Let The Race Begin

Finance Committee Chair Andy Steinberg

Andy Steinberg is first to announce his candidacy for the five member Amherst Select Board, our executive branch of government. As an entrenched insider -- i.e. Town Meeting and Finance Committee -- Steinberg, a retired lawyer, is a slam dunk for one of two open seats.

Especially since he touts "collaboration and transparency" on a shortlist of his priorities.  Who can argue with those?

And as a Town Meeting member he voted in favor of flying the commemorative American flags every 9/11.  Well okay, maybe that one will cost him a few votes.

Interestingly enough, he's probably the only North Amherst/Cushman homeowner who does not have a "Stop The Retreat" lawn sign prominently displayed in his yard.  So yeah, that too may cost him a few votes since NIMBYs usually patronize the ballot box.

If they really possessed political power, however, they would not have been so unceremoniously blown out of the water at the last Town Meeting.

It's been a while since two incumbents both decided to retire from their Select Board seats, thus the field this coming election (March 25) is pretty wide open.  Fitting I suppose, since Stephanie O'Keeffe and Diana Stein both won their seats almost six years ago in a strongly contested election (5 candidates) but at the election three years ago neither had competition.

The odd thing about an election with two open seats is a voter gets two votes.   Thus like-minded candidates usually form an unofficial team, quietly telling their ardent supporters to throw their second vote to candidate B.

Theoretically Candidate A can have only 750 entrenched supporters as does Candidate B; but with each telling their supporters where to throw their second vote both candidates end up with a whopping 1,500 votes.

Thus making it tough on lone-wolf Candidate C, an outsider who tells their voters to "bullet vote"  (don't cast second vote) with a respectable 1,000 supporters,  but still ends up coming in a distant third.

Whereas if voters were only allowed one vote, Candidate C would have come in first.

Since there's no Proposition 2.5 Override or change-our-antiquated-form-of-town-government Charter issue on the ballot, voter turnout will be in the usual range ... dismal.

Over the past five years annual spring town elections averaged a pathetic 15% turnout (with an Override question on the ballot, 2010 had a 32% turnout) while the 2012 November Presidential election garnered a 69% turnout.

In addition to the two Select Board seats other town wide contests for three years seats include one seat on Jones Library Trustees, one  seat on Amherst School Committee, one seat each (for five year term) on Amherst Housing Authority and Amherst Redevelopment Authority (that did not meet once in the past year).

As usual the Town Meeting Moderator position is up (although Jim Pistrang has a 20 year lease). And Town Meeting will have the usual rotation of eight seats per Precinct up for three year terms (80 total) and a dozen other shorter term seats contested.

Amherst currently has 17,851 registered voters.

In his own words ...

Going In Circles?

 

Fort River School historic East Amherst Village

So maybe school officials should simultaneously teach history by having the kids sing "Marching through Georgia" or  -- to be fair and balanced -- "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" while traipsing around the school on these brisk mornings coming up. 

Or let the lead kid carry a Chinese flag. 

 Fort River School Monday 8:35 AM

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Email sent to parents November 18th

Dear Families and Guardians,

At Fort River Elementary School, we will implement a before school walking program, beginning December 2^nd (the Monday after Thanksgiving).  This is a successful program at Wildwood, and we are modeling our system after theirs (thanks, Wildwood!).

This program is designed to provide an effective and safe method of increasing physical activity by taking advantage of time not in use for academics.  Currently, our students arrive between 8:30 & 8:45 and have 3 choices:  eat breakfast in the 1^st cafeteria, socialize in the 2^nd cafeteria, or socialize in the gymnasium.  We seek to change this morning supervised time to offer more productivity for the students.   

This program, to be implemented at Fort River Elementary School, will hopefully allow for two things to occur:

1. Increase academic engagement and success.  School aged children who started their morning off with vigorous physical activity while waiting for classes to start showed results of improved focus and attentiveness, and decreased overall behavioral problems (Quick, 2008).
2. Improve overall health of our students.  An increase in physical activity will be used to aid in the battle of childhood obesity and support students to develop a routine for daily exercise.

Students who need to eat breakfast will still come in the building after 8:30 and have a supervised meal in the cafeteria.  All other students will drop off items in the lobby (if necessary) and go back outside to begin walking around our building, supervised by adults stationed outside.  We will follow the guidelines set forth by the district regarding outside activities in relation to cold weather, and offer an inside walk on days that are too extreme.  All students will conclude their walk at 8:45 so that they may begin class at 8:50.

