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When made in small quantities — that is, quickly from the first run of sap and properly treated — [maple syrup]has a wild delicacy of flavor that no other sweet can match. What you smell in freshly cut maple-wood, or taste in the blossom of the tree, is in it. It is then, indeed, the distilled essence of the tree. —JOHN BURROUGHS, 1886

Vol. III No. 18 • Issue No. 68

www.sfindependent.net

Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts

March 29–April 11, 2007

$1.00

Riverfront visioning yields a flood of ideas By Michael Wilmeth [email protected]

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SFI photos/Jeff Potter

Buckland resident Wes Rice monitors his “half pint,” a minuscule maple evaporator he has set up in a workshed. Rice and his family have been producing syrup for years but have never sold a drop: it’s all for his own use, for his own pancakes and as gifts for friends and family.

Rite of spring

[email protected]

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HEATH—For Doug Mason, his recently installed windmill is a symbol of his growing independence from nuclear power and coal-fired generators. For Dave Gott and Jo Travis, who don’t have windmills but whose Burnt Hill properties are good candidates for wind power, small wind turbines are a factor that could help keep agriculture in Heath viable. Most of the two dozen or so people who turned out March 26 for a hearing regarding the Heath Planning Board’s draft bylaw on residential wind energy systems

For every visible, regionally known maple sugaring operation in the hills, dozens of backyard enthusiasts and small farms boil maple syrup quietly and take pleasure in the task with family and friends, using the natural resources at hand as they participate in a special rite of spring... • Amid billowing plumes of sweet steam on this warm Sunday morning, Cynthia Cranston flips through a scrapbook of sepiaaged photographs and a folder of news clippings and memorabilia. Descended from two Conway families with long ties to hilltown sugaring — the Graves and Boyden families — Cranston recalls how things have changed. And not. “I’ve pretty much grown up all my life with sugaring,” she says, pointing to a photo of her father, who maintained 2,500 taps in his heyday, gathering sap near the Bardwell’s Ferry Bridge. “And when I married Tom, I was glad he was into it, too.” “Oh, I was five or six years old — I was hooked on it as a child,” Tom Cranston says, stoking the strong fire in the 1940s-era furnace with wood, much of it salvaged from the family’s farmland and put to use. “My dad worked for various dairy farms, mostly in Vermont, and sugaring was a sideline.” The Cranston family’s original 400 taps have expanded to 950: 400 in the traditional metal buckets and 550 into a reverseosmosis pipeline system, which brings the sap directly into the sugarhouse but is susceptible to damage from mice, squirrels and other creatures who “like to have the devil with it,” Tom Cranston says. Sugaring is a 300-year-old hilltown tradition, an art and a science that takes a very short time to learn and a lifetime to master. It requires as much patience and methodical routine as it does flexibility and adaptability. Sugarers have to go with the flow — literally — to manage the transformation of the maple sap, which is mostly water, into a sweet concentrate that’s 66 percent sugar. The Cranston family operation, as do others, demonstrate a mix of country instinct and modern technology. As Tom Cranston talks, syrup is automatically drawn into a

The fire originates in a bucket of hot ashes cleaned out of a woodstove, left near the door to be dumped outside but forgotten in the morning rush. Soon after the residents leave for work and school, embers begin to glow strongly, then burst into flame, and a coat hung on a peg by door catches fire. The wooden pegboard also catches fire, and flames creep up the wall and across the ceiling. By the time a neighbor on the quiet dirt road walks by with her dog, smoke is billowing out the first floor windows. The neighbor rushes home and calls 911 and

ably yes. According to the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, an industry group, 90 percent of fires in buildings with sprinklers are extinguished with one sprinkler, and on average use 341 gallons of water compared to almost 3,000 gallons when the fire is attacked with fire hoses. A small, localized fire in a structure equipped with sprinklers is likely to remain so By Michael Wilmeth and to be put out with minimal [email protected] damage. ————— “Residential sprinklers are Could this imaginary incident the best way to save people have unfolded differently? With from fire,” says Massachusetts fire sprinklers in the house, probcontinued on page 3

wanted to ensure that the bylaw contains no restrictions that will bar the installation of small-scale wind turbines — a goal shared by the Board. The bylaw does not address large-scale turbines such as those enExco plans to build in Monroe because, Planning Board Chairwoman Deborah Phillips said, time before the annual town meeting is short and the Board wanted to take the task of regulating windmills in steps. Some concern was expressed about the visual impact of windmills erected on ridge tops such as Burnt Hill. Art Schwenger, whose property faces Burnt Hill, recalled that when a 100-foot continued on page 2

A new vision for the Catholic Church In a ‘sea change,’ parishioners at St. Joseph’s look back and ahead By Nate Walsh [email protected]

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Tom Cranston checks his dipper for “aproning,” a quality of the syrup that tells a maple farmer that the syrup is done (or that the batch is almost there). Cranston, whose family has sugared for years, is looking for the syrup to coat the metal of the utensil continued on page 1 in one sheet.

