CHEERS: to everyone who had any connection to last week's Relay for Life, a local fundraising effort for the American Cancer Society. Individuals and merchants were ineffably generous leading up to and during this unique overnight event, which ran from 7 p.m. Friday, June 6, through 7 a.m. Saturday. Games, raffles, walks and a variety of presentations highlighted the night. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people attended the night of fun, and 1,500 volunteers participated, including 283 cancer survivors. The goal was to raise $150,000. The final total exceeded $200,000. The merchants who contributed prizes and supplied goods for the affair are too numerous to mention, but the success of the relay bespeaks the entire community's gratitude.

JEERS: to the thieves who stole wiring from a Habitat for Humanity house under construction in Keeseville. That's one of those almost unthinkable crimes, like the drowning of a cat two weeks ago in a tape-shut container in the Hawkins Hall pond on the Plattsburgh State campus. Speculation is that the wire was stolen to feed a drug habit, which may be true, or maybe not. It's very possible that the crooks didn't know the house from which they took the wire was a Habitat for Humanity structure. If not, it may turn out to be the worst piece of luck they have ever encountered, since the whole North Country is bound to be up in arms about it. The house is going to have to be completely rewired now, which will delay a needy family moving in and will add to the cost. We're rooting hard for the police to solve this one, and we hope the judge who hears the case will have a keen sense of justice.

CHEERS: to courteous drivers who seem instinctively to adopt an impromptu system when confronted by a traffic anomaly. We mentioned one once outside Plattsburgh High School, on Angell Drive off Rugar Street, where drivers "take turns" merging so everyone keeps moving from two directions. We're told the same sort of practice has developed where Durand and Wallace Hill roads intersect. A reader tells us that, every morning during "drive time," when lines of traffic meet from the two roads, "almost every vehicle coming down Wallace Hill lets a vehicle off Durand. In the rare case someone doesn't, the next vehicle lets two off Durand." That goes beyond courtesy and shows how cooperative North Country people can be.

JEERS: to drivers who park in front of the blue mail receptacles on area sidewalks. This is confounding, but the same reader who mentioned the preceding entry informed us that he drops mail in a box every day and frequently is thwarted by people parking in front of it. That seems the depth of thoughtlessness. There is a reason for a drive-up postal box, and it isn't to provide a parking space.