"This Changes Everything"-Photography and Art

I once did a series of PowerPoints on the History of American Art. The caption on the picture below was "This Changes Everything."

This is an 1826 photographic experiment that is the first surviving photo of an outdoor scene. The point was that many artists came to believe, as photography became more common, that realism as a style was dead. Here's a photograph, from 1839 or 1840, that is one of the oldest surviving portraits.

This is Dorothy Draper, an American girl photographed by her brother. Early photos were not snapshots like the thousands of pictures taken on cell phones everyday. Because of the long exposure times each one was posed and carefully thought out. This gives this photo and many other early photos the quality of a portrait painting. In fact the extraordinary sophistication and artistic qualities of this portrait are probably what accounts for its survival. I think one of the finest American portraits photographic or otherwise.

Things didn't change immediately however. While Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh pushed painting towards abstraction, realism continued to flourish. Here's two example from England.

This is William Holman Hunt's famous "The Awakening Conscience" from 1853. The second is Frederic Leighton's "Duty."

Which finally brings us to the topic of the day the British woman Julia Margaret (Pattle) Cameron. Her she is in a photo taken by her brother-in-law when she was 45.

Three years later her children gave her a camera of her own, and she began an astonishing eleven year career (1864-1875). She had certain advantages being of the right class and summering on the Isle of Wight near a number of Victorian era celebrities like Tennyson. While she did not invent the technique of soft focus for portraits, she developed the technique to its highest point through the use of long exposures-the subject moved just slightly over time creating a blur, or through defocusing the lense. This allowed her to create some striking portraits like this of Julia Jackson, the future mother of Virginia Woolf:

Or this one of the historian Thomas Carlyle, looking the way all historians should:

Neither picture follows the photographers "rule of thirds"-look at the lack of nose room, but I think that only adds to the portraits' mystery.

Cameron wasn't content to just take portrait shots, however. She wanted to shoot what were known as "fancy portraits." These were illustrations of historic events, or literary themes using people other than the people actually involved. The two paintings above are more or less in that category. The interesting thing is that I don't think Cameron's shots work. Take a look. First a domestic scene called "Pray God Bring Father Safely Home."

The Victorian sentimentality of the title doesn't help very much, but look at Cameron's props for a Victorian room and compare that to the much more salacious scene from Hunt where the mistress finally awakens to her sinful status. Cameron has clutter, while most objects in the painting are symbolic of the woman's "kept" status. Also, the requirements of early photography make the scene stiff and artificial while Hunt's painting seems vibrant and alive.

Here's another example. Compare Cameron's "The Parting of Lancelot and Guinevere" with Leighton's "Duty."

Certainly better than the previous photo. One could imagine a LaFarge or a Tiffany using this as a model for a stained glass window. The pose is a romantic although rather chaste one of sadness. With the armor and the page (or son), Leighton's painting has more going on than the Cameron photo, but if you focus on the couple you once again see that painting can provide a much livelier scene-the wife imploring and the man torn by his different duties. Cameron's camera couldn't capture the full range of emotions that remained the field of painters into the 20th century.

Julia Cameron had been born in India and educated in France before returning to India and getting married. After many decades back home in England, the Cameron's moved to Sri Lanka where Julia Cameron died in 1879 at the age of 64. Despite being the most gifted and prolific amateur in Britain during her 11 year career. Her soft focus portraits drew criticism and art critics tended to dismiss her more posed works. She was largely forgotten until the mid-20th century when photographers and historians alike recognized the beauty and advanced technical features of her work.

Election Day

OK, it's not Barry versus Willard or even Lizzie versus Scottie, and I know you think that any election that doesn't call for your expertise on the Greek Debt Crisis or North Korean Nuclear Proliferation is beneath your dignity, but today you should be going to the polls in Easton. I also know there is only one contested race and two chances to write in Bart Simpson for Finance Committee, but let me argue that today's election matters.

Why? Well, for one thing the North Koreans aren't nuking Easton anytime soon, but the Board of Selectmen does things that effect your life all the time. Concerned about teenage drinking? Well, the Board of Selectmen has a good track record of taking people who sell booze to minors to task. Want to see Main Street revitalized? Our Board of Selectmen is on it. Want to grab some cash from the state and federal government? There they are again. You got a big pothole on your street? Who ya gonna call, Senator Brown?

