Easton Grange has a New Website

Just a few years ago, it looked as if the Easton Grange was about to go out of business. Today with a rapidly growing membership, the group has launched its own website thanks to the efforts of member Dottie Fulginiti.  The Grange blends an “old-timey” atmosphere with a modern commitment to the local agriculture and horticulture, the environment, and the preservation of its historic building.

The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry is the official name for one of the most important progressive organizations in American history. Organized in 1867 to heal the wounds of the Civil War by promoting the common interests of small farmers, North and South. The Grange went on to promote such important reforms as the Interstate Commerce Commission, modern farming practices, and RFD mail service. Perhaps most importantly in an age when women were just beginning to fight for their rights, the Grange was an organization open to both genders.

It’s hard to believe that an organization devoted to farm issues would have found fertile ground here in Shovel Town, but Easton has had a Grange since 1892. In fact, for a long time Easton had two Granges reflecting our own North/South split. Today’s revitalized Grange is focused on saving the old Grange Hall at the corner of Elm and Washington Street where the Lions’ Club has its thrift shop. Besides working to save the Hall, today’s Grange has donated funds to a variety of modern causes like the Easton Food Pantry and a group that provides seeds and training for third world farmers. This year, Grange members are participating in a series of lectures on home farming at the library, opening up a plot at the new Community Gardens at Wheaton Farm, and promoting an event to raise funds for the Cultural Council along with traditional Grange activities like a vegetable judging contest. The produce from the garden plot will be donated to the Easton Food Pantry. If you are interested in a group with a long tradition and modern goals, the Grange might be for you. Check out the new website.

Remembering Ali Hamilton

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My last year of teaching full time I had a U. S. History class that made me wish I was in it, not teaching it. As a teacher I had to maintain way too much decorum when the amazing cast of characters made me want to laugh out loud five times a day. Not a rocket scientist in the bunch, just memorable characters and decent people every one. It ranks near the top of my favorite classes in forty years of teaching.

Allie Hamilton was in that class. Front row, first seat. After her tragic death the other day, many people have noted her constant smile and daft sense of humor. I saw that for 180 classes along with the down moments that are part of being a 16 year old girl. Nothing kept that smile away for long, however. The papers have also noted that Ali was a great friend who always seemed to go out of her way to help her pals. In my class that meant getting herself and her friends into and out of the usual classroom mischief-the humorous gleam in her eye always gave away the fact that something was “up.”

What I remember most about Allie are baseball and the Junior Prom. Allie loved the

Red Sox more than anyone. But it wasn’t blind love, she knew stats and had strong opinions on who should be benched. She knew more about the Sox then the sports obsessed boys in the class and me too! I really loved talking Red Sox with her. 

Since time immemorial Freshmen girls have dressed to impress, but by the time they become Juniors only a major occasion like a sports team dress code will get them out of jeans and an old t-shirt. The girls in Allie’s class were no exception, Allie among them. When the Junior-Senior Prom rolled around in 2008, I was there to chaperone and take pictures for the class. Here’s my picture of the newly elegant Allie all dressed up at the Prom:

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Note the high heels in hand (elegance only lasts so long at 16) and the famous Allie smile.

Despite keeping in touch over the past few years while she worked at Stone Forge and planned her future, that is the way I’ll always remember Allie. Your friends will miss you!

The Animal List

It's Spring whether the weather knows it or not. I'm going to be presenting a "tracking your backyard" feature at the library in June and have been having a fun time learning the difference between tracking guides and the real world. I thought now might be appropriate to sum up a winter's investigation of the mammal life at the Governor Ames Estate.

One problem is that the guides all feature animal tracks and trackways, but the lawns and woods of the Trustees property is only good for tracking under the right snow conditions or in the rare muddy spots. Only in snow are you likely to find a trackway that will tell you about the direction and speed of an animal's travel. Sadly because people illegally let their dogs off leash at the Estate, most trackways are made by lumbering labs.

Here's the animal list and how they were identified
         White-tailed Deer-Visual sighting, tracks, scat
          Gray Squirrel-Sighting, tracks, food remains
          Red Squirrel-Sighting, food remains
          Muskrat-Sighting, tunnels, scat
          Voles-Probably Meadow voles-tunnels under snow
          Coyote-Scat, probable tracks
          Red Fox-Tracks, scent posts, hunting sign
          Domestic Cat-tracks
          Raccoon-tracks
          Weasel-probably Long-tailed-scat
          Skunk-Grub digs

Missing from the list but present are mice and flying squirrels. Possum, mink, and otter are possible visitors whose sign remains to be discovered. I saw no signs of Fishers, the area's largest weasel and increasingly common here, or bobcats, the elusive predator which is known to be breeding in town. We have two fox species in Easton, but other people have actually seen the red fox so we'll put the gray fox in the possible. but not yet category. Birds, butterflies, and dragonflies are very visible which makes them attractive subjects for naturalists. Mammals are part of an invisible world where behavior can only be worked out indirectly from hard to detect signs.


