Poughkeepsie Journal: Without hesitation, Kirkwood resident Marchie Diffendorf can recall the exact date of the phone call: Dec. 7, 2007.
It was a landman with a natural-gas company: Would he be interested in leasing the natural-gas rights to his 60-acre property in the rural Broome County town he's lived in his whole life?
Around that same time, someone knocked on the door of Eileen Hamlin's blue-sided, one-story Kirkwood home -- 2 miles from Diffendorf's -- with a similar offer. Take the deal today, the man...