pt at large

Boston Marathon Bomber: Last Stand In My Home Town?

Friday, April 26, 2012

 

 

Watertown, MA
Friday, April 19, 2013
3:00 PM

2:33 AM.  Who the hell is calling at this hour?

"This is Detective Connors of the Watertown Police Department. There is an active incident in Watertown right now. Chief Deveaux is asking all East Watertown residents to remain in their houses. If you see or hear anything suspicious please call 617-972-6500."

Now it's personal. One of the Boston Marathon bombers is apparently holed up in a house a mile and half from my home in Watertown. Near one of my favorite restaurants. Near the place I get my car washed. Right off Arsenal Street, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Watertown.

Governor Deval Patrick asked people who live in the entire city of Boston, as well as the nearby communities of Watertown, Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge, to “shelter in place” — stay inside and not open their doors to anyone, except police with proper identification. That’s over a million people.

Now it's personal. I set my home alarm. For the first time in my life I do not feel secure in my own home. An act of terror rocked the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, Patriots' Day. Improbably, the younger of the two bombers identified by the FBI may be making his last stand in an area I drive by everyday. At this moment, he could be on foot in the shadows, like a cornered rat, looking for another refuge. In the semi consciousness of sleep, I register every noise. If I cannot automatically classify it, I wheel out of bed and peek through the shade. I am on edge.

Late last night, the two bombers highjacked an SUV at a 7-Eleven, shot and killed an MIT police officer as he sat in his car,  and led police on a bloody shootout as the SUV raced down a local streets. Hundreds of rounds were fired. One of the bombers, the older brother, was killed in the chase. His younger brother is in hiding in Watertown, my hometown for over 40 years. I recognize every landmark in the background as CNN engages in nonstop coverage. My hometown is a giant televised crime scene. This is surreal.

Hundreds if not thousands of state, local, and federal law enforcement agents of every stripe are forming a thick collar around that neighborhood a mile away. The street outside my door, normally buzzing with UPS trucks, neighbors driving or walking to and fro, and teenagers heading for Victory Field, is empty. Businesses, schools, the public transportation system of buses and subways – closed.  A “Shelter in place” advisory to all. Unprecedented.

Now it's personal. Since about 2:45 PM on Monday, I realized the Boston Marathon would never be the same. As of 2:33 AM, my tiny, under the radar, unassuming, adopted hometown is in the shadow of that horrible act.

Terror used to be abstract. It happened somewhere else. New York City on September 11, Oklahoma City in 1995, and now Boston. The scene of Patriot’s Day carnage will not disappear. We will still fill Fenway Park and the TD Garden and Gillette Stadium and cheer for our hometown teams. Yes, and run in the marathon.

After Monday, it will be more than a city crazy about its sports teams and traditions. It will be an act of defiance.

About to Spring

Watertown, MA
April 11, 2013

One of these days, it’s gonna happen. You’ll walk outside and the whole world will have turned green. And yellow, red, purple, violet, and just about every color in the Crayola box.

At the moment, Spring is in that awkward pre-teen stage. The cheery songs of the early arriving robins fall on deaf ears of dormant shrubs and trees. The predominant color scheme is drab. Brown leaves lie in windblown piles against fences and house foundations. Ribbons of road sand, dumped by the ton from those huge yellow trucks, line the edges of every street in my neighborhood.

The storm troops of spring - snow drops, crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths and their cousins have pushed up and somehow survived temperatures down to the thirties since the official opening of Spring in March. They’re pretty perky. They know what you and I know. Spring is just around the corner.

Some day in the next two weeks, Nature’s hormones will kick in big time. Spring, the kind with exploding forsythia, day lilies, daffodils and tulips, will emerge with the awkward grace of a teenager, with tons of energy and vitality to burn.  

In the meantime, the flora in my little neighborhood is marking time.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

My iPhone: A Lesson In Humility

My iPhone5 is smarter than I am. Exponentially. The first time it rang, I didn’t know how to answer the call. The salesman in the Verizon store smiled, flicked his finger over an icon and said, “Put it up to your ear and talk.”

It knows how to get directions from where I am to where I want to go. It knows where to find the nearest pizza shop, Thai restaurant, gas station and where the nearest theater playing “The Sessions” is located. There’s a ton more it can do. All I have to do is figure it out.  Considering the fact that iPhone-istas say that there’s enough horsepower in an iPhone to have sent the first rocket to the moon, that seems to be a steep learning curve.

Until last week I was the master of my own universe. I could program my DVR, navigate the clicker to play video, DVD, or even old VHS tapes. I could program my microwave to cook whatever I deposited onto the carousel. I could whip out my little two-year-old clamshell LG flip phone, send texts, take a photo now and then, set alarms, and effortlessly make and receive phone calls, which was what I thought was the primary purpose of a cell phone.

Driving along in my car last week, my little phone rang – I pressed the button on the steering wheel to answer. Nothing. Frantic digging around in pockets ensued. I headed to my dealership.  Surely they could make my phone work again.


“The Bluetooth function in your phone has died,” the service tech explained after punching in some numbers on the console and trying to revive my poor little artifact. In the next few seconds, he whipped out his iPhone, fiddled with the console and BAM, his iPhone showed up on my digital console.

“You need one of these,” he grinned.

My friend Christopher, one of many who’ve been lobbying for me to get an iPhone, was thrilled to take me to the Verizon store. An hour after perusing the merchandise, my snappy new iPhone was in my pocket. It chirps, bongs and plays a cool little piano riff, depending on whether I’m receiving a text message, email, or phone call.

Responding to a text is comical. A caveman using a chisel on a smooth piece of bedrock could hammer out a short message faster and more accurately than I. My forefinger is useless at homing in on the letter I want to use. For every correct letter I manage there are two or three I delete. I regularly throw my hands up in utter frustration. This is progress?

Then Christopher tells me about Siri.

When I miraculously learn how to find her, she coos in a soft voice, “How can I help you?” 

He points out the microphone icon, and says,  “Tell her whether you want to send an email or text message to someone in your address book, and tell her whatever punctuation you want and where you want it.”

Siri and I have a moment.

Dear Siri comma I feel like a dope using this phone period It takes me more time to use the keyboard to write a text message than it took Gutenberg to invent the printing press period The only App I can use with utter confidence is the Clock period. Forget the camera period. The shutter button is so sensitive it takes me several tries to make a decent photo that includes a person’s head period And what about the keyboard question mark Can’t you make a larger one so I can hit the right letter every single time question mark I could mail a letter and get a response faster than how it’s going now period. I am aware that the so-called interfaces on the phone are said to be intuitive period Hah explanation mark All men may have been created equal but that does not include equal distribution of intuition period Trust me on this period I couldn’t find my way out of a digital paper bag exclamation point And another thing period Can’t you give a guy more time to compose a message before you say quote ready to send your message  unquote question mark Other than that comma this device comma notice I said device comma nobody calls them phones any more comma might over time comma and we are talking geological time frames here comma still prove to be the cool device that people rave about in commercials during the Super Bowl period By the way comma you have any idea where I could score a good seat for next year’s game question mark smiley face

Photo taken, after several miserable attempts to get the whole phone in the frame, by me with my trigger finger happy iPhone.

Six Degrees of Miss Universe

A message from SCOMU, “Sixth Cousin of Miss Universe,” aka pt at large

I am basking in the refracted light of Miss Universe, Olivia Culpo. Ahem, Cousin Olivia to me. The fact that she's six times removed makes no difference. Hey, the sun is 93 million miles away and we feel its radiant heat, don't we?

If you’re one of those people who count cards while playing bridge or poker, it might help you follow this. I am not a card counter or scrabble whiz. It took a serious tutorial from my fourth cousin Cris to get a grip on the story.

My great grandfather, John Sutty (originally Sciutto, probably respelled Sutty in Ellis Island) married Sarah Sottile. They had three daughters, my great aunts Edith and Zeta, and my grandmother Lena Sutty.

John Sutty had a sister, also named Lena, who married Augustus Formento. They had three daughters - Elizabeth, Alma, and Millie, who married Peter Culpo (this is where the trail heats up).

Millie and Peter Culpo had one son, John Culpo, my fourth cousin. John, an accomplished accordionist, married Madeleine Cantarella, founder and Artistic Director of The Albany/Berkshire Ballet.

John and Madeleine Culpo had six children - John, Peter, Lisa, Christopher, Mark and Paul, who would be my fifth cousins. Peter is the father of our newly crowned Miss Universe - Taaa daaaa, my sixth cousin.

Let’s go deep here. Miss Universe Olivia Culpo is my great grandfather’s sister’s daughter’s son’s son’s daughter.  

A mighty shout out to my source, fourth cousin Cris Cristiano Raymond - my great grandfather's sister's daughter's daughter… Alma’s daughter. Are you still with me?

Cris reports that Olivia Culpo's dad Peter signed a recent email “FOMU”. During Olivia's reign, Cris has allowed that I might consider signing my name SCOMU.

It would be foolhardy to reject such an opportunity.
SCOMU

Upon Reading Funny Stuff In The Middle Of The Night

Don’t plan on reading "Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: 40 Years of Funny Stuff" if you happen to be sleeping with someone. By the time you’re halfway through one of his short essays, “Corrections” for example, you will have guffawed awake your (fill in one) girlfriend, wife, husband, boyfriend, family dog, children in the next room, who will probably not share your hilarity since it is 3:20 AM, an hour customarily reserved for sound repose.

You will quite possibly be greeted with sullen stares at the hour of normal reveille. Citing Trillin as a master of dry, urbane, witty humor who should be on any intelligent reader’s list won’t get much traction from someone you've deprived of sleep. You will likely discover that your copy of said book has gone missing by nightfall.

It’s hard to believe a guy could have a writing voice so damn funny, slyly literate, and keep it going for forty years. His ‘stuff’ has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The New York Times, and a bunch of books. Ordinarily when you see a list like this, you’re thinking, well those are high falutin’ places, he’s probably pretty stuffy. Wrong.

There are nearly two hundred bite sized essays and short zippy poems in the twenty sections of Trillin's Funny Stuff– a few categories:

“The Media – Liberal Elite and Otherwise,” “Tales Of A Clean Plate Ranger” (figure that one out), “High Society and Just Plain Rich People,” “Twenty Years Of Pols – One Poem Each,” “Family Matters,” “Beasts Of The Field, Fish Of The Sea, And Chiggers In The Tall Grass,” “English And Some Languages I Don’t Speak,” and “Foreigners.”

Ol’ Calvin can elevate everyday stuff into hilarity that makes you laugh out loud. A few titles: “People In Charge,” “Chicken A La King,” The Italian West Indies,” “Thoughts On Power Neck Wear,” “Economics, With Power Steering,” “Voodoo Economics Up Close,” “Social Questions From Aunt Rosie,” “T.S. Eliot And Me,” “Slip Covers Just Bloom In The Spring, Tra La,” “Holistic Heuristics,” “Killer Bagels,” “Molly and the V Chip,” “Losing China,” … the list goes on.

There are other authors I could add to this DNR (Do Not Read In The Middle Of The Night) list. Billy Collins comes to mind in the poetry department. I’m sure you have a list of your own books that, if read during the hours in which you’re supposed to be collecting REMs, can cause relational distress.

Remedies might include slipping down to the den or garage (where it’s likely your copy has been hidden) when you have the urge to read such books as a dark of night diversion. I could suggest that you never crack open Trillin’s book but caveat emptor. Once you do, it will be too late.

PS If you have doubt about Trillin's sense of humor, watch the clip of Calvin Trillin on The Daily Show. (If I were clever enough, I'd write a poem about it).

 

John Fitch, Tom Conry: RIP

John Fitch, legendary race car driver, died on October 31. I remember watching him recklessly tear around the the 1.5 mile Lime Rock, CT race track way back in the 1960s. Ringleader Tom Conry at the wheel, we would drive down from Pittsfield on summery Saturday mornings to watch the spectacle. "The Red Protector of the People's Goods," Conry's name for the battered Coleman cooler with plenty of miles on its odometer, stuffed with beer and sandwiches, was wedged in the back seat.

We'd sit on the hillside overlooking the start area, one of the S turns and a straightaway, where we were guaranteed to see lots of action, flying gravel, spin outs, and contentious maneuvering on the SCCA race track. We were young Walter Mittys, imagining ourselves buckled in and goggled up, slip streaming inches behind a competitor, executing perfect four wheel drifts around the turns, and gunning our engines to the breaking point. College kids with our whole lives stretching out before us, we had no clue about the S curves and straightaways ahead that we'd speed through or brake for or spin out of.

There were plenty of races when the hard-charging John Fitch (1917-2012) was a "DNF", Did Not Finish. This year Tom Conry became a DNF. Conry was the only person with the same bright memories of those sun soaked, beery, ham and cheese, carefree afternoons on the hillside, the only one with whom I could relive those moments of watching low-slung race cars of every dimension and class, engines whining, clouds of grey/blue smoke jetting from exhaust pipes when the drivers pushed the pedal to the metal or billowing from engine compartments when they "blew" it.

Conry's gone. I'm still here. Somewhere this summer there'll be another bunch of college kids sitting on that hillside under giant blue skies.Their own S turns and straightaways are ahead of them. I still wish I could dig my hand into the icy 'red protector,' pull out a cold Budweiser, and share a John Fitch story with him.

Photo by David G. Connor

On My Teacher's Shoulders: A Magical Evening

On My Teacher's Shoulders Book/Web site Launch Party, Pierce School, November 16, 2012

To read Jeff's account of this magical event http://kellylowenstein.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/sources-of-joy-on-my-teachers-shoulder-launch-event/

More photos to follow. Photos below by Josh Krancer, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein's cousin who attended Brookline High School with him. More photos at https://picasaweb.google.com/chriscolinmcardle/OnMyTeacherSShouldersBookLaunch?authkey=Gv1sRgCPi4nLy4suT-Tw&feat=email

Thirteen years after Jeff first proposed the writing the book, tonight's  On My Teacher's Shoulders book launch party was a confluence of history, comaraderie, connections, and fulfillment. Over 60 people who've known Jeff from Pierce School, Brookline High School and his teaching days in Newton and Facing History and who've known me from my 34 years at Pierce, including lots of former students and their parents, were in the audience. Attendees like Eran Lobel, class of 1977, whom I hadn't seen in decades, saw the event advertised on Jeff's Facebook page and showed up with a big smile on his face.

The 45 minutes of socializing before the Jeff began the readings inside the auditorium felt like a reunion as people renewed friendships and met others whom they'd heard about but never met in person.

Jeff, using a laptop/LCD projector set up by my friend Christopher Huggins. read key passages and showed photos all the way back to his third grade performance in Peter Pan, a play written for his class and my fourth grade class by my student teacher Jon Oliver. Third grade teacher Marti Connolly (in the audience!) and I made our stage debuts as Peter Pan and Captain Hook that day. On Jeff's cue, I reprised my Captain Hook song, duplicating, as Jeff wrote in the book, "in an off-key bass voice  that more than made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in technique and talent."

I contributed three readings that marked the three time frames around which Jeff constructed the book. I felt right at home in the same auditorium in which I'd witnessed hundreds of assemblies and school plays since the school opened in 1973.

The whole night felt magical, as if Peter Pan had again entered a window and uttered, "All you need is faith and trust... and a little bit of pixie dust!"

Tonight, thanks to Jeff, there was enough of each to go around.

Jeff's brother, award-winning Chigago based photographer Jon Lowenstein, photographs the event; Jeff greets his 94 year-old Brookline High School American History teacher Mr. Bradford Wright.

Jeff's mother, Alice Lowenstein; Jeff and high school friend Chris Yoder.

Reverend Thomas and Mrs. Betty Watson, friends of Alice Lowenstein; Jon Lowenstein with Oliver Fowlkes, father of one of my former students.

Paul's colleagues Pat Jessico, Debbie D'Amico, Barbara Widett, Elly Finkel, pt; Jon Lowenstein and Jeff.

Ronah Nansubuga (wife of Jeff's friend James DeAngelo), James' and Ronah's son Enrico, Jon Lowenstein, Edgar Howe, childhood friend of Jeff's; pt and Jeff at end of presentation.

Scene at social gathering in Pierce School before the presentation; Jeff presents in the Pierce School auditorium (audio visual coordinator Christopher Huggins facing podium in light blue shirt).

 

 

 

On My Teacher's Shoulders: From Teacher to Mentor to Friend

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein was my fourth grade student at the Pierce School in Brookline, MA, in 1974. He's stayed in touch with me since the day he 'graduated' from 4T. Our connection has transformed from teacher/student, to mentor/mentee, to a rich and unique friendship. We've taken turns standing on each other's shoulders as we forge new paths in our lives. I keep learning from him as he embraces challenges of fatherhood, career changes, and his current position as Database and Investigative Editor at Hoy, the Chicago Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper. He has cheered me on as I ventured into the world of blogging and writing.

“Are you still in touch with your students,” people ask when I tell them I taught for 34 years before retiring in 2004.
“Well, there’s Jeff Kelly Lowenstein,” I reply, “I’ve been talking to him for about 40 years.”

Having a friendship that’s been evolving for forty years is pretty impressive. When you consider it began in 1974 when Jeff Kelly Lowenstein was a student in my fourth grade class at the John R. Pierce School in Brookline it closes in on Ripley’s "Believe It Or Not" territory.

It’s a story of amazing coincidences. In 2000, I submitted a commentary to WBUR, a local NPR affiliate, on a teacher’s thoughts about his first day with his new students.

“We’re going to pair your commentary with another one submitted by a man from Brookline who wrote about taking his son to his first day of second grade,” the producer told me. That father turned out to be Jeff! Neither of us knew the other had submitted stories. The producers loved the angle. “You could write a book about this,” they said.

Jeff had already started. This Friday, he and his wife are heading to Boston for a book/web site launch of “On My Teachers Shoulders,” Jeff’s story of three phases of our history that resonate most deeply with him.

PT and Jeff, President of the Dart Society, at Dart Society Fund Raiser in New York City, May 17, 2012

Teachers take as an article of faith that we make a difference in our student’s lives. When we’re on our game, we teach content, critical thinking skills, instill values and citizenship, starting with how to get along with others in our classroom. A student writing a book about the positive impact a teacher has had upon him? We dream about stuff like this.

In 1999, Jeff first broached the idea of writing a book. He was in the midst of a teaching career himself, was developing his writing chops, and wanted me to write sections with him. I didn’t think I had the skill to do it. Jeff persevered. Thirteen years later, he’s wrapped it up – and I’ve contributed.

A cruel twist of fate turned out to become the defining moment in our friendship. His mother nearly died in a terrible automobile accident in 1986. By 1987, Jeff had graduated from Stanford University and was helping his mom through the arduous task of recovery. He walked over to the familiar territory of the Pierce School where he’d grown up –from kindergarten to Grade 8.  The principal, realizing Jeff needed TLC himself, hired him to run the recess program. Our teaching staff embraced him.

Jeff, who’d visited me often in the years since he left fourth grade, surprised me one day. “Mr. Tamburello, I’d like to spend time back in 4T, would you let me come up and teach with you?” I hesitated. He held me in high regard and I was wary of toppling from the pedestal on which I thought he held me. Saying yes was the smartest thing I ever did.

Jeff was a natural. Some days I just shook my head and grinned. Images of the little kid with the 1970’s bowl haircut blinked like a neon light, alternating with my view of the young man leading the lively debate about King George III with our fourth graders.

