Last week, I had the troubling experience of my neighbor’s cable wire becoming detached from his home and ending up entangled in the limbs of one of my trees abutting the sidewalk. It was dangling in a loop over the sidewalk, laying completely across Arrandale Avenue to the sidewalk on the other side and up the utility pole where the other end was still attached.
Between my neighbor and me, we called his cable service four times in two days, always getting the response that they’d arrive for service the same day and never showing up. Eventually, a pedestrian going by and also concerned about the safety hazard the partially downed cable wire posed, called 911 and, in minutes, the Great Neck Alert Fire Department with Chief Neubert and his men arrived to the rescue and cut down the dangling wire.
This much I have to say is in light of the past consideration of our village board and its contract with local fire departments: When there’s a problem in our community, whether it be easily handled or life-threatening, it sure as hell is a comfort to see firemen who are your neighbors, whose kids go to school with yours, who you may see at your place of worship, the parks and the pool, who share the same concerns for their family and community, show up at your door when you need help. That can never ever take the place of an outside option and I am very grateful for the service I feel privileged to have had from my fire department in my 39 years living in the Village of Great Neck.
—Carole Lynn Marino
