in return for acknowledgement on engraved bricks that will be placed at the clock tower’s base, Rosier pointed out, and some businesses kicked in larger amounts which will be recognized in the form of “minutes” on the clock.

“I just want to make sure that our contribution is acknowledged in some way,” Rosier said after the trustees approved the expenditure.

The antique-y stand-alone clock, which will be illuminated at night, will eventually stand in Washington Park Point at the intersection of Oswego and First streets.

If you’d like to donate, email [email protected], or call Bridgette Plessas at 652-3773.

Another viewpoint

I bumped into former Liverpool Mayor Al Sahm last Sunday, and he was none-too-pleased about the Liverpool Clock Campaign.

“Sure, everybody thinks it’s a good idea now, but down the road when it needs repairs and upkeep, the village will get stuck with maintaining it, so it’ll cost Liverpool taxpayers plenty of money,”Sahm said. “If I was still mayor I never would have supported that plan.”

Noisy lawn mowers

Second Street resident Jennifer Gruenberg appeared at the June 17 village board meeting to inquire about the village sound ordinance. Landscaping contractors have been loudly mowing lawns on the weekends, she said, and they’re starting their motors early in the morning.

“It used to be that no one would mow their lawns before 10 a.m. on Sundays,” Gruenberg noted. Now that many homeowners hire landscapers, she said, the workmen go to it whenever it suits them.

Nonagenarians

Longtime Third Street resident Willard Bahn, who used to be a regular visitor at village board meetings, turned 93 on June 10.

And Tulip Street resident Ken Hurst, a former village businessman and active member of American Legion Post 188, will celebrate his 94th birthday on July 5.

Southern Gothics

Local contractor Allen Lamont, who lives in Liverpool, noticed that I alluded to novelist Thomas Wolfe in a recent column. We chatted about it over cocktails at the Limp Lizard last week and Al noted that Wolfe was part of the pantheon of great Southern writers including Tennesee Williams, Eudora Welty, Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Al’s also a fan of Mississippi novelist William Faulkner, author of “The Sound and the Fury.”

Grateful grandma

I neglected a couple fascinating facts in last week’s column about Retreat waitress Cindy Crooks who’s retiring at the end of this month.

For one thing, in the late-1970s while on a temporary leave from The Retreat, Cindy worked briefly at Murphy’s Trackside while my dad, Liverpool’s own “burger king,” Russ Tarby, flipped ground chuck in the kitchen there. Cindy’s son, Jeff, recalls munching on cheeseburgers while he did his homework in a booth next to Murphy’s pool table.

A few years later, Jeff took a job at The Retreat for a while, and nowadays his son, also named Jeff, works there as a waiter.

“So we’ve had three generations working here,” Cindy said.

Her last night at The Retreat is Thursday, June 27, and a retirement party is planned from noon to 5 p.m., Sunday, June 30, at The Cobblestone, at the corner of Tulip and First streets.