We were having fun. Gradually, “Mr. Tamburello” became “Paul.” Between 1987 and 1989, telling Jeff about my academic, social, and emotional goals for my students and answering Jeff’s river of questions, I realized how much I’d learned in the first half of my career. And watching Jeff’s inclusive style of teaching reminded me of the importance of making each student feel that he or she was “seen.”

Since then, I’ve attended his wedding, talked “shop” with him during his 15 year teaching career, listened to him reflect on his role as husband and father, heard him read commentaries on NPR, speak in NYC as the president of the Dart Society, admired his work at The Chicago Reporter, and now follow his career as the Database and Investigative Editor at Hoy, the Chicago Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper. Jeff’s become my role model for taking on new challenges.

In “On My Teacher’s Shoulders,” Jeff, charts his trajectory with me from teacher/student, to mentor/mentee, to a lifelong friendship. The web site/book launch party is taking place Friday, November 16, in the auditorium of Pierce School. Some of Jeff’s classmates, my former students (some in their late forties!), and my former colleagues will be there. I’ve called Jeff Kelly Lowenstein my “Walking Talking Lifetime Achievement Award.” I’ll get to say it again this Friday. It never gets old.

People interested in reading Jeff Kelly Lowenstein’s book can visit http://www.onmyteachersshoulders.com

From Student to Colleague to Friend: 39 Years and Counting

This is an incomparable gift - a former student writes a book about his connection with me for nearly 40 years.

Read the back story here
http://kellylowenstein.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/sources-of-joy-the-crowd-starts-to-gather-for-the-book-launch-event/

More news about the November 16 event to follow. For a teacher, it doesn't get any better than this.

Judi Suzanne Tamburello Patti: A Tribute

Judi Suzanne Tamburello Patti
October 18, 1943- July 23, 2004
A tribute from a brother to a sister on her birthday, originally written days after her death in 2004.

My sister took in a shallow breath and exhaled. Pockets of oxygen made faint crackling noises as they escaped from her lungs, life giving oxygen no longer pulsing through her blood vessels. Outside, a summer breeze rustled through the fully foliated trees. Birds, airplanes, the cars passing by in the street, all continued their daily passages. Inside the room, silence. Deep eerie silence. As water escapes through cupped hands, something physical was escaping the room. In one breath, my sister became an abstraction, a memory. Gone. Dead.

Hoping for recovery had not been a choice. The cancerous meningioma that grew in her skull, mouth, and neck was choking the life out of her. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink. She had been horribly disfigured by three massive cranial operations. She had run out of options.

“Under the surface,” as her doctor explained it, with the effects of pain killing morphine during her final days, she did the only thing she knew how to do, the thing she’d been doing since 1977 when she was told that she had a voracious fibrous tumor growing in her cranium, a tumor that could not be excised thoroughly, and would likely recur to bid for her life. She fought.

What kind of arsenal do you need to fight death? Hope, faith, and love for others help. When all else fails, you can even try denial.  Over the years, Judi tried them all. Above all else, she lived for others.

A writer of sympathy and congratulatory notes, a sender of flowers, an attendant at funerals and wakes, she had love to burn. As a justice of the peace, she married hundreds of couples. Her nuptial service was invariably personalized. She’d use a crystal of information she’d learned from the couple as she interviewed them before the ceremony then use her wedding ceremony as a setting in which to place it. She was, above all, a people person.  Ministering to people’s pain, acknowledging their joys, was a way of life for her. She wasn’t giving it up without a struggle.

Over 27 years, the tumor knocked three times. She slammed the door shut three times. It knocked again this spring, then shoved with a force that she couldn’t overcome. “The trajectory is certain,” her doctor said, “maybe 24 to 72 hours.” Against the grain of every life-affirming notion I’ve ever held, I shoved too. I wished she would die. Nothing in my life had ever made so much and so little sense.

Her two sons, care givers, several close friends and I witnessed her teeter on the edge of eternity several times before surrendering. We sped past Dr. Kubler-Ross’s five stages of dealing with death and invented our own. We told funny stories about my sister’s idiosyncrasies, joked about one of her oft used quotes, “I’m fine,” that she uttered whether after major surgery or major triumphs, and talked directly to her, remembering her doctor’s comment that although she was not conscious, she could likely hear what was going on around her. Our laughter, an antidote to sharing a room with the specter of mortality, helped us cope with our own inability to stay within the red zone of death for days at a time.

In an act of reverse midwifery at life’s end, we even cheered her along her labor of exit as she struggled to breathe and let go of her moorings to life. “Go see dad, he’ll be so glad to see you.” Encouraging your sister to die? There is no user’s manual for witnessing death.

Over a period of six days at my sister’s bedside, the polarities of humanity- life and death, joy and fear, the known and the unknown, converged toward a celestial destination. One lovely July afternoon, my sister crossed the ultimate latitude, leaving us behind, and joined others over the horizon. We waved goodbye with relief and acceptance. And certainty that she was in a better place.

The gift my sister gave us is that we discovered we could survive in those extreme zones of contradictory feelings and emotional anguish. We used what she had used during her years of being indentured to pain and uncertainty, the comfort of one another’s love. She would have liked that.

Photo: Judi marrying my dear friends Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani in 1995.

VRBO: Vacation Rental By Owner: High Gain!

VRBO - the envelope please… High Gain!

As you can see from the comments on the first post, lots of readers of this blog have used VRBO and love it. Add me to the list.

My hosts are friendly and helpful, and my digs are as advertised - and charming. My apartment is spacious, clean, and the antique furniture and exposed brick walls  give it the look and feel of genteel New Orleans.

The bedroom features a huge sleigh bed, armoires and dressers, the kitchenette is small and efficient;  full bath has incidentals like additional soap, bandaids, and sundries under the sink basin; the large living room has paintings on the wall and comfortable furniture. The apartment is on second floor with a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Parking for one car and if you've been to New Orleans, you'll realize this is worth a bundle and saves you a serious parking hassle. The rental cost was competitive, a good value for your dollar!

The owner and her husband live in another apartment overlooking the courtyard and invited me for breakfast one morning. When I had a problem with the WiFi, the owner had her computer guru come the next moring and fixed the problem. In the meantime, she opened the other unit they rent (unrented af the time) and told me to use that space for WiFi.

Little touch of class -the basket containnig  a bottle of white wine, cheese and crackers in the fridge.

Governor Nicholls Street between Dauphine and Burgundy, is at the east side of the French Quarter, walking distance to Jackson Square and all the quirky and wonderful parts of the area.

This is a keeper. And VRBO has proven to be a good deal, not the risky business I had imagined.

Stairs lead to the apartment i rented on the second floor. The owner provides one space for your car in the courtyard - drive into the courtyard from the street. The living room is very comfortable - i realize that this photo doesnt show the exposed brick wall that is to the right of this photo.

The queen sized sleigh bed was very comfy, the bathroom clean as a whistle, marble sink counter top, antique light fixtures.

Microwave, toaster oven, refrigerator, all the utensils, pots and pans you need it you get the urge to cook; a spacious living room, kitchenette at one end, door to bedroom at other.

Keep your eyes open for wandering turtles.

A hot tub, in case the weather in New Orleans isnt steamy enough for you - and a lovely surprise, a basket with white wine, cheese and crackers in the fridge.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

VRBO: Vacation Rental By Owner - High Risk, High Gain?

Vacation Rental By Owner
High risk, high gain?

Time to get off the commercial hotel grid.  Not because I am particularly adventurous, more like I was between a rock and hard place. Once I got my airline reservations organized to attend Rising Tide 7: A Conference on the Future of New Orleans, all the hotels in the French Quarter were full or offered rates that Will and Kate could afford but not a rolling stone like pt at large.

Enter brainstorm. My friend Susaan reminded me that she and her husband Ricardo rent a portion of their farmhouse in Chile using VBRO.com  and airbnb.com.

How cool. Both these sites offer accommodations from spartan to luxurious, economical to extravagant. Want to rent a villa, a condo, a tiny apartment any place in the world? Look no further.

I typed New Orleans in the VRBO site and stopped when I read this.

The building on Governor Nicholls St. was erected in 1822 for a plantation owner for use as his townhouse on visits to the port city of New Orleans to sell his cotton. During the Civil War, this building served as one of three hospitals in the Quarter. The street name at that time was Rue de l'Hospital. The street name was later changed to honor Governor Francis T. Nicholls who was a Civil War general before being elected as governor of Louisiana.

The owners list two apartments: one a recently renovated slave quarter building, 2nd floor balcony overlooking a courtyard, bedroom with antique furniture, modern bath, living room, wifi, cable TV, and parking!

The other apartment: a modern unit with faux marble floors, tile bath, a Bonsai garden outside the door, living room, cable and wifi, comfy bedroom, and yes, parking.

I’ve stayed in French Quarter hotels a dozen times. I compare hotels on Orbitz or other sites and make my choice based on price and amenities. Each has been safe, clean, well run, some with continental breakfasts, all with helpful concierges. All were proven entities, long track records, and, well, commercial, which meant stable and reliable.

VBRO is another universe. Deal directly with the owner, hope that the descriptions of amenities is accurate, the photos are up to date, and the owner is friendly and wants your stay to be so good that you’ll come back.

So, loyal readers, I’ll find out tomorrow whether this new option about staying in New Orleans is a keeper.

By the way, anyone out there had a VRBO or airbnb experience you’d like to share?

Bob Edwards Weekend: The Art of the Conversational Interview

Flash:

Talk show hosts, smart and quick on their feet, can be a maddening bunch.They often ask good questions but, lord have mercy, don't allow their guests to answer without interrupting them with their own responses, or asking another question before the first has been answered. More than once, I've hollered "Let her (him) finish!" I've never hollered at Bob Edwards.

Bob Edwards is one of the best talk show hosts on the air. He's one of the few who is more focused on being interested than being interesting.

That's how he engineered a great discussion today between two Pulitzer prize winning political cartoonists, Ann Telnaes (Washington Post) and Matt Wuerker (Politico). Edwards' formula for Bob Edwards Weekend is simple. Ask a question, listen for an answer.

What makes a good political  cartoon? Is there anything off limits (as in religious topics)? Who is your audience? What place do political cartoons have in print and digital outlets? What spurred you on to enter the field?

Matt Wuerker and Ann Telnaes were as good at illustrating their thoughts with words as they are drawing them with pen and ink or animated  political cartoons. They were clearly enjoying the chance to talk about their craft.

Edwards paces the show with an easy grace, doesn't steer with a heavy hand, is not spooked by an occasional silence as a guest contemplates a response, and he chuckles softly when something strikes him as humorous.

If you missed this week's  "Bob Edwards Weekend" show, click http://www.bobedwardsradio.com to find archive of his shows.

A Birthday Salute To My Editors

A Birthday Salute To My Editors

A writer should be so lucky…two editors to remind him that nouns and verbs need to agree, that even spell check cant tell the difference between of and off, that enthusiasm is good but so is sequence and sufficient detail.

When it comes to my writing, Susaan Straus and Rebecca Wilson tell it like it is… candid, concise, and clear. They’re interested in content and style and don’t worry that panning what I think is a fabulous paragraph will hurt my tender feelings. That is an enormous gift to a writer.

Both of them recently celebrated their birthdays. Big time Happy Birthday wishes from a grateful writer.

The Great Grandmother Of All Used Book Fairs: The 51st Annual Westport Friends Meeting (Quaker) Used Book Fair

July 14, 2012: Westport Friends Annual Used Book Fair

Westport Friends Meeting, 
938 Main Road
, Westport, MA 02790

This is a mystery as inexplicable as the precise timing of the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano every year.

At 10:45 AM on July 14, there are a few handfuls of people milling around the two yellow and white striped tents recently erected in front of the Westport Friends Meeting House. Ten minutes later, the two tents housing 20,000 books of fiction and non-fiction are surrounded by an elbow-to-elbow line of customers waiting to wade inside. Only a long band of yellow tape and red white and blue pennants lies between them and the objects of their desire.

The antsy customers lean over as far as they can to catch a glimpse of the titles of books stacked neatly on the wooden tables a few tantalizing feet away.

With the same inner certainty the swallows time their return, these shoppers know that at exactly 11 AM, a whistle will pierce the air, the tape will be dropped, and the wild rumpus will begin.

By noon, thousands of these hard cover and softcover books that have been donated to the Westport Friends Meeting will have been carted away in shopping bags, cartons, and the occasional suitcase. The books will remain under the tents for about ten days. After Sunday,the honor system prevails. A coffee can set on the tables is emptied at the end of the day by someone from the parsonage access the street.

How fitting. “The parsonage had a leaky roof and our first used book fair was to make enough money to pay for a new roof, “ Dr. Stuart Kirkady says. Now retired, Dr. Kirkady ran his highly regarded family medicine practice in Westport and was a mainstay of the Friends Meeting. He’s been a fixture at just about every one of the previous 50 Book Fairs.

Although proprietary about their collecting, book seekers often break their silent scanning when the mood strikes them.

“I don’t know whether this should be labeled fiction or non-fiction,” a woman laughs, holding up a copy of Maureen Dowd’s “Are Men Necessary?” Several women get a charge out of that then keep raking through books.

Despite the upsurge in all ages of readers toting Kindles, there’s still a huge market for books in paper.

“I’ve been reading since I was four years old,” Twenty-something Katie says, balancing a big brown carton under her arm.  “I live up in Berkley and work in a library in Middleboro. I’ll read some of these books and give others away to my reading friends,” she says as she lugs a carton around the fiction table. “I’ll sort through the carton when it’s full then come back for more!”

Kindles?

“No, I don’t read much on tablets, I really have to have paper in my hand. I also write for National Novel Writing Month and have submitted five stories so far!”

I’ll have to check in with her next year. Someday Katie’s name might be on one of these books on the table.

Ten-year-old Larissa from Westport is beaming. “This is the real one,” she says proudly, grasping a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 'Little Princess.' "The first one I read was a kid’s version. I listened to 'The Secret Garden' on tape but prefer reading real books.”

Larissa will enter Westport Middle School this fall. “My favorites are books about life and manners and growing up, I can spend all day in my room reading. I have one or two friends who talk abut books with me a lot.”

Larissa’s mom Lisa is fine with this. “The prices are crazy, “ she says. Their pile of books they have in their arms is a fraction of the cost of new titles.

And there’s Hannah from Warren, RI for her third year in row. She has a bigger budget from when I talked with her last year, $100 smackers. She had the foresight to bring a posse of helpers and a steamer sized suitcase to take home her loot and pray her mom will let her in the door. “This day is better than Christmas for me!” Hannah exults.

The huge wave of sales has abated around 12:30 and Book Fair Steering Committee Clerk Greg Marcello has a chance to sit down for a bite to eat.

“One development this year is we’re getting more donations of DVDs. Three years ago we had hardly and now have way more along with VHS and CDs. Lots of book dealers come here. We don’t allow them to preview anything but they’re patient, know what they’re looking for and find enough good deals to make it worth while for them."

"We don’t have the capacity to sort with that level of inspection with tens of thousands of books and we don’t know much about older titles,” Greg Marcello’s son Brendan says.

It consumes tons of hours to sort, categorize, label, box, and then organize the books for this annual sale. “Of our core membership of about 50, we have about 25 volunteers and 6 teenagers who’ve helped toting cartons from the shed to the tents and to the Macomber Meeting Hall (Better Books, digital and video) and the Meeting House (Children’s Books and 6 for $1 books),” Greg Marcello says. “It seems that church attendance across faiths has seen its numbers dwindle,” he says wistfully.

The bright light of the year was the emergence of volunteer Tristan Peirce. When Greg Marcello’s school administrator wife Melinda realized he needed a reliable and focused volunteer to head up the sorting process, she thought of student Tristan Peirce.

Although Tristan is not a Westport Meeting member, he emerged as the pivotal figure in this year’s organization, collection and sorting process “He sorted, priced, organized – did whatever was needed,” Book Fair Steering Committee Clerk Greg Marcello said.

“He was very shy. He’s become more comfortable talking with people, more engaging, was really good at organizing. Now he knows as much as I do about sorting, has learned more social skills, and is a smart down to earth, hard working kid.”

There are hundreds of used book fairs in New England every year. The Westport Friends Meeting organizes the great grandmother of them all.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

++++++++++++++++++

Dr.Stuart Kirkady relaxes before the opening whistle; Book Fair Steering Clerk Greg Marcello cashes out a customer with a huge cache of books.

51st Annual Westport Friends Meeting (Quaker) Used Book Fair PhotoEssay

Grounds of the Westport Friends Meeting House, 
938 Main Road, 
Westport, MA 02790

10:59 AM, the troops are ready to charge inside the tents as soon as volunteer Tristan Peirce blows the whistle at precisely 11 AM.

Anticipation builds in the minutes before 11 AM; one of the most relaxed is retired Westport family Dr. Stuart Kirkady, who had a hand in organizing the very first used book fair 51 years ago.

At precisely 11 AM the two tents, fiction and non-fiction, are mobbed with shoppers.

So many books,only two arms...

Most hardcover and  paperback books are marked at 10% of their original price, buying by the boxful is not unusual - neither is seeing someone overjoyed to find a book on their "most-wanted" list.

Book Fair Steering Committee Clerk Greg Marsello (left); star volunteer Tristan Peirce -"He must have catalogued 15,000 of the 20,000 books by himself," Marcello says as he hands Tristan Peirce the whistle to blow the official opening blast at 11 AM.            

Read on the grass or on the Meeting House steps

  

DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, digital stuff and Better Books in the Macomber Hall; childrens' books and 6 for $1 books in the Meeting House

Lisa and Larissa (middle and right) of Westport (see story); the food tent with home made goodies is a busy place.

John Pereira of Fall River - "I'm making memories with my grandson Andrew." In a couple of weeks, the cartons at right will begin to be filled for next year...the second Saturday of July - mark your calendar!

Three generations of volunteers

at the Westport Monthly Meeting of Friends

51st Annual Westport Friends Meeting (Quaker) Used Book Fair: Videos

Stories and other videos coming soon. Thanks to my pal Jon Alden who suggested taking video with my camera as well as snapping still shots.

Video 1

 

 10:55 AM July 14, 2012 Main Road, Westport, MA. The lull before the storm...book-lovers await the opening whistle. Books are generally marked at 10% of their list price and most of the hardcover and softcover books are in good to great condition. Shoppers will fill cartons with  Gutenberg treasure. Everyone will be happy. This is the Westport Friends main fund raiser of the year. Dr. Steward Kirkaldy, one of the prime movers of this fair from year one, recalls that the first fund raiser proceeds went to repair a leaky roof in the parsonage across the street!.

Video 2

 

10:57 AM July 14, 2012 Main Road, Westport, MA. The lull before the storm...book-lovers await the opening whistle. Books are generally marked at 10% of their list price and most of the hardcover and softcover books are in good to great condition. Shoppers will fill cartons with  Gutenberg treasure.

