‘Reading Your Credit Report’ at the library

Keep­ing track of your per­sonal finan­cial his­tory is becom­ing more and more com­pli­cated these days, as credit card com­pa­nies change their rules, new reg­u­la­tory laws are enacted, and our expo­sure to fraud and iden­tity theft increases. The libraries in Delaware County want to help you under­stand your credit report with a pro­gram enti­tled, “Credit Reports: Read­ing Your Credit Report” offered at two loca­tions in the next few days.

Pre­sented by the Con­sumer Credit Coun­sel­ing of Ohio, this pro­gram is part of the “Mak­ing Cents” series, a col­lab­o­ra­tive set of pro­grams on finan­cial lit­er­acy for all ages. “Credit Reports” will be at the Delaware County Dis­trict Library’s Orange Branch on Thurs­day, Octo­ber 13 at 7 p.m., and will be repeated at the Com­mu­nity Library of Sun­bury on Tues­day, Octo­ber 18 at 7 p.m.

The Delaware Library’s Ostran­der Branch will present a fam­ily pro­gram on finan­cial lit­er­acy called “Right on the Money” on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 15 at 11 a.m. Filled with fun facts about money, coin tricks, origami with cur­rency, and sto­ries to help your chil­dren learn more about money, this pro­gram has been a great hit with kids and their parents.

The “Mak­ing Sense” finan­cial lit­er­acy series, spon­sored in part by the Friends of the Delaware County Dis­trict Library and the Delaware County Bank, con­tin­ues through mid-December. Check the web sites or call the Delaware County Dis­trict Library, the Com­mu­nity Library of Sun­bury, and the Worn­staff Memo­r­ial Library in Ash­ley for more infor­ma­tion on these pro­grams and upcom­ing ones.

Can base­ball fans who get hit with a ball sue the team or the player?

Accord­ing to Black’s Law Dic­tio­nary, no. While being a base­ball fan can be a dan­ger­ous prospect, in the last few decades the courts have con­sis­tently come down in favor of the teams, leagues, and sta­di­ums when it comes to law­suits regard­ing spec­ta­tor injuries. Most of these cases get dis­missed under the doc­trine of assump­tion of risk, a defense in tort law that pre­vents a plain­tiff from recov­er­ing dam­ages if the defen­dant can show that the plain­tiff vol­un­tar­ily and know­ingly assumed the risks inher­ent to the activ­ity they were par­tic­i­pat­ing in when they got hurt. In the case of base­ball, this means that spec­ta­tors are usu­ally con­sid­ered to be assum­ing the risk that a ball, bat, or glove may leave the field and hit them.

Where is Riker’s Island and what is it?

Riker’s Island is New York City’s main jail com­plex, as well as the name of the 413.17-acre island on which it sits, in the East River between Queens and the main­land Bronx. As noted in World Book Ency­clo­pe­dia, the island itself is part of the bor­ough of the Bronx, though it has a Queens ZIP code. The jail com­plex, oper­ated by the New York City Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion has an annual bud­get of $860M, a staff of 7,000 offi­cers and 1,500 civil­ians to con­trol an inmate pop­u­la­tion of 14,000. The offi­cial per­ma­nent pop­u­la­tion of the island, as reported by the United States Cen­sus Bureau in 2009 was 11,355. The island is thought to be named after Abra­ham Rycken, a Dutch set­tler who moved to Long Island in 1638 and whose descen­dants owned Riker’s Island until 1884, when it was sold to the city for $180,000. It has been used as a jail ever since.

Who is Rudd Weatherwax?

Rud­dell Bird “Rudd” Weath­er­wax was an Amer­i­can actor and ani­mal trainer. He and his brother Frank Weath­er­wax are best remem­bered for train­ing dogs for motion pic­tures and tele­vi­sion. Frank’s col­lie, Pal, became the orig­i­nal Lassie, han­dled by Rudd for the 1943 MGM film “Lassie Come Home.” He also han­dled the dogs for the Lassie tele­vi­sion series which ran from 1954 to 1974, and trained Spike for the 1957 fea­ture film “Old Yeller.” I checked in Merriman-Webster’s Bio­graph­i­cal Dic­tio­nary and found this information.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing the library’s web site at delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org . No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!