We anticipate that the students will need support for this transition, so we will have many adults on hand outside as we begin implementation (and continued supervision as the program proceeds).  We will also discuss this with them in class in the days ahead so that they may ask questions and be prepared to begin!   Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns. 

Fort River Administration

Occupy Walmart

 Hadley Walmart under siege (sort of)

In addition to the usual bevy of shoppers coming and going at the Mall this Black Friday, the Walmart in Hadley also has a gaggle of protesters occupying a high profile location near their front doors and the subsidiary police presence (looks like the entire Hadley force) and mainstream media.

 

And what is the cost of "justice"?

Heeding the words of President Calvin Coolidge, "The chief business of the American people is business," most shoppers stopped for a moment to survey the scene or listen to the speakers, then quickly headed into the store.

 

Walmart employee tells crowd she makes $10/hr after 5 years 

 

If they gave a demonstration and the media didn't show up it does not make a sound

Walmart fights big hit on Twitter

Christmas Tradition

Now open for business:  Boy Scouts Christmas Tree store

The other Christmas tradition commencing on Black Friday also involves sales, but a tad less cutthroat than what occurs at your local Mall.  

Since the 1950s Boy Scouts have used Kendrick Park as a sales showroom for their #1 fundraiser.  Some of you may remember the "only in Amherst" incident back in 2007 (A story I broke of course) when then Town Manager Larry Shaffer -- supported by then Select Board Chair Anne Awad -- wanted to charge them rent via a $1/tree tax.  

Which of course went over like drilling oil wells in a national park.  

Today the Grinch, err, Larry Shaffer, is long gone and the town even allowed the Business Improvement District to decorate one of the trees on Kendrick Park near the showroom with holiday lights.

Yes Virgina, there is a Santa Clause (even in Amherst).

A Thanksgiving Tradition

 Volunteers young and old help make the Senior Center Thanksgiving go smoothly

Public safety personnel -- God bless them -- are not the only ones working today in the little college town of Amherst (now with the school break, thankfully, feeling a bit less like a college town). 

For the 32nd consecutive year Nancy Pagano, Amherst Senior Center Director, coordinated a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner at the downtown Bangs Community Center, serving 90 in-house and another 60 via meals on wheels.

 90 folks served at Bangs Center and another 60 in their homes

Or 150 people who otherwise would have had to fend for themselves on this day designed for camaraderie.

 

Six 25+ pound turkeys went into the mix

A Thanksgiving Story (Worth Remembering)

Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes Saturday Evening Post cover, Nov 24, 1945

Only in Arlington would posing for the greatest illustrator in American history on assignment for media juggernaut The Saturday Evening Post pass for routine.

Richard (Dick) Hagelberg returned to the family dairy farm after surviving five years in the 9’th Army Air Corps, flying 65 treacherous daylight bombing missions over Europe, including D-Day.

June 6, 1944 Photo by Dick Hagelberg

One summer morning he sat beside his 51-year-old mother Saara (Finnish spelling) for an hour of modeling; and two generations later, the scene still resonates.

With a publication deadline looming, Rockwell desperately recruited the Hagelbergs'. Initially they refused his proposal, but when he offered them each $15, they acquiesced . After publication, as he often did with models, Rockwell offered to gift Dick the original painting. He respectfully refused.

Sixty years later, in 2006, Rockwell’s "Homecoming Marine" sold at auction for $9.2 million and "Breaking Home Ties" (a farmer sitting on the running board of a pick up truck with his son dressed in Sunday best clothes heading off to college) brought an astonishing $15.4 million.

Rockwell’s 1943 "Freedom From Want", an extended family gathering around a sumptuous turkey dinner, would at the time prove more popular than the minimalist “Thanksgiving, 1945: A mother and son peeling potatoes.”

But the earlier Post cover had a distinct advantage.

The Four Freedoms

Part of Rockwell’s public relations war effort, the epic series of illustrations based on FDR’s 1941 State of the Union speech, "The Four Freedoms," heartened a battered America still reeling from Pearl Harbor’s infamy.

The US Government originally rebuffed Rockwell’s sponsorship proposal, so he settled for his regular employer The Saturday Evening Post. The blockbuster results appeared over four consecutive weekly covers from February 20 to March 13, 1943.

"Freedom From Want” hit the stands on March 6, 1943, so unlike "A Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes" that appeared on November 24, 1945, it was not simply a seasonal Thanksgiving tribute.