Video 3

 

10:59 AM July 14, 2012 Main Road, Westport, MA.
Greg Marsello, Book Fair Steering Committee Clerk, welcomes the crowd, explains location of each aspect of the fair - the fiction tent, the non-fiction tent, the Macomber Hall with DVDs, videos and CDs, the Meeting Hall filled with 6 for $1.00 books, the refreshment stand (as if anyone needed reminding). About five seconds after this video ends, young Tristan Peirce, "the hardest working volunteer of the year!" has the honor of blowing the whistle and the wild rumpus begins.

pt stories from 2011
http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/07/50th-annual-westport-quaker-meeting-used-book-fair-a-mighty-sale-1.html
http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/07/westport-quakers-awesome-50th-annual-used-book-fair-.html

Video 4

 

At precisely 11:00 AM, a shrill whistle pierces the air. Volunteer Tristan Peirce has done the honors. Other volunteers scurry to gather the yellow tape and red white and blue cordon around the two tents, fiction and non fiction, and, with whoops and hollers, the booklovers wade inside. Hard cover and soft cover booty, at least 20,000 books, stacked on tables with identifying genre signs will soon be picked over by discerning shoppers.
This is the Westport Friends Meeting (Quaker) annual fund raiser. The prices are ridiculously low, usually 10% of the original price. The Friends have priced them to SELL… it looks like the crowd is obliging.

 

Grums: Family Restaurant With Deep Roots in Westport MA

There are many reasons to head to Westport MA this summer: thousands head to the sandy stretches of Horseneck State Beach, some aim for high end restaurants like The Back Eddy, some for the laid back eateries on Main Road - Ten Cousins, Marguerite's, Village Pizza, and The Bittersweet Restaurant. Many of the locals and perennial summer residents head for Grums. It's sort of like walking in the back door of a friend's house and finding yourself in the kitchen. The practical menu is loaded with reasonably priced comfort food made from scratch from as many local sources as the owner can find.

Grums Family Restaurant
140 Charlotte White Road Extension
Westport, MA
Open 7 days: Mon –Wed 6 AM-2 PM, Thurs-Sun 6AM-8PM
508-636-0550

Friday July 6, 2012
12:30 PM

It’s no wonder that Grums Family Restaurant has a homey feel to it. Most of the family works here. Named after the grand matriarch of Kim Jagmin’s family, three generations are here during my visit for lunch. So are a local cop, a farmer, several retirees, and a family of three.

On today’s list of specials (there’s a hand printed list every day) – my choice is chowder and cakes. The clam chowder is New England style in a light milky broth, loaded with plenty of cubed potatoes and chunks of clams from local clam beds. The three deep fried golden clam cakes are breaded and filled with enough bits of clam to give authority to the trio.

Just about everything that comes out of the kitchen is made here from scratch, no cans or commercially prepared jars of the tartar sauce that arrives with my clam cakes. “The chicken soup is my grandmother’s recipe and the brown bread we serve is from a recipe I learned growing up in Westport,” Kim says.

After working for 17 and a half years at The Kozy Nook, a popular restaurant on Route 6 in Westport, Kim got the itch to own her own place. “I’ve always wanted to run a family restaurant but early on I wanted to spend time with my kids. Now that they’re older, I do because my two daughters work with me right here.”

Among the seven working at Grums today, there’s Kim, her daughters Kelsey 17, Katelyn 19, and her mother Joan. “Mom bakes pies, runs errands, preps food - she does whatever needs to be done at the moment,” Kim says.

“My mother used to work with Kim at the Kozy Nook,” says Stephanie, another young waitress. Kim’s dad may not be there physically but runs errands and helps from afar. This pretty much defines the idea of a family restaurant.

Photo: back row Kim, Joan, Betsy, Angela, Katelyn; front row Stephanie, Kelsey

“I actually see my family more now than I did before I opened. We all have busy lives, but my aunts and uncles and cousins come here to eat every two weeks or so. My aunt will be here Sunday morning,” Kim says.

“Grums” was the closest Kim’s brother could come to pronouncing “Grandma” when he was a toddler and the name stuck. Her photo is prominently displayed on the wall. From her fixed gaze, it appears not much got past her and is probably the only inspiration Kim needs to be sure everything is done just so.

“We are one big team,” Kim says. If you’ve been here more than once, Katelyn or Kelsey will recognize you and welcome you back. And every so often, Kim wipes her brow, pushes out the swinging door and heads from the kitchen to the serving area to chat up her customers.  

“We make a point of being an affordable restaurant. I work with what my customers want as much as I can. I had some customers who wanted Rhode Island Style Jonny Cakes so I went to Gray's Grist Mill on Adamsville Road in Westport, bought their stone milled flour and now we serve them.”

“They’re friendly but don’t overdo it,” longtime Westport resident Paul Maurice says, “they make sure you’re happy with your meal and let you eat it in peace.” Mr. Maurice knew Kim Jagmin from the Kozy Nook. When he heard she was taking a stab at running her own place, he became a regular. “It saves me 20 miles round trip and the food is excellent.”

This is not a job for the faint of heart, no matter how many family members pitch in to help. Grums is open 7 days a week, 365 days a year, except for five major holidays. Even when you’re chasing your dream, it’s a labor of love.

Westport needs an eatery like this. A restaurant has been here on Charlotte White Road for generations. Spooners was here for ages then within a succession of several years Virginia’s, TJs, Erica’s - and now Grums. That young family of three can eat here without breaking the bank. And if they’re like me, they’ll be back soon.

Grum’s first anniversary will be August 16, 2012. If family togetherness has anything to do with longevity and success, maybe this time is the charm.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

=++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kim Jagmin makes a "Specials" menu every day. "It depends on what I have in the kitchen and what I find at the markets," she says.

 
Sketches of daughters Katelyn and Kelsey; Kim and Kelsey behind the counter.

The restaurant is small enough to retain a friendly, family vibe. "One of the things I like best is when customers start talking to each other between tables whether they know each other or have come in for the first time," Katelyn says.

Horseneck Point Life Saving Station: Aids To Navigation

Horseneck Point Life Saving Station
241 East Beach Road
Westport MA

July 7, 2012

The Westport Fishermen’s Association’s summer exhibit at the recently restored Horseneck Point Life Saving Station features photos, antique instruments used for navigation and a terrific 4’ by 6’ diorama of the entrance to Westport Harbor. Guest speakers Chip Gillespie, Cukie Macomber and Tom Schmitt weighed in on the intricacies of maintaining government navigational aids, a history of Light Ships in the waters off Westport, and the making of a strikingly accurate diorama of Westport Harbor.

Chip Gillespie

Today’s opening reception covered all the waypoints of navigation: Chip Gillespie, a charter member of the Westport Fishermen’s Association since 1983, presented a concise history of aids to navigation gleaned from his years of service on 180’ Class C Buoy Tender in the Pacific. “There were about six tenders to service all of the government aids to navigation in the Pacific. We could service 10 or 12 a day when all went well,” he said.

Chip described the makeup of a sea buoy from its innards to the coat of paint on its surface and everything in between - batteries, buoyage systems, chain and anchor systems, energy supplies, types of auditory signals and the kinds of vessels that service the buoys.

The Buoy Tender uses a huge boom on the deck to hoist a buoy, makes a list of repairs needed and returns later with materials to complete the job. For time efficiency, the tender works on a cluster in the same area. By the time they’ve finished, they’ve done everything from replacing parts to scraping and painting. The junior man on the crew has to go inside the buoy and clean the gunk from its innards. Not great for the appetite.

The green buoy that marks the entrance to Buzzards Bay, formerly a huge Texas tower, is now 6’ wide, 20’ long and 6’ deep. It’s loaded with watertight battery packs, redundant systems to insure the light source does not extinguish, the light sensors that turn buoy light on and off, buoyancy compartments to keep it upright and sturdy chain bridles attached to a concrete block set in sea bed to keep it in place.

Cukie Macomber

Every New England town needs a storyteller like Carlton Davol Macomber, Jr.. Better known around town as Cukie, this 83-year-old charter member of the Westport Fishermen’s Association has a recall button in his brain with instant access to the history of Westport. He’s operated a welding business, been a sword fisherman, a ship’s captain, a volunteer fireman and lord know how many other occupations.

Today, using the WFA’s collection of black and white photos mounted on the wall, Cukie spoke about the history of light ships in Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds.

Early on, and before the use of government placed and serviced aids to navigation, the Light Ships were essential waypoints for vessel entering and exiting Vineyard Sound. Forget about loneliness. Life aboard a Light Ship could be perilous. One sank in a violent storm when its anchor became dislodged from its lashings on the bow and pierced it amidships as it rolled in the seaway. Another was cut in half by the sister ship of the Titanic when it homed in on its light and didn’t bother to alter course to avoid it. All hands were lost on both Light Ships.

Cukie recalled that MIT engineer Harold Edgerton used his newfangled invention of side sonar scanner to pinpoint the hull of one of these vessels after it was lost in 1944.

And when Buzzards Bay tower a Texas type tower was built for the entrance to Buzzards Bay, “I could see the flashes at night even though my house on Drift Road is four miles inland.”

In 1942, Cukie told of being caught in pea soup fog as he returned from a sword-fishing trip. After using dead reckoning to reach his estimated location for the light ship off Hen and Chickens, he was flabbergasted when he reached his waypoint and had no evidence of a Light Ship. After a nervous minute he was startled to hear the Light Ship’s foghorn blast astern of his vessel.

“When I talked to the old timers ashore, they said the fog couldn’t penetrate the fog and wind till I got past it, “ Cukie said. Live and learn.

 

WFA Exhibit hall and rebuilt Horseneck Point Life Saving Station on East Beach Road near Gooseberry Neck



Guests examine maps, dioramas, and antique navigation tools before the lectures begin

Executive Director Jennifer Gelinas welcomes the guests

Chip Gillespie explains the makeup of aids to navigation

to interested listeners

Cukie Macomber's turn to talk about Light Ships in Vineyard Sound

Tom Schmitt
Tom Schmitt explained how he built this extraordinary diorama of the entrance to Westport Harbor. Using Google Earth and satellite images as his guide, he created it as it would appear in April.

The basics: a 4x6 piece of homosote which he liked because he can stick pins into (little buoys, the same color as the ones in the harbor for example), and add plaster that will not crack on the homosote. He used acrylic paints and on water areas added a coat of clear polyurethane to give the water a marvelous sense of depth.

"You must have the hands of a surgeon," I marveled. "Nope, I made about 150 of those houses on the diorama out of pieces of pine or basswood, took me a couple of hours," he replied. I'd still trust him to operate on my heart.

Schmitt really got into detail with Tripps Boatyard. You can recognize mostly every feature there in his diorama, right down to the individual slats the of little wooden docks boats are tied up to.

Several sailboats on the piece are quite detailed, but most are like the houses, cut up carefully and painted but with litte detail.

The real kickeroo is the buoy system. Schmitt used tiny LED bulbs and programmed them to flash exactly as they do in the channels into the harbor. Quite awesome.

The funniest and possibly most creative part is how Schmitt created landscape colors - from a market! Schmitt roamed the herb aisle at Lees Market in Westport where he picked up sage, italian spices and a bunch of other spices and herbs he thought would be the right color for beech grass, vegetation, and other kinds of topography. That's thinking out of the box!

A fellow model builder admires the work and compares notes with designer Tom Schmitt. He says the whole thing took him about one month. Obviously, he's no beginner or slacker. This is a piece of work to be cherished for its authenticty and brilliant artistic merit. The newly renovated Horseneck Point Life Saving Station is a perfect place Mr. Schmitt's creation.

Some of the old time navigation tools on display at the Horseneck Point Life Saving Station.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Elena's Finale: Eulogy on Anniversary

Earlier this year, I published Elena's Ashes. Today on the anniversary of her burial in Pittsfield, MA on July 5, 2005, I'm publishing the eulogy i read on her behalf on that day.

Mount Carmel Church, Pittsfield, MA
July 5, 2005
Elena Edith Rocca Tamburello September 2, 1913-June 30, 2005
Elena's Finale
 
On behalf of my family and Elena I want to thank you for being here this morning. Father Deeker, I really  enjoyed your homily with the "new math" that you made up. It was perfect for Elena. And to  the string trio in the choir loft,  your  music  sounds fabulous,  just what Elena had  in mind.

This pillow (raise for all to see) had a prominent place in Elena's house. It reads, "Im not bossy, i just have better ideas."

One of life's immutable laws is "Do what your mother tells you to do." Elena  didn't want to leave  something as important as her funeral to chance. In December, 1999, she began telling me how and where  she wanted her funeral arranged. I phoned Skip Barstow at Dery Funeral Home so she could tell him her "better ideas" in person. Two hours later we were sipping tea in her den while Elena orchestrated what we came to refer to as "Elena's Finale".

The only thing I fear more than the wrath of God would be the wrath of my mother. There's no way I'm not following her instructions to a "T"…which meant...No calling hours; in lieu of flowers send donations to charity; arrange to play "September Song" sometime during her service; and throw a heck of a good party afterwards.

Mom, being her non-conventional self, asked Skip, "Are there any limits on who can donate organs?"

"Do you have any diseases, do you have cancer?" Skip answered.

"No, I'm not sick, I'm just getting old and crumbly!" she answered.

She was disappointed and quite offended when her wish to donate her organs was denied because she was too old.

And then there's cremation, which was also her wish. I laughed out loud when she said with her trademark dry sense of humor, "I think Ill wear one of my hot colored suits for the cremation." She wants her ashes to be buried in her plot next to my dad's and some to be scattered in Florida, where she'd spent so many winters with dad and friends from Pittsfield and beyond. Her grandsons Chris  and Geoff and I might pilfer some of her ashes and spread them someplace ourselves - I don't think Elena will mind.

Last December, she told her grandson Chris Patti to wear a red tie to her funeral. This may have been part of the cremation theme, but you'll notice that Chris Geoff and I are all wearing our hot red ties.

What can you say about a woman who, years ago, wanted a tool box for Christmas? And who knew how to use the  hammers, screwdrivers, and wrenches that we loaded into it.

Elena was a renaissance woman. She could talk about current events, film, theater, classical music, and the stock market. Many years ago, she read about an up and coming company, called Home Depot, called Paul Clark and said "Buy." I dont have to tell you how happy  she was with that winner. More recently, she wanted to buy stock in the  travel scooter device called Segway, believing it was the next big thing and kept pestering her broker Paul Clark and her brother in law LB Gunnells to find ways to invest in it. When she learned it was a privately  owned company, she was undaunted. She wanted to invest in Michelin, who she thought would make the tires for the machine. She never gave up on that stock.

Before she slowed down, She enjoyed getting dolled up, going to parties, socializing, playing  cards with the girls, and kibitzing on life with anyone who wanted or needed advice. Anyone here beneficiary of her advice or counsel? (For the record, a bunch of hands got raised in the pews Mouth Carmel Church.)

You never had a dull moment when having a conversation with Elena. For someone whose universe for the past few years was circumscribed by the second floor of 15 Coltland Drive, she was quite aware of the goings on in the world outside. She  was hungry for hard news and soft entertainment. Prime Time and Dateline, Market watch and Larry  King, 48 Hours, Law and Order, and Everybody Loves Raymond were "Do not disturb" times in her house.

If you were visiting Elena during the daytime and Judging Amy was on the tube, you'd better have your talking points in order. Your chances for a conversation were limited to the sixty or one hundred and twenty  seconds you could squeeze in during commercials.

Given the fact that Elena's mother, Helena Fossa, was known as Mrs. Republican in Pittsfield, and was the official greeter to Dwight Eisenhower when he whistle stopped through Pittsfield in 1952, it was shocking that mom turned out to be a Democrat, and a MA liberal at that. Republicans in the room should probably cover their ears now, but she was furious with George Bush's foreign policy and would shower him with some pretty indelicate invective when he made a whistlestop on her TV stand. It wasnt pretty.

One of the things I admired most was her tackling college when she was seventy five years old. Can you picture her sitting in a BCC literature class with classmates fifty years her junior?

She wrote poems with great imagery.

Poem to the statue of David
We stare in awe,
thy strength surrounds us,
Thy icy countenance bespeaks of resolution.
Dost thou know,
that in our hearts,
we fall before thee -
Goliaths eternally.

One time when I asked her  what she was reading I got "You should really read Edith Wharton, she gives you a vivid sense of the life of the 1800s" Another response was "The Horse Whisperer... i don't know why it's so popular, it is so junky. I couldnt get into that book."

Here's a quote  from a paper she wrote on December 4, 1989. Her instructor had suggested that  the class think of how Shakespeare's language  would translate into contemporary  terms. She wrote,
"When I first attempted to read The Tempest, I was as lost at sea as the members of that crew. When I began to put the English words of Shakespeare into the idiom of the day, it was pretty exciting. I must prove the point in an inelegant but effectual  way.

When Miranda, beholding Ferdinand, says  'I might call him A thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.' My translation was, "Boy, what a hunk!"

I don't want to leave you with the impression that Elena was the second coming of Mary Poppins. She could have an edge. I think she inherited some of her own mother's well documented Old World Genoa characteristics. Those would be the 'silent treatment' and 'the look'. Somehow my mother could make silence deafening. And when she added 'the look' to the silence, you knew you'd crossed some boundary and were in her dog house.

A quote generally attributed to Henry Van Dyke, compares death to  the a ship sailing over the horizon . Put your imagination to work for a moment, think of yourself standing on the shore, watching a ship become smaller and smaller as it gets farther  and  farther away and then disappears from view... and remember that ships are referred to as she and her.

"Her diminished  size is in me, not  in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There! She's gone!' there are other voices ready to  take up the glad shout 'There! She comes!' And that is dying."

Last Friday morning, Elena Edith Rocca Tamburello sailed right over the horizon. Moments after her last breath, every phone in her house and my cell phone began to ring. It must have been her friends on the other side telling us she made it to her next port safely.

Elena, those of us bobbing along in your wake have been enriched by knowing you, and we will miss your wit, your wisdom, and your laughter.

Keep a sharp lookout for us when it's our turn to disappear over the horizon.

And mom, if Segway ever goes public,I promise, I'll buy it.

Westport, MA, Celebrates Its 225th Year

July 2, 2012
Westport, MA

Westport, MA 225th Birthday Party

The Westport Board of Selectmen have their differences of opinion but one plan they all got behind was Selectman Steven Ouellette’s idea to throw Westport a birthday party on July 2, 2012, the 225th anniversary of its incorporation as a town in 1787.

By 6 PM, well over 200 men, women, and children spanning several generations of Westporters had flocked to the steps of Town Hall on Main Street. This small town of 15,000 tucked in the farthest southeast corner of Massachusetts is pure New England.
 
Feisty and opinionated, its residents hold vastly different political allegiances but one thing that is as thick as the eel grass in the Westport River is their love of this town. They love its rural character, the extraordinary beauty from pastures to seaside, and the tradition of independence forged in the history of its Town Meetings.

The state and local elected officials Mr. Ouellette invited to speak reflected upon Westport’s history, put their own spin on it, and won some face time when everyone was in a party mood.

Like jewelers creating a brooch, each man added a little gem of historical significance in the setting of Westport’s history. The result was a brief shining creation story of Westport’s birth as a township.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Opening ceremony with police and fire department honor guard;  over 200 of all ages witnessed the party; Tony Connors (on left), President of The Westport Historical Society  presents the town with  a copy of Westport deed of incorporation to Board Chairman Richard Spirlet. Mr. Connors gave a brief history of Westport, first known as Acoaxet, named after the Native American tribe that lived in the area for thousands of years. Westport was carved from a portion of adjacent Dartmouth in 1787.

After George Cataldo sang "The National Anthem," elected officials waxed in celebratory, not partisan, tones. Mayor William Flanagan of Fall River, District Attorney Sam Sutter, Congressman Bill Tierney, State Senator Mike Rodriques, State Representative Paul Schmid and Select Board member Michael Sullivan paid homage to Westport. Selectman Ouellette (third row on left) moved the ceremony along in a quick march. Town historians Claude Ledoux (middle row Left, with flowing white beard) and Carlton Davol Macomber, Jr. each added a piece of Westport history.