Town government is our government. If you forget to vote in the Presidential Election, chances are good that Barack Obama will still get Massachusetts electoral votes, but if you fail to vote in a town election, strange things can happen. Remember Pat Goodman won his current seat on the Finance Committee with three or four write-in votes.

Dennis Sheedy and Colleen Less are dedicated Easton residents who I have served with on the CPA Committee. Colleen has also been a Selectman and Dennis has served on the Housing Authority for many years. You would think that all they have to do is show up and vote for themselves, but their hard work deserves your support!

I have recently met Jennifer Nichols from the Board of Health and know that she is really concerned about making Easton a healthy community. As chair of the Board of Health she wants you to eat your vegetables and as chair of the Agricultural Commission I want you to pay a farmer in Easton to buy those veggies so watch for joint projects at the Farmer's Market or the new Community Gardens.

In the past Walter Galas has helped his wife Lisa coach the OA Mock Trial Team. They did a great job and were really helpful. As town moderator I haven't always agreed with his decisions about things like hand raising, but I feel that I could always go and talk to him. Do you really think Barack or Mitt is going to personally listen to your views on North Korea?

All the unopposed people are dedicated public servants and deserve your vote.

I have already weighed in on the Selectman's race, but want to add one more thing. I have heard that Dan Murphy is considering a run for State Representative to fill the seat of Ms. Creedon. Redistricting has made this an attractive proposition with Easton having about as many votes in the district as Brockton. Don't know if Dan will run, but I want to make it clear that that is not a reason to pass him by today. You can be a Selectman and still hold the position of State Representative under state law. In fact, it would be beneficial to Easton to have Mr. Murphy in both positions. So I'm standing by the incumbents in the one contested race.

So don't forget to vote today, and you won't have to answer any embarrassing questions the next time I see you. Yup, write that down I'm using threats to get you to vote.

The Weekend

The weekend started Friday morning with the long awaited historical walk through of the Shovel Shop. It was the first time I had been in most of the buildings and I was surprised by a number of things. Despite being built over almost forty years, the roof framing of the buildings is remarkably consistent so for most buildings both the inside and the outside look like they were built at the same time. There is not much left that makes you think of shovels. Arnold Tofias did a good job of turning several buildings into relatively modern offices while other parts of the site are just vast open spaces. The "Glass House," the last building put up on the property in 1928, lost its glass when the it was converted to the space metal building it is today. The internal metal framing of that building is interesting and will be incorporated into the new design. This is the building where you will see the first changes. Six bays of this building's north end will disappear to make room for the new sewage treatment plant, a driveway and some green space. Two bays on the south end will have their sides removed for a pedestrian walk through. Yes, we the people of Easton will again be encouraged to walk through the site. Seeing the buildings after looking at plans for so long certainly has gotten me excited about the project and confident that Beacon will do a good job with this large and complex site.

After the tour it was off to New York city for my cousin's wedding. I was trying out my Garmin Nubi 40 for the first time. I had used the device for a few days around town, but since I seldom leave the familiar space of southeastern Massachusetts, I had my doubts about arriving at the Empire Hotel at 44 West 63rd Street without getting into trouble. However, the entry level Garmin device performed flawlessly. I did get stuck in an accident back up on 95 and a traffic jam getting onto the George Washington bridge, but only one dicey decision was the complex off ramp of that bridge.

Some quick comments on New York. The Empire Hotel has a lot of International flair which means you quickly get used to the cacophony of accents that is modern New York. Great hotel restaurant and a small very "in" night club breaks out in the lobby every evening along with a bigger room top lounge. The American Museum of Natural History is a vast collection of animals that look like they were shot by Teddy Roosevelt as well as new interactive exhibits. The family spent the most time in the live butterfly exhibit which is much bigger than the one at our Museum of Science. It's incredible! Many amazing tropical butterflies along with some of our own familiar beauties. There is a species of large butterfly that has brown outer wings and neon blue inner wings that flash on and off like a light house when it flies. We also saw the world's largest moth which has a snakes head tattoo on its wings.
The Hall of Human Origins was cool. I was especially struck by a lifelike rendering of Australopithecus afarensis-chimps could definitely beat the stuffing out of these tiny creatures. Nice gem collection at the Museum-Star of India sapphire is the headliner.