Building code will require sprinklers in some houses

Heath to revise wind power bylaw By Michael Wilmeth

For many hilltowners, maple sugaring runs through the family tree

Home fire sprinklers rare but valuable

SHELBURNE FALLS—The Deerfield River is perhaps Shelburne Falls’ biggest asset and its biggest problem — a defining part of its landscape, but also an obstacle and a danger. How to make the most of its benefits and negotiate its difficulties was the question that drew 100 people to Buckland Town Hall to spend seven hours Saturday in discussion with each other, brainstorming and sketching ideas on village maps. The March 24 event was part of the Urban Rivers program, funded by the state’s Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Shelburne Falls is one of six communities whose applications for the program were approved in the current round of projects; others include Greenfield and

Pittsfield. An earlier round of grants funded visioning projects in seven cities and towns, including Worcester, Fall River and Easthampton. Boston architecture and planning firm Goody Clancy coordinated the day’s work, in concert with a local committee — Buckland Town Administrator Bob Dean, Buckland resident and merchant Mike McCusker, Colrain landscape architect Joan Rockwell and Shelburne Falls Area Business Association Executive Director Art Schwenger — and Dodson Associates, a landscape architecture firm in Ashfield. Goody Clancy principal David Spillane said Shelburne and Buckland are the smallest of the eight towns he has worked with in the Urban Rivers process, but produced the biggest turnout, as well as the best coffee, continued on page 6

SHELBURNE FALLS—In an effort to address what some believe is dwindling attendance at Mass in St. Joseph’s parish, several members of the Church and Rev. John Roach have formed a “re-visioning group” to reach out into the community, gain feedback for change and, it’s hoped, draw members back. With the guidance of Roach, several members have begun to study the reasons why members have left the Catholic Church. In February, a first step was their mailing of a survey to 500 people in West County.

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Re-visioning group member Ken McCormick of Shelburne Falls says the process is reflective of a “sea change” within the church, where the Springfield Diocese has encouraged churches to form pastoral parish councils. McCormick says the survey began the process of asking people for their ideas for the future of the Church, which is something new. “I think the idea of people in the Catholic Church having that much input into the running of their Church is not a common thing, or at least traditionally it hasn’t been done that way,” says McCormick. continued on page 3

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Shelburne Control issues a call to firefighters via their pagers. The firefighters hurry to don their turnout gear and get to the firehouse. By the time they reach the fire with their trucks, it has spread to the second floor. After several hours, they succeed in putting it out, but the damage, from fire, smoke and water is extensive.

DAT E D M AT E R I A L — P L E A S E D E L I V E R P RO M P T LY

Shelburne Falls Independent • March 29–April 11, 2007 • www.sfindependent.net • page 11

O UTDOORS AND N ATURE Rat’s rights and other wacky notions PETA turns off people who might otherwise accept, or at least respect, the animal rights group’s message SHELBURNE sually, this is the time of year when I find myself in between seasons. Turkey season is still a month away, and brush wolf hunting, which begins for me after deer season ends on the last day of February, is a long time gone. Even though my seminar schedule keeps me very busy on weekends, my hunting activities are pretty dormant until early April, when I begin scouting for the “old turk.” And it’s funny: it always seem like it’s around this time of the year that I’m tempted to take my annual shot at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). I’m convinced this is purely by chance, but my last few PETA columns have come in the spring, when I seem to be paying a little closer attention to what’s happening in the world around me. Maybe PETA always makes an annual “surfacing” during this time of the year. I really don’t know. But a recent column I read (in my daily hit of the Boston Herald) regarding PETA once again caught my complete attention and served as a reminder as to just how “far out” this group has truly become. The group’s acronym suggests that the organization is something that we all should probably be a part of. The problems come when you begin to see beyond the title and start gazing into the messages that PETA is truly sending out.

U

AS A SPORTSMAN living in a region that still values hunting and fishing as a way of life, I know there are many people who still understand the contributions that sportsmen and -women make in the protection of wildlife along with the environment in which they live. I don’t need to revisit the commitment of these people here! And yes, many other issues revolve around the sport of hunting. But PETA has now gone way beyond the parameters of the simple hunting and fishing issues. PETA has now given a

pretty strong impression that their major message has become, “Animals are people too, only better.”I write this only because a national publication came out last year citing the fact that PETA members were “agahst” while watching people consume roasted rats for food on a TV game show called Survivor. Apparently this sent PETA over the edge as their stance on the “defense of pests” was being put to the maximum test by this TV game show. Granted, the contestants were eating rats for nourishment. But as PETA would tell you, “these rats have rights”! These rats ... which we pay exterminators thousands of dollars on a yearly basis to control for the good of human populations throughout the United States. Yet according to RaeLeann Smith, a PETA employee specializing in circus issues, “the folks on Gilligan’s Island became the country’s most beloved castaways and they did so without eating animals to enhance their TV ratings.” Hmmmm ... come to think of it, the people on that show did look a bit thin at times. Maybe they weren’t getting enough to eat! Anyway, is it perception that wins the day or is it reality? Smith goes on to say that she hopes the demise of these rats was painless and quick and that in the future she hoped their rights would be looked at in a more reasonable manner. Well, if germ-carrying rats have rights then what about our little buddy, the mosquito, which carries the West Nile Virus? Smith’s reply to this was “the question about the rights of mosquito’s are not as clear as the rights of rats ... obviously, there are gray areas, but if we must spray for mosquitos perhaps we can find a kinder or less violent way to spray”! What a bunch of vermin-huggers. Which brings me to the Boston Herald article of March 16.

An example of one of PETA’s advertising campaigns, a takeoff on the popular “Got Milk?” campaign.