 

 

Hundreds signed the guest book. "We're sealing a Time Capsule with this guest book and other artifacts from today. We'll keep in in a vault in Town Hall and open it right here on our 250th birthday," Mr. Ouelltette said.

This huge birthday cake, cupcakes, hot dogs, chips, soda and water (courtesy of Lees Market) were served after everyone had their say at the podium. Long time Town Employee and retired Town Administrator Charlene Wood did the honors with cutting the cake. Other local businesses that contributed: A & E metals Tent supplied Tables and Chairs, Business to Business suppled signs and banners, The Highway Department transported the bleachers from the School Department.

Past and present members of Westport's Board of Selectmen pose for a photo to be included in the Time Capsule."I was the first woman to run for Selectman," Ann Chandanais (on left, center photo) said. "I didn't make it the first time but served three terms later." On her right is Marge Holder, who also served as Selectman. These two women opened the door for others to follow. Congressman William R. (Bill) Keating (center in photo at right - Democrat) was elected to the United States House of Representatives on November 2, 2010. He represents Massachusetts’ 10th Congressional District.

 

The Department of Public Works supplied the bleachers which filled up quickly. How many of the kids here will bring their own offspring to the 250th party in 2037? The date seems like a long way into the future but the seniors in the crowd know full well that twenty five years can flash by in a heartbeat.


 

The senior generation was joined by the most recent additions to Westport's population - newest citizen 7 day old James Andrew Gaboury born on June 25 and four month old Leeland at right. Carlton Davol Macomber,Jr. (upper row, middle photo with his wife Alice), known universally as "Cukie", spoke briefly, giving a humorous account of growing up in Westport.

  
July 2 was a picture perfect day for a birthday.

Westport Dawning

4:11 AM.
The Westport countryside is wrapped in the dark cloak of night.

“Chirrup...”  
One solitary note breaks the stillness. The summer night rolls over for a few more minutes of silent repose.

4:24 AM.
“Chirrup...”
The faintest hint of light glows from under the eastern horizon.

4:31 AM.
As if Mother Nature has sounded some diurnal alarm clock, the birds of the neighborhood seem to awaken in unison. Trees and bushes become the bleachers for choirs of songbirds to announce the dawning of another day.
Chipping sparrows, black capped chickadees, robins and their neighbors all vie for air space and proclaim territory.

5:05 AM.
A look out the window reveals that they are not yet in flight but are in some primordial process of waking up, perhaps their equivalent of brewing coffee before flying off to work in our lawns and fields, foraging for their food before returning to their perches at day’s end.

Soon we listeners will begin our own days, preparing our morning elixirs, going about our business, and returning later to our own nests. And probably envying what we see as the uncomplicated lives of our winged neighbors on this planet, wishing we, too, could be “free as a bird.”

First Job, A Memoir of Growing Up at Work: A Picaresque Coming of Age Book

First Job, A memoir of Growing Up at Work, by Rinker Buck

Random chance, riding the wave, or premeditated planning... it’s all good, according to Rinker Buck, author of “First Job, A Memoir of Growing Up at Work.” The memoir, marbled with reflections about friendship, nature, and sexual intimacy, is a young man’s romp through the early 1970s and his own early 20s.

Although the book purports to be about his first job, it’s really about his first acquaintance with life in the real world. And then there’s his name. Anyone named Rinker Buck was born to do something original, wild, or creative and he doesn't spoil his chance.

The first pages unfold in a succession of seemingly coincidental events and random decisions that will mark his life for the next two years. A magazine article pinned to the bulletin board of a back roads diner leads to a spur of the moment detour to the Berkshire Eagle offices in Pittsfield, MA where within seconds he literally bumps into the eccentric editor, has an impromptu job interview and is hired, at the bottom of the reportorial chain, to write obituaries.

From the first interview, one gets a sense of Buck’s natural curiosity, audacity, and roguish charm; he’s not above embroidering the truth even with the editor of the best small town newspaper in the country. During the next two years of picaresque adventures, this inexperienced, immature but increasingly self-aware guy develops a moral code that helps him stay inside the bounds of likability.

“Fix bayonets, charge downhill!” serves as both a specious Civil War story he gleefully invents during his job interview and his mantra to himself when he starts slipping on the gravel details of his life.

Although he would have us believe he is a slacker, he actually works hard. The beauty of the book is that he doesn't realize that work is, especially for a reporter, observing and living life, whether it’s playing pool at the local dive, chopping wood (which he fixates on either to sublimate sexual frustration or expel energy left over from sexual release) or hiking in the pristine Berkshire woods. That point is brought home to him in a touching exhange between him and an accomplished senior writer who helps Rinker learn the ropes of reporting.

The sub-textual story is Buck’s growth from a talented, somewhat obsessed, self-centered kid into a card-carrying adult. Three themes drive this unevenly entertaining book: his groping toward success as a writer, his education from women about the mysteries of the female sex, and his extraordinary relationships with three older men, each of whom enliven the Berkshire Eagle.

Buck’s a good story teller, and First Job is at its most poignant and occasionally hilarious when he’s under the wing of any of these three, most especially the esteemed Roger Linscott, a crusty but open hearted Pulitzer Prize winning writer, as eccentric as Rinker is horny. Linscott, older by a generation, given to eloquent polysyllabic repartee, a unique speaking style, and self-deprecatory wit, is a hoot. 

Linscott is every bit as off-center as Buck. Their relationship is cemented not in the newsroom, but in the mountains and gorges of the Berkshire Hills, ‘the purple majesties,’ as Buck calls them. The time they carve out to indefatigably hike through the highlands of the Berkshires is infused with camaraderie, their insights inspired by the mutually appreciated grandeur of nature surrounding them.

What inadvertently prepared Buck for his life as a reporter and suitable companion to a Rushmore of a mind like Linscott’s is that Rinker grew up as a “book turd,” omnivorously devouring books about everything from geology to geophysics. What made him an outsider as a kid informs him beautifully as a reporter. The commentaries Buck tosses off about the flora, fauna, and geology of mountains and meadows of the Berkshires read like travel writer Bruce Chatwin’s when Chatwin’s in a groove about the Australian outback.

Buck is not as proficient at concluding his book as he is in telling its stories. The last abrupt pages yield to cereal box moralizing, a marked contrast in style and voice to what preceded it. When he’s busy spinning a yarn about a babe or the bonhomie between him and his eccentric mentors, though, he’s in his own element.

Making The Grade: Unpublished Piece - "Creating The Right Environment For the 'Right' Answer"

pt contributed to the Brookline TAB and the Watertown TAB between 2000 - 2004 (see on "Categories" list) A month-long reorganization of my computer files uneathed this unpublished column from 2002.

Creating The Right Environment For the "Right" answer. February, 2002

Remember the time you sat in an audience, thought about responding to a question, then hesitated as you wondered whether you actually had the “right” answer? And the worry that if you were indeed wrong, the person at the head of the room might laugh at your answer or allow others to do so? Whether it was yesterday or years ago I’ll bet everyone remembers an occasion like that which bulked up a resolve to let others do the risk taking while you cautiously and safely observed from the sidelines.

Last week, I was showing my fourth graders how use logic to solve certain math problems. Remember the problems that say "Four fourth graders meet on the beach while they are on vacation. Their names are Debbie, Dawn, Becky, and Cathy. They are from California, Illinois, Utah, and Texas. Becky is from California and Dawn is not from Illinois. If Cathy is from Utah, where is Debbie from?

I knew you’d remember those! I began to draw a chart on the board.

"To solve a problem like this, you can use logic. Actually there's a phrase some people use to describe this strategy, it's called the process of... “ here I paused, awaiting a response.

Sam’s hand popped up as if sprung from a jack-in-the-box. "Yes! It's the process of discrimination!" he said with conviction.

My eyes lit up with delight. “Sam, I love it! Well, you're close, it's called the process of elimination!" The boy sitting in front of Sam chimed in with, "Kids say the darndest things!” which got us all laughing together.

“You know, Sam, you really could make a case for it being called a process of discrimination, too, because when you discriminate, you favor one thing over another. In this case, I suppose you would be favoring what’s logical over what’s not logical.”

"That's something I love about our class. I’ve encouraged you all year to participate in lessons. I keep saying that you’ll learn something every time you participate. Even if it turns out to be funny when you don’t intend it. The best thing is that we laugh with each other not at each other." The kids in 4T knew that was true.

Finally, with plenty of chuckles about Sam’s “discrimination”, we solved the problem. (For those of you about to pull out a piece of chart paper, if Becky's from California, logic tells you that she's not from Illinois, Utah, or Texas, so you can eliminate those possibilities!). This delightful episode will make it into our “highlight film” of the year. Why?

For me, it was an opportunity to use an incorrect response to reinforce a sense of trust in the learning process and to define who we are as a class. My job is to transparently incorporate children’s mistakes into the learning environment. When I ask, “Tell me what makes you say that”, to a student’s seemingly incorrect or unrelated response, the answer often holds a new insight I hadn’t thought of. And if they’re really off the mark, I can point them in the right direction.

Teachers who ask questions notice that mistakes often demonstrate thinking that represents unique ways of looking at or solving problems. Remember how Edison said that invention was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration? Well, an elementary school classroom is often like that. (Actually I think there’s a higher percentage of inspiration but that’s grist for another column!)

There’s lots of “perspiration” in an elementary school classroom and kids who are learning often make mistakes. Watching them as they learn from mistakes is one of the daily rewards of my job. Truth be told, we teachers aren’t exempt from mistakes, either. My good-natured response, “If you were as observant with your own work as you are with finding errors in my work, I'd have a lot less correcting to do!” has been heard more than once this year. Acknowledging our miscalculations and showing how we revise them is a healthy model for our students.

In his book Weird Ideas That Work, Robert Sutton, professor at Stanford University, says, “The domain of creativity is risk and a high failure rate.” He quotes Babe Ruth’s optimism when the slugger reportedly said “every strike brings me closer to a home run.” to illustrate that people who are persistent and who try hard have many failures to go along with their achievements. Babe Ruth struck out a lot too, didn’t he?

That’s the message for teachers who want to create a culture of responsible risk taking in school. I guess I like being surrounded by a bunch of perspiring optimists in my classroom!

The Acela Quiet Car: RIding the Rails in Serene Silence

Riding the rails is a throwback to the days when the railroad was the fastest way to get from here to there. It’s still one of the most convenient ways to get from Boston to New York City.

As the Acela Regional, destination Penn Station, slows to a halt at the Route 128 stop just outside Boston, a car labeled Quiet Car passes in front of me. I head for it. It turns out to be a heavenly halcyon surprise.

As the train pulls out of the station, a conductor gets on the intercom to spell out the rules of the road. First, no cell phone conversations. Yayyyy. And use headphones for your DVD player or music device. If the volume can be heard by others nearby, turn it down…or leave.

And no talking. Really. People just sit and read, or work silently on laptops or text away on their phones. If we weren’t rattling along at high rates of speed, you could have heard a piece of Kleenex fall on the floor. A conductor asked two chatty riders to take a conversation into the next car or desist. I loved it. So did everyone else. This is as close as a fifty-ton piece of railroad car can come to a spa.

A stroll back through the cars between the Quiet Car and the Café Car is a jarring reminder of how much auditory clutter we’re immersed in everywhere else in our lives.

Back in the arms of the Quiet Car, the low rumble of the train was a lullaby. I felt like I’d returned to the womb. I could feel myself relaxing, then rejoicing at the enforced serenity. Aside from the conductor reminding travelers to watch their step as they alight from the train’s next stop, the silence was golden. This is the next big thing in mass transit.

As I was having lunch in the Café Car, a conductor came on the air to say that the train would slow to a halt for a few minutes to allow another train to pass on the adjacent track. I joined the conductor, a trim fellow in his navy blue uniform and short-billed conductor cap, his silver ticket puncher dangling from his pocket, to view the rail bed a few feet away. By the time the train resumed its march, I’d learned a bunch of facts about the Acela train and you, my lucky readers, are the beneficiaries.

The old creosote soaked ties were ripped up, replaced by concrete ties in the 1970s.

The ties are crescent shaped, thicker at the ends where the rails exert the most force on them and thinner in the center where the force is less. This also saved money on the cost of concrete.

The ACELA can run 3% faster on concrete vs. wood ties since the concrete is more rigid.

The Acela Express is faster than the Acela Regional because it makes fewer stops and has two engines, one in front and one at the rear, to propel it.

The two engine Express can accelerate faster than Regional with one engine. Its top speed is 150 mph; the Regional top speed is 125 mph.

The Acela Express cars are coupled together more rigidly so they can tilt and travel at faster speeds around corners. The Acela Regional has old style freight car couplings that can be uncoupled in twenty minutes if there’s a problem with a car. If the Acela Express car has a problem, the whole train has to be taken off line to repair it because the interlinking couplings are so sophisticated in design.

The First Class car is usually the first behind the engine, followed by Business Class then the Quiet Car, then the other standard coach cars and the Café Car.

There is no extra charge for the Quiet Car. Don’t tell Amtrak but it’s a premium deal.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Memorial Day in Westport, MA: A small town honors its men and women who served

Memorial Day,Westport, MA, May 28, 2012

Nearly fifty veterans, from the Revolutionary War to Operation Iraqui Freedom, are buried in Beech Grove Cemetery in Westport, MA. Today's parade route is from Town Hall to Beech Grove Cemetery then back on Main Road to Town Hall for closing ceremonies and refreshments for all. The event lasted approximately two hours.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A Day of Celebration and Commemoration

A parade, especially the Memorial Day Parade, is the glue that holds this little town together. Westport men have fought in wars from The Civil War to Afghanistan. There are scores of red, white and blue flags waving in the gentle breeze at Beech Grove Cemetery today.

The Memorial Day Parade was the first parade that hundreds of today’s spectators marched in when they were kids themselves. Yes, they’d heard school lessons about the patriotic meaning of the day but it was really special because they got to wear their uniforms - band or baseball or cub scout or brownie - and hear cheers from their relatives and friends along the route from Town Hall to Beech Grove Cemetery.

Now grown, they are lining the parade route to snap photos of their own children, grandchildren and peers. They understand the excitement on children’s faces.

Understand this. In Westport, nearly everyone in public service and youth organizations marches. It’s been that way a long time.

Dana Reed born 1926, now 86, was in his first parade as an 11 year old with his Westport Boy Scout troop. “They lined us up and taught us how to march, they don’t march properly today,” Reed observed. He knows a thing or two about marching. A Navy veteran, he served in the North Atlantic for WWII and was called back to sea again for the Korean War. Today he was right on cadence with the men of James Morris Post 145 American Legion of Westport, MA.

The Beaulieu brothers, Douglas and Barry, standing with their families atop the stone embankment near the Friends Meeting House, have been coming to the parade since they were kids, heck, they marched in this parade when they were kids. One Beaulieau son is a policeman, one a fireman who served in Iraqui Freedom, one niece is in the band and their granddaughter’s third grade teacher who’s wearing his Cub Scout Leader hat today is leading his “pack”. There’s a sense of pride here. This will be a joyfully loud place to be when these Beaulieu representatives march by.

Veterans of WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan march. The Board of Selectmen marches. State Police, Color Guards from surrounding towns, firemen, police and auxiliary officers march. Like “the wave” at Fenway Park, a quiet and respectful applause ripples down Main Road as each of these groups pass the spectators. And about a hundred of those cub scouts, brownies, and “The Blue Wave” Westport Schools band march. Some day these kids will watch their own kids march.

As the procession makes a turn into the cemetery, the day’s mood abruptly veers from festive to solemn. Those granite headstones point to our ultimate destination, at least for those old enough to understand that life is a finite proposition. Even the children are a little spooked. They don't need much of a reminder to quiet down.

A hush descends upon hundreds of onlookers as they form around the tall white pole with its flag at half staff in the center of the cemetery. The citizens may argue about warrant items at Town Meeting but there’s no discord here. It’s time to remember those who served the country, and to be thankful for what we often take for granted.

Jerry LeBoeuf, entering his second year as Westport Veteran’s Agent after taking over for highly regarded Ron Costa, his recently retired predecessor, sets the tone by reading President Barack Obama’s Memorial Day Prayer For Peace.

One after another, men in uniform come forward. They understand the pain of families like those of Westport's Michael Bono, who served in Operation Iraqui Freedom and died in a non-combat related accident at Camp Merrill in Georgia. The cost of war is not a line item in the budget. It is blood.

Words like “the fallen,” “heroes,” “the ultimate sacrifice,” “died for our country,” echo in this cemetery and probably in thousands of burial grounds across America today. The words are true, the sentiment is right, but one of the last men to speak says in less than a minute the truest words I hear all day.

“War is ugly. I hate wars. Hate the war but honor the warriors.” David Cordier, a burly uniformed man in black beret, a man long on sentiment and short on sentimentality, Commander of the Vietnam Veteran’s of America Westport MA Post 207, hit the mark.

A lone bugler blows a mournful “Taps”. A contingent of the parade group retraces its route to Town Hall. Prayers are spoken. The flag is raised to full staff. This Memorial Day is history. Hundreds of spectators head to the rear of town hall to socialize with cold milk, hot coffee, doughnuts, water, juice and home made blueberry cake.

How American is that?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Jeanne Aquilla (photo Left) and Helene Hardin (photo Right) hand flags to spectators. Jeanne Aquilla’s husband Joe has been Commander of the James Morris Post 145 American Legion Post Westport MA for the past five years. “He’s giving his first Memorial Day speech today,” Jeanne says. Five area veteran’s groups rotate hosting the annual Memorial Day event. The Aquillas have lived in Westport for 32 years.

Douglas and Barry Beaulieu and their families (details in story) and Tillie of North Westport, her son and granddaughter.

Every man who served in the military is invited to march

A color guard precedes WWII decorated veteran Leo St.Onge

Longtime Veteran's Agent, recently retired Ron Costa photo at left

Three members of Westport's Board of Selectmen; State Police

Westport's Blue Wave Marching Band; Brownies, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts and Scout pack leader "Mr. T", fourth grade teacher...

Beech Grove Cemetery...

The family of Michael Bono, who served in Operation Iraqui Freedom and died in a non-combat related accident at Camp Merrill in Georgia, returns to their seats after laying a wreath at the flagpole

Veterans listen as Veteran's Agent Jerry LeBoeuf (former Marine) reads President Barack Obama’s Memorial  Day Prayer For Peace

Everyone at "parade rest"

Cub scouts, Brownies, high school children lay wreathes at the flagpole; a 21 gun salute

Back to Town Hall for flag raising ceremony

Organizers said the turnout for the parade was one of the largest in recent memory

Post parade socializing and refreshments

A busy line at the refreshment stand behind Town Hall; pt and Dana Reed, WWII and Korea Navy veteran


 

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein: My Walking Talking Lifetime Achievement Award

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein. Google the name. Ten pages worth of Jeff Kelly Lowenstein later, Google’s still rolling out his name. Impressive.