Walked 16 blocks back to the hotel through Central Park. This large Olmsted gem is particularly well maintained, and makes me sad that the few acres of Olmsted design at Sheep Pasture is so neglected. Lack of effort not lack of staff I'm afraid.

The wedding as at the New Leaf Restaurant which was the original stable for the Cloisters estate. Both the mansion which is now one of the most extraordinary museums in the world and the restaurant are set in Fort Tryon State Park on the north tip of Manhattan. An exquisite site for a wedding-just don't let anyone tell you that the restaurant is "right next to" the museum. The stable was a half a mile from the mansion. If you love art you need to visit the Cloisters, truly amazing! The restaurant was excellent and the outdoor wedding beautiful.

A Chaffin Discovery

The Historical Society continues to upgrade its offerings. Along with changing its display area, adding technology and a downstairs research library,  a group of members have been working hard to catalog the collection in preparation for scanning key documents. Now Curator Frank Meninno has begun to rearrange the deepest storage areas in the library's attic. Yesterday, an interesting notebook by Reverend William Chaffin came to light. Chaffin, the pastor of Unity Church for a bazillion years, wrote the first history of Easton based on meticulous research. Over the years Chaffin added other historical and genealogical writings. Thus, it was a surprise to find a notebook labelled "My Fernery" that relates his research for the fern garden that apparently still exists behind Holly House on the Unity Church property.

Chaffin donated the notebook to the library in 1923, and it came into the possession of the Historical Society after World War II. A break occurred in the meetings of the Society so their document collection was again saved at the library. When the new library addition was underway, the notebook and other important documents finally found their way back to the Society. Internal references so far discovered link the notebook to the period between 1897 and 1907 and show Chaffin to be a serious fern collector.

Ferns have been around for about 360 million years. They produce neither flowers nor seeds instead reproducing from spores. From a personal perspective they are darned hard to identify so Chaffin had to study hard to become an expert. The notebook tells us that Chaffin imported dried fern specimens and living plants from as far away as the West Coast, but the most important thing is the listing of native ferns. Old listings of plants and the arrival dates of migrating birds have become a hot topic for scientists studying climate change. While an individual old record may be incomplete comparing a number of old records to new research can provide valuable information. A quick glance yesterday showed that the genus names in Chaffin are mostly still in use today so it should be possible to compare his records with recent research at Sheep Pasture.

The fernery at the Unity Parsonage was apparently constructed in 1897 because the notebook lists the expenses for the labor of August Anderson who also supplied 9 loads of "muck." Besides whatever native ferns Chaffin planted, he added in September, 1897 ferns from Southwick, Massachusetts costing $4 (shipping cost another $4.40). In 1898 he added ferns from California costing $1.25. A maple was planted in the fernery for shade and a flowering dogwood for spring color. How much of the fernery remains is an interesting question, but an exploration will be helped by two photographs contained in the notebook.

Astronomy Apps

I have a hard time with telescopes so much so that I bought a pair of astronomical binoculars. This Wednesday night the NRT EcoRangers will be doing a stargazing event so for the next couple of days I'll be trying to learn how to use a Newtonian reflecting telescope that has been loaned by Randi Graham.

Looking to get an edge beyond astronomy books and those cardboard star charts, I've bought a few apps for the IPad. My go to computer program is still Stellarium for the regular mac, but the ease of bringing an IPad into the field makes it an excellent choice for sky watchers. I've got nine apps in my astronomy section, but only a few will be helpful with the EcoRangers. Exoplanet, a regularly updated app that tracks the search for earth-like planets in a star's "sweet spot" where water neither freezes or boils is not going to impress your average nine year old nor are atlases of the Moon or Mars. NASA's EarthNow is an IPhone app that gives a global view of satellite data on a number of things like atmospheric CO2; nice to know someone is looking down on us.  The main NASA app should be on everyone's IPad. It's loaded with amazing pictures, videos, and facts like the International Space Station might be seen by the EcoRangers for three minutes beginning at 8:18 Wednesday if our extinct volcano wasn't in the way. You could spend days with the NASA app, but it's not what I'm looking for on Wednesday.

