I’d like to be sympathetic to the family that feels they got a bait-and-switch treatment from the Orangetown Mighty Midgets, but as the dad of a former travel player, I’m finding it hard.

I’m also finding it hard to believe that travel soccer — and other sports, too, I’m sure — are having to resort to formal legal contracts to try to keep things in line.

Our kids, no matter how skilled and no matter how driven, are kids — first and foremost.

We want to offer them the best coaching, best competition, the best environment in which to grow their talents.

But they aren’t pros and at 12 years old, I’m thinking the emphasis should be on keeping them safe, learning the game and its nuances and having fun.

It wasn’t always fun for my son and that was partly my fault.

But when I signed him over to a travel baseball program — one of which played about 80 games the summer he was with them — his baseball development was in their hands.

I gave the coaches space and expected my son, who was a little older, to deal with them if he had any issues with them regarding position, playing time or anything else. There were times when either he or I saw things differently than the coaches, but I kept my distance. He had to face the issues and work them out.

In my eyes, it was part of the maturation process, both as an athlete and an individual.

There were times when Sean’s coaches changed and we both wanted the old one back. But we hoped the overall experience would work out well and usually it did.

I knew from the beginning that if it didn’t — if he got hurt, wasn’t getting playing time, got disaffected  or lost interest — we were going to be out the money, which sometimes was double what is at issue in the Mighty Midgets situation.

Perhaps the need for contracts is an indicator that we’re all taking this a little too seriously for the players’ good, especially at 12 years old.

I know, if I had it to do over, I’d do lots of things differently and if I”m lucky enough to have grandchildren, I’ll try to guide their development  in light of what I learned.

Ya see, I’ve got this screenplay. It’s for a thriller that has nothing whatsoever to do with a late-night talk-show host.

But ya know. I don’t think I’d try the marketing approach that’s got a CBS News producer in hot water.

But you gotta give his attorney credit for thinking up an imaginative defense.

But will a jury ever buy that something like, “Leave $2million in small bills — no, wait, make that a check made out to me — under the third rock from the Southern Boulevard entrance to the Bronx Zoo. Get it there by midnight or you’ll never see your (fill in the blank) again”  is just a really cool marketing ploy?

Believe that’s just offering someone the right of first refusal and I’ve got the old Yankee Stadium I’d like to sell ya.

It’s an odd juxtaposition of stories.

On one hand, Rockland County government extends the period people get to catch up with their unpaid property taxes before the parcel can be put up for foreclosure auction.

Good thing, given the state of the economy.

But the day after the County Legislature extends the period from two years to three, some taxpayers get notices from the county that they didn’t pay their quarterly county property tax bill due in October.

Why? Well, they never got the customary notice from the county that the bill was due.

Sure, people should know. And yes, the notice was a courtesy. But with lots of people scraping by financially, any bill that doesn’t show up is a bill that’s not getting priority. Those bucks get sucked up by higher priorities — like the bills one has in hand.

The county is looking into why the notices didn’t go out and scrambling to figure out how to make the situation right.

People are now in the hole, not only for the bill they owed, but for interest, a processing fee and according to the letter we got in Nanuet, penalties as well.

This isn’t just a case of the notices not going out.

Realizing that she hasn’t seen the notice, my fiance called the county and was  assured that, no, her account was up to date and that nothing would be due until January.

Not so, it turns out.

Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell says the lawmakers will do whatever they can to rectify the situation.

Because state law precludes the county waiving the fees, the legislature will have to act to make refunds of the fees legal.

Legislator Alden Wolfe, who pushed the extension on paying off back taxes, first tried to get it enacted in August, but it took until November,

Let’s hope his colleagues can make this fix faster than that.

If you see girls with pink hair in Suffern, they’re not getting a jump on Halloween.

They’re doing their part to help fight breast cancer.

Lisa Daly of Montebello, who owns Salon Atelier at 95 Lafayette Avenue in Suffern, has installed about 275 pink hair extensions for girls and women who donate $10 to Pink Hair for Hope, a program coordinated by extension manufacturer SO. CAP. USA as a benefit for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Last year the program raised more than $480,000 nationally during September and October.