Let’s see. Award winning reporter for the Chicago Reporter; currently Database and Investigative Editor for the Chicago Tribune’s Spanish language newspaper Hoy (and is becoming fluent in Spanish while he’s at it); the 2007 Racial Justice Fellow at the Institute of Justice and Journalism at USC’s Annnenberg School of Communication; one of a handful of journalists from around the world to be selected in the Climate Change Media Partnership’s first Fellowship Program to send journalists to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban (COP17) in November 2011; contributor to the Huffington Post; awarded a Dennis Hunt Fellowship in 2011; currently president of the Dart Society…I could go on. Run that Google search and see for yourself.

I’ve known him since he was nine years old. And I'm mighty proud of him.

“I want Mr. Tamburello for my fourth grade teacher,” he remembers telling his mom in 1974. Alice Lowenstein was on the board of the Parent Teacher Organization. Jeff was placed in 4T. He was one of the bright spots in a really interesting bunch of kids in my 1974-75 class at the John Pierce School in Brookline, MA.

Jeff (R) interviewing a classmate on the first day of school in 1974

There must be a gene that creates the ability to connect the dots that link human relationships. Jeff is a natural. He made friends with every kid in the class. His style was subtle and steady. Kids respected him, an act that mirrored what they experienced from him. His voice is deeper now but his style hasn’t changed a jot.

He’d stop by to visit me after school from grade 5 through his years at Brookline High School, then during vacations when he returned to the east coast from Stanford (graduated Summa Cum Laude). When Jeff’s mom and dad were involved in a terrible automobile accident after he graduated, his mother nearly died. Fate drew him back to Brookline.  Jeff and his brothers Jon and Michael shared home care for their mother’s arduous recovery and rehabilitation. It was a long road. Jeff needed some structure and a sense of familiar territory to hold his days and nights together. He walked over to the Pierce School.

“We are family,” was principal Alvin Fortune’s motto. A big man with a bigger heart, he offered Jeff a job, knowing that Jeff was not only a caretaker for his mother, but needed some TLC himself. Our teaching community embraced him.

After a stint of running our recess program and the less exciting task of shelving books for our two motherly librarians who fed him snacks every day, Jeff asked if he could sit in on my classes, maybe help teach for a couple of hours a day. The smartest thing I ever did was to say yes. The next two years were the most exciting of my 34 year career.

That summa cum laude from Stanford was not just an impressive certificate to hang on the wall. Jeff authored terrific American History lessons, engineered activities that involved every level of student. Kids loved his style. They knew he was present, a huge gift, and that his desire to teach was balanced by his desire to know who they were and what they needed to succeed. He learned to manage a class of ten year olds. Watching him teach was fun.

Jeff added a program to my series of “Life Talks,” which he called “The You Can Do Anything Program” in which he invited artists, musicians, writers – all friends of his – to talk about the paths that led them to their callings.

Talking with him after class about strategies for content delivery, class management, which kids looked involved and which ones needed help, where the lesson would lead tomorrow… those sessions were a gift. They gave me insight into the depth of experience I hadn’t realized I’d absorbed in my first 18 years of teaching. And I learned a lot by watching Jeff work a room with an inclusive style that made every kid feel like he or she was in the game.

Jeff was an astute observer. I asked him to write anecdotal comments about each student and used them when Jeff sat in with me when we met with parents for conferences about their child twice a year.  Jeff owns a memory that rivals a purse seine trawler for its capacity to collect (and retain) data. When he spoke about their kids, he included specific examples for everything he wrote.

Twenty-four looks pretty old when you’re nine. My students would examine photos pinned to my bulletin board of Jeff as a fourth grader in 4T, look at him as a grown man, then try to figure out how ancient I must be to have been his teacher in the olden days. It was a gas.

Over the past forty years I’ve known Jeff as a student, mentor, fellow teacher, and, for the past twenty-five years or so, as a friend. I’ve witnessed him embrace challenges through his first career as a middle school teacher and through his evolutions as a reporter. He brings an incandescent energy to the cause of social justice that inspires his colleagues. Honest to goodness, I’ve seen him operate with this vision since he was nine years old.

I call Jeff Kelly Lowenstein my “Walking Talking Lifetime Achievement Award.”

On May 17, I’m heading to New York City to the second annual fund raiser/auction for the Dart Society, an organization of journalists that works to tell stories about trauma and violence with sensitivity and compassion, and that also works to help journalists deal with the impact of doing that work. Jeff Kelly Lowenstein is president of the organization.  A perfect match.

Jeff and pt through the years

1974 Jeff learning about Japanese culture with classmates in 4T

1989 Goofing around  as The Dynamic Duo during Pierce School's annual  "Dress Up Day" ; 2001 recording commentaries for NPR affiliate WFCR-FM in Amherst, MA

B/W classroom photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Elena's Ashes

Palm Beach Shores
April 17, 2012

 
If it fits, we ship. There she was. My mom. In that 4x6x2 inch US Post Office carton. Most of the rest of her ashes are interred next to my dad’s grave in Pittsfield, MA.

Way back before she died in 2005, she began telling me how she wanted her burial and funeral arrangements to go. A pillow in her den read, “I’m not pushy, I just have better ideas.” You get the point.

Outside in the real world, I was a successful teacher, respected by colleagues and parents in the community, an honest to goodness adult.

But every time I walked into the door of 15 Coltland Drive, I became an adult son, emphasis on the son part. You do what your mother tells you. I swear, some days I felt like I was standing in the kitchen in short pants with a bag of marbles in my pocket. So, when she told me she wanted to be cremated, did not want a wake, and did want me to throw a party for her after her funeral, that’s exactly what I did.

‘I want some of my ashes to go in the plot with your father,” She also said, “I want to wear a hot red dress for the cremation.”

“And I’d like to have some ashes scattered down at Palm Beach Shores at the Lake Worth Inlet.” I hunted around the house and found a pretty Japanese vase, a wedding present that had sat in the living room ever since I could remember.

“Perfect,” she said. I felt like I’d earned a gold star. The sense of approval from a parent never gets old.

Elena had spent a couple of months in Palm Beach Shores (Singer Island) every winter after she and my dad bought a condominium there in the 1970s. My dad, my mom’s sister and her husband, and my sister and her two young sons were in the annual rotation from January through March.

Elena was a regular at the pool, played cards with the ladies, and strolled around the beach. Late in the afternoon, her favorite jaunt was to head a half mile down to the Lake Worth Inlet, a deep-water canal for cargo and pleasure vessels bound to and from West Palm Beach. Over time, benches were built along a stretch of the inlet. Tourists, condo owners, and local fisherman would banter or just sit to watch the endlessly changing seascape

“Going there when my brother and I had school vacations is one of my biggest memories from when I was little,” says my elder nephew Chris. “I remember Poppi putting the bait on my fishing poles in the first years we went, and after that even Nonni did it for me. We used to fish way out by the abandoned water tower at the end of the jetty.”

A robust tidal current was always running. The water was that impossible Florida blue, the kind New Englanders dream about when they’re shoveling a foot of snow in January. Today, I wasn’t shoveling snow. I was keeping a promise. I was about to scatter Elena’s ashes into the canal.

The next day, the page would be turned on the condo at Mayan Towers North. My nephews had resisted selling the small unit and I can’t blame them.  When one of your fondest memories is being bundled up to fly down to Florida and spend time with doting grandparents who take you everywhere and show you off like prizes, it’s hard to let go.

I found a gold rimmed bowl in the condo, poured Elena’s ashes into it and smiled. She would have loved the synchronicity, another piece of her china used to hold her ashes. I’m not sure how she’d feel about the can of cold Bud Light I brought along to seal the deal, champagne was more her style for an occasion.  But I had no doubt she'd agree that a libation was part of the ceremony.

It took me an hour to work up the resolve to fling her into the onshore breeze. At 7:30 PM, the sun about to settle into the horizon, I timed the swells rolling down the inlet, saw one particularly determined one about to crest in front of me and flung Elena’s ashes from the delicate bowl. The fresh breeze held the powdery remains in a glorious translucent gray cloud that trailed along the inlet, the heavier particles spilling into the water at my feet.

Floating along in the dissipating cloud came the memory of my mom singing to me when I was little until I fell asleep.

I loved to watch trains of all kinds with my grandfather, who often took me to the train depot at the edge of town to watch what he called “the roundhouse,” a huge lazy-susan arrangement that would turn the locomotives around to send them down a different track. Sort of like the track I was sending my mother along with right now.

I was fascinated watching endlessly long processions of coal cars, ice cars, gondolas, tank cars, low riders packed with iron, cattle cars, boxcars in a metallic rainbow of colors, each bearing the symbol or lettering of companies from distant states that made me think of the wild west, and those funny looking cabooses and the grizzled men in railroad hats standing on the rear deck, who would, if I had a great stroke of luck, wave to me and my grandfather (Elena’s father), as we watched them from the hillside above the depot.

Elena knew these images ruled the rails of my imagination. After she tucked me into bed, she would sit beside me in the dark and make up songs about the colorful procession of freight cars…I could hear her softly singing those songs to me as her cloud vanished into the wind. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Postscript

When your mother tells you to scatter her ashes and make a party of it, you do what she says.

 

American Airlines Admiral's Club: First Class Comfort

The Admiral’s  Club in Dallas... OMG what a revelation to an economy class pilgrim. American Airlines has sent me a complimentary pass. They may as well have offered me crystal meth.

Blissfully quiet, spacious, civil. Concierges stationed at the entrance answer your every question. Daylight pouring through ceiling to floor plate glass windows splashes into the lounge peppered with pods of couches, chairs, tables, an enclosed area for smokers, and another enclosed business area with computers, printers, and fax machines at the ready. A counter lined with coffee, tea, bottled water, fresh fruit, salties, cookies, all free of charge, is tucked in back portion of room.

WiFi? Just open your device and click away. There are vast peaceful areas of the club with no plasma TVs blaring. A full service bar serves sandwiches, salads, sushi, breakfast items, and assorted entrees.

No waste baskets. The wait staff glides silently through the club to pick up empty coffee cups, drink glasses, stray napkins, remains of lunch or dinner. Family room? Yep. Clean bathrooms? Yep.

I am hooked.

Health Care Debate: Civil Discourse At The Highest Level

How refreshing. For two hours, until the radio signal faded as I drove west to the Berkshires Thursday morning, I listened to lawyers argue their case for or against the Affordable Health Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama on March 23, 2010. No shouting, no fabricating, no demonizing, no put downs, no flag waving - just solid argumentation based on legal precedents and references to the powers of the United States Constitution.

The judges probed the lawyers' arguments, asked thoughtful or philosophical or practical questions, even cracked a joke from time to time. It was like listening to a chess match and it was fascinating.

Airing the proceedings was a brilliant idea, a fabulous teaching moment that reintroduced me to the mechanics of how our government works, the checks and balance system between legislative, judicial, and executive branches.

Conservative and liberal philosophies of jurisprudence are still in play but the contention is civil, serious, and based on reason. No matter which way the case is decided, it is a breath of fresh air into the ultra polarized rant climate in the country today.

 

 

Wine and Smoothies

Upon reading reviews of award-winning wines from a well-known Massachusetts vineyard

“Pale golden yellow color. Bright aromas of lemongrass, Kaffir lime leaf, lychee nut, and apricot yogurt with a silky dry-yet-fruity medium body and some pleasant maturing mineral and smoky notes backing the pure tart citrus fruit finish. Very Alsatian-like and a great choice for the table.”

Did the judges uncork a bottle of Pinot Gris or pour themselves a smoothie? I must be the taste equivalent of tone deaf. When I take my first sip of a glass of wine, I think, “Hmmm, it tastes pretty good,” or, “Geez, I don’t think this was a good choice.”

“Deep old gold color. Toasty brioche, baked fruit, and caramel aromas with a crisp, frothy medium body and a long grilled citrus, praline, and apple driven finish. Rich and satisfying; serve with grilled seafood.”

I’ve never tasted a wine that reminded me of toasty brioche, or toasty anything for that matter. I taste something vaguely grape-y, maybe dry, or sweet, or heavy, but "a long grilled citrus, apple driven finish?"  Do they serve peyote mushrooms during these tasting events?

When I first started reading descriptions of wine, I actually thought the vintners dropped a few peaches or lemons or apricots into the vat while pressing the grapes. No, I was told, these were virtual flavors imagined by the judges and reviewers. Imagine what your wine would really taste like if Mr. Beringer threw his half eaten breakfast brioche into his fermenting Blanc de Blanc.

This is why I’m all in favor of the idea of selling wine in bottles with twist off caps or in plastic coated cartons, the kind you get your Hood homogenized 2% milk in. Even if it's a pretty good year for the wine, I dare one of those judges to start carrying on about “spicy caramelized apple and pineapple and coconut flan aromas” when they pour their wine from one of those babies.

Music and "Dope"

I knew there was a reason I'd drive an hour to listen to a great band or fly to Louisiana for one of the zillion music and dance festivals down there. Neurologists at McGill University have evidence of what I already knew. Pleasurable music unleashes a flood of dopamine that rocks my world. Dopamine is the brain chemical associated with experiencing food, drugs, and sex. Do I have your attention now?

It's why I put down the dishes and spontaneously start dancing around the kitchen table or want to put my arms around a like-minded partner absolutely anywhere when I hear a bluesy slow drag or a compelling up-tempo swing, zydeco, pop, rhythm n blues number. The rhythms, instruments, emotive voice, or lyrics or all of it put together in one high-rolling tsumami flip the switch on my internal pleasure meter. I'm momentarily sucked into a fourth dimension. Self-consciousness falls away. A Niagra Falls of playfulness, sensuality, creative juices, levity, and symbiotic connection spills from my synapses. When I dance with a woman who's mainlining the same music, it's like invincibly roaring down Niagra Falls without the barrel.

Tons of you out there know this for a fact. The right music, whatever really gets you off, fires up "dope" you won't get arrested for ingesting in public. It grandly sweeps away any pressing matters in your life.

A scientist will not need a PET scanner or MRI to measure the massive amounts of dopamine I'll consume, or will consume me, during Mardi Gras in Lafayette next week. The goofy smile on my face will be empiric evidence of the first order.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1718831/listening-to-music-releases-same-brain-chemicals-as-food-drugs-sex

Occupy Starbucks

With this brew of corporate chicanery, Starbucks belongs in the same parade as fee-crazed banks that take advantage of the fine print... or in Starbuck's case, no print at all.

Forget Citibank. Starbucks climbed to the top of the corporate greed-heap with the discovery that they’ve had their latte-flavored thumb on the scale, fleecing caffeine starved customers for the past couple of years.

A story in the Boston Globe says the Seattle company has been adding $1.50 to the price of their ½ pound bags of coffee.

The Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation says no disclosure of the extra fee was listed on the packaging or on Starbucks' premises. So, you if you bought a half pound of an $11.95 per pound coffee, you were getting pounded for $7.45. Starbucks transparency policy was as opaque a cup of Skinny Caramel Macchiato.

Apparently, Starbucks customers are so used to paying inflated prices for their java, they never caught on. C’mon. Is the Costa Rica Terrazu or the Guatemala Antigua that good? Or are Starbucks customers out of their beans (sorry if this includes some loyal readers)?

A spokesman for Starbucks said the company charged for half-pound bags to cover “the additional labor and packaging needed to accommodate those customers’ unique request.” 

Really?  Asking to purchase a half-pound of coffee is “unique”? I suppose paying around $5 for a Starbucks "hand- crafted" Mocha Caramel Frappuccino Grande is unique, too (although the message has not been lost on franchises like Dunkin' Donuts).

The hidden fee, my friends, was corporate greed at its most haughty, exceeded only by corporate chutzpah.

Exposed to the piracy, a Starbucks spokesman announced, “We are pleased to be able to now offer our customers alternative sizes of whole-bean coffee in all of our US stores, free of any service charge.”

This is a "Venti" sized cup of corporate bombast.

Note to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  Now that you’ve been booted out of Zuccotti Park, consider deploying your tarps and tents outside Starbucks. And BYO coffee, preferably Eight O’Clock Bean Coffee, a bargain at half the price.

A Toy Story from Westport, MA

When owner Ira Hassenfeld walked into the design room at Hasbro Toys in Providence in the summer of 1963, the first thing he announced was, “I want you to make a doll for boys.” The second thing was, “And I don’t want to hear the word doll when you design it!”

For the next several months, the “D” word was not uttered. The toy was always referred as a soldier, or a fighting man. One of the three men on the Hasbro design team was Sam Speers. The combined skills of these men ended up creating the world’s first  action figure for boys, with the decidedly undoll- like name of GI Joe.

A year after he graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Industrial Design, Speers built a cottage in Westport, MA. Speers and his wife Arlene divided their time between their home in North Attleboro and their small cottage in Masquesatch Meadows. It was an easy drive from Westport to Providence.

The next few months would be an ultimate test of Speers ingenuity. “We knew that we could make equipment and accessories for the figure since it had been done successfully five years earlier by another company with the Barbie Doll,” Speers said. They knew that a market existed because boys had always played with soldiers, mostly with inanimate cast iron or lead figures 4 inches high.

The first big question was how could Sam’s design team join together the hands, arms, legs of an 11 1/2 inch tall action figure. Nails wouldn’t stay put, screws could be taken apart, a spring could be flexed out of shape.

“You don’t leave your work back at the office. You’ve got problem you want to solve, you’re always looking for a way to solve it, “ Speers said. “One Saturday, I was wandering into Grundy’s Hardware for a homeowner repair when I saw what’s called a ring-threaded screw, it has concentric rings that can be forced into something but cannot be twisted out easily. Bingo. By Monday morning Norman Jacques and Walter Hansen, the other men on my team, were using them to fasten the fighting man’s limbs together.”

The biggest problem in designing this soldier was that his arms, legs, and body had to support whatever equipment he was to use.  He had to be able to maintain a stable pose when standing, lying down or kneeling with a weapon or other equipment they were inventing for him.

“After reviewing everything I’d ever seen in my life. it came to mind that underwear utilized a cotton elastic braid which was very strong yet flexible and could be used to assume various poses. I didn’t find that in Westport but I knew in my head that it would hold the soldier together.”

For the next six months, Speers and his design team felt like they were in a creative war themselves, as they used their imaginations and design wiles to meet an unrelenting deadline.  By February 1964, GI Joe, an action figure with 21 moving parts, stormed into the Toy Fair in New  York City to a hero’s welcome. Dubbed "GI Joe" by the practical woman who was making his clothing for Hasbro, he became the first boy’s action figure in the world.

GI Joe’s activities weren’t limited to combat. “One of my jobs was to create new adventures for him," story lines that would keep his fans returning to the stores for new outfits and gear. 

“The annual Book Fair at the Westport Friend’s Meeting was where I found them. I’d thumb through old, curled-up copies of National Geographic and find inspiration for dozens of GI Joe exploits,” Speers said, and rattled off examples like "The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb," "The Capture of the Pygmy Gorilla," "White Tiger Hunt," and "The Eight Ropes of Danger," based on a story about an octopus!

One of the highlights of Speers career happened right in Westport Harbor in the early 1970s. “One of the adventures that I thought would be sensational was a GI Joe deep sea diver with what they called then a hard helmet. That toy had weighted boots on so he’d go to the bottom and if you blew into a little tube it would put air into his helmet he came back to the surface. One of the thrills of my life was when my wife and I boated past Boat Beach and saw a little boy and his mother leaning over the side of a boat and dropping the deep sea GI Joe into the water. It was something I thought I'd never see.”

Speers might not have believed that this action figure would still be protecting the motherland in the 21st century but on July 4th, 2004, he attended a fortieth anniversary GI Joe convention at Walt Disney World.  The Hasbro Company commemorated the anniversary by reproducing the entire 1964 product line for a new generation of collectors and players. 