     

Defining Revitalization

Frothingham Hall is a great place to hold a meeting. One of these days I'll remember that's what people are talking about when they tell me the meeting is at the Hall! Last night the new revitalization plan for North Easton was discussed at a public meeting at Frothingham. I, of course, went to the Hall-Oakes Ames Memorial Hall! And then the Town Hall, and next the Library! Luckily for me the plan that was presented was the same 25% complete plan that was presented to the Historical Commission for comment a few months ago. The people who are doing the design work say they are seeking public input before they go forward to finish the plan for a football field length of Main Street. If you missed the meeting you can check out some of the information at the Town website. The rumors that changes are coming to the town website are getting stronger, and it may actually occur before global warming turns Eastondale into beachfront property, but until then there is no excuse for people not to use the plethora of information available there. We have Facebook and Twitter, too.

One of the more progressive members of the Little Peach crowd attended the meeting last night, and gave me a fair summary of the meeting-essentially the same presentation as before the Historical Commission. As a resident of Main Street and a long time Eastoner, he has been attending the many public meetings on North Easton so he is very well informed. I asked him his opinion of revitalization and he expressed some disappointment. "I guess I confused revitalization with restoration", he said. The proposed changes are all reasonable and not radical, but my first reaction to the design was essentially similar. It seems more Main Street USA than historic Easton. OK, to be fair my first comment was "could I be grand marshal of the parade every day at 5 pm?" But remember  I hate change in general.

The restoration/revitalization comment is a good one. Everyone involved with the changes in North Easton sees a restoration of the livelier street scenes of fifty years ago coming as a result of the Shovel Shop project. Perhaps not everyone, in my darker moments I see everyone hopping on the train to go elsewhere and I have heard negative comments about the "EBT card crowd" coming to town and recreating the mean streets of the big city. Things should work out reasonably well-the library and cultural council are doing their best to provide interesting events, the Village is surrounded by more or less attractive parks and walking areas, and we already have the first new business moving in.

The new Master Plan Steering Committee is underway, and there have been lots of talks about "branding." As most of us know Easton has been ranked highly as a livable community due to its open space and history. The developers of the Beacon Project understand this and have made every effort to build a historical brand at the Shovel Shops. Even I'm optimistic that the place will be amazing to look at. Even the signage should look cool-a unique blend of the modern and historic. To encourage other developers and even private homeowners to maximize the value of their buildings in the district the Historical Commission is proposing an expansion of the local historic district. More on that meeting which will be held at the Hall-Oakes Ames Memorial Hall next week in a later post.

I see two issues. One is how to make the revitalization look less generic. In their defense the designers have tried to find every old picture of Main Street possible. Still none of those old shots show the red brick featured all over the current proposal. I hope that as the design develops these issues, some of which are based on legitimate safety issues, can be resolved. Personally, I think they can be if we all make our desires known.

The second and perhaps fatal problem for North Easton is parking. Even improving the current lot, capable of holding 63 cars,  to the north of Main Street won't met the needs of new businesses on  and the increased visits to the cultural and recreational facilities of the village. And then there is the MBTA's myth of a "drop and go" station at the Shovel Shops. Maybe we do need a monorail from Tomorrowland to take care of bringing tourists and T-riders to North Easton.

These are not my usual sarcastic comments about the pretensions of North Easton. I use North Easton as a recreational facility every day whether it's the library, the Historical Society, Frothingham Park or the Governor Ames Estate. Town government is being very open about its plans for North Easton, and it would be a shame if we had to leave the final development of those plans to out-of-towners. Let's all get involved!

There once was a man from Nantucket…

And his name was Reuben Meader. Born in 1795 when Meader was a middle-aged man, he moved here and lived on Main Street. He was a prominent businessman and an ally of the Ames Family. Why anyone would move from Nantucket to Easton is a puzzle, Throw in the fact that future Governor Oliver Ames married a maid from Nantucket, Anna Coffin Ray, in 1860 and you have a mysterious connection between the island and the mainland. Here's a picture of old Reuben:

I was doing some genealogical work to see if there was a connection between Reuben and Anna recently, but that proved futile. It was a very small island and everyone was related to everyone else often with disastrous results. However, something interesting turned up, a "lost" painting of Anna C. Ames. Here's a photo of Anna from around the turn of the century when she opened the Ames Gymnasium (1902) and became the grandmother of our town's successful music and athletic programs