That leaves four programs SkyQ, NightSky, SolarWalk, and SkySafari for Wednesday night. SolarWalk is an app that allows you to fly through the solar system. Good old earth is surrounded with the paths of satellites which you can fly around before leaving for close-up views of all the planets and most major moons. NightSky is probably the most famous astronomy app. If you have a 3G IPad or are in WiFi range if you don't, you can hold up the IPad and this app will identify what you are seeing. SkyQ comes from Celestron the leading maker of home telescopes. As you might expect this is an app filled with viewing times of major space objects with  a sky view that can be set like a regular planetarium program. Great information, but it's very sensitive screen doesn't always open the information about an object when touched. Last, but for nine year olds perhaps the best app, is SkySafari a three app series that starts with an entry level program and works its way up to a $30 pro version. The entry level program doesn't show the night sky with the same detail as SkyQ, but the stories of the constellations and stars that are visible with the naked eye are superb. For example did you know that the Great Spirit knows just how dumb a bear can be? He taught them how to build warm dens, but the silly animals didn't know when to use them. So the Great Spirit set two bear constellations in the sky that rotate around pole star. When the two constellations are below the pole star it's winter and the bears should be in their dens!

Summing up no sky watch program has all the features you might need, but for adults trying to find things for a telescope Night Watch and SkyQ are the apps to have. Parents with kids should give SkySafari a try. For rainy nights SolarWalk and the NASA app will give you a full dose of astronomical wonder.

Welcome Home Dr. Bob-Here's Something to Check Out

One of our loyal readers has just returned home from another stint in the hospital so here's an old idea made new again. It's the Google Art Project. You might remember that I reviewed this Google project when it first launched last year with about 16 museums making parts of their collection available for a special photographic process that allowed a fantastic amount of zoom. I got yelled at by museum guards as a little kid because I always wanted to get close to the paintings to see how they were done. With the Google Art Project I can now      get as close as I want.

Google has changed the website considerably and on a quick early visit I was convinced that it wasn't a change for the better as pictures loaded very slowly. The upside of the new site was the inclusion of more museums-a lot more. There are now 134 museums represented. Some places aren't even traditional museums like the cave that houses a collection of Australian Aboriginal Rock Art. I've revisited the site often in the last few days, and once you learn to navigate the site things speed up considerably.

When you arrive at the Art Project, you get a random blow up of an art object and the option to open "Collections," "Artists," "Artwork," and "User Galleries." Click on one and it opens an alphabetical listing-the artist listing is bizarrely alphabetical by artist's first name. I just clicked on Edvard Munch and a series of thumbnails of the 58 works included in the Project popped up. I clicked on one of the thumbnails and waited and waited. Why it was several seconds-unheard of since the days of 1200 baud modems, but what the Google Art Project does is open the full version of the picture you clicked on as well as film strip that pops up along the bottom of the frame. Click on a thumbnail in the filmstrip and the new picture opens instantly. If you start with a museum collection, think of that first delay as standing in line to get in.

What kind of museums are included? Many of the big ones have made scores or hundreds of works available. Our Museum of Fine Arts have over 200 objects in the Project including this fellow from the Asian Art Collection:

 This is a close-up-I just love his expression. The new Project includes many more objects and photographs to supplement all the paintings. Besides the big museums, however, are those special little museums we all like to stumble upon when we travel. For instance, there is a museum of modern art from the Olympics, an art nouveau museum, and a whole bunch of museums I have no idea about because their names are in German! There are real finds out there like the 415 objects from the Art Gallery of New South Wales or the photographs of Julia Cameron. Best of all you can put together your own gallery, comment on the individual works in your gallery and then make it available for public viewing. Some day I may make the ultra special South Easton Museum of Art with its multiple galleries public.

Tomorrow an appreciation of astronomy apps for the iPad.

An Ethics Violation and a Shade Loving Plant

Birders phish. That's a generally accepted method of getting a bird that's nearby to show itself. When one quickly and quietly repeats the word phish, it sounds like the distress call of many birds. Other birds come to look and viola the warbler who has been hiding in the tree hops to the end of a branch to see what is going on.

However, the phish is at the top of the slippery slope. Whistling a bird's call isn't much different from a phish and works about as well, but most birders consider it a little unethical. Even more unethical is using a recorded bird call. The problem as I discovered yesterday is that recorded calls work. For an expert birder, the stalking of an uncommon bird is part of the thrill, and recorded calls are cheating. The real reason for avoiding recorded calls is that each time a bird responds to a call, he or she stops doing something else like eating or tending a nest. It takes a lot of energy to be a bird and responding to spurious challenges could wear a bird out or impact the young in the nest. So use of recorded calls is left to scientists working on research projects.