O N T HE R I DGE By Joe Judd [email protected]

blasting the meat industry. Their message depicted the meat industry as unhealthy, inhumane, and violent. Their message in these ads, which showed scenes of exposed cow entrails, dead chickens, and slaughtered pigs, was a clear attempt to persuade folks not to eat meat or any other animal products. But the ads, in the opinion of the Boston-area TV stations, were too graphic to be aired. And the reason given by Michael Carson, general manager of WHDH-TV (channel 7) and WLVI-TV (channel 56), was pretty simple. He said that the ads would be offensive to just about anyone and everyone regardless of how you might feel about the issue. So they refused to run them. PETA, of course, was outraged and said they expected the ads would eventually be on the air. However, FOX 25 (WFXT-TV) also declined to air the ad. Their reason? Well, Fox spokeswomen Nancy Hennessey-Nees told the Herald that “while we do respect the

work of this animal rights group we feel the ad would not be suitable for viewing by our general audience due to the graphic content.” Interesting! Consider some of the other wacky notions this group actually gets away with: • Shouting “meat pimp” as a PETA activist throws a tofu pie at Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman at a 2006 appearance in Washington D.C. • Outraging parents with a MilkSucks.com web page designed to sell college students on the merits of beer being a superior product over milk. • Stating that if AIDS could be cured by animal testing “we’d be against it,” a position that outraged doctors everywhere. • Asking the state of Wyoming to delete the logo of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco from its license plate. AND SO IT GOES. The group has gone way past its origins of trying to denounce hunters and hunting. It’s now become a radical organization whose

leaders — it would appear at times anyway — have no regard for human rights. In one sense, what PETA has become is truly unfortunate, as the the group’s impressive membership — 700,000 people — would be a great asset in helping them do positive things such as finding homes for the all the creatures now living in overcrowed animal shelters throughout the country. They could also help educate children by offering all types of nature, animal, and wildlife awareness programs. In my experiences I’ve found that controversial groups, with sometimes wacky concepts, can add plenty to the debate of serious issues. Leaders of

these groups can be formidable, with views that must be heard. Sadly, to some, PETA is fast becoming a high-profile over-the-edge group with little standing. In some circles it is simply dismissed with a wave of the hand. It would do better to be perceived as a more caring organization rather than plunging itself deeper into madness by defending the killer mosquitos, rats, and other vermin species of the world as well as offending those who may want to try to understand, but are somewhat fearful of, their message. Joe Judd is a regular contributor to the Independent.

H O U S I N G R E H A B I L I TAT I O N P R O G R A M TOWNS OF: BUCKLAND, COLRAIN, CHARLEMONT,

CONWAY, LEYDEN AND SHELBURNE The Franklin County Regional Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) has funding available for Towns of: Buckland, Colrain, Charlemont, Conway, Leyden and Shelburne. Income eligible applicants who qualify for a full-deferred payment loan will be able to borrow up to $30,000.00. This is a 0% interest, deferred payment loan, the loan is secured by a lien placed on your property, and the loan is due when you sell or transfer the property. The goal of this program is to enable low to moderate-income homeowners to bring their homes into code compliance, handicap accessibility, do needed repairs and weatherize their homes. Homeowners and any tenant families must have an annual gross income equal to or less than the following amounts: # In Household Gross Annual Income 1 $40,150.00 2 $45,900.00 3 $51,600.00 4 $57,350.00 5 $61,950.00 6 $66,550.00 7 $71,100.00 8 $75,700.00 Please call Charity Day @ (413) 863-9781 ext. 132 or email at [email protected].

APPARENTLY, PETA was trying to buy airtime for a TV ad

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page 10 • Shelburne Falls Independent • March 29–April 11, 2007 • www.sfindependent.net

A RTS AND L ETTERS Parker

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ from front page

there were a whole lot of people waiting in the green room afterwards to speak to him, and he got through the whole list, and there was one woman standing over by the door and she waited until everybody else was gone, and he turned to her and she said, ‘Mr. Shaw, that was just an unforgettable performance, I think there are only two kind of people that could really appreciate it, and one is someone who was a fully schooled musician, and the other one is somebody who has just recently lost someone who is very dear to them,’ and then she said, ‘Mr. Shaw, I am no musician.’ “So you realize how much that music had just reached out, in

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Latin, and touched this woman who may have had no prior acquaintance with it before. It just leads you into that interior realm, which is emotional, and spiritual, and physical and intellectual all at once. There’s a wonderful description of what should happen when a poet recites his poetry: ‘It draws the old men from the chimney corner and keeps the children from their play,’ and that kind of relationship with the audience is exactly what I want; that it’s so compelling that nobody can stay apart from it.”

Spiritually moved Parker’s focus on creating emotionally compelling music came in part from her work with folk music, including spirituals, songs which were initially unwritten, passed down vocally through the generations. “I’ve read that there aren’t any societies that have ever been found where music wasn’t part of them,” she says. “I think it’s a much more fundamental necessity for humans than our culture thinks of it. Our culture thinks of it as entertainment, an add-on. I think it’s much more than that. I think it’s almost the truest way that we can really express emotions, to and with each other. Folk songs have been around since the beginning of time, and, of course, there are societies like the Native American where you pass the chants and the songs down from generation to

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generation, and there’s not this insistence on having something brand new that somebody has written, and claimed and has copyright on. “The songs belong to everyone,” she continues. “Cultures all over the world have these songs and they serve very similar functions, there are always lullabies, there are always children’s songs, there are marching songs, there are vigorous dances and there are love songs, of course, endlessly, and all kinds of occupational songs. If you think of all the different ways that people use their bodies in physical work -- from digging holes, or laying rail road tracks, to ladies sitting and shelling peas on the porch, or sewing or spinning -- all of those different things called forth song as a very natural accompaniment that often kept people together, if they had to do the same thing at the same time, like hauling a rope on a sailing ship, as well as passing the time. Because if you’re singing, then your mind is on something other than the misery of what you’re having to do over and over and over again. “Doing those arrangements with Shaw made me realize how huge these different traditions of folk music were. Like the African combining with the European, which is what the slaves were hearing when they came over here, giving rise to the spirituals themselves, that were true folk music. Nobody sat down and composed them: They arose out of people who were intensely artistic, with no chance to express it in any other way except through the song, singing as they worked, singing to share their sorrows and their joys.” The folk tradition is, in a way, at the heart of Parker’s teaching method. “In singing we’re trying to liberate the music from the page, it comes first, and, like many other parts of our society now, we kind of tend to leave it to the professionals, saying ‘I haven’t had singing lessons, therefore I can’t sing, therefore I don’t want to sing’ and that’s really unacceptable,” she says. “There are other cultures where everybody sings and it’s just taken for granted everybody sings; you don’t have a choice. You think of the satisfaction of doing something, even if it’s just whittling, or sewing or cooking. We want to make, as human beings. I feel that we have such a strange idea of music composition, that it’s something that is so superhuman that you shouldn’t even think about it unless you’re a genius or something like that, and it’s just absolutely crazy. I think it’s an absolutely normal human response.”