Who knows? By the end of the decade, GI Joe might be headed into Deep Space.

 

A Kinder and Gentler Harvard by Pledge? Methinks Not

Just sayin’...

There’s no way a pledge is going to make people behave kinder. What are the people at Harvard thinking? They’re asking incoming freshmen to sign a pledge affirming they understand the importance of kindness.

Harvard’s pledge reads: “As we begin at Harvard, we commit to upholding the values of the College and to making the entryway and Yard a place where all can thrive and where the exercise of kindness holds a place on a par with intellectual attainment.”

Are kindness and outstanding high school grades disconnected? I would suppose that smart kids who are admitted to Harvard are capable of being kind.

Don’t we all get that kindness is a virtue? No. Watch a few hours of TV or listen to some talk radio. Snarkiness and downright nastiness is afoot. Ask Fox News’s Roger Ailes, he’ll tell you that fractiousness and gotchas improves ratings of presidential debates.

Whether it’s learned or taught, kindness happens on its own. It doesn’t get as much ink as the caustic stuff, but kindness is out there. The most well known pledge I can think of is the Pledge of Allegiance. Except for the “under God” part, most people have no quarrel with it.  The Tea Party people and the people way over on the other side don’t pledge to love one another but they do express allegiance to their country.

As a former teacher, I know that kindness, empathy, and community aren’t expressly spelled out in learning outcomes. They have to be modeled and upheld.

A good teacher doesn’t need to pledge that he/she will not tolerate bullying, teasing, or taunting in the classroom. A good teacher just does it. Lots of kids come to school with positive social values and will use them, especially when they’re in an environment that encourages them to do so.

The motto on the Harvard emblem is “VERITAS” (Latin, “Truth”). The truth of the matter is that if you have to ask freshmen to sign a pledge to be kind, you’ve lost the battle already.

The Skinny on Obesity Ain't Pretty

Just sayin’…
An obesity pill? 

Today’s headline in Business Week cites that the stock prices of companies developing obesity pills soared when the FDA approved  Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.’s to resume development  of its obesity pills.

World-wide (no pun intended) the population is becoming overweight and obese. Check this story in today’s New York Times.

In America, 28 percent of the adult population is obese and 68 percent is overweight. That’s topped by a smidgeon by Mexico - 30 percent of the adult population is obese and 70 percent is overweight.

This is crazy. Why aren’t these statistics (largely responsible for the dramatic rise in diabetes) cited in the debate on health care costs? And when they are, why do we primarily blame the consumer for weight gain? Yes, people aren’t forced to put the food in their mouths. And yes, they’re not tied to trees so they can’t exercise every day.

But follow the money. The Center for Responsive Politics says American Beverage Association spent $18,850,000 to lobby for their products (we're not talking sparkling water here).

Obesity pills might be a windfall for pharmaceutical companies but they are not the solution. Until Congress - and people like you and me - put the heat on the food and beverage industry to produce more healthy products and to spend their big bucks convincing people to consume them, no one’s going to lose weight anytime soon.

Showdown at Symphony2: World-Class Squash Titans Compete

Showdown at Symphony2
Boston Symphony Hall
September 14, 2011

How do you bring the sport of squash to a large audience? Drop a four-walled glass cage into the first floor of Boston’s stately Symphony Hall and invite the world’s best players to compete in it. The entire community of squash players from Boston will show up. That’s exactly what happened Wednesday night.

There may not be legions of them but they will pay Boston Symphony Orchestra prices to watch the spectacle of world champion players have at it. Tonight’s crowd, many still decked in suits and ties, looks more like a board meeting than sports convocation. Unlike tennis or racquetball, squash never achieved, possibly never aspired to be, a plebian sport. But the loyalists pony up big bucks to see their heroes do battle.

The sport is often played in four–walled plaster courts crammed into a brick building in the midst of a city. Even the courts with a glass rear wall have limited ability for crowd of any other than the player’s friends and family to watch.

All this changed in the 1980s when some bright light, probably a squash aficionado, invented the portable glass walled court, making the game a true spectator sport.

World championship matches are routinely played in these well-illuminated glass cages with non-skid wooden floors. The courts can be erected on a stage or in the middle of an auditorium or gym. Voila! You have a wrap around sporting event that a thousand people can watch.

Tonight’s four players have either been ranked Number One in the World or won the World Open. This is tantamount to witnessing Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Pete Sampras, and Ivan Lendl play a round robin tournament a few feet away from your seat.

Our seats are perfectly situated in the first balcony, at the midpoint of the court that has been erected on a three-foot dais just in front of the footlights of the stage at Symphony Hall.  Below us, spectators are and wine and cheesing it while sitting at scores of four-seat Boston Pops-style tables that surround the court from Row C to Row J, in case you’re familiar with the floor plan.

According to my friend Myke Farricker, a certified squash instructor who introduced me to this spectacle, competition squash might be the most physically demanding sport: agility, eye hand coordination, stamina for sprinting/stopping on a dime, footwork, arm and hand strength have to be at peak levels.  “These world class athletes are in superb physical condition. It isn’t uncommon for a rally to have 40 or fifty shots just for one point. The matches, best two out of three, usually go to 11 or 15. That’s an amazing workout.”

This is a game of thunderous forehands and backhands mixed with immensely soft touches. With a flick of the wrist, these guys can send the rubber ball into the front glass wall with the force of a howitzer. The thawackkkk on the wall is like a rifle shot – unless a player winds up to power the tiny rubber ball against the front wall like an RPG and instead lofts it in a lazy arc into a front corner, forcing his opponent to sprint forward to volley before the ball bounces twice after rebounding off the front wall.

“One of the things that appeals to me is the sportsmanship between players,” Myke says. “They play each other on tour a lot and know each other’s game. They’re extremely competitive, even combative, but play it as a game. They abide by the decisions of the referee if a shot is contested, then keep playing.” Their level of concentration has to be fierce.

Volleying with astonishing accuracy and speed, these guys make the game look easy. I have to keep reminding myself there’s a reason for this. 2011 World No. 1 Nick Matthew (England), 2010 World No. 1 and 2010 Showdown defender Ramy Ashour (Egypt), with longtime fan-favorites 1999 World Open champion Peter Nicol (England) and 1998 World Open winner Jonathon Power (Canada) have each been at the top of the heap in professional squash.

As a rally continues past thirty shots, it feels like all 1200 spectators are holding their breath. All I hear in the vaunted acoustics of Symphony Hall is the dull thawwaaack of the racquet striking the ball and the sharper thawaaack of the ball pounding against the front wall. Who will be the first to gamble on a “kill shot” to end the rally? Who will make the first unforced error? Who will lose a tiny shred of concentration that spells the difference between winning and losing?

We cheer boisterously after a point like this. Occasionally, one of the players taps his hand against his racquet in a silent gesture of ‘well-played.’

Money’s involved in the outcome. But more than that, prestige is on the line. You can’t see it in a trophy case, but it is the biggest prize for these world-class racquet warriors.

+++++++++
Veteran squash reporter Colleen Turner's story about Showdown at Symphony2

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Sushi,anyone? Spectators dine at courtside before the match.

 

Birthday Salute To My Editors!

Birthday Salute To My Editors!
 
My two trusty editors, Rebecca Wilson and Susaan Straus (yes, the two a’s in Susaan are not a typo), keep my writing on the rails. They’re celebrating birthdays this month and this is a chance for me to wrap a thank you note in a bow and send it to them electronically.
 
For me writing is a creative endeavor, a discipline, and usually fun. The drafts I send my editors are met with objectivity and occasional humor.
 
The admonitions of  “What’s the focus here?” or “Your tenses aren’t consistent,” or  “You need a verb in there somewhere!” or “Way too long and convoluted,” help me become a better writer. I still manage to include typos and assorted gaffes when I publish without “vetting” the work with one or the other of the editors.
 
And they know when to throw a bouquet."Love the ending!,” or, “I especially loved those two turns of phrase!” happen frequently.
 
Rebecca Wilson is an interior designer who specializes in redecorating and space planning. Susaan Straus is a savvy business consultant who specializes in executive coaching, organizational development, and interactive large group programs. They probably won't offer to edit your work but if you need the services they provide, I can just about guarantee you'll be pleased with their input.
 
Thank you Rebecca and Susaan for taking the time to help shape my stories. And Happy Birthdays!!

Apple Stores: Gigabytes Of Service, Every Time

The Apple Store in Chestnut Hill, MA: The Ultimate Customer Service Experience

And you wonder why stock in Apple has tripled in the past three years?

Note: I’ve been using an Apple computer since the ancient Apple IIe’s were introduced into the Brookline Public Schools in the 1980s, Three years ago, I bought a handful of shares of Apple Computer at around $100 a share. I wish I had bought a wheelbarrow full.

The quality of Apple products and the prices they command speak for themselves: iPhones, iBooks, iPads, iTouches… aye aye aye. And mastermind Steve Jobs knows how to create a customer service experience as seamless as the products his company thinks up.

Let’s talk about service. It is possible to enter an Apple Store and spend a fortune and go ca-chinging out the store with a smile on your face. Happened to me when I bought a new computer five weeks ago.

An Apple Store reminds me of a beehive, except the worker bees are all wearing blue, not yellow, and have easily readable nametags. Every single one of them knows his/her stuff. Some are deeply knowledgeable about specific topics. 
 
I spent one morning talking to one of the blue shirts about the prospective purchase, came back the next day with my “old” G5, bought a lustrously new Apple 3.06 Intel Core i3, and returned that afternoon to retrieve both computers.

As agreed, the tech crew had migrated every single bit of data from my G5 to my new 3.06 Intel Core i3. When I opened the hood of the new model, one of the fellows at the Genius Bar patiently answered a list of my questions, helped me set a few new preferences for email, ran it through its paces, and I was good to go.

My desktop and its contents were all in place, in a sleeker machine that can run the applications I rely on faster and with gorgeous color. For the record, it cost several hundred bucks less than the desktop I bought in 2006.

One week later, I toted the new machine back to the store. A CD I had inserted failed to be coaxed out of the CD drive. After a quick inspection, the fellow at the Genius Bar says, “We’re going to exchange this for a new one.” And did. I waited for over an hour while he managed to have the data migrated once again and left with the model I’m typing away at right now.

They have the best customer satisfaction driven business model on earth. Every time I walk into the store in the Chestnut Hill Mall, I’m greeted by a friendly concierge. “Hi, how can we help you today?”

Last week it was, “Well, I need an adapter to  connect my laptop with my TV so I can stream movies onto it. And I might need an HDMI cable to connect the adapter to the TV.”

“Sure,” says the young lady concierge, “Kevin can help you with that…Kevin, this gentleman wants to talk to you about connecting his laptop with his TV.”

A few feet away, Kevin, who’s been chatting with another blue shirt, greets me with a smile and firm handshake, asks me again what I need and off we go to a display area loaded with adapters and cables.

“This is the adapter that you need to connect your MacBook Pro to the TV,” Kevin says after asking me a few questions about the TV.

“Look, Kevin, I might be able to buy the HDMI cable for a lot less at Best Buy so I might wait on it,” I say.

Kevin takes an iPhone out of his pocket. His fingers do some prestidigitation on it and shows me the screen. The cost is comparable.

Onto the pile it goes.

“And oh, when the friend who showed me how to do this used her adapter and cables on my TV, the sound came from her laptop but didn’t come from my TV.”

“When did you buy your MacBook?” Kevin says. Another round of prestidigitation on the iPhone.

“The later ones can send the signal to your TV. If yours was made before around June 2010, you might have to buy cables like these (as he walks me to another display) that you plug into the audio jacks on your TV and you’re good to go.”

You might be able to conduct an air campaign in Libya with this iPhone.

“What credit card would you like to use?” Kevin says.

He swipes my credit card on another gizmo he retrieves from his pocket. “Would you like a printed receipt or one sent by email?”

“Both.”

Kevin reaches under a nearby table to an unseen printer, hands me a receipt to sign, puts my purchases in a nifty plastic bag and I’m done.

On my way out, I pass blue shirts and customers engaged in one to one tutorials, information gathering sessions, and demonstrations. Several people are conferring with young men or women at the Genius Bar – that’s the place I set up an appointment online when my first Mac hit the CD problem and was replaced on the spot.

I also pass the concierge who directed me to Kevin. “How did it go?” she asks.  The smile on my face was a dead giveaway.  So is the price per share of Apple Computer. I sometimes think that the “i” prefix on most every Apple product relates to the “I” as in “me.” The more they keep us ‘i’s happy, the higher the stock will go.

Nice goin’, Steve. 

Charlie Sheen: A Cockeyed View

We need Charlie Sheen.

I hate to say it but Charlie's the guilty pleasure that makes reading the rest of the news bearable. Chuck's been featured on Google's "News" page several times a day for nearly two weeks. At this rate, his shenanigans will eclipse the Wall Street bailout, maybe even make a run at the Health Care debacle.

Watch any  one of the videos on Google or elsewhere. The guy's a certifiable train wreck - like one of those one-trick windup toys that do the same stupid thing every time you fire them up, except Chas displays an artificial intelligence that feeds on its own lunacy and trots out new variations on his theme every 24 hours.

It's entertaining to see a someone we know better as the star of the TV show "Two and A Half Men" be courted by major networks and highbrow interviewers and put  out reliably fabulous megalomaniacal rants. Kicks the crap out of ratings the stations get for an in-depth analysis of foreign policy sketched out by a learned person who's spent a lifetime behind the scenes trying to mediate between obstinate Mideast power brokers.

Pretty soon, Charlie will supersede the weather as the most common topic  of casual conversation.

No more, "Looks like that front from the Midwest is heading here, jaysus, am I tired of shoveling snow."
Now it's, "Can you  believe he's sleeping with those two babes in the same house… and his kids were living there till today when the authorities took the kids away?"

Charlie's Two and A Half Men all by himself. One part 'infant terrible', one part publicity magnet, and one half clueless jerk.

Let's see. During Charlie's streak, he's gone nose to nose with Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya, Oman, and Wisconsin.

If Chinese authorities decide to beat up its upstart dissidents, who, encouraged by Africa's demonstrators, begin chanting "We're tired of this, we won't take it any more!" they will just wait till a juicy moment when Sir Charles throws one of his two mistresses out a bedroom window - an event someone will, of course, videotape and upload onto the internet. We will click to watch the hapless babe free-fall to the lawn even though every fiber in our righteous selves will abhor our gluttonous taste for Sheen's sophomoric behavior.

That's the time, when most of America is glued to one of Charlie's youtube moments, and while lots of men are wishing they could behave so churlishly and get away with it, and lots of women are sticking pins in their Charlie Sheen dolls, that Hu Jintao will order his troops into China's streets to beat the crap out of anyone and everyone who behaves like an Egyptian and has democracy on their minds and toss them in jail.

We'll talk about that international scenario for a few minutes then log back on and google what loose cannon shot Charlie's fired across the bow of agents, producers, writers, and networks in an ego-fueled act that should win him an academy award in the Bizarre Category, maybe even a Twisted Humanitarian award, for single-handedly distracting us from the fact the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we're too drugged with a mainline shot of Sheen in our arteries to have it bother us.

Without Charlie, the daily doses of pain and suffering in the rest of Google's News headlines would be too much to bear.

Bob Edwards: Veteran Interviewer Pitch Perfect with Esperanza Spaulding

“Bob Edwards Weekend” Radio Show

Edwards interviews  people he finds interesting, from newsmakers, historians, and authors to artists, actors, and regular folks too.
A two-part interview with Esperanza Spaulding was aired Friday, September 24, 2010

http://www.bobedwards.info/ftopic1053.html&sid=2f0bb6d0e35c590ff1e55e4e768d197d
part 1
http://www.bobedwards.info/ftopic1054.html&sid=2f0bb6d0e35c590ff1e55e4e768d197d
part 2

This is the way an interview ought to go. Ask questions and listen to the answers - without interrupting the interviewee. It helps to have an interviewee who is self- aware, has a sense of humor, a deep understanding of the technical aspects of her art and can get them across to the ears of a layperson. In this case, I’m talking about Bob Edwards and Esperanza Spaulding.
 
I can't tell you how many times I switch the dial when an interviewer interrupts the interviewee to show how much he/she knows about the subject or diverts the place the interviewee is going to someplace else the interviewer wants to investigate. Not so here.
 
Look, here’s a link to the first part of Bob Edwards’ interview with Esperanza Spaulding, a 25 year-old bassist, composer, and singer. Within that first few minutes, you’ll hear Edwards begin to ask a series of terrific open-ended questions and Spaulding respond with thoughtful, ingenuous, articulate answers.
 
I came across the interview on WGBH-FM as I was in the midst of a homeowner chore. After Spaulding’s delightful burst of infectious laughter while she considered Edwards first question, I turned up the volume. The task could wait. I’d heard of Esperanza Spaulding (who could forget such a name), and knew she was some kind of jazz phenomenon.

Audio clips Edwards played from her recently released album, “Chamber Music Society,” demonstrated Spaulding's mastery of tone and pitch while improvising with her voice alone or with her bass, or with an ensemble. By the time the interview was finished, I realized I’d pay to hear her talk about her craft, let alone play her upright bass and sing.

In her response to Edwards first question on part 2 of the interview, she explains improvisation and harmonics in a way that changed the way I will listen to music. Spaulding has a way of translating her thought processes in a way that resembles improvisation, taking Edwards’s question then answering it with examples and anecdotes that revolve around the core of what he asked.
 
The interview was satisfyingly rounded as Spaulding talked with insight about the way she composes and records music, the ways in which her mother instilled positive energy into their life in a poor, single parent home in Portland, OR, and the many adults who recognized her talent and helped cultivate Spaulding’s innate passion for music.
 
‘When you’re young, it’s easy to take the generosity of others for granted,” she says.

She regrets that by the time she called Hazel DeLorenzo and Dorothy McCormick, two women who ran the Portland, OR, “Chamber Music Society” that found her a violin and gave her free instruction when she was a kid, they had passed away. She did get a letter from Mr. Fred Rogers, to whom she wrote when she was around five years old and saw two actors dress up as an upright bass and play it on his program.
 
If you decide to listen to this interview, pretend that you’re having a cup of coffee or a drink at your favorite bar and happen to sit next to these two people having this conversation. By the time they say goodbye to each other, you’ll want to pick up their tab.

Esperanza Spaulding top photo from her web site, bottom from Sanders Theater site

Bob Edwards photo from his web site

 

New Orleans: Katrina Commemoration Ceremony, March, Rally Part 3

5th Annual Katrina Commemoration Ceremony, Second Line March and Rally
August 29, 2010

Part 3: The Rally was organized by the Katrina Commemoration Foundation, The Hip Hop Caucus, and the National Wildlife Federation.

The Katrina Commemoration Foundation invitation

"The Katrina Commemoration Foundation, a local grassroots organization formed to commemorate loved ones lost during the hurricane, holds the march/second-line, beginning 10 a.m. Sun. with a healing ceremony at the corner of Jourdan and North Galvez streets. The healing ceremony is an opportunity for our spiritual community to share words of hope, remembrance and inspiration.The march travels down North Claiborne Avenue to St. Bernard Avenue, followed by a rally, at 1PM at Hunters Field on the corner of St. Bernard and North Claiborne avenues, with local musicians, community speakers and spoken word artists."

