CALENDAR: Readers may remember RTS contributor Clayton Vecellio’s “Earth Calendar.”
It’s a simplified calendar Clayton has created, where January, April, July and October have 35 days each. The rest of the months have 28 days, for a total of 364 days.
The first of each month would always be on a Monday, and the 7th on a Sunday.
“My calendar would start on the first day of winter,” he says. Monday, Jan. 1 would be the first day of winter. Monday, April 1 would be the first day of spring.
The longest day of the year would not be counted on his calendar. “This day will be called Center Day as it is in the middle of the year.” Every four years will be Leap Day, which will not be part of the calendar, either.
“I won’t, but you will live to see it,” Clayton predicts.
COMMUTE: The Center for Rural Pennsylvania has assembled a pretty neat list about “super commuters” in rural parts of the state.
“A rural Pennsylvania super commuter is 18 years old or older, employed full-time (35+ hours week), year-round (50 weeks per year) and travels 60 minutes or more to work,” the study indicated.
The average age for a super commuter is 44.3 years old. Seventy percent are male, and 30 percent female. Thirty-one percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
“The average travel time for all rural Pennsylvania commuters is 26.5 minutes,” the study read, “nine percent of all rural commuters are ‘super commuters.’”
The average super commuter drives alone, at 82 percent, while 12 percent are in a carpool, five percent take public transportation and one percent walk, bicycle or use other means to get to work.
As far as where these super commuters work, 14 percent are employed in manufacturing, 13 percent in health care and 12 percent in construction.
With large land masses and small populations, rural areas lend themselves to super commutes.
In the past, we’ve had staff in our newsroom or sports department who have lived in Clermont, Wilcox, Coudersport, Smethport, Allegany, N.Y., and Ellicottville, N.Y., to name a few.