Musical message on tour To spread her message about the relevance and accessibility of music, Parker teaches all around the country. “I travel around a lot, and basically what I’m doing is teaching what this new book is about,” she says. “Looking at melody. So I’ll be in a different church, in a different city, for three Sundays in a month. If they’ll give me some of the sermon time, I take it, and work with the congregation. They always say, ‘Well, we’d love to get our congregation singing, but they just don’t sing.’ So I don’t let there be any accompaniment

-- there’s no organ, no piano, no nothing. I like to have the choir sitting scattered through the congregation, and I start out by teaching a hymn, by singing one phrase myself, and they sing it back, so they have to depend on their listening. I’m getting them to sing it back, so that they’re really imitating what I’m doing, not just reading what’s in the book, or imitating the organ or something. We get to singing the melody really beautifully. “So I say, ‘Well, all right, if you can harmonize, harmonize, if you can’t harmonize, sing the melody, if you can’t sing the melody, sing something, because we are all in this together, and there’s nobody listening.’ They’re always absolutely fascinated at how gorgeous they can sound, and how easy it is. “I get them going on folk dances, hymns that have really rhythmic patterns in them, or ones that are very sad, or ones that have a totally free rhythm, and I get improvised answers going and they realize that this is all free land. I’ve never found a group that couldn’t do it. I’m always going back to the melody and talking about how you sing this melody, how can we sing these words so that they really are meaningful. It just sounds totally different, because they’re singing the song instead of the page, and I do it over and over again, and it’s always immensely satisfying.”Learning to sing the song instead of the page leads to an understanding of music that allows for improvisation, which, Parker says, is an essential yet undervalued skill. “Improvisation is like learning to swim, that whole pool of music is right there, and you dive into it and learn to trust it,” she says. “You’re going to sink as long as you’re fighting it, but when you learn to float, and learn to swim, then you’re alright, and you learn that you can start an improvisation and either you’ll follow it along, and bring it to some kind of a conclusion, or you’ll have to break off in the middle because you’ve run up against something and can’t go any further -- at which point you laugh and you start again. But it’s open-ended; the minute you write it down, it’s as if it’s closed and I love that sense of being open-ended.”

The H I S T O R Y of

ROWE M A S S A C H U S E T T S

Percy Whiting Brown Nancy Newton Williams The History of Rowe, Nancy Williams’s comprehensive update of Percy Whiting Brown’s local history classic, has been delivered and is for sale at the town library, historical society museum, and from Williams (339-5598). A book signing is scheduled for April 5 at the library.

Call for teen art

BOSTON— The Cloud Foundation’s visual art curators are seeking work from teens responding to violence in their own lives, their neighborhoods, at school and in the city for an exhibit at the Boston State house April 23-27. Violence Transformed is a collaboration of artists, activists, academics, museum professionals and community service providers working in the greater Boston area. The exhibit is part of National Crime Victims Rights Awareness Week. Artists age 19 and younger are encouraged to visit www. cloudfoundation.org/violencetransformed.pdf or send queries to Teen Curators 647 Boylston Unfinished symphony St., Boston, Mass. 02116 for more Parker’s work, like her life information. itself, has been open-ended. She says she’s a radical, and was never cut out for a nine-to-five job. During her long career she’s worked with luminaries like Shaw and writer Eudora Welty, DEERFIELD—Juanita Nelson been commissioned to write and some friends want everypieces for choruses throughout the U.S. and Canada, and, in one to eat locally year-round, 1985 started a nonprofit com- so they’re planning a week of pany, “Melodious Accord,” which “Winter Fare,” starting with an presents choral concerts and indoor farmers’ market to be held in Greenfield on Groundhog workshops. She also found time to raise Day, 2008. The market will feature locally five children in an apartment in grown food including vegetables, New York City. She’s come now to a place where she feels above milk, eggs, cheese, meat, honey the turbulent activity of middle and maple syrup and will include workshops and informational age. “When I got to be 70, it was displays about how to eat locally as if I’d been in this maelstrom year-round. Scheduled for February 2, of activity, and all of a sudden I’m starting to rise up above it,” 2008, halfway between the first Parker says. “Your horizon has day of winter and the start of been bounded by these things spring, Winter Fare will also that were around you, by what include a week of meals featuryou had to do, and when you ing local foods, whether they are rise above it, all of a sudden the gatherings of friends or churchhorizon expands enormously. sponsored local food potlucks Part of it is memory, that you’re or special menus served at area looking back over more and more restaurants. Winter Fare organizof life, and you begin to see how ers hope that their efforts will things relate, how something encourage everyone to include that seemed very unimport- more local foods in their everyant at the time led you to do day life, whatever the season. Although the event seems far something that turned out to be very important later. So you’re off, the Winter Fare committee seeing relationships, kind of asks farmers, gardeners and evadding things up. It gives you a eryone who likes to eat to plan perspective about what’s going now for what will be in local cupon, so that you’re not as caught boards next Groundhog Day. The in the moment as you are when committee seeks farmers willing everything is new, when you’re in to grow extra storage crops to sell the middle of all that activity.” at the market and is looking into Even with this broad per- food storage facilities for those spective, Parker is still quite crops. For more information and to active. She travels and teaches, contribute, call Nelson at (413) holds trainings at her house, is currently working on a commis- 773-5188, or Chin-Yee at (413) sioned piece of music and has 665-2041 or email ferdene@usa. recently begun trying to record com. as many of her compositions as possible, piece by piece. All this is the continuation of a life driven by a love of music. “I live a really wonderful life, doing what I love to do,” she says. “It’s so simple. I’m not teaching people anything that’s brand new. I’m opening a door for them that’s already there, that maybe they didn’t know was there.”

