pt at large

The River Run's Real Winner Is The River

 

At the 10:30 starting time on a picture-perfect Saturday morning, the kayaks, canoes, and, oh yes, one tiny row boat,  were a swirling mass of fiberglass and wood on the south side of Hix Bridge.  Viewed from the bridge fifteen minutes later, the 74 vessels in the Family/Fun division appeared to be dots of colorful confetti paddling toward the Head of Westport 3.5 miles away. The Fifth Annual Canoe/Kayak Race and Family Paddle, sponsored by The Westport River Watershed Alliance and Osprey Sea Kayaks, was in full swing.

The Challenge Class had begun their 8.5 boomerang route a half hour before, looping south to Gunning Island then reversing course to pass under Hix Bridge and blast toward the Head. Many of the 16 Challenge Class would finish way before the more laid back family paddlers.

The name of the game for the racers was speed. Most sported kayaks and canoes built for competition. Many were equipped with GPS systems to monitor time, speed, and distance.

“I want to fool around and get some exercise. If I happen to pass one or two people, that’s fine,” David Crocker said as he checked over his Seda Glide Kayak prior to the race. A look at his brawny physique and the gleam in his eye belied that statement. He blew out of the start at the head of the pack and stayed there till the finish, winning himself a $50 gift certificate from White’s of Westport for his efforts.

Even the family paddlers wanted to pass at least one boat. Rosemary Crocker of Providence tapped into a nearly universal sentiment when she said, “I want to finish it and not be last in my class.” She wasn’t.

For Josie Woollam of Westport, the East Branch had a way of neutralizing the competitive instinct. “The trouble with this race is it’s too distracting,” she said. “There’s so much beauty behind each bend in the river. Every time I see a stone wall, swans, or meadows, I want to paddle nearer and get a good look.”

Woollam and her two pals, Polly Gardner of Adamsville and Carol Long of Westport, paddled lightweight fiberglass canoes. Apparently, Gardner and Long were less distracted than Woollam. They placed one and two in the single canoe division.

The venerable, somewhat battered, 1978 Sea Pal canoe entered by the brother/sister team of Dana Gillum of South Dartmouth and Jan St. Germain of New Bedford has more water under its bow than any other on the river. “By the end of the race, we’ll have traveled 4003.5 miles. We’ve been on the Saco. Slocum, and Paskamansett Rivers, “ said Gillum. “This will be no problem.”

Race organizers Ann Fitzgerald and Larry Hookey oversaw the largest turnout ever, 74 Family/Fun and 16 Challenge Class boats. Dozens of volunteers  monitored the event on land and on water.

“Sponsors and vendors really stepped up this year,” Fitzgerald said, naming four major sponsors and 30 others who provided goods, services, or hard cold cash.

Tots, teenagers, and adults from twenty-somethings to those who’ve owned their AARP cards for more than a decade crewed the assortment of boats that passed the finish line.

Fitzgerald and Hookey handed out dozens of medals while paddlers and friends munched on wraps, pizza, and watermelons in the shade of the trees at the river’s grassy edge at the Head of Westport.
If there were a medal for Beautiful Natural Resource, the river would have won it, paddles down.

SIDEBAR OF WINNERS
Challenge Class
Racer
Paul Cordelia
Single Kayak
1. Dave Crocker
2. Mark Edwards
Over 55
1. John Cooper Mullen
2. Bruce Meacham
Female
1. Denise Hixon
2. Marcia Hathaway
Plastic Kayak
1. Bob Wilkinson
2. George Kyller
Double Canoe -
1. Halpin and Olson (first names not available)
2. Darrill Goldizen, J.F. Paquin

Family Fun Class
Overall
1. Mike Spadea, Kara Gilson (Double Kayak, 2008 Grads Oliver Ames HS, Easton,MA )
2. Rob and Jamie Pollack (Double Kayak)
Double Canoe
1. Dana Gillum, Jan St. Germain
2. Mike and Molly Sullivan
Over 55, Double Kayak
1. Ted and Tom Gibney
2. Peggy and Jonathan Stevens
Family Boat, more than 2 people
1. The Toth Family
2. The Chan Family
Fun Boat
1. Dan and Ben (age 2 1/2) Harrington in row boat
2. Tim Groves in kayak with Ruby Groves (age 4)
Single Kayak Overall
1. Edward Earle
2. Eric LaFrance
Single Kayak, under 16
1. Nicholas Gonsalves
2. Cody Flynn
Single Kayak, over 55
1. John Hiller
2. Prue Goodale
Single Canoe
1. Polly Gardner
2. Carol Long
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SIDEBAR
SPONSORS AND VENDORS HELP FLOAT THE RIVER RUN
The Westport River Watershed Alliance and Osprey Sea Kayak Adventures are riding a wave of good will. The long list of supporters of this year’s River Run illustrates their event’s growing footprint and acknowledgement of the river’s value to the town. Major sponsors Bittersweet Farm, Graphix Plus, Lees Market, and TMJ Orthopedics were joined by 30 entities from A to Z that provided goods, services, or cash support.
A.J. Potter Jr. and Sons; Country Woolens; Dartmouth Building Supply, Inc; Doug Brown-Durfee Buffington Insurance Agency; Ellie’s Place Restaurant; Fernandez & Charest, P. C.; Graham Enterprises; Handy Hill Creamery; LaPointe Insurance; Lawton Builders; Marguerite’s Restaurant; Mid-City Scrap & Salvage Company; N.A.C. Security and Stereo Systems, Inc.; Ocean’s Catch, Inc.; Partners Village Store; Plamondon Electrical; Potter Funeral Service, Inc.; Rent-A-Jon; State Representative Michael J. Rodriques; Sticks. Stones, & Stars; The Bayside Restaurant; Tim’s Lawn Care; Village Pizza; Westport Apothecary; Westport Chiropractic; Westport Federal Credit Union; Westport Marine Specialties;  WestportHappenings.com; Zibra Corporation.

