BELLPORT-NY.COM

This story is absolutely unbelievable, but unfortunately this one is true. A 34 year old man took on a temporary Holiday position at a Wal-Mart to earn a little extra cash and wound up dead. It took place in Valley Stream NY, some time early last Friday (11/29/08) morning. Apparently he was doing some maintenance and inventory stocking at the store, in preparation for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Most everyone is familiar with all the early bird sales that go on every year at this time. People begin lining up outside of these establishments, sometimes days in advance, to save a few bucks on their Christmas shopping. Generally people who participate in the whole process maintain a degree of civility. You always have those couple over eager bargain hunters, but for the most part everyone behaves. Well not this time. A crowd had been forming at Wal-Mart since Early Thursday night. From all reports there were no problems with the crowd throughout the night. Apparently people just started to lose their cool in the final minutes before the store opened its doors to the public.

The crowd had also began rapidly growing in size during the final hours. By around 5 in the morning there were said to be well over 1000 people waiting outside the doors. A group of would be shoppers close to one entrance began knocking at the doors yelling to be let in. Knocking turned to banging and banging turned to pushing. Eventually people were ramming at the doors like animals. Several employees inside of the store tried to hold them at bay, leaning on the doors, fearing the crowd would push them in. That is exactly what this bargain crazed bunch of nuts did. They rammed the doors down, flooding through the entrance and trampling over several employees in the process. Several were hurt, and one man was left dead. Stomped to death by a bunch of imbeciles who’s only concern was saving 25% on whatever it is they sell at Wal-Mart. What could they possibly have in that store worth waiting 24 hours outdoors in the freezing cold for? Much less worth killing a man for. I will never know.

This story just blows my mind. To think that people can behave in this manner is just unfathomable. The sad thing is this sort of behavior is not an isolated incident. Sure you don’t hear about many deaths like this, but injuries are not all that uncommon on this big shopping crazed day. Personally I prefer to stay home on such days and do my shopping online. The sales are just as good if not better. Plus I have the added benefit of sleeping in my bed the night before, as opposed to the sidewalk in front of a retail building. Its also nice to know I don’t have to worry about being run down by a stampede of loony toon Wal-Mart fanatics. I just don’t get it.

I just want to give our members here a quick update on the progress of the image sharing section (pics pages). We had some issues early in the week. In particular we were having problems with users uploading their pictures to share on this site. Long story short we are rebuilding that code from scratch so it will be another week before you will be able to share your pictures here. On the plus side everything is good with the gallery end of it, so we will be publishing our Bellport pictures this weekend, right on schedule. I will keep you posted as to whats happening with the rest of it. In no time we will all be able to share and upload our photos here on BELLPORT-NY.COM

I am also working on getting some Flash Animation games integrated into a page on this site. I have a fair collection of games that are pretty amusing if you lack anything better to do. I figured I would just throw that in for the heck of it. There are always some fun little games that come out around the Holidays. We plan on adding allot of fresh new content here. Tons of it. A little something for everyone, be it local Bellport news or just your daily dose of those Flash games. We want you to be able to find it here. So once again I will repeat; If there’s something you want to see here, tell us all about it. We might even put you in charge of it. In fact we are always looking for stories or articles from local writers. We would like to branch out into a broader variety of categories here, but that requires someone to fill all those categories with something of value, something useful.

If you are a local Bellport resident who enjoys writing and being an active participant in your community, let us know. You can just drop us a short note over at our contact page, letting us know your interested and we will get back to you right away. Know someone who may be interested in writing a column or regular article? Tell them about BELLPORT-NY.COM. Send em on over here. As we have always said, our goal here is to be a true community site in every sense of the word. An online community for the community of Bellport New York. As a member you have a hand in steering the ship here, if you will. It is my belief that this is the only way to truly serve our community in an online presence. That’s what we do.

Well, now that we have all gorged ourselves on turkey, its time to start looking ahead towards Christmas. Tomorrow my wife and I will begin setting up the tree here, while the kids help hang some ornaments and begin to get into the Christmas spirit. We have done this for years in my house, always the day after Thanksgiving. It really sets the tone for the coming Holiday and is something we enjoy doing.