Plans starting now for Groundhog Day 2008

Register for summer theatre children’s workshops A M H E R S T — H a m p s h i re Shakespeare Company returns this summer to Northampton High School with weeklong summer theater workshops for children starting the week of July 2-6. Three different sessions offer children ages 8-12 distinctive experiences in creativity and performance under the guidance of HSC theater professionals. Space is limited so early registration is advisable. Information and registration forms are available at the Company’s Web site, www. hampshireshakespeare.org. Beth Wojtusik will lead children in “Fairytale Fantastic” July 2-6 and returns with “The Magic of Myth” July 9-13. The week of July 16-20 Lucinda Kidder will lead “Mystery!” All classes are held in the Studio Theater at Northampton High School, 360 Elm St. For more information, call (413) 587-9398.

Changes planned for Camp Apex GREENFIELD—The YMCA board of directors recently approved several new additions to Camp Apex for the 2007 season, including the addition of a solar heater for the pool. The new heater will provide a comfortable water temperature for daily swimming, lessons and recreational swims for all campers. The second change is a 140-foot tube slide. This slide is 3 feet in diameter and will run down a hill and provide great fun for children age eight and older. The third addition is a BMX track and bikes for boys and girls age nine and older to provide new challenges for Apex campers. The fourth improvement is the addition of leather working and three woodworking projects as part of the arts and crafts program. Cathy LaFleur will be back providing fun and challenging age appropriate craft projects for all campers. The final addition is a new high Adventure Tribe Site for ages 12-14. The site will be in the woods away from the main camp and will focus on camp craft, camping and cooking skills. For more information about all Y camps, parents should call the YMCA, visit www.ymcaingreenfield. org or call (413) 773-3646.

life

ACTIVITIES SPORTS & RECREATION

H I L L T O W N Shelburne Falls Independent page 9 • March 29–April 11, 2007 • www.sfindependent.net

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS & WRITERS FOOD & DRINK SCIENCE & NATURE TRANSITIONS CALENDAR

Alice Parker at the piano in her Hawley home.

Alice Parker’s new book explains her unique teaching technique

Opening the door to HAWLEY—Alice Parker lives at the end of Middle Road in Hawley, in a house that was once the Town Hall. Her father bought the property in 1919, after the first World War. She was graduated from Smith College in 1947 with a degree in musical composition and then received a master’s from Julliard, where she studied choral conducting with Robert Shaw, the renowned composer, conductor, and arranger. This blossomed into a 20-year career during which Parker traveled with him and his professional Chorale and then a 40-year career of her own, teaching, conducting and composing music. Parker has written four operas, adapted poems to music and composed nearly 700 sacred and secular pieces, still performed by choirs across the country. She has received numerous honors for her work. The teaching technique she has developed through her experience is now collected in her new book, The Anatomy of Melody.On this particular afternoon, Parker is making bread for a group of women from her church coming for the weekend. The dough sits covered and rising by the radia-

tor. She is candid and speaks with remarkable fluency, her voice layered and deepened by continual exercise. Sitting at the table in the center of her studio, she explains the origins of her book. “The book came about from my teaching for 40 years and very much from what I had learned over the 20 years previous to that, by doing a whole lot of arranging of folk melodies, with Robert Shaw, who was a superb musician,” Parker says. “I had graduated from Smith College in composition, but didn’t like what the prevailing style was, which was very intellectual, and it didn’t speak to me at all, so I changed to choral conducting and worked with Shaw in that field. I learned more about composition from working with him than I felt I ever had in classes.”

Singing school One thing she learned was a deep appreciation for melody. If you’re looking at a sheet of music, the melody is the horizontal progression of notes in a song. It’s distinguished from

MUSIC Story and photo by Max Breiteneicher

harmony, which is the vertical relations of notes, like chords, or other voices. If you’re singing “Oh My Darling, Clementine” by yourself, you’re singing a melody. If you’re singing it with a friend with a very deep voice, or accompanied by a piano, you’re creating a harmony. The prevailing wisdom is that harmony is the most important part of music. Thus, when Parker began teaching, she taught by focusing on harmony. This approach, though, was unsatisfying, she says. “I realized that what I was getting was exercises, I wasn’t getting arrangements. It took me forever, it seems, looking back on it, to discover that unless I asked the student to sing me the melody — and they could sing it to me in such a way that I really loved listening to it, and they convinced me that they loved it — if they couldn’t do that, then they shouldn’t be arranging it, because what they were hearing in their head was just an automatic series of notes and rhythms, and not the song itself,” Parker says. “The harmony is absolutely dependant on the melody. If you try to write music which is only harmonic and not melodic, it somehow doesn’t have the hook that attaches itself to your mind. The harmony itself can be very dull, and unless you have a melody to go with it, it doesn’t carry. So harmony is a subset of melody. I really don’t think that it has value, as a system, disassociated from melody. Now, hardly anybody else says that.” When Parker realized that the conventional wisdom didn’t speak to her, she began