Arrrgh, Matey, A Cockatoo on the Bow!

Well, blow me down, a cockatoo on the bow.  Not since Long John Silver’s seagoing parrot has there been evidence of squawkers and their owners on the bounding sea, or in this case, the rolling river.

Dusty the cockatoo and his owner Hank Protzmann of East Greenwich, RI, showed up at the Westport River’s Hix Bridge Landing Saturday morning to man (and bird) the safety crew monitoring the kayers and canoers entered in the Fifth Annual River Run Race and Famiy Fun Paddle.

Aside from Hank, Dusty may have been the most experienced adventurer on the river.

“Dusty’s been mountain biking, wind surfing, and kayaking with me for years. This is his fourth kayak ride this week, He’s been with me hundreds of times, ” Hank said.

 Hank bought the well mannered bird from a breeder when  it was a few weeks old, Dusty spent 13 years with Hank in Delray Beach where Protzmann grew up and owned a water sports rental business. The duo has spent the last eight years in Greenwich. 

When on rescue boat jet ski, Dusty grabs on with his claws and holds on with the grit of an old salt.

Protzmann and Dusty have been friends with Osprey Sea Kayaks owners Sam and Carl Ladd for years and winged it over to Westport when invited to join the safety crew. Osprey Sea Kayaks and The Westport River Watershed Alliance organized the event.

“He’s our safety bird,” says Sam Ladd. “He’s an adventure parrot.”

The History Boys

The History Boys
Play by Alan Bennett
Directed by: Scott Edmiston
Set, Janie E. Howland. Costumes, Gail Astrid Buckley. Lights, Karen Perlow. Music and sound, Dewey Dellay.
Presented by: SpeakEasy Stage Company.
At: Boston Center for the Arts, Roberts Studio Theatre, through June 22.
Tickets, $51-54, 617-933-8600, bostontheatrescene.com

We’re living in a roiling sea of interests competing for our time and allegiance. What will help us get on in life, a deep understanding of our cultural history or the ability to reduce it to superficial sound bytes?

The question is posed, and not necessarily answered, by a rambunctious and touching SpeakEasy Stage production of ‘The History Boys,’ recently extended till June 22, at the Roberts Studio Theater in the Calderwood Pavilion.

The story unfolds in a working class boys’ school in 1984 Sheffield England. An eccentric professor, Hector, played by Bob Colonna, is a gray-bearded Socrates in a tweed jacket. "All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use," he says. The scenes of him careening between poetry, popular song, and exuberant skits to tease out lessons in history and culture to his class of eight students are filled with intelligence and a jaunty Python-esque imagination.

Tom Irwin, a young professor, is hired by the fatuous headmaster to improve the boys’ chances of being accepted at famed Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Irwin, played by Chris Thorn, encourages the boys to build their college entrance exams with froth and the reason of a sophist. They’ve been taught to write with a stone mason’s skill, laying foundation and layering point after point, “Booooring”, says Irwin.

"History nowadays is not a matter of conviction," he says. "It’s a performance." He encourages them to find the Fox News versions of their essays and abandon their training to search for historical perspective.

The eight boys are the stuff of the melting pot that is working class England. The dialogue between them underscores their wavering loyalties as they decide which of their teachers represents their best way to succeed. Dan Whelton as alpha male Dakin and Karl Baker Olson as sensitive gay student Posner are standouts. Olson’s singing of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” and recitation of Thomas Hardy’s "Drummer Hodge” are unabashed expressions of unrequited love for another student.

Bennett’s main characters are complex and flawed. Hector’s habit of groping the boys he takes on motorcycle rides is certainly inappropriate. To his students, his behavior is a joke but there are consequences. Irwin misrepresents his credentials. Let’s just say the ending is not tidy.

Director Scott Edmiston and sound designer Dewey Dellay pull out the stops and use music, singing and lively dance routines that look choreographed for jolly soccer players as transitions between scenes.