Hip Hop Caucus’s invitation

"Join us this August 29, 2010 for the annual Hurricane Katrina Commemoration March and Rally. This event is in honor of family and friends who died, the community that was abandoned by the government for six days, those killed by the military trying to save their families on the Danzinger Bridge, every community affected by Hurricane Katrina and the Great Flood, and to acknowledge the “Right to Return” for all New Orleanians who were displaced."

The rally at Hunter’s Field Park took the energy of the parade and poured it into a roster of activists  and performers who told it like it is. The Katrina Commemoration Foundation states, “We are of the community and from the community. While we organize this march annually, we support the community's hard work for housing justice, education justice, health care justice, law enforcement justice, and environmental justice.”

The emcee on stage was Wild Wayne, a popular New Orleans Q93 FM radio host, who introduced speakers representing three generations of New Orleanians. He got right to it.

Hop Caucus President and CEO, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr. was one of the first speakers. He set the tone of the afternoon by outlining the issues of the day. He finished with, “New Orleans is our Birmingham, this is our moment, so we must stand up. If we lose this battle ten years into the 21st century, we won’t only lose New Orleans but we lose humanity, We’ve got to stand up, so New Orleans put your fives in the air now… take that five and make a fist, lemme hear you say power to the people (repeats and audience responds three times). I love you, New Orleans!”

It reminded me of the political rallies I was part of in the 1960s except this time I was one of the few people of color in the audience of a couple hundred people.

Sharon Jasper, Housing Activist and self-described Freedom Fighter, delivered an impassioned speech focused on the city’s lack of response to the housing needs of the black community.

Malcolm Suber of Community United For Change said, “The police are not your friends,” and aggrieved families recounted bad encounters with police. The Danziger Bridge incident on September 4, 2005, in which two unarmed black citizens were shot to death by New Orleans police, still festers.

In between speakers, the local disc jockey introduced the younger generation who performed hip hop, rap, and free verse poetry with a political edge.  Groups  of teenagers with names like Young Sino, Team SNO, Y. Luck, MIA X, Partners in Crime, Mr. Tony, Detroit, Shawt, and Asia Rainey are not household names but they performed with passion and purpose.

Rap and hip hop music have come in for their share of objection for lyrics glorifying sex and violence. These kids showed that the genres can have serious political clout, too - and their elders were listening and nodding their approval.

When Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr. exhorts "Power to the People," he is coming from the Martin Luther King, Jr. side of the political spectrum, not the Eldridge Cleaver side.

In their Why We March statement, The Katrina Foundation says, "We march for many reasons. We march to never forget family who died without warning on that Monday. We march to never forget the six days our community was abandoned by the United States government to drown in the aftermath of the Great Flood. We remember the suffering of those left in the sweltering heat without food and water on I10, in Convention Center and under the Causeway.

We march to remember those killed by the police trying to save their families on the Danzinger Bridge, in Algiers and on Poland Avenue.

We march to remember the human cost of the destruction and the reason for the destruction – levee failure. The levees in the lower ninth ward were neglected and the failure of the levees devastated hard working families already struggling with poverty long before the Great Flood. As rebuilding has occurred; the hard work of individuals is not enough without government protection and support.

We march because it is the most peaceful way to acknowledge the complete violence and disrespect for our human rights as American Citizens. We march because New Orleans is our home and no matter how many times our community has been flooded out - we shall not be moved.

This is our home and we love our lives here. We march to ingrain in our community, that while we may want to forget Katrina, we cannot because we believe in a brighter hopeful positive future and we must learn from the past to build for the future."

An extraordinarily wide range of 105 organizations, from non-profits to universities, endorsed the march. Loyola University Professor Bill Quigley's August story in the Huffington Post underlines the rally's contentions.

The Hip Hop Caucus Education Fund's mission is aimed straight at the community's youth. No political movement has a chance unless young people are on board and this rally is meant to counter apathy and fuel activism. Its goal is  “to foster civic engagement among young people of color on issues of social and economic justice, human rights, the environment, and international peace, so they can attain increased opportunities for themselves and their communities. We focus on meeting young people where they are, by linking cultural expression with social and political experience.” 

The Hip Hop Caucus is striving to find solutions to 12 policy issues : Climate Justice and Clean Energy, Criminal Justice, Economic Prosperity, Education, Health Care, Housing, Livability of Cities, Media Reform, Peace and Security, Poverty and Helping Families, Rights for New Americans, Voting Rights and Election Reform. This is a heavyweight group. If it taps successfully into the youth culture here, the prediction in Sam Cook’s song, “Change Gonna Come” will happen in New Orleans.

One of the faces of the future of New Orleans is Sess 4-5,  hip hop artist, entrepreneur, community organizer, and co-founder of the Katrina Commemoration March, Second Line/Rally.

Barely out of his twenties, he spoke with a sense of purpose and optimism at the morning healing ceremony. He led the late morning's Second Line Parade, bull horn in hand, leading a chorus of “You don’t want to go to war... with New Orleans…give us our homes, and we'll be all right...” to the beat of the brass band.

On stage, he stood right behind New Orleans disk jockey Wild Wayne, helping introduce each of the young groups of performers. Sess 4-5 is the perfect blend of a motivated, pragmatic, warrior, in the best sense, of a community in need of a galvanizing figure who inspires his peers and reignites the social and political aspirations of his elders.

If anyone has the horsepower to bring power to the people, it's organizers like Sess 4-5 and Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr. of The Hip Hop Caucus. The Huffington Post named Yearwood as a 2010 Game Changer in Green.

One of the Katrina Commemoration Foundation's web pages proclaims,"We plan to continue the march forever. We march to ingrain in our community, that while we may want to forget Katrina, we cannot because we believe in a brighter hopeful positive future and we must learn from the past to build for the future."

That is a good thing for New Orleans.

The Hot 8 Brass Band finishes and set the stage for the rally...

 

while people wait in the rain...

Being Louisiana, there will be food, lots of it...

 

Spoken word artist Sunni Patterson...

 

and Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr. exhort the crowd...

 

to be politically aware and active

Sharon Jasper, Housing Activist from "G Block St. Bernard," describes housing inequalities...

 

young artists sing...

 

and rap with politically edged songs...

and rain doesn't dampen the spirits...

 

of speakers...

while activists from National Wildlife Federation distribute literature about wetlands and the oil spill (two items on the Hip Hop Caucus agenda)...

 

and other agencies...

 

including the "Save Charity Hospital" advocates, ask people to join the cause or sign petitions...

 

while some kids just relax...but soon it will be their turn to join the action.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

New Orleans: Katrina Commemoration Second Line Parade Videos

5th Annual Katrina Commemoration Ceremony, Second Line March and Rally
August 29, 2010

Since the first time I read about New Orleans' Second Line Parades on Deborah Cotton's posts and videos on the "Best of New Orleans Blog," I've been dying to march in one. I finally got my chance the day after I attended the Rising Tide 5 New Media Conference on August 28, 2010.

I was so excited that I announced the wrong date on each of these three youtube videos (taken with my little Canon camera). The date of this Second Line Parade was August 29, 2010.

I goofed on the streets as well on the first two videos, announcing that I was on North Claiborne when in fact I was on St. Claude Avenue.


Parade on St. Claude Avenue 2

Parade on St. Bernard 


What is a "Second Line Parade"?

Second line is a tradition in brass band parades in New Orleans, Louisiana. The "main line" is the main section of the parade, or the members of the actual club with the parading permit; those who follow the band just to enjoy the music are called the "second line." The second line's style of traditional dance, in which participants walk and sometimes twirl a parasol or handkerchief in the air, is called "second lining." It has been called "the quintessential New Orleans art form — a jazz funeral without a body."

New Orleans: Katrina Commemoration Ceremony, March, Rally Part 2

5th Annual Katrina Commemoration Foundation Ceremony, Second Line Parade and Rally
August 29, 2010

Part 2: The Second Line Parade/March.

Most second line parades are the exclamation mark to a funeral, social occasion, or cultural event. This second line parade was a comma in a three part event that aimed to harness the feelings of grief, loss, and displacement caused by the storm into a positive force for political change.

Once you get in range of a second line march and parade, the world collapses into a rhythmic here and now experience that seizes your entire nervous system. Before you know it, you’re walking to the beat of the Hot 8 Brass Band. Next thing you know, the person shouting responses to the band’s choruses is you. Not long after that, your body insists on rat a tat tat, shimmy-shamming down the street.

The woman pushing the stroller in front of you has a maternity march going on that would make Richard Simmons gasp. Marchers are wildly different in age, class, race, and mobility. In spirit, they’re an ad hoc nation.

Spectators on porches are waving and swaying, cameras flashing. People lining the sidewalk on one side and grassy neutral ground on the other are whooping it up and making video clips. Every single person is in their own little brass band powered universe tuned into the same station, the experience is at once personal expression and group identification. People make eye contact, fist bump, high five, or just plain smile at each other. The music reaches some part of the universal self that no other medium can plumb.

I don’t think anyone gave a second thought to the intermittent showers on this overcast August  hot-house day. Most people couldn’t tell whether their soaked clothes were from falling rain or rolling sweat. And no one cared a jot. I’d wanted to get myself into a second line march for two years. Way before the march had turned down St. Bernard Avenue and reached its destination Hunter Field I was soaked and dialed in to the joyous energy. 

But this energy was in service to a cause. As Sess 4-5, young co-founder of the Katrina Commemoration Foundation, said as the parade halted for a moment on St. Claude Avenue, "We're not here to just have fun, we're out here to honor the people that passed in the storm." video clip of second line parade and beginning of rally.

I didn’t realize it, but the most powerful part of the march was about to unfold.

Photos and videos below by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Only a freight train, certainly not tiny little rain drops, could slow down this parade.

 

Q93 FM has this covered...

Sess 4-5 sings to the crowd..."You don't wanna go to war...with New Orleans...

"We're not here to just have fun, we're out here to honor the people that passed in the storm."

 

Names of those from the Lower Ninth Ward who died in the storm were read aloud in the healing ceremony and memorialized in the second line parade...
  

Camille was a lady, Katrina was a bitch...

A New Orleans brass band gets everybody off the ground...

and thirsty...

 

Mommas march...
 

and if there's a will, there's a way...

' 

down St.Claude to St. Bernard...

while the band keeps pouring it on after 2.5 miles...

 

and people follow...
 

heading under the I-10  overpass ahead...
 

taking millions of pictures...

all the way to Hunter's Field Park.

New Orleans: Katrina Commemoration Ceremony, March, Rally Part 1

5th Annual Katrina Commemoration March, Second Line Parade, and Rally
August 29, 2010

Part 1
New Orleans wears its demons around its neck like Mardi Gras beads. The brass band music of the social aid and pleasure clubs is one way to shrug off the demons, but layered between the silvery peals of the horns, snappy roll of snare drums and second line dancing is often the perception held by many African-Americans marching that they’re still second class citizens in their own city.

5th Annual Katrina Commemoration March, Second Line Parade, and Rally on Sunday, August 29, was a prime example.

The day before, Saturday, August 28, dozens of softer-edged Katrina anniversary events were held in the Greater New Orleans area. Slidell, LA dedicated a memorial sculpture, “Fleur de Triomphe,” to stand by the city’s 9/11 Memorial. St. Bernard Memorial Funeral Home created a “Hurricane Katrina Casket” into which people could place notes and letters about their memories and loved ones lost in the storm. A St. Bernard Parish Recovery Tour looked toward the future and visited several completion construction projects. On Sunday, several faith-based ceremonies were held all over the city to remember those who were lost and the first responders who came to help.

To my mind, the most ambitious and politically conscious event was Sunday’s Katrina Commemoration Foundation March/Second Line and Rally, co sponsored by the Katrina Commemoration Foundation, The Hip Hop Caucus, and the National Wildlife Federation. Video clip here.

The three part event began with a healing ceremony at Jourdan Road and North Galvez at the levee breach in the Lower 9th Ward in which the names of people who died in the flood were read aloud. The ceremony was followed by a jaunty 3 mile Second Line Parade and climaxed with a good old fashioned activist rally at Hunter’s Field Park at the corner of North Claiborne and St. Bernard Avenue.

The Hunter’s Field Park program of singers, spoken word artists, rappers, dancers, gospel choirs, and community activists was pointedly political, a rallying cry for the African American community to push for equality in housing, medical care, education, and treatment by police. It pulled no punches.

New Orleans: Charter Schools And Recovery Part 4

KIPP McDonogh15 School for the Creative Arts  Part 4

I was in New Orleans to attend the 5th annual Rising Tide New Media Conference centered on the recovery and future of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Two days before the conference began on Saturday, August 28, the serendipitous time and place I decided to have my afternoon coffee led to the following story about the recovery of the New Orleans public schools. 

Education in America is tricky enough, let alone trying to put together a functional school system after a Category 5 hurricane floods 80% of your city, demolishes entire neighborhoods, and displaces families who've been rooted here for generations. And right on the front lines of New Orleans' recovery plan are public schools and the students and parents they serve. The stakes are high: issues of race, class, economic and political status are all in play, Whether it succeeds will be biggest test of resilience - and shared sense of destiny - that New Orleans has ever faced.

I had more questions after parachuting into KIPP McDonogh15 School for the Creative Arts on Friday. 

My first Google search revealed that  a massive educational reform movement was underway before Katrina became a game changer.

In 2003 the Louisiana Department of Education created The Recovery School District (RSD), a special state district dedicated to turning under-performing schools into successful schools. Orleans Parish was a major part of this district. Without this in place, it's doubtful New Orleans schools would have a fighting chance to survive, let alone recover, after the storm.

According to the April 29, 2010 Times-Picayune report, "All told, the Recovery School District plans to have 47 charter schools next school year, and no more than 23 traditional schools, compared with 37 charters and 33 traditional programs this year. The Orleans Parish School Board will continue to operate 12 charters and four traditional schools. Charters are publicly funded, but run by nonprofit boards."

Googling to find information about the mass firings of teachers in Orleans Parish right after Katrina, I come upon a story in Democracy Now, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Partial quote below:

"Immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit, the Louisiana state legislature voted to take over most of New Orleans’ public schools and effectively fire the 7,500 teachers and employees who work in them. The city schools are now part of the state-run recovery school district and control of many of schools is being given to private charter organizations."

One year later in 2007, Democracy Now reported 

"While many in New Orleans have waited two years for recovery, the restructuring of its schools seemed to happen overnight. Not long after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans two years ago, the Louisiana legislature cleared the way for the state to assume control of 107 out of 128 schools in the Orleans district. Immediately, the state began converting many of its newly acquired schools to charter schools–publicly funded schools run by for-profit or nonprofit groups that operate by a "charter," or contract. One result is that the number of unionized teachers dropped from about 4700 to 500."

The top fold headline on the Times Picayune of August 26 reads, "Katrina rewrites the book on education in New Orleans"

Several points in the story detail some of the enormous challenges facing the Orleans Parish schools:

• New Orleans is the first city in the USA to have majority charter schools.
• Many low-income students arrive at school three, four, five grade levels behind.
• Popular charter schools fill up quickly (by lottery), leaving kids of less-savvy parents, and kids with special needs with fewer choices of schools.
• Many schools are still in deplorable shape. A recently announced FEMA grant of $1.8 will give 85 schools a full renovation or a rebuilt school. This will take time.
• Some parents feel charter schools have left them out of organizational process - the fault line here is usually racial, more black parents than white parents feeling left out of the process.
• Regardless of the lottery system, some charter schools have been accused of picking more promising students, avoiding special needs students.

Data from Tulane’s Cowen Institute for Public Education is scary but going in the right direction. It shows that test scores are improving, a fact that can be attributed to the emergence of charter schools, their governance, and compacts with parents who send their children to them. These statistics underline the awful shape public schools were in before Katrina, 2005 and underscore the very long road ahead.

An April 18, 2010 story in The New Republic reports similar findings.

pt’s take

From my 34 years of experience as a public school teacher, I know that one teacher can have a lasting impact on a student, regardless of the student’s social circumstances. Teaching is one of the most demanding jobs on earth. Just knowing subject matter is the tip of the iceberg. In my case, learning how to connect with kids, manage them, motivate them, make them allies in the pursuit of progress, took years to develop. I had veteran mentors and colleagues like myself who were learning as we went along. We learned from our mistakes and built on our successes. We had frequent meetings to learn about "best practices" and were expected to include them in our teaching styles.

As developing teachers, our  progress was uneven and incremental. We spent hours talking about our successes and failures. We knew we entered the field to make a difference, even though we went through dark days when evidence of that was scant. Holding on to that belief was a life ring that kept us from burning out.

Transforming a group of twenty some-odd children from a number into a community of learners who develop a sense of togetherness who understand the struggle and  joy of learning is as consuming a task as any million dollar CEO will ever have. Whether the often underpaid, inexperienced, well-intentioned young charter school teachers can survive for the long haul is an unknown quantity.

Charter schools are using a data-driven business model in which continually failing schools will not be re-contracted. You can have the best data in the galaxy but without a knowledgeable, trained teachers, who know how to use it and how to manage kids, schools will not improve.

The Friday "circle meetings" at the KIPP McDonogh 15 School for the Creative Arts are an important building block to meld data with experience. KIPP's Professional Development Plan will be a key in training and retaining teachers.

Five years out from Katrina, restoring housing and neighborhoods, improving access to hospitals and medical care, restoring a sense of the “just” in the justice system are works in progress. None of those are more important to New Orleans's future than parents and teachers vigorously supporting the fledgling new education system.

Education is low-profile extraordinarily high-value work upon which every resource must be brought to bear  - because if they aren't, the good times will simply cease to roll in New Orleans .

For up to date information about charter schools:
http://topics.nola.com/tag/new-orleans-charter-schools/index.html

 To read a review of Jay Matthews' book about the founders of the KIPP program:
http://kellylowenstein.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/jay-mathews-tribute-to-kipp-founders-mike-feinberg-and-dave-levin/

New Orleans: Charter Schools and Recovery Part 3

I was in New Orleans to attend the 5th annual Rising Tide New Media Conference centered on the recovery and future of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Two days before the conference began on Saturday, August 28, the serendipitous time and place I decided to have my afternoon coffee led to the following story about the recovery of the New Orleans public schools. 

So...here I am today about to take Mr. Brad Burgle's invitation to visit the KIPP McDonogh 15  School for the Creative Arts during school hours to get a sense of a charter school in action. Here's the way it worked out.

KIPP McDonogh Part3

KIPP McDonogh 15 School For The Creative Arts
721 St. Philip Street
New Orleans, LA 70116
August 27, 2010


When I arrive at 3 pm Friday afternoon, two uniformed security guards at the entrance to the school parking lot are standing with a woman wearing a purple polo shirt with the KIPP McDonogh label stenciled on it.

“I’m April Griffith, the Business Operations Manager of the school. How can I help you?”

She sees the disappointment on my face when she informs me school is closed, that kids leave school at 2:30 on Friday afternoons, and teachers are all in meetings  - and offers to take me on a tour. It’s the end of the week. I’m sure she’s logged way more than 50 hours here. And here she is offering this retired teacher a chunk of time she probably doesn’t have.

During the tour, Ms. Griffith skillfully manages to answer my questions while managing a few minor discipline matters, and connecting with custodians and the school secretary.

What is your school year?
“July 25 through May 28.”

Do kids flunk out of this school?
“Parents school staff and students sign a pledge to abide by the principles of the KIPP.
Once a student is accepted, we do everything we can to keep them in the program - outreach, mediation, counseling - whatever it takes."