a different method of teaching, one that focused on the singer’s understanding of the melody. “I totally changed,” she says. “The first thing the students had to be able to do was to sing the melody, and then they had to be able to teach the melody to someone else. That other person had to listen very carefully, and try to exactly copy what the other person was doing with their voice, which is not just singing this thing as it is on the page, because on the page there are just millions of ways you can sing it, interpret it, and still be doing it exactly as it is on the page. “Then those two people would try to improvise and answer to that melody, as if I sang to the first phrase and waited for you to respond in some way. I discovered that what was going on there was just enormously complex, and also that it was kind of the unspoken subtext of all the work that we were doing, and it took me the teaching to realize that I had to make that explicit. Basically, I’ve taught that ever since.”This approach to teaching is an attempt to create context around a song, which carries the music beyond the mere singing, adding an emotional power and communicative value to the music. Parker says this context is created in part by asking students, “Who are you as you say the words, and how are you saying them?” “Certainly, ‘I love you’ as said by a six-year-old, and a 16year-old and a 26-year-old and a 86-year-old person are going to sound very different, and have a totally different context,” she

says. “So, just what’s on the page has to get fleshed out, has to really become human. It’s human discourse. As you choose your song and begin to work on it, it begins to come clear to you who you are as you sing it, and what’s just happened to you that made you have to sing it, so that you’re really singing it as if you had just lived this experience, and you had to burst out into this song. “A page of music doesn’t come alive until you create that world around it, and when you do, if you’re true to that vision, you get a kind of communication from one human being to another which is incredibly strong, it cuts through the social niceties, it’s not just pleasant to listen to, it’s emotionally bonding.”

Emotional commune The emotional investment of the singer is related to the emotional impact on the audience. This thought is quite divergent from the conventional wisdom, where a sort of technical mastery is thought to be the most important part of singing. It is still important, Parker says, but has power only when the singer understands the context and the song itself, “by trying to recreate the original experience, trying to become the first person that sang this song.” Th i s re c re a t i o n o f c o n text is carried directly to the audience. “When I’m writing I’m always aware of the listener,” Parker says. “I’m not doing it just for me; I’m not playing a game of pushing notes around on a page. I’m trying to get so much inside

of that song that whoever is listening can’t possibly miss what this song is about. That’s the reason I love to do operas, because then you get a chance to put the song in a place where nobody can listen carelessly to it. It’s fun to take a folk song and put it in that place and make people listen, or a hymn, that people have sung kind of perfunctorily all their lives, and then all of a sudden you put it in a place and they say, ‘Oh, that’s what it’s talking about.’ Of course, the song itself has the words, which is what it’s talking about, but it also has that huge emotional underlay of mood, which opens the words out enormously.”The singer’s sense of mood is vital to the experience of the audience. When the singer accurately evokes a mood, Parker says, “It’s perfectly possible for the music to communicate emotional truth to somebody who doesn’t understand the words at all.” “It happens all the time in opera, when people are singing songs in another language,” she says. “There are really two different languages going on at once, the language of tones and the language of speech, and that’s why it’s such a potent means of communication, and it’s possible to relate to either one, and of course the most fun is when you’re relating to both of them.” Parker relates a story that Shaw used to tell. “He toured with his professional chorus all through the 50s and 60s. There was a Mozart Requiem tour and they did a particularly wonderful performance one night, and, as always, continued on page 10

Shelburne Falls Independent • March 29–April 11, 2007 • www.sfindependent.net • page 5

L E T T E R S F RO M R E A D E R S

You and you and you! Getting a hilltown onto the bus to Boston. (And did we mention Charlotte’s Web?) To the Editor of the Independent:

Mohawk superintendent Michael Buoniconti and retired Blue Hills superintendent and Heath resident Ken Rocke have been shopping a proposal around the state house that could bring some much needed relief to the Mohawk Trail Regional School District and 42 other municipal and regional school districts throughout Western Massachusetts. Developed by Ken Rocke for WMassCOUNTS (Western Massachusetts Coalition Of UNderfunded Towns and Schools), the proposal, R.E.D.-CB (Rural, Economically challenged, Declining enrollment Circuit Breaker), is an approximately $9 million initiative that would essentially perform for our schools the same function an electronic circuit breaker does in your household. Chapter 70 money, the state funding formula for education, is based on enrollment. When declining enrollment and other conditions threaten to overload these already financially stressed schools and districts a circuit breaker would kick in preventing these communities from further harm. When enrollment is up the circuit breaker would kick out. This is only a partial solution to the problem in the way the state approaches funding education, but it would go a long way towards helping us stabilize our current situation. If it were passed this would result in over a million dollars of new revenue for our schools in fiscal year 2008.RED-CB has earned high praise from our legislators. Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools officers and members Dee Dee Niswonger and Gene Carlo have called this the most promising solution to the current crisis to come out of Western Massachusetts bar none—”terrific,” “radiant,” and