The Office of War Information printed and distributed millions of full-color reproductions of the "The Four Freedoms" and sponsored the originals on a War Bond Tour of major cities that raised $130 million, or $1.7 billion in today's dollars.

Americans adored "Freedom From Want"; but with Europe in ruins our struggling, decimated allies didn’t want a reminder that America’s heartland escaped war’s devastation.

"To Hitler from Lt. Hagelberg"

For his Thanksgiving, 1945 cover, Rockwell journeyed to Maine for a change in scenery, starting work August 15th--the day Japan surrendered.

Rockwell enlisted a 16-year-old boy to play the veteran and a friend’s wife acted as his mother. But when the illustrator returned to his Arlington studio, he couldn’t make it work—the young man didn’t exude the stress of war.

Rockwell recruited two more locals but once again didn’t like the results, considering it too staged. Fortuitously, Dick, recently returned from battle, arrived to deliver milk fresh from the nearby Hagelberg farm to the illustrator's front door. Rockwell had his subjects.

Lt Hagelberg doing a Dr. Strangelove

Rockwell originally posed Dick in a wheelchair striking a pensive pose reminiscent of Rodan’s "The Thinker", but decided it was too melancholy. The selected scene is still slightly incongruous, as Dick is performing one of the military’s more despised chores—KP duty—yet he radiates contentment.

Saara Hagelberg’s loving expression—the look only a mother can give—to a son who survived the ravages of a conflict that had claimed so many sons, personifies Thanksgiving.

Rockwell rejoiced: this time the handsome young man had weathered the misery of war; this time his real mother sits by his side.

So why then refuse to accept the original painting Rockwell had graciously offered? As he often did with models, Rockwell took liberties with Saara's appearance--adding twenty pounds and twenty years. In fact, Hallmark later used her Thanksgiving image for an “I love you Grandma” greeting card.

The dutiful son knew that his mother—although proud of the overall result—was mad.

Saara Hagelberg died of cancer only two years later, a few months before the birth of her first grandchild. By then a priest had purchased the painting and he donated it to an American Legion Post in Winchendon, Massachusetts.

A Rockwell Museum expert rediscovered Thanksgiving, 1945 in the late 1970s and was aghast it hung in a smoke filled building with no fire suppression. The Museum borrowed it, where it remains to this day.

In 1988 the Hagelberg family returned to Arlington from a pilgrimage to Stockbridge, Massachusetts disappointed the painting was not on display.

In an apology letter curator Maureen Hart Hennessey explained, “The museum has almost 500 paintings in its collection and can only exhibit 40-50 at one time. We also rotate paintings for conservation reasons to help preserve them for future generations.”

A few weeks later the Hagelbergs' enjoyed a private showing.

Dick Hagelberg succumbed to cancer in 1993, just after helping to build a home for his daughter Nancy, high on a hill overlooking the family farm that he also built. His wife Olga, a proud WW2 Marine veteran, still lives in that home in Arlington, Vermont.

Olga and (daughter) Nancy Hagelberg 2007

And lately--even around Thanksgiving--she struggles ... briefly.  But then vividly recalls, keeping those magnificent memories alive.

Sad Update 

Reunited

(From the archives 11/21/07)

Fight Fire With Fire

Dueling Petitions

We now have dueling petitions on this here newfangled Internet, one supporting and the other opposing the nut ban in Amherst Regional Public Schools.  Or I should say "restriction" since the schools did issue a public statement back peddling from the word "ban":

"We are not banning nuts, but rather strongly requesting that everyone abide by the guideline not to bring nuts or nut products into the schools."

So far the newcomer petition supporting the schools has more signatures, 95.  But only 24 of them (25%) are from folks in Amherst while the petition opposing the ban err, restriction has 77 signatures.  But 73 of them (95%) are from Amherst.

Not sure how to count Kurt Geryk, husband of School Superintendent Maria Geryk, as he signed both petitions (man definitely has a future in politics).  

On the original petition opposing the ban Mr. Geryk did mention that ARPS has about a "hundred or so" kids with peanut allergies.  Currently the student population at Amherst K-6 is 1,306 students and Middle and High School hold 1,533 students for a total student population of 2,839.  

Thus 100 students with peanut allergies comes to 3.5% which seems to be statistically high as most experts peg the US average figure for folks with a peanut allergy at 1% or less.