Pleasant Mount NewsBy Theresa Opeka

570-679-2065 bu7294@gmail.com

The Forest City NewsFOUNDED DECEMBER 8, 1887

Publication Number 204880Is published weekly on Wednesdays at a subscription rate of $30.00 per year in Susquehanna,

Lackawanna, and Wayne Counties; $40.00 per year in all other mailing zones, and is publishedby The Forest City News Inc., John P. Kameen, President, Patricia M. Striefsky, Secretary; and

the publication office is 636 Main Street, Forest City, PA 18421. Periodical rate postage, paid at Forest City, PA. Phone 570-785-3800; FAX 570-785-9840.

Member of Pennsylvania NewsMEDIA and National Newspaper Association (NNA).POSTMASTER: Send address changes to

The Forest City News, 636 Main Street, Forest City,PA 18421.All artwork, layout, design and news features remain the sole property of

The Forest City News, Inc. Reproduction in whole or any part of any advertisement or news feature is strictly forbidden.

PAGE 2 - THE FOREST CITY NEWS, FOREST CITY, PA 18421 * WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2017 * PHONE 570-785-3800 * email fcnews@nep.net

Dinner Specials Every Friday Night

Uniondale, PA - 570-679-2129 *www.chetsplace.com

Music Every Wednesday 5-9 p.m

LETTERS TO EDITOR

OPEN DAILY 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. CLOSED WednesdaysOrder Party Platters for your Events!

Free coffee, cookies, hot dogs & giveaways!

Union Dale * Phone: 570-679-2151

*Subs & Sandwiches *Novelty Ice Cream* Summer Salads *Stromboli

*Party Platters *Ice*All Local Newspapers

Lottery calendarnow on sale

The Forest City Area Emer-gency Services will conduct a 2018 lottery calendar. On sale now, play your favorite num-ber (based on availability) for one year. Cost is $20. Contact any member or call 570-785-3226 or 570-785-5025.

Opening on Herrick Planning Commission

There is an opening on the Herrick Township Planning Commission. You must be a resident of Herrick Township to serve. Interested parties should contact Nancy Harva-tine, Herrick Township Secre-tary, at 570-679-2273.

Hours: Tues.-Sat. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. * Sunday 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

*Custom Cakes & Pastries*Organic Dog Treats *Bread

*Wedding Cakes

Grand

Opening

January 6

Come down and celebrate with us from 11 a.m.-5 p.m.!*Pastries

*Pies *And More!

703 Main Street, Forest City, 570-785-3030

Please Join Us For An OPEN HOUSECelebrating

ATTORNEY DAVID BIANCO’SRetirement

After 40 years of hard work and dedication,it’s time to take a permanent vacation.

Please join us as we offer Dave best wishes in his retirement on

Saturday, January 6 from 1 PM to 4 PM atthe Forest City Emergency Services, 380 Railroad Street, Forest City, PA

LETTER TO EDITOR

Dear Editor: To all at the Forest City

News—A job well done! I en-joy the news from home every week.

Margaret Swedersky Dickinson.

Gulf Breeze, FL

Dog Licenses for 2018 Now Available

Susquehanna County dog owners are reminded to purchase a 2018 dog license as required by Pennsylvania law.

“Dogs are an important part of our families,” said Jason Miller, Susquehanna County Treasurer.

“Losing your dog can be dev-astating. The best chance on hav-ing your dog returned safely is by having it properly licensed.”

State law requires that all dogs, three months or older, be licensed each year. Failure to license a dog is a summary offense and could result in a maximum fine of $300 for each unlicensed dog.

The dog license application is simple. It only requests owner contact information, and details about the dog being licensed, like name, age, breed and color.

An annual dog license is $8.50, or $6.50 if the animal is spayed or neutered. Lifetime licenses are available for dogs that have permanent identification like a microchip or tattoo. Older adults and people with disabilities may be eligible for discounts.

Licensing fees support the Pennsylvania Department of Ag-riculture Dog Law Enforcement Office, which ensures the welfare of breeding dogs and puppies in commercial breeding ken-nels, regulates dogs classified as dangerous, and oversees annual licensure and rabies vaccinations for dogs.

Susquehanna County resi-dents can purchase their dog licenses on-line at www.pado-glicense.com; there is a $2 per license convenience fee to order dog licenses online; or you can purchase licenses in person at the Treasurer’s office from 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday through Fri-day, at the Susquehanna County Courthouse, Montrose.

For more information call 570-278-4600, extension 4082, 4083, or 6695; or visit www.licenseyour-dogPa.com.