Yesterday I was at Sheep Pasture testing out some astronomy apps when I heard a bird calling. Now I'm terrible with identifying birds by song so I turned to one of my two birding apps to track down the bird. The bird sounded a little bit like a cardinal so I played the cardinal song a couple of times and almost immediately a female cardinal appeared to investigate followed quickly by the male.

OK, I wondered if that was coincidence so I moved from the foundation area down the hill to the Carriage House where people have been seeing a large hawk. I always tell them that it is a Red-shouldered Hawk, the areas second largest; but some believe the bird, which nests near the NRT's little pond, is a Red-tailed Hawk. I stood in front of the parking lot and played the call of the Red-shouldered Hawk about six times. Suddenly, the bird silently glided out of the trees and swooped over my head before landing nearby on a shed. Identification confirmed.

We should note that the recordings only work on nearby birds. Playing the flamingo calls had no effect;-)

Hosta is a popular plant for shade gardens, but there are other choices as well. One of my favorites is Lungwort often known by the prettier name Pulmonaria (just Latin for lungwort). Lungwort actually sounds good when compared to the German "Lungenkraut." Other English names are Joseph and Mary, Soldiers and Sailors, Spotted Dog, or Jerusalem Cowslip. The plant is a hardy perennial that has deep green foliage with pale green spots. In the days of sympathetic medicine, herb doctors thought that the leaves looked like diseased human lungs and used the plant as a cure for several respiratory  infections.

I grow the plant in a shady and sheltered location next to my back door. With our warm winter the distinctive leaves of the plant were still going strong near the end of December and were back by the end of February. Now the plant is in bloom with lovely small blue flowers that start as pretty pink buds. Lungwort actually has two types of flowers one with short stamens and long styles and the other just the opposite. I think in other plants that have this arrangement it is an attempt to mix self and cross pollination. For gardeners lungwort is usually propagated by dividing clumps of the plant which has a slowly spreading rhizome. Here's a picture of a variety that has bigger flowers than the plant in my backyard.

"Have You Ever Been Bit By A Dead Bee?"

"Have you ever been bit by a dead bee?," was the second most famous line in the classic film "To Have and To Have Not." An article in the Boston Globe this week makes it clear that we are all likely to be bit by a dead bee as Colony Collapse Disorder causes some of our favorite fruits and vegetables to become much more expensive or perhaps completely unavailable. The article cited a Harvard School of Public Health study that linked the crisis in beekeeping to a popular pesticide called imidacloprid.

You may have heard that professional beekeepers move thousands of hives cross country to pollinate such popular crops as apples and blueberries. Bee pollinators are also essential for nut trees, many vegetables, and livestock feed. Researchers have implicated a number of possible causes including mites and viruses, but several years ago French researchers suggested this pesticide as a possible cause.

The Harvard study set up beehives in five locations in Worcester county in 2010 and treated them over 23 weeks with different levels of the pesticide. Half way through the test all the bees were alive, but at the end 15 of 16 treated hives had died. CCD has a strange effect on bees. Instead of dying in the hive in CCD the worker bees fly away and never come home leaving just the Queen, baby bees, and a few guards in the hive. The Harvard test produced the same results. On the other hand, if you sprayed the hive with bee and wasp insecticide, there would be a whole host of dead bees around the hive to get bit by. The Harvard researchers discovered they could destroy a hive with CCD-like symptoms using a dose of the pesticide that was less than is typically used in crops or in areas where bees forage.

Imidacloprid and its chemical relatives are used extensively in the corn fields of America. The Harvard researchers believe that if the bees don't get exposed in the field, they pick up the pesticide as a residue in the high fructose corn syrup that the bee keepers feed them while moving hives. At this point you might want to run to the kitchen and discover just how much of your food supply has high fructose corn syrup.

According to the Globe article "officials at Bayer, the German chemical and pharmaceutical company that produces more of the pesticide than any other company in the world, said that the study was flawed and its findings should be disregarded." Now a good reader should weigh the reliability of its sources, Harvard versus Bayer. Let me help. Harvard is the one that didn't produce Zkylon B for the Holocaust.