Daly and stylists at Salon Atelier got certified to do extensions recently and got a late start on the fund-raiser, beginning about two weeks ago.

They will wrap up their participation for this year Thursday evening, when there will be light refreshments between 6 and 8 p.m. for those who come in to make a donation and get their burst of pink hair.

The response this month, Daly says, has been far beyond what she might have expected. “I’ve had to call several times, asking for more hair,” she says.

Just this afternoon, she says, about 20 girls came through with their mothers — some with their grandmothers along, too.

“We’ve had mothers, grandmothers, Girl Scout groups, girls from Hal Block and Tornadoes Soccer programs. Some have even made donations without taking the extensions,” which get bonded to the individual’s hair.

Daly, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, has worked at the salon since she was 17 and became its owner just about five years ago.

Over that time, she says, “I’ve seen so many customers who have had breast cancer and one of my friends from Montebello has just been diagnosed.”

Next year, Daly says, the salon will lengthen its participation, beginning in mid-September and lasting through October.

It’s something she wants to do, she says, because “breast cancer touches so many people and it’s so dear to my heart.

Good to see the Department of Transportation get the new James A. Farley Memorial Bridge done, not only on time, but ahead of schedule.

Looks like offering a financial incentive — in this case $900,000 on a $14 million project — worked to motivate the contractor to get it finished.

The DOT has taken it’s far share of heat here for numerous bridge projects in Rockland that got stalled by engineering or design problems, issues with contractors or some combination.

It’s happened in Monsey, Montebello, Tallman and elsewhere, but the  all time winner was in Sparkill, where the DOT started work, realized damage to the bridge was worse than anticipated and required pulling the entire structure down.

That one got delayed over and over because the steel for the replacement wasn’t immediately available.

It cost merchants and it had residents hopping mad as time using detours dragged on and on.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case this time around and the DOT and the contractor — Harrison & Burrowes Bridge Constructors of Glenmont, N.Y. — deserve credit for beating the deadline with what looks to be a replacement that will last.

I’ve written dozens of times in a decade about my skepticism regarding the safety of Indian Point and with every passing month, little happens to alleviate my worry.

Time was we couldn’t depend on Con Edison to be up front and timely in admitting problems at the plant. There have been engineering and maintenance issues, leaks and unexpected shutdowns.

But over and over, there have been problems with the warning sirens that are supposed to alert residents within the 1-mile zone around the plant in the event of a need to evacuate.

Of course, when a problem reached that threshold is a matter of opinion. I’d like to be alerted far more often than anyone at Entergy or the NRC seems to think necessary.

For years, we saw siren tests in which large numbers of sirens failed to sound, which kind of undermines anyone’s standards for when they should blast us awake. There were times tests couldn’t be conducted because thunderstorms disrupted phone lines. At least once the system that allowed nearby counties to activate the sirens dropped out of service with no one noticing until Rockland officials, running a routine test, discovered the problem.

Finally, the siren system was replaced and went into service after numerous delays. It’s still really undergoing tests, with the original system used as a backup, waiting to be dismantled.

Just Wednesday, they fired up the sirens again and sure enough, 18 of the sirens failed in one way or another.

Although I have faith in the emergency officials who oversee Indian Point’s evacuation plan, I’ve never felt the least bit sure it could would in a real emergency.

Knowing that we still can’t depend on every siren to sound, and loud enough to be heard,  does little to make me feel safe.

When the old Liberty Street School in Nyack, right across from the longtime location of The Journal News on Hudson Avenue, was torn down about three decades ago, I started my collection of bricks made from Hudson River clay in the heyday of the Haverstraw brick industry. I’ve added to the collection periodically since then, with a brick from the old Rockland County Jail and from other old brick structures around the county. I’ve ended up with about a dozen bricks showing the names of about four dozen brick yards that operated there from 1810 to 1942.

Haverstraw became the brickmaking center of the world, with millions of brick transported down the river to New York City, where they fueled the rise of apartment buildings throughout the city.

This Sunday, the Haverstraw Brick Museum celebrates that past glory and the Quadricentennial of the Hudson with the opening of “Moving Bricks on the Hudson,” from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with a program at 2 p.m.