Dimeco, Inc. DeclaresIncreased Cash Dividend

On December 7, 2017, the Board of Directors of Dimeco, Inc. (OTC Pink: DIMC) de-clared a dividend of $0.28 per share, payable to sharehold-ers of record on December 29, 2017. The dividend will be paid on January 25, 2018, the anticipated date to release earnings for the year ended December 31, 2017. This divi-dend is an increase of $0.02 per share, or 7.69%, over the dividend declared in Septem-ber 2017. A dividend of $0.28 per share produces a yield of 2.88% based on the December 7, 2017 market value of $36.30 per share. The total dividend declared for the year 2017 is $1.047 per share. This total dividend declared reflects the three-for-two stock split that was effective on August 11, 2017.

LETTER TO EDITOR

Dear Editor:Please renew my subscrip-

tion for another year. Happy holidays to everyone.

Marianne YacuboskiCanadensis

Happy Birthday to: Dar-ryl Burleigh, Hope Hoanzl, Michael Davis, Matt Dodge, Adam Kulikowski, Joshua Hnatko, Josh Hall, Kyra For-tuner, Leroy Spoor, Colin En-nis, Michelle Brooking,, Ruth Jones, Karen Ashcom, Shane Malicky, Beth Spinelli, Su-san Gesford, Macy Babcock, Catherine Cook, Suzanne Sheerin, Bob Bailey, Crystal Anderson, Gloria Hnatko, Tony Walbach, Brian Jonas, Mark Sampson, Katherine O’Neill, Debra Knapp, Ruth Ann Knapp, Brandy Price, Mike Rosenfeld, Lorraine Terry, Amy Watson,Bruce Stanton, Kelsey Biondo, Bri-anna Weist, Emily Gorton, Lily Zukosky, Alexandra Reed and Jeremiah Burleigh.

Happy Anniversary to: Matthew and Kathryn Pisar-cik, Bill and Karen Wood-ward and Tony and Megan Walbeck

Lithuanian Christmas traditions. Christmas Eve (Kūčios) is a more important day than Christmas Day. Kūčios is also the name of the big Christmas Eve meal which families have together during the evening of Christ-mas Eve. But before the meal can be eaten, lots of prepa-rations have to take place. The whole house is cleaned, the bedding is changed and everyone washes and puts on clean clothes ready for the meal. Many Lithuanians used to go to the bathhouse to be cleaned before the meal. Some people thought being clean helped to protect them from evil or diseases during the coming year.

Many people fast during the day. The Kūčios meal also shouldn’t contain any meat. Straw is a traditional decoration. Is is normally spread on the table top and then covered with a clean, white tablecloth. The table is then decorated with candles and small branches or twigs from a fir tree. The straw re-minds people of the baby Je-sus lying in a manger.

A superstition says that if you pull a piece of straw from under the tablecloth and it’s long, you will have a long life; but if it’s short you will have a short life; and a thick straw means a rich and happy life Often an ex-tra place is set - for a family member who can’t come to the meal or if a family mem-ber has died during the past

year. Sometimes a candle is lit to remember family mem-bers who died. Some people believe that dead family members come and join the family round the table. At the center of the table is a plate of Christmas wafers - one wafer for each person at the meal. In some parts of Lithuania the wafers have the scene of the birth of Jesus on them.

The meal starts when the first stars can be seen in the night sky. Sometimes an ap-ple is also cut into as many parts as there are people at the meal and is shared. This remembers the apple eaten in the Garden of Eden.

The Kūčios meal normally has 12 dishes - one for each of Jesus’s followers. None of the dishes contain meat (and some people also don’t have milk or eggs in them). Tra-ditional and popular dishes include fish (often herring), kūčiukai (small sweet pas-tries) normally soaked in poppy milk, kisielius (a drink made from cranberries), dried fruit soup, beet soup (often with mushroom filled dumplings in it), vegetable salad, mushrooms, boiled or baked potatoes, sauerkraut, a kind of wheat porridge with honey and bread. Normally water or homemade cider is drunk with the meal. Sweet dishes are also often eaten including kissel (a fruit soup/jelly thickened with potato flour) and stewed fruit com-pote.

After the meal (or possibly between the main and sweet courses) there might be a visit from ‘The Old Man of Christ-mas’ with presents People will also exchange presents between themselves. When the presents have been ex-changed, children often go to bed and the adults might go out to Midnight Mass (Bernelių mišios - which means Shepherds Mass).

Popular Christmas Tree decorations in Lithuania are ones made from white pa-per straws. They are often in the shapes of stars, snow-flakes and other geometric shapes. Nativity Cribs are also popular in Lithuania with very large scenes often being put outside church-es. In Lithuanian Happy/Merry Christmas is ‘Linksmų Kalėdu”

I want to wish you and your family a Happy, Healthy and Blessed 2018!