This year we are also looking forward to the annual Bellport Christmas Parade, which will take place on the 6th of December around 4:45PM. That’s not too far off from now. Like our family tradition of setting up our tree right after bird day, the parade has been going on for many years now. It really is a wonderful event and another great way to jump start that Christmas spirit and get you in the mood. If you don’t have plans, you should head on down and check it out, unless you’re lucky enough to live in the Bellport fire district, in which case you wont have to go any further than your front door.

It has also been a long standing tradition for members of the volunteer fire dept in the village to play a big role in the Bellport Christmas parade. They don’t plan on letting us down this year either. After a run through the Patchogue Holiday Parade with Santa on board, our proud firemen or women will bring old saint nick home to the village for this years Christmas tree lighting at the community center. The parade starts up at the firehouse on Browns lane and South Country. They will make their way down to the festivities at the community center, where you can usually find carols being sung by the locals, music and plenty of Christmas cheer. The grand finale being the actual lighting of the tree. The gang at the local fire department will also be taking Santa for a cruise down every street in the Bellport fire district (an area of about 3 square miles), so that all the boys and girls can wave and cheer him on.

There are several other events going on in the village on Dec. 6th worth checking out as well, if you want to make an all day outing of it. Check out our events page for more details. Make sure you also take a look at what this great community has to offer for the rest of the season. Make some memories and start some traditions of your own. There is nothing of more value you can pass on to the ones you love, no greater gift. As always we wish you a safe and happy Holiday. Enjoy!

I would like to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, I hope that your family is near and your cupboards are full this year (along with your bellies tomorrow night). If you are giving thanks this year that you have everything you need, make sure to take a sec to consider those who may not be so fortunate. Remember, allot of good families have been turned upside down in the last couple months in the economic downturn. Many businesses that have been hurt are downsizing or going out of business completely, costing many their jobs. Its a tough time of year to be without the things you need, much less the finery that some have grown so accustomed to in previous years.

We have seen plenty of stories in the news lately about people on Long Island stepping up and helping the less fortunate this year though. People opening up their hearts and wallets at the same time. One restaurant owner is even going so far as to turn his place into a soup kitchen tomorrow night, offering a free thanksgiving dinner to anyone in need. Gestures like these are what really make this time of year special. Sharing is what its all about. I just want to encourage everyone to go and make that last minute donation of food, or even your time to any local organization involved in helping out those families and individuals who really need it right now. You can stop in to any church in the Bellport NY area and they will either accept your donations right there, or direct you to where your contribution is most needed.

So again, have a Happy thanksgiving. Enjoy the football, the good company, and all the wonderful food that I can already smell cooking. But before you get too comfortable, go out and give someone else a reason to be thankful. You could make a difference in someones life. It doesn’t have to be much, every little bit helps and you will feel good for doing it. Happy Holidays!

Well everyone was up in arms over the boat parade in Patchogue this weekend, because they decided to exclude “Christmas” from the name this year, calling it the Holiday boat parade instead. Many were offended and the Grucci’s pulled out of the fireworks show they were supposed to put on. Lots of silly, small minded things ensued.

Looking around at other reports on the web I see the stories peppered with comments of bigotry and just plain stupidity. It seems to me in a time when the world is looking at Patchogue NY as a center for racial tension and hatred, people should be a bit more conscious of themselves and how they represent the place they call home. The Patchogue Holiday Boat Parade still had a good turnout after it was all said and done. It would have been allot nicer without all the muck. What are we teaching our kids by this nonsense? How do you explain to them that the reason there are no fireworks this year at the parade is because the grown ups can be a bunch of ignorant and intolerant jerks.

That’s right I said it. Think I’m being too harsh? Check out whats being said on some of the other local news sites. I am actually being pretty nice, in comparison. Its time for us all to grow up here in America. Like it or not we don’t all share the same beliefs, we do not all have the same color skin or place of origin. So what? This country was built on diversity. Forget about tolerating it, we should be embracing it, as our fathers and grandfathers did who came to this country for a better life than the oppression some were facing at home. They came here like everyone else, to live their dream. Lets try to keep that dream alive.

On a lighter note, we have had to push back publishing our Pictures page until next week. Lots of kinks to work out still. Don’t be discouraged though, we will have it worked out before you know it. We have however added a few more pages of content to the site, have a look around and see for yourself. I hope I didn’t scare you off with my rant about the parade, I just felt it had to be said. If you have any comments on the subject, feel free to leave them here.