PARADES: Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, Olean, N.Y., welcomes the Christmas season with its Santa Claus Lane Parade.
Starting at 7 p.m., participants will make their way down North Union Street from the Burger King south to just past Lincoln Park, marching and riding under the city’s downtown Christmas lights.
The event will feature a flight by Mercy Flight of Western New York, which will kick off the parade by flying overhead, then it will light up the parade route with a spotlight.
A Victorian Christmas open house will be held that day from 6 to 9 p.m. at Bartlett Historical House, 302 Laurens St., Olean.
Among the eight awards to be presented to parade participants is The Blitzen Award, sponsored by the Olean Times Herald, our sister paper, for the most photogenic float.
You won’t have to leave Bradford to enjoy the spectacle of a Christmas parade.
Bradford’s own Cruisin’ Into Christmas parade will begin at 6 p.m. Dec. 1 on Main Street.
A number of participants have signed up to vie for awards in six divisions: best holiday music arrangement by a school band, best holiday float by a business, best holiday float by a non-profit organization, best decorated classic car, best holiday arrangement by a dance team and best decorated fire truck.
Santa will roll in on the last unit in the parade, and children will be able to get a snapshot with Jolly St. Nick himself after the parade at Wright’s Music Shed.
PHONES: Andy Heffner of Ormsby received a couple of phone calls recently from people who weren’t quite who they said they were.
One caller “said they were representing Penelec and I would get a 15 percent discount” — he just had to verify his date of birth and account number from his bill.
He also got a call Friday from someone who identified themselves as Apple Inc. and told him his credit card was breached.
Andy called state police after receiving both calls and learned he first needed to verify with Penelec and with his credit card company that they were not legitimate calls.
When he called Penelec to see if they had called him, the woman said, “Absolutely not. We do not solicit over the phone.”
She explained to him that Penelec would have mailed a notice on official letterhead. However, she added that it was likely another phone company who was trying to trick him into changing companies.
Similarly, his credit had not been breached. So Andy called state police back and got the ball rolling on a report.