“humble” are just some of the adjectives being used to describe the RED-CB. In short, this is “some proposal.”Our state reps and senators have told us not to get discouraged. It is not an uncommon scenario for an initiative such as this to attract attention—which results in “quick fix” (e.g., pothole money)—but leave a “footprint” for legislators to follow next year when looking for a more long term solution to the problem. WMassCOUNTS and the superintendent are not planning to settle for less. Endorsements have been received locally by the Franklin County Selectman’s Association, the School Committee (who are writing to their counterparts in other schools and districts affected), the Greenfield Recorder, the Independent, and statewide by MARS and other lobbying and advocacy groups WMassCOUNTS has contacted. Spearheaded by Colrain resident and Heath school parent Lorena Lonergan, WMassCOUNTS is a broad-based coalition of parents, community members, towns and school districts working together to develop and support creative solutions to the fiscal crisis brought about by underfunding of education at the state and federal levels. The goal is to provide advocacy and education for towns in the Mohawk Trail Regional School District and throughout Western Massachusetts in support of sustainable, adequate, and equitable education for our children. WMassCOUNTS is working alongside many coalitions in statewide alliance. Partners include: Initiative for Local Aid, Coalition for Local Schools, Phoenix Project, SOS Harvard, and Stand for Children. WMassCOUNTS is helping superintendent Buoniconti

launch the RED-CB initiative and encouraging citizens and parents to participate in a rally in Boston being organized by Stand for Children on April 25. How can I help, you might ask? Good question. Join us for the next gathering of WMassCOUNTS at the Buckland Shelburne Elementary School (times posted on www.wmcounts.org). If you can’t make it, contact me or Tamara Sloan Anderson about other ways you can support the work of WMassCOUNTS. An area resident has offered a matching donation of $5,000. This person is contributing a dollar to WMassCOUNTS for ever dollar we receive. Currently we’ve raised $6,500 and are in the process of trying to obtain tax-exempt status. Our goal is $10,000. This money is being used to pay for Lorena’s and another community organizer’s salaries and to support ongoing research on the needs of rural schools in Western Mass. Here are some of the items on the agenda for upcoming meetings: Finalize tax relief warrant articles for each town; set up dates for education forums prior to town meetings; street theater/media/walk to Boston; circuit breaker update, and sign up for tabling to promote the Stand For Children’s April 25 rally in Boston because we need to get people on those buses! Speaking of buses, I want to see Heathans on them. And I don’t just mean the usual suspects: Pam Porter, Lorena Lonergan, and Ken Rocke. Personally, I’m not lacking for quality time with any of these Heath school champions and strong district advocates. As second grader Torsten Sloan Anderson says, pointing to the audience when delivering his opening lines in Charlotte’s Web (did I mention

that the Heath Drama Club will be performing Charlotte’s Web on March 30?) I want to see, “you, you, and you” on one of those buses to Boston. I want to see Dave Howland, Mike Smith and Michael Buoniconti in the back of the bus singing the words, “We shall not, we shall not be moved” to the guitar strumming of Doug Wilkins (who will be also be performing in Charlotte’s Web). I want to see Art Schwenger, Wanda Musacchio, Hazel Porter, and Hilma Sumner sliding around in the mud on the Boston Commons while Country Joe leads us in the “fish chant” to support school funding...I want to see Jan and Cal Carr riding in a separate car (someone has to help us make bail). I want to see

Sheila Litchfield, Tom Lively and Brian DeVriese wrapped in blankets handing out hamburgers to Jane DeLeeuw, Ruth Johnson, and Ali Thane saying, “Just chew ’em up and pass ’em along....” Okay, maybe we ought skip that part. But you get the picture. I want to see children and kindergarten teachers, farmers, commuters, town elders, news writers and their newborns, librarians, transfer station workers, road crew members, day traders, merchants, landscapers, social workers and contractors standing up for children and our community. Don’t think of this event as a bus trip to Boston — think of it as a town meeting on wheels!

You can find out more by calling Lorena at 624-3842. There are also sign-up sheets for buses at the library and in each of the elementary schools. These and other informational materials will be available at local businesses in Shelburne Falls and outside both performances of Charlotte’s Web at 12:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on Friday, March 30 at the Heath School. (If you’re not able to make these times, excerpts of the show will be performed at the Community Hall in Heath for the senior luncheon on Thursday, April 5.) JONATHAN DIAMOND Heath, March 26

Avoid long lines at the post of!ce!

For Shelburne Falls, real courage is not doing anything with natural river lands To the Editor of the Independent:

The Shelburne Falls “Urban River Visions Charrette” (also explained as “A community visioning retreat”), held at the Buckland Town Hall this past weekend, was very interesting. I attended with the agenda of speaking for those who weren’t present: the river, the trees and plants, the birds, fish and critters who call this river habitat home, as well as the people who grew up here but perhaps did not feel this meeting was for them. It appeared to me that attracting tourists and visitors to town was often the main focus. The value of leaving space alone and undeveloped was a concept that took a back seat. The osprey that hung out in a tree last fall and the bald eagle that flies up and down the river would probably not be visitors to town (or, someday nesters?) if the banks were developed with trails, decks, boardwalks, buildings, boat ramps, and parking lots. Leaving things as they are is a difficult vision to embrace if tourism is the primary goal. But what if our desire is to have a healthy, vibrant town that supports nature, as well as humans? Perhaps we’d prioritize those stores and services that benefit the people who live here, be welcoming to visitors, but also value green areas that are left free from any human development. Sue Reed, an ecological landscape architect in Shelburne, proposed a unique vision for town. What if our main attraction is that we become a town known for developing itself as a leader in sustainable energy? With so much south-facing riverbank, solar panels could potentially provide much of the energy in town. There’s even funding through the “Clean Energy Initiatives Project” for small towns, supported by our new governor. If we go in this direction of development we’d also be providing jobs for the people who live here. At the end of the long meeting day, SFABA Executive Director Art Schwenger expressed appreciation for so many people with different ideas, who aren’t shy about expressing what they think, all coming together in discussions and doing it so well together. The question remains: What do we want the town to be? Let’s dream green! KATHLEEN O’ROURKE Shelburne Falls, March 27