Oliver and Anna had six children including Borderland founder Oakes Ames.  Their third daughter, Susan Eveline married Thomas Taylor. In 1903 Taylor's parents were living or perhaps wintering in Columbia, South Carolina. Anna Ames came for a visit, and Tom Taylor arranged for William Merritt Chase, then probably the most distinguished painter in America, to come for a visit and paint everyone's portrait. A letter reveals that Anna was not happy with this idea and refused to sit for Chase. Undaunted the painter set up an easel in his room and painted her from memory. When nearly complete he showed the painting to Anna who was so charmed that she agreed to sit for the final touches. The painting now resides in a very well appointed museum in Columbia. Unfortunately, the Taylor's portraits are featured in the museum's online catalog so the following picture of Anna is not as large as it could be:
 

 I love the warmer expression of the painting.

Library Experiment This Thursday

The Ames Free Library sponsored over 700 programs last year, This year they are focusing a number of programs (including three of my own in the interests of full disclosure) on boomers. Those are folks born from 1945 to 1960 not jet pilots who have broken the sound barrier. Along with estate planning and how to find your keys (and remember what they're for), the library is trying some very exciting programming.

One of these great ideas is a series on the Philosophy of Film by Professor Ed McGushin of Stonehill. The first, to be held this Thursday at 6:30 in the Main Library, should appeal to film buffs and philosophers of all ages. Professor McGushin will be leading a discussion on the themes in Alfred Hitchcock's great movie, North by Northwest.

The flyer for the discussion mentions "identity, the context of the Cold War, and interrogation of modern life." We'll get back to those in a minute, but I want to let people know that they are NOT showing the movie. We showed this a few years ago at the Hockomock Film Club and it runs for 136 minutes which would leave little time for discussion. You can rush in and borrow the film from the library, which has multiple copies, but you can't get it streaming through Netflix. If you are like me you remember Eva Marie Saint, mistaken identity (again Hitch?), crop duster, Mt. Rushmore, and Eva Marie Saint. So I suggest going to Wikipedia and refreshing your memory about the plot and production. While you are there you might want to check out Hitchcock's 1942 film Saboteur

This one has Bob Cummings running in the opposite direction across the country and ending up on the Statue of Liberty instead of Mt. Rushmore. I'm one of the few who actually prefers the hokie patriotic dialogue of this wartime version to the sophisticated banter of the later film.  The mistaken identity stuff appears in a number of Hitchcock films including the early classic The 39 Steps.

The issue of identity-what makes you you and all its permutations has been a big deal in philosophy since the ancient Greeks argued about the Ship of Theseus, but with today's neuroscience issues of personal identity have come to the fore. You can check out a pretty readable entry on personal identity at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. If you want more you can follow one of the links in the entry to here.  It's always interesting to look at the influence of a time on its film and the Cold War certainly had a huge impact. Cary Grant's gray suit also typified the 1950s. As far as "interrogating modern life," I have no idea what that means; but my first question would be  "Why aren't their more women like Eva Marie Saint today?" And geez, Hitch, if you had made the darned film three years earlier you could have had Grace Kelly!

A Return and a Departure

I haven't posted since my 65th birthday on February 4th. Rather than an AARP eligibility induced depression, I came down with a big case of writer's block. That psychological condition comes from having too much to write and time pressure to do it. I've spent a month and a half doing everything to avoid serious writing although I've been able to spew out the usual job related boilerplate. To avoid writing I turned to basic research only to discover a new topic for a book!

My principal has two stories. One about starfish which I really like, and one about a mule down a well which has the punch line "shake it off and step up." I'm trying to do that by writing a SHORT blog everyday and 250-500 words on each of three projects. A thousand words a day, four pages. Let's see how this works.

I'd like to remember Bernie Lawson who passed away on March 1 in Hingham at age 87. Bernie was a retired Braintree teacher who was a modern day Thoreau. He loved hiking and birding. I met Bernie at Sheep Pasture where he walked several times a week into his early 80s. Some of you may remember Bernie as the man with the hiking poles. Bernie claimed he needed the poles for balance, but he was one of those people who seemed ageless. He was a serious observer of nature and a great steward of Sheep Pasture. Nothing in the natural world slipped by Bernie. I really loved talking about bird sightings with him or checking out his tips for unusual activities or problems. Whether it was tent caterpillars-"Watch the cherry saplings, they love cherry leaves" or the spring warblers Bernie was on top of everything. Bernie tramped the other open spaces in Easton and became a real townie. He was very sad when he finally needed to move into an assisted living facility and couldn't find what he needed here, but it will be OK, he told me, "they have a nature trail to walk in Hingham." Your friends will miss you, Bernie.