The Globe also quotes the EPA that the pesticide continues "to meet the statutory standard of 'no unreasonable adverse effects' on people and the environment." To be fair the EPA has moved up the whole class of pesticides that includes imidacloprid in its review schedule so that a wider study (inevitably with chemical company shills adding there two cents) will be started by the end of the year. The line "no unreasonable adverse effect" makes me think of local author Kristi Marsh who points out in her book Little Changes that no unreasonable adverse effect is not the same as "no adverse effect." Kristi is a cancer survivor who has become an advocate for making your life safer by making little changes in the things you eat, drink, or put on your skin. Her book is available at Paperback Junction and is worth purchasing for both its heartwarming story and the list of "little changes" and websites included at the end. Kristi also maintains a website.

I've been extremely disappointed with the Obama administration's environmental actions and loath the current boobocracy that run the Republican party for Big Oil, Big Chemical, and Big Agra. We all need to become whistleblowers for a cleaner, safer environment. "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow."

Schools in Furnace Village

The Historical Commission is in the midst of its second round of historic home surveys with Kathryn Grover and Neil Larson two professional researchers. Those two are responsible for the excellent survey of North Easton Village which nails down the dates and details of all the non-Richardson buildings there. The second round expands the survey south into a square bounded by Center Street, Columbus Avenue, Lincoln Street and Sheridan Street. The other part of the survey covers Furnace Village which was originally surveyed by enthusiastic amateurs (me included) back in the 1970s.

I last looked at Furnace Village when writing Easton's Neighborhoods and helping with the historical research for the Public Archaeology Labs digs at Old and New Pond back in the '90s. Those were the days when computers were useful for writing history, but the data now available online was still hidden away in archives. Now Grover-Larson can easily access censuses and other data that would have taken years to acquire just a decade ago.

Unfortunately, Easton's history always gets back to Reverend Chaffin, and his writing about Furnace Village schools has caused nothing but confusion. This is a little strange since Chaffin served on the School Committee for years. There were four schools in the Furnace Village area, three continue to stand today; but Chaffin apparently says next to nothing about one of those three standing buildings and what he does say is wrong. I knew this in the '90s and chose to write around it, not helping the situation today.

Right now Frank Meninno, Curator of the Historical Society, and I are checking the rough drafts of the surveys and between all four of us we think we have sorted out the schools of Furnace Village. No one doubts that a school existed at Four Corners from 1790 to 1869. Four Corners is the intersection of Highland Street and Route 106 where the Highland Variety Store is located. That building is long gone. In 1846 the growth of population in the area around the Foundry caused the town to create an 11th school district with its school at Harmony Hall. Here's what Chaffin has to say:

…a school for the village was held in Harmony Hall for a time. In 1869 a schoolhouse, then the largest in town, was erected, standing north of Lincoln Drake's house. March 1, 1869, districts No. 4, 5, and 11 were consolidated under the name of the Union District; and during that year the two story building now in use was built, and the scholars were graded into two schools, answering to primary and grammar grades, though for some years High School studies were taught by competent teachers, and several scholars regularly graduated from it after completing substantially the same course of study as that pursued in the Easton High School.

There's plenty to confuse out-of-towners in that paragraph. Two big schools built in the same year and an ambiguous reference to a High School being taught in one of them. Townies, at least of the South Easton variety, know that the building on the northeast corner of Highland and South Street was the one that held the High School before "they" made us go to North Easton for higher learning. How to prove that is the problem because when our researchers read this paragraph they see two schools from 1869 with no way to tell if the high school was in the primary or grammar school.

Frank Meninno solved the problem by pointing out the mistake in Chaffin. The school "standing north of Lincoln Drake's house," now 8 South Street, was erected not in 1869, but in 1855. We're now looking for the paper written by Poquanticut resident Willis Buck that would prove that point. Frank's idea is that this large building replaced Harmony Hall and when the new school was built in 1869, the old one served as a private academy for a few years before being converted in a residence which fits with Grover-Larson's research. But what about "the scholars were graded into two schools?" Luckily, we were able to pull out a copy of the 1869-70 school report that clinched the answer. When Chaffin was talking about grading, he was thinking about the days when all students attended the ungraded school at 8 South Street. An earlier school report noted that one teacher had charge of 55 students there, and under state law should have been allowed an assistant. Instead, the town relied on older students to help the teacher with the younger ones. When the new two story building was constructed it was indeed "graded" with the primary grades under the charge of one teacher on the first floor, and the grammar school and high school on the second floor with another. Two "schools" in one building beating FLO and HHR by more than a century! A few high schoolers continued to graduate from this school until free transportation was provided to North Easton shortly after Chaffin finished his history in 1886. As Grover-Larson reminded us John Gay, Jr. and perhaps his father ran an omnibus service from the Furnace that took students to the depot at Easton Center where they could hop on the train for North Easton. 