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B USINESS AND E CONOMY River visioning thanks to Shelburne Falls Coffee Roasters. “You have us at teetering on the brink of what’s workable,” he said. The “charrette” (a visual brainstorming session, after the French for the carts that collected Paris architecture students’ drawings) was about generating ideas without worrying too much about how to achieve their realization, “thinking big but calibrating a little bit” in order to focus on plans that might be implemented in the forseeable future, Spillane said. The crowd was divided into smaller groups to discuss topics such as trails, connections, public spaces and development. After a brief lunch break the crowd was reshuffled and deployed to map ideas onto table-sized plans of the village and surrounding area. Finally, the full group reconvened to hear reports from each subgroup and examine the sketches. Connections, access and redevelopment If there was a single theme that recurred in every group, it was the wish to improve circulation in Shelburne Falls by creating pedestrian loops, a task made challenging by the Deerfield River curling through town. While a number of possible routes were envisioned, two kinds of loop were discussed: a small, shopping-oriented loop in the center of the village connecting Shelburne and Buckland and a larger loop connected to the Mahican-Mohawk Trail, which ends now near the State Police barracks on Route 2, for hikers. Each loop would require a river crossing. Building a wheelchair-accessible route across the top of the Salmon Falls dam was one idea put forward; other bridge sites discussed were just below the Glacial Potholes are of the Deerfield River (affording a good view of the area) or further downstream, linking the woods below the Lamson & Goodnow complex or the Gardners Falls area to Shelburne. Such routes acknowledge what seems to be a universal dislike for backtracking and would serve both residents and visitors needs for errands and shopping in the business district and for taking longer strolls. They would better integrate the two sides of the village, draw more visitors to park away from Bridge Street and ease the bottleneck at the Buckland end of the Iron Bridge. The fate of the Lamson & Goodnow site is central to the future of Shelburne Falls and

BUSINESS NOTES

_ _ _ _ _ _ _from front page

to how riverfront areas evolve. Bill Austin, Joan Rockwell and Caleb Kissling, who have expressed interest in purchasing the property, were participants in the charrette, and there was much discussion of how both the factory complex and the wooded riverside acres could be utilized. The excitement was palpable. Austin said he thinks about two-thirds of the complex’s 60,000 square feet can be redeveloped, and, while he and his partners are “wide open” to the possibilities, live-work space for artists, affordable housing and commercial space are likely parts of the plan. “We’ve been thinking of it as a village. We’re thinking only of mixed use,” he said. Goody Clancy’s Spillane acknowledged that a redevelopment project on the site will be complex, but is rich with possibility and would be an exceptionally strong candidate for state financial assistance. “You couldn’t find a more prototypical project that matches the up with the state’s environmental vision,” he said, toting up the angles: riverfront development, Brownfield restoration, historic preservation and affordable housing. Lamson’s wooded land along the river is in the floodplain and unsuitable for building. But as conservation and recreational land it could be of great public benefit, particularly if linked to the village by a more developed trail system. While the focus of the charrette was on concrete steps that could be taken to improve Shelburne Falls, a more abstract issue arose repeatedly — the perennial question of how to manage tourism. The river A number of people spoke of the need to put residents first and to protect the things that make the village appealing to residents and visitors alike: the beauty and health of its natural surroundings and its somewhat sleepy, small-town ambiance. “Let’s be authentic,” McCusker said, arguing that meeting residents’ needs is most important and that doing so will tend, as a by-product, to keep the town the kind of place that draws tourists. It was acknowledged that tourism is an important part of the local economy, but that catering to it entails some problems, particularly to do with traffic and parking. Encouraging visitors to park at the park-and-ride area on Route 2 and providing trans-

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Join Local Hero marketing program DEERFIELD—Local farmers and others are welcome to join the successful “Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown” campaign by April 2. The program, created by Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), enjoys an 82 percent awareness rate among local consumers, making it a very effective tool for promoting local farm products. And it is a tool that is available to area farmers, grocers, chefs and other businesses that grow or sell local farm products. “Customers report buying more locally grow farm products when they see the Local Hero brand,” says Mark Lattanzi of CISA. “Local Hero members often report increasing sales after SFI photo/Michael Wilmeth joining the program.” Charrette participants gave visual form to their ideas on large plans of Shelburne Falls, from which Local Hero membership is the firm Goody Clancy of Boston will produce a composite map. available in Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden Counties to farms that grow local products portation into the village was and to the businesses that use suggested. Better integration of or sell them – grocery stores, Conway Street, the Buckland rail restaurants, colleges, garden yard and the Trolley Museum, centers, specialty food makers and State Street businesses near and hospitals. the Fraternal Order of Eagles “Local Hero members receive building with Bridge Street, otha wide range of benefits, from ers said, would encourage parkpermission to use the Local Hero ing in those outlying areas. brand stickers and price cards, to While the river is central to listing in our annual Farm ProdShelburne Falls, access to it is ucts Guide – we print 200,000 limited by steep banks, limited and distribute them in June – to public access along it and linetworking and marketing supability concerns regarding the port from CISA staff, who can Glacial Potholes. help farmers and buyers make Overcoming these problems connections,” says Lattanzi. and making better use of the To receive enrollment mateririver is a goal of many of the als or to learn more about the charrette’s participants. Among program, contact Lattanzi at measures discussed were creat(413) 665-7100 or mark@buylocaling a swimming area below the food.com. Glacial Potholes, building a boat launch on the flat stretch of the river above Salmon Falls and, as a committee is already trying to do, enhancing the opportunities for viewing the river and GREENFIELD—Fostering Potholes area. the Arts and Culture has added