It’s a chance to learn about the relationship between the industry and the river, with barges and sloops serving as a highway to get Haverstraw’s product to market. Of course, it’s also a change to view the museum’s brickmaking tools, regional brick collection and even a diorama that shows how the industry operated and another that shows how part of the village was swallowed by the river in the great landslide of Jan. 8, 1906, when 19 people died in an avalanche of buildings, earth and clay.

Brick collectors can also look forward to the following weekend, when, on Sept. 26, the museum sponsors an International Brick Swap at Bowline Point Park on the Hudson from 7:30 a.m. to noon.

For information, call the museum, at 12 Main Street, Haverstraw, at 845-947-3505.

You hope that things change, but a rejection of an affordable housing law in Orangetown was pretty much to be expected.

That’s been the prevailing sentiment in town for decades and nothing seems to change it much, not even when there’s what might be expected to be a more sympathetic Democratic majority on the Town Board.

But affordable housing has been a rough sell for a long time. Senior housing projects, which have also encountered considerable opposition from time to time, are hardly affordable and efforts to provide affordable housing for volunteers hasn’t been a quick ride, either.

For too many in Orangetown and elsewhere, affordable housing translates into low-rent, city housing project images and the red flags go up.

But all of Rockland needs truly affordable housing — and yes, it needs to be rental and it needs to be multifamily — or we’re going to keep driving away our college grads starting out on careers and seniors who no longer need the home where they raised their families.

Rejecting the need simply rejects too many people who want to remain in the county they’ve called home.

If the weather has you thinking about things to do indoors, a couple of exhibits I’ve written about may make for interesting alternatives.

Opening tonight at the GAGA Arts Center, 55 West Railroad Avenue in Garnerville, is “Pictures from Croatia: Through the Eyes of Children,” an exhibit of about 50 photos taken by young students of professional photographer Ken Karlewicz. Karlewicz and the five students were guests in Croatia of Robert Benmosche of Wesley Hills, who helped underwrite the trip because of his personal interest in photography and his desire to offer the students a life-changing opportunity. There’s an opening reception this evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Gaga. Beginning tomorrow, the hours through Oct. 4 will be 4-8 p.m. Friday, 2-6 p.m. Saturday, noon-4 p.m. Sunday.

Closing this weekend is “Fish & Ships: The Hudson River in the History of the Nyacks,” sponsored by the Historical Society of the Nyacks. It’s the centerpiece of Nyack’s Quadricentennial of the Hudson, and traces local history along the river from Dutch settlers to the lasting influences of the Tappan Zee Bridge and New York State Thruway. It ran from mid-June to mid-July and then from mid-August to date. The exhibit, featuring photos, paintings, maps, historic items and documents and much more, will be up for another week or two for visits by appointment or for trips by school classes, but tomorrow and Sunday are it for the 1 to 5 p.m. public hours at 60 Cedar Hill Avenue, Nyack. For information, call 845-704-7343 or e-mail exhibit2009@nyackhistory.org

Ervin Williams of Spring Valley knew this day would come. After all, when he was a young man, his great-grandmother, Hattie Lafayette of Albion, Mich., was older than just about anyone around.

Over the years, he’s made frequent visits back to Michigan, were he grew up, making sure to spend time with his relative, whose life spanned more than a century of history.

When she turned 110, she took on special status as a supercentenarian, individuals tracked by an organization called the Gerontology Research Group, which publishes a verified and constantly updated list of those 110 or older.

In recent years, Hattie Lafayette has been moving up the list. A little more than a month ago, she became the 10th oldest person in the U.S. She was also No. 2 in Michigan and No. 21 in the world, having jumped from No. 31 in just a few weeks.

She still held those spots yesterday when she died at 112 years, 165 days.

The trip to Michigan for her funeral will be a sad one, Williams says, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that she had a long and healthy life, one filled with memories she freely shared of growing up in Alabama and trips around that state with her father — including one when he tried unsuccessfully to shield her from seeing a roadside lynching victim.

Her memories will live on, preserved by her family, Williams says, and in many news accounts of her life and longevity.