The Nothing

The Nothing was the monster in the fantasy novel The Neverending Story. It represented the total lack of imagination that was destroying the land of Fantasia. I couldn't help thinking of this when I read the "Meet the Candidates" piece on Pat Goodman in Friday's Easton Journal. Now everyone knows Pat as a right wing ideologue from his ECAT appearances so it was surprising when he suggested he had "no inner compass or guide." He'd be guided, he said,  by "common sense which there seems to be none of on the current board." He decided to run because the present board "has done nothing." However, despite doing nothing all their decisions have been "poor." Pat helpfully listed all the organizations he has served on over the years, but the article somehow failed to mention his service on the Finance Committee, when it was "the Just Say No to Everything" Board.

Now Pat is technically right when he says the Selectmen have done "nothing." The term Selectmen comes from the fact that Town Meeting once upon a time selected some of its members to execute its decisions when not in session. The Selectmen can recommend policies, but only the Town Meeting, open to all the citizens of Easton, can decide whether they should be carried out. What Pat is telling you is that we, the people of Easton, did nothing over the last few years during which we saved the historic Ames Shovel Works, approved long overdue sewage treatment for North Easton Village, created a brand new recreational facility, improved our planning department, and added many other solid projects in the midst of the Great Recession while retaining strong public safety and education programs. We've done pretty well for ourselves, but Pat thinks we have done nothing. And if we had followed Pat's recommendations that's exactly what we would have today-nothing. For those of us who can imagine Easton continuing to thrive as a vibrant community, the past few years have been challenging, but with the recommendations of the Selectmen and other town boards, and the wisdom of Town Meeting we have succeeded while other towns have failed. We didn't do "nothing."

Please watch the Selectmen's candidate debate live tonight on ECAT  at 7 pm or pick it up on the Patch tomorrow.

Disclosure: I have a Colleen Corona sign on my lawn, and I am also supporting Dan Murphy. I hope that our newest candidate continues to seek public office as he learns more about the town. None of them have insulted our intelligence by suggesting we have done nothing over the last few years.

A Fun Link and Two Serious Ones

Sorry for the continued hiatuses in the blog. With my time at NRT winding down I have less to write about. Coupled with that I've got a couple of Historical Commission projects that are taking up some time as well-more on that in a few days. Today I want to point you towards three links while tomorrow I'd like to explain why Selectmen's candidate Pat Goodman hates you so much. You being the voters he is trying to fool into voting for him.

So the fun link is to an article on the Dictionary of American Regional English. The folks that recently announced that New England's usage of the word "tonic" is declining sharply. Not a bad thing since modern soft drinks are anything but tonics to improve your health. Unless, of course, you are drinking Moxie. That we have a dictionary of regional slang is a surprising, and you can find out how it happened here.

For the serious links I've found a blog from a Republican weatherman in Minnesota that points out to the wholly owned subsidiary of Big Oil, aka the Republicans in Congress, that no matter how much money they spend on lies and disinformation climate change is real. The weatherman, Paul Douglas, was a guest blogger on the Shawn Lawrence Otto site. His point is that believing in the data on climate change is rational rather than liberal or conservative. Mr. Douglas' argument is that if we stopped arguing about whether climate change is real (it is) we could start arguing about the solutions. He also points out that once upon a time, before the money from big oil and coal rained down on them, the Republicans had a perfectly good solution to climate change-a cap and trade program for carbon emissions. This free market alternative worked for air pollution, but as Mr. Douglas points out there are trillions of dollars of oil, coal, and natural gas profits left in the ground that Big Energy wants in its pockets. If you want a video version of this rant from James Hansen-another cap and trade advocate- you can visit the TED here. A third of a million people have already seen this TED lecture which was posted just a few days ago. If a third of a million people marched on Washington and threatened to demonstrate global warming by burning the city, perhaps the politicians would listen.