Toward the end of her extraordinarily active and devout life, Sister Annunciata Bethell played a role in a modern miracle. Every day of the week, throughout the summer of 2004, Patricia Burlace, Sr. Annunciata’s assistant and protégée at her beloved senior center, would drive the elderly advocate to the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center to visit conjoined, and then separated, twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre and their mother, Arlene.

For as long as anyone can remember, Sallie Caldwell has been active in the local community, serving on various committees and looking out for her neighbors at Tracey Towers. Caldwell is currently vice-chair of Community Board 7 (CB7) and the corresponding secretary of the 52nd Precinct Community Council (her daughter, Brenda, became president of the Council during the summer).

As we approach December, the squeak of new sneakers on freshly polished hardwood floors begins to pierce your ear. A whistle blows. A ball is tipped. Ah, the dank smell of a sweaty practice jersey. It can only mean one thing: another college basketball season is shifting into high gear.

In this issue we report on a confusing arrangement among Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, community leader Sallie Caldwell and Community Board 7. What troubles us is not that Rivera wants to serve the Norwood and Bedford Park sections of her district. We’ve long encouraged politicians based to the east and west of our communities to open satellite offices here.

When Ellen McHugh, 66, died shortly after being struck by a city bus last Thursday morning, it marked the third time in 10 months a pedestrian had been killed at the intersection of Bainbridge Avenue and Gun Hill Road. Less than six weeks ago, on Sept. 30, Kenneth Filacchione, a 62-year-old Manhattan College security guard, was killed at the very same intersection following a late evening hit-and-run. And last February, 82-year-old Eva Schweitzer was also killed by a city bus in the early morning hours.

In the past two months, Deputy Inspector Joseph Hoch, the commanding officer of the 52nd Precinct, has lost four cops temporarily to the threat of AIDS. Each of the four officers, including the precinct’s Special Operations Lieutenant Jerry O’Sullivan, was deemed by the Police Departmentat to be at risk of contracting the immune-system-destroying virus after being assaulted on the job. They were either punctured by a hypodermic needle or shared open wounds during the course of fights with suspects. They have been placed on medical leave and given anti-viral drugs.

While the United States Postal Service has not officially announced the consolidation that would take mail processing from the Bronx to lower Manhattan, the local union and the larger Bronx community, including Congressman Eliot Engel, have already united against its consequences.

Armed with Dunkin’ Donuts and chocolate covered cherries, volunteers at a University Heights voting site readied themselves for a long day of helping voters. Most of them dutifully showed up last Tuesday at IS 15 on Andrews Avenue before sunrise, a good half hour before polls opened in New York City at 6 a.m. And most of them, some in their golden years, others barely out of their teens, would stay until polls closed at 9 p.m.

We spent some time talking to voters at polling stations in the area on Election Day. Just seeing people from every ethnicity imaginable taking time out of their busy days, sometimes with two or more children in tow, to exercise democracy’s most precious right, is affirming and uplifting.