History has not been crowded out of prime time in the British public education system, at least not in the 1984 England we see here. When is the last time your play program included two pages filled with over two dozen literary, historical, and pop culture references that will appear in the play? When is the last time you heard the names of Gracie Fields and Piero della Francesca (via T.S. Eliot) bandied about in any kind of play? No matter which way these boys write their exams, Hector’s made sure they know their history.

And I’ll bet my laptop that several references to the Dissolution of Monasteries, the destruction of 800 monastic libraries in the mid-1500s that represented a cultural and educational loss, is an echo of what playwright Alan Bennett wonders about in today’s era in which ‘history’ seems to mean last week.

We’re living in a sea of change. So many of our traditions, ways of thinking and living are becoming artifacts of history, replaced by fresh ideas, concepts, and market forces. But is newer better? The History Boys aren’t the only ones who have to decide. We have to do it every day.

Re-Build New Orleans with a wiggle and your wallet

You can take the girl out of Louisiana but not the Louisiana out of the girl. It’s been 27 years since Rebecca Wilson left behind the magnolias, festivals, and gumbo, but her soft Louisiana accent remains. Wilson grew up in a culture in which music and dancing were akin to eating and breathing.

For as long as she can remember, just about anything worth celebrating was done to music. Weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, church events, births, and a few other things best left unmentioned. In New Orleans, tears were shed when someone died but the trip to the local cemetery might have been made with the assistance of a bumptious brass band. Nothing, not even death, could muffle the music or deter the spirit there.

That is until Katrina, an unwelcome guest that barged into New Orleans with mayhem in mind. The hurricane wreaked havoc on a city, a culture, and a musical heritage. We saw photos and video of the devastation, people holding on for dear life on their rooftops, then the aftermath of displacement and despair.

It was by far the costliest hurricane to strike the United States - at least 81 billion dollars in property damage. One in 25 people in New Orleans are homeless, double pre-Katrina statistics. FEMA still pops up in the news as do stories of inability, perhaps incompetence and indifference, in rebuilding the hardest hit wards of New Orleans.

The storm swallowed the most vulnerable parts of New Orleans then puked them out in a mass of fetid muck, wooden debris, and sodden dreams. Along with livelihoods, homes, and neighborhoods, Katrina tore at the heart of New Orleans - the music scene. Fats Domino lost his home in the ninth ward and everything in it, including his Steinway piano. Irma Thomas lost her home and her nightclub was a shambles. Marva Wright lost her wedding rings, her mother’s photographs, and the home which housed them. The list goes on.

Wilson’s a dancin’ girl. The sound of funky blues, zydeco, or Cajun music gets her looking for the closest piece of real estate she can find to dance to the music. She’s been known to pull off the road to haul her companion from the car, turn the car radio up to ten, and dance to her heart’s content.

The still-unsettled future of New Orleans gnaws at her. A Mardi Gras party at Ryles in February jolted her into action. “There were three different bands playing various types of music that originated in New Orleans. All that joie de vivre came from the love of all things New Orleans – the music, the outlandish celebration of Mardi Gras, the let-the-good-times-roll spirit, among others.  I felt a pang of sadness at what a treasure New Orleans is and how it’s struggling to fully recover and get its mojo back.”

“I’ve attended the benefits organized by New Orleans musicians. Their sadness is palpable,” she said. “Many shed tears as they performed. They told of losing prized instruments, music awards, and their sense of community.” Money, always tight for musicians, is scarce, and many have yet to rebuild. Their community, once close, is now spread over several states.

From her frequent visits to New Orleans, Wilson knows the devastation was widespread and that musicians and the poor weren’t the only ones to be displaced. “A couple of middle class neighborhoods were hit hard too.  My niece has friends who lost everything, because everything they had was tied up in their homes.  Some people have established lives for themselves in other parts of the country, but many simply can’t go home because there’s no home to go back to.  With no or not enough money from their insurance companies and in many cases no way to reinsure their homes, they’re stuck in limbo,” she says.

A successful interior design consultant, Wilson is a self-starter. She believes the plight of New Orleans has dropped off the radar screen. She intends to do something about that.

Wilson is the point person for an October fund-raiser “Help Re-Build New Orleans.” All money raised, after event expenses, will go directly to Common Ground Relief to be used specifically to repair and rebuild housing in the areas of New Orleans hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina.

“I want to capture the musical heritage of New Orleans for people who want to help and to remind people what’s at stake.” she says. Two local bands, Slippery Sneakers and The Chili Brothers, will perform a mix of New Orleans style funk, blues and zydeco.

New Orleans has given the country much. If you've ever shuffled your feet, taken your love in your arms, and just felt the cares of the world lift momentarily from your shoulders as you've listened to The Big Easy’s music, it is time for you to give something back.

Here’s where to start: http://www.rebuildneworleans.net/

New Orleans photo credits:  Areas in New Orleans still suffering from the effects of Katrina
photographed in January, 2008 by Dr. N.C. Briggs and D. Brower