Browndale FireCo. raffle winners

The Browndale Fire Com-pany raffle winners are as follows: 1st Prize Winner: Mary Ellen Zedar - $300, sold by Cameron Britton; 2nd Prize Winner: Brandy Whit-ing - $200, sold by Brandy Whiting; 3rd Prize Winner: Ginny Pallo - Air Fryer, sold by Dave Richards; 4th Prize Winner: Gabby Cassaro - $50 Amazon Gift Card, sold by Jay Kovaleski

By Jennifer Butler

While nothing has come easy in the past year for new business owner Abi-gail Rodriguez, she is so happy and grateful to an-nounce the opening of her shop, The Barking Cup-cake, at 703 Main Street in Forest City.

As the red tape of begin-ning a business held the young lady hostage for 12 months, she has come out on the other side of it all deeming it a “learning ex-perience” and proud that she came out as a business owner.

“I honestly feel like For-est City was chosen for me by the grace of God. I re-member browsing through ads for business rentals literally every single day and never thinking that I would ever be able to af-ford to make my dreams a reality,” said the young woman. She recalls the day she saw the ad for

the bakery, and had never even heard of Forest City before.

“When I took the drive that same day to see it in September 2016, I instantly fell in love with the town. The vintage appearance, the welcoming locals, and the feeling of community I got when I arrived there. It felt like it was meant to be and after walking inside the shop it gave me all the confirmation I needed,” she noted and signed her lease that same day and began her year long jour-ney to get the bakery es-tablished.

While the name, The Barking Cupcake, may de-note a dog bakery, it by far provides much more than natural and organic dog treats. “I think our biggest misconception is that we are an animal bakery and I’m glad I have this plat-form to inform those who are unaware that we are a bakery for man AND his best friend,” she adds.

Everything in the shop is 100% made from scratch by hand by the owner. She specializes in custom cakes, such as wedding, event, birthday and cus-tom cookies. She will also have display cases that rotate regularly with a variety of cookies by the pound, cheesecakes, spe-cialty pies, cupcakes, pas-tries, and also organic dog treats.

Abigail also plans on baking artisan breads twice a week, and cinna-mon buns on the weekend.

Her business became a thought due to her oldest dog, Yoshi, who became deathly ill from a now discontinued brand of pet food. She educated herself and made the switch to only the use of all natural, organic and holistic foods locally sourced.

From there, the young woman decided to try her hand at dog treats and that’s how she got her idea for The Barking Cupcake from Yoshi. “If it was not for him, I don’t think I would have had the cour-age to be doing any of this today,” she admits.

Formerly a waitress, she loved every minute of meeting new people and helping people come to-gether to make memories. With the support of fellow coworker April Smith she learned a great deal about cake decorating and was also given the opportunity to use that creativity to sell her bakes to the Jessup residents out of her friend, Ginger Adams Pie Shop.

Born in York, PA, the young lady was raised in Trenton, N.J. “Growing up in a single parent house-hold, where my mother was both mother and fa-ther, and seeing her strug-gle as much as she did to raise us, I knew I always wanted her to know her sacrifices were not in vain. I just hope that when she reads this that I make her proud,” she notes.

The grand opening will be held Fri., Jan. 6, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. “I am very excited and I cannot wait to see what the next year will bring. I would also just like to add that I am truly thankful for all of the locals that have welcomed us into the community with open arms and posi-tivity. Thank you,” she concluded.

The business’ hours of operation will be Tues. through Sat 8 a.m. - 5 pm and Saturday 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. You can also find the business on Facebook/The Barking Cupcake to view some of creations and any ongoing specials.

Barking Cupcake Grand Opening here Jan. 6th

Abigail Rodriguez and her husband Brian Weiss stand in front of their new business, The Barking Cupcake, Forest City.

LIVE MUSICEVERY WEEKEND

GREAT FOOD EVERYDAY

*Mon. - Wing Night ($.50 cents)*Tues. - Trivia Night 7 p.m.

*Wed. - Wine Night*Thurs. - Free Pool Table (6-9 p.m.)

char broiled burgers - fresh cut friesdaily specials

Ararat, PA570-727-3970

New Year’s Eve Bash Sun., Dec. 31

Carro Casper & Miz (8:30 p.m.)

Just Us Closed Temporarily

According to a message on Facebook, effective im-mediately, Just Us, at North Main Street in Forest City, is temporarily closed. They thanked all who have sup-ported them and they hope to see everyone again in the future.