What if kids don’t comply with a part of the pledge?
“If a student doesn’t bring homework in on time, they’re sent to detention at end of day to finish it.”

How are parents involved?
“They have to agree to the KIPP model for their kids to be accepted. That means having their kids arrive for school on time and with homework completed. It means they have to let us know if their child will be absent and that they will read information we send home to them. Parents are also involved as homeroom parents, and help put on holiday concerts and Black History Month concerts and programs.  ”

What’s going on this afternoon after the students are dismissed at 2:30 pm?
“The upper and lower school teachers participate in professional development meetings. They begin with a ‘circle meeting’ in which they talk about what’s gone on in their classrooms during the week.”

Miss Griffith brings me to the door of the upper school meeting run by a one of the head teachers. The tone is lively and light. It feels like the whole young staff is taking a deep appreciative breath that one of the first weeks of school has ended and that they’re still intact.

These meetings are great community building opportunities for a young and often inexperienced staff.

“I’m really glad to know that,” a young woman in the meeting says after a colleague shares an anecdote about a student. “I thought he was only mad at art and with me. Now I know he’s just angry, period.” The room fills with laughter. Meetings like this are necessary tools for venting and sharing.

The teacher goes on to share how she worked out an incident with the boy who’d gotten physical with a classmate.
“What are you going to do when a kid accidentally bumps into you again? I bumped him and he mumbled something. I told him I couldn’t hear what he said.So I bumped him again. He said ‘It’s OK.’”

Getting the boy who’s never had alternatives to fists in this situation to verbalize  just three words is a small step forward. The young teacher modeled a behavior she wants to reinforce. She will build on that for the rest of the year. It won’t appear as a statistic in her performance evaluation but giving him an alternative way of acting might save his life some day.

These young teachers are working their ways through the hardest part of teaching, behavior management, and they can use all the support they can get as they learn to manage and teach at the same time. They’re all in this together. Moment like this solidify the sense of community they all need to survive and then thrive.

These teachers are at the beginning of what will be a career for some or a stepping-stone to another profession for others. One trait they have in common: they want to be here and they want to make a difference.
Miss Griffith is a role model herself.

“Can we start this again?” Miss Griffin says when students use “Huh” or “Yeah” during conversations with her. A moment of recalibration flashes over a kid’s face.

“Excuse me?” or “Yes” restarts the dialogue.

At end of tour, Miss Griffith takes me to the doorway of a  room full of primary grade teachers engaged in their Friday Professional Development meeting.

“We’re refining the way we assess student’s work,” principal Kyle Shaffer says as he steps out the door to talk to me.

‘During the final years of my teaching career in Brookline, we developed assessment tools so we could grade and assess student work in a manner that mirrors the way students are assessed in MCAS tests in my Massachusetts school,” I said.

“I’m very interested in assessment - next time you come back, I’d like to talk about that,” he says.

An hour after I finished writing the first draft of this story, I picked up Friday morning’s edition of The Times-Picayune. The top fold story headline read, “Katrina rewrites the book on education in New Orleans.” A three-page story documented the rebuilding of the school system. Race and class disparities have not disappeared, not all parents are satisfied the new schools are addressing the old problems.

The KIPP school’s partnership between parents, teachers, and students puts learning first. The “Commitment to Excellence” they all agree to and sign puts into writing a compact that is inferred but not insisted upon in public schools. Whether it makes a difference will be revealed in the years ahead.

I know that today’s venture into the KIPP McDonogh School 15 is like using one grain of sand to extrapolate what the entire beach looks like…but that one grain is a good start.

New Orleans: Charter Schools and Recovery Part 4

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Middle School Administrative Assistant Ms. Quien Nicholas knows the names of every kid who passes her desk strategically placed in the hallway.
 
 

 Cafeteria and performance space on the ground level.

School entrance on St. Peter Street.

Parking lot/playground across the street from Community Coffee, where I first saw the sea of purple shirted kids leave the building at 5 pm. The shirt color designates whether student is pre Kindergarten/Kindergarten, or Primary Grade 1-4, or middle school, Grade 5-8.

New Orleans: Charter Schools and Recovery Part 2

KIPP McDonogh 15 School for the Creative Arts is one of the 37 charter schools operating in New Orleans Parish this year (along with 33 traditional school programs).

What are KIPP  Charter Schools all about? Their mission statement sounds like the ideal of an educational system. From their web site, this is what I read.

The KIPP Commitment to Excellence partnership listed below is a plainly written document that asks much of teachers, parents, and students. Like a three legged stool, if one leg fails, the stool will  topple.

What would I see tomorrow, Friday, August 27, 2010?

About KIPP

Who We Are

KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, is a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools with a track record of preparing students in under-served communities for success in college and in life.

KIPP is a national network of 99 KIPP public schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia enrolling more than 26,000 students. The majority of KIPP schools are middle schools that serve fifth through eighth-grade students. The remaining schools include high schools and pre-kindergarten/elementary schools.

Over 90 percent of KIPP students are African American or Hispanic/Latino, and more than 80 percent of KIPP students are eligible for the federal free or reduced-price meals program. KIPP schools enroll all interested students, space permitting, regardless of prior academic record, conduct or socioeconomic background.

What We Do
KIPP builds a partnership among parents, students, and teachers that puts learning first. By providing outstanding educators, more time in school learning, and a strong culture of achievement, KIPP is helping all students climb the mountain to and through college.

Why It Matters
Every day, KIPP students across the nation are proving that demographics do not define destiny. Over 80 percent of our students are from low-income families and eligible for the federal free or reduced-price meals program, and 95 percent are African American or Latino. Nationally, more than 90 percent of KIPP middle school students have gone on to college-preparatory high schools, and over 85 percent of KIPP alumni have gone on to college.

KIPP Schools
There are 60 KIPP middle schools (grades 5-8), 24 elementary schools (grades Pre-K-4), and 15 high schools (grades 9-12). Students are accepted regardless of prior academic record, conduct or socioeconomic background.

Five Pillars

KIPP schools share a core set of operating principles known as the Five Pillars:

High Expectations.KIPP schools have clearly defined and measurable high expectations for academic achievement and conduct that make no excuses based on the students' backgrounds. Students, parents, teachers, and staff create and reinforce a culture of achievement and support through a range of formal and informal rewards and consequences for academic performance and behavior.

Choice & Commitment. Students, their parents, and the faculty of each KIPP school choose to participate in the program. No one is assigned or forced to attend a KIPP school. Everyone must make and uphold a commitment to the school and to each other to put in the time and effort required to achieve success.

More Time. KIPP schools know that there are no shortcuts when it comes to success in academics and life. With an extended school day, week, and year, students have more time in the classroom to acquire the academic knowledge and skills that will prepare them for competitive high schools and colleges, as well as more opportunities to engage in diverse extracurricular experiences.

Power to Lead. The principals of KIPP schools are effective academic and organizational leaders who understand that great schools require great school leaders. They have control over their school budget and personnel. They are free to swiftly move dollars or make staffing changes, allowing them maximum effectiveness in helping students learn.

Focus on Results. KIPP schools relentlessly focus on high student performance on standardized tests and other objective measures. Just as there are no shortcuts, there are no excuses. Students are expected to achieve a level of academic performance that will enable them to succeed at the nation's best high schools and colleges.

Commitment to Excellence - A partnership between teachers, parents, and students

KIPP is a partnership among parents, students, and teachers that puts learning first. All three parties sign a learning pledge called the "Commitment to Excellence," which ensures that each will do whatever it takes to help the student learn. This is the bedrock on which the entire foundation rests. If one part fails, the structure collapses.

For a complete version, go to Commitment to Excellence.

Teacher's Commitment
•    We will always teach in the best way we know how and we will do whatever it takes for our students to learn.
•    We will always make ourselves available to students and parents, and address any concerns they might have.
•    We will always protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the classroom.

Parents'/Guardians' Commitment
•    We will make sure our child arrives at KIPP every day by 7:25 a.m. (Monday-Friday) or boards a KIPP bus at the scheduled time.
•    We will always help our child in the best way we know how and we will do whatever it takes for him/her to learn. This also means that we will check our child's homework every night, let him/her call the teacher if there is a problem with the homework, and try to read with him/her every night.
•    We will always make ourselves available to our children and the school, and address any concerns they might have. This also means that if our child is going to miss school, we will notify the teacher as soon as possible, and we will carefully read any and all papers that the school sends home to us.

Student's Commitment
•    I will always work, think, and behave in the best way I know how, and I will do whatever it takes for me and my fellow students to learn. This also means that I will complete all my homework every night, I will call my teachers if I have a problem with the homework or a problem with coming to school, and I will raise my hand and ask questions in class if I do not understand something.
•    I will always behave so as to protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the classroom. This also means that I will always listen to all my KIPP teammates and give everyone my respect.
•    I am responsible for my own behavior, and I will follow the teachers' directions.

New Orleans: Charter Schools and Recovery Part 3

New Orleans: Charter Schools And Recovery Part 1

 I was in New Orleans to attend the 5th annual Rising Tide New Media Conference centered on the recovery and future of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Two days before the conference began on Saturday, August 28, the serendipitous time and place I decided to have my afternoon coffee led to the following stories about the recovery of the New Orleans public schools. 

In the course of the next few days, I learned about the abysmal pre-2005 reputation and condition of New Orleans’ public schools, the emergence of charter schools in New Orleans as part of the Louisiana Recovery School District Plan, the slowly rising test scores since charter schools were contracted to operate, and a difference of opinion amongst some parents about the loss of neighborhood schools.

Having taught fourth grade for 34 years in an “urban/suburban” public school system in Brookline, MA, I had little practical knowledge about charter schools.

Writing this story introduced me to the charter school movement, presented a chance to talk with the staff of one charter school in the heart of the French Quarter, and get a sense that recovery of the Orleans Parish schools is an enormous task.

KIPP McDonogh 15 School For The Creative Arts
721 St. Philip Street
New Orleans, LA 70116
August 26, 2010


Katrina savaged New Orleans. It salvaged the New Orleans Parish School System.

Thursday afternoon I was sipping my afternoon coffee at the Community Coffee store on the corner of Chartres and St. Peter when I looked out the window and saw a sea of kids in purple polo shirts swarming out of the red brick building across the street.

This looked like a bunch of school kids - but 5:00 pm? And on August 26? Coffee in hand, I ambled across the street and struck up a conversation with a young man who seemed to be monitoring the beehive. Naturally, I asked questions.

Here on the upcoming fifth anniversary of Katrina, Brad Burgle, a fifth grade math teacher filled me in on one of the few silver linings from the 2005 lashing the storm administered to the city."This is the KIPP McDonogh 15 School For The Creative Arts," he informed me.

“New Orleans public schools were terrible. The state fired every teacher in Orleans Parish after Katrina. Then they began to re-hire for charter schools,” he said. “The system was corrupt. Several school board members were put in jail.” Corrupt indeed.

On June 20, 2006, New Orleans began from the ground up, converted public schools and opened the door wide to charter schools. “This used to be a neighborhood public school,” he said. “It’s now a charter school open to every kid in Orleans Parish.”

As kids waited for an adult to take them home, part of the structure here, Brad kept a vigilant watch and described his school. This is a K-8 school divided into a lower school K-4 and an upper school 5-8 with a principal for each. The staff’s makeup is nearly evenly distributed between men, women, and race.

“KIPP stands for the Knowledge Is Power Program. Eighty percent of kids who attend a KIPP school for four years enroll in college. Before that the rate was 12% in Orleans Parish.”

Stunning.

So was the length of the school day and the way students connect with teachers.

“Students arrive at 7:30 am and leave at 5 pm.  Teachers must be here half hours before the kids arrive and after they leave. Students have our cell phone numbers and can call us after school. I told them they can call me until 9 pm.”

The next statement was no surprise. “There’s a pretty high teacher burnout rate.”

Brad fielded questions from students as we talked and kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow and take a tour?”

I was curious. I intended to return. But first, I did some homework.

SEE New Orleans: Charter Schools And Recovery Part 2

 

New Orleans: On the Eve of 5th Anniversary of Katrina

“You’re not in America, you’re not in Louisiana, you’re in New Orleans.”
New Orleans cab driver August 7, 2010

That’s a pretty universal sentiment down here. When you stir the stew of music, culture, food, close knit neighborhoods, community action groups, crime, corruption, weather, category 5 hurricanes, and political screw ups with the cultures of Creole, African-American, French, Sicilian, and hardy settlers who originally populated the place and season it with how they manage to live together, you get “New Orleans”.  By any metric, this mix of ingredients should not add up to a city its citizens would love. But it does.

Five years ago, Katrina drowned the city. The storm broke it in ways it wasn’t broken before. The black community that makes up the majority of the city remembers a history of being left to hang out to dry after Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and felt it happening again with Katrina in 2005. Conspiracy theories about how and why the levees failed persist in these communities.

Remember video clips of people in New Orleans waving “HELP US” signs from rooftops of houses in over 20 feet of water in the aftermath of Katrina in 2005. Remember wondering why the National Guard, Red Cross, and FEMA didn’t show up a day after CNN began filming the horror? Remember thinking the scene looked like it must be happening in some third world country an ocean away?

How does this city balance the duality of injustice and inequality on one hand and exuberance for life on the other by continuing to let the good times roll in their lovable quirky ways ? There’s an old Lloyd Price song titled, “I Don’t Know Why I Love You But I Do.” Maybe that’s how New Orleanians feel about their city.

This is my fifth visit to New Orleans since the storm. The fact that I love the city certainly colors my writing about it so here on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Katrina, there are some things I’m sorting out.

What kind of city could recover from this disaster? We’re talking about a city that had a crummy infrastructure, a pitiful school system, a police force known for brutality, a crooked politician to go along with every honest hard working one, and a slowly meandering undercurrent of racism perceived by the black residents.

I’m convinced this is the only city in the world that could have withstood the destruction  -emotional and physical - and kept on keeping on. Maybe the fact the place was dysfunctional in its own idiosyncratic way helped prepare them for the aftermath. When I say it marches to the beat of a different drum, I mean that literally and metaphorically.

What did they have to hold on to when all hell broke loose in 2005 and the water filled their neighborhoods like a bathtub? Tires, planks, tree branches, and each other. They also had what no other city in America has. An attitude, a way of life, and a way of deflecting or absorbing all the bad juju and finding salvation in music, food, and family.

Still, New Orleans is far from recovered from Katrina’s assault August 29, 2005.

Katrina wasn’t particular. She hammered black and white residents with equal ferocity. Rebuilding is a maddeningly slow process. Tree branches and upside down cars and the contents of living rooms don’t block the roads today. Red tape, bureaucracy, and insurance companies continue to do that.

Charity Hospital, the one in which most of New Orleanians were born and hold in high regard, is closed and slated for possible demolition. A controversy rages over the demolition's effect on citizens and the neighborhood that will be torn down with it. There are still few local schools for neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward and Charter Schools are a work in progress.

Of the five thousand who lived in the Lower Ninth, only a quarter have returned. The residents who owned their own homes there, which was most of them, have struggled to rebuild. In most cases, the only thing left of their houses is the concrete slab and the steps that led up to it.

Renters and the elderly have suffered the most. Housing stock has decreased, rents have soared. Out in the diasporas of Houston, Atlanta, and elsewhere, these people don’t have the economic wherewithal to return. The size and makeup of New Orleans 2010 is a "matter of wild uncertainty ” even after the 2010 census.

More than 3/4 of the state’s population was born in Louisiana. Many residents in New Orleans have never ventured far from their own neighborhoods. If these still-displaced people don’t return, the oral histories and the fabric of close-knit neighborhoods in every devastated area of the city will have drained away like household belongings in the flood water.

New Orleans was practicing Facebook long before the internet version was born. Social networking took place on front porches, in churches, social aid and pleasure clubs, music and food joints all over town. The storm drowned people. The resulting dislocation of residents threatened to drown a social network stretching back generations upon generations.

A big chunk of the people of color who were directly affected by the storm felt discarded, discounted, and disrespected. Many thought they were getting the shaft because they were black. After watching TV for two weeks after Katrina, and after learning the history about Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and the great flood of 1927, I see the reasons for their deep-seated distrust of government, and the essentially white power structure that runs it.

To add to African American distrust of the white power structure, after the flooding there was a movement to level the Lower Ninth Ward and pursue an urban renewal plan in their prized location,  a potentially commercially-rich area. Residents drew the line. They hollered, petitioned, and stood up for their turf.

Their emotional levee held. The neighborhood is still there. Some homeowners rebuilt on their own. Organizations like Common Ground Relief are rebuilding houses one at a time. Brad Pitt’s “Make It Right” has quietly pitched in to build state of the art, elevated storm proof houses alongside of the traditional one story homes in the ward.
 
Pitt included residents in every single phase of the process, an example of how one white guy understood the process begins with the people who are being served.

“He’s beautiful,” said a young black taxi driver on August 5. He wasn’t talking about Pitt’s face.

The same driver said some residents of the Lower Ninth believed the government intentionally blew up the levee in their ward in 2005 (to protect other, read  "white"  neighborhoods in he city). He said his grandmother heard a low rumbling boom just before the levees flooded New Orleans when Hurricane Betsy ripped through the city in 1965.

“Could have been what happened this time,” he said matter of factly. “Just sayin’.”

He wasn’t the only one who wondered. Those flood waters unleashed an undertow of suspicion that lingers today.

In fact, during the great flood of 1927, the government did dynamite an earthen levee 13 miles south of New Orleans to save the city’s levees from being breached. It killed as many as 1,000 people and displaced about 700,000 more. Race was not a factor. This rural area was populated with poor black and white farmers.

I begin to wonder when I hear stories like this. I cringe when I watch Spike Lee’s  controversial 2006 documentary “When The Levees Broke.” My government’s utter incompetence in dealing with Katrina was breathtaking. The US government takes the cake for ineptitude but New Orleans and Louisiana state officials have to be held accountable for not making enough racket during the past thirty years as the odds of disaster gradually increased as 2000 square miles of wetlands disappeared to make way for channels oil companies use to transport oil from sea to city. Oil money talks.

I could go on.

The magnitude of  Katrina’s devastation would have pounded any other city to the canvas for the count. This city, still majority black, will not bow to natural disaster. Why? Family, history, religion, and pride.  Roots run deep. Whether they will survive intact is an unanswered question.

I know the French Quarter and its surrounding neighborhoods are not the most conclusive ways to judge how they’re doing five years down the line. During two visits this summer, I’ve wondered why the black population, which was about 60% before the storm, didn’t have a chip on the shoulder the size of the Superdome.

In the music clubs and bars I’ve spent time in there are patrons of all ages and races. The music that makes this city tick originated in the black community. Think Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, Satchmo SummerFest. Take that away and the city you have is not New Orleans by anyone’s definition.

The music here is a gift.  The unsettling fact that many musicians, especially younger ones, live in at-risk neighborhoods and have died at the hands of others in those same neighborhoods - highlights the less publicized aspects of the good times city.

And yet, at every place I visit, I see people making it their business to have fun, let the music stir their souls, share beer and laughter together because they want to, have to, and need to. They deal with the cultural and political duality of life in this quirky city by declaring that these places are neutral grounds, places where the music shouts that the ties that bind us can be more powerful than the differences that divide us.

Letting the good times roll doesn’t mean letting yourself get rolled over. That may be the biggest difference between 2005 and 2010. Can I get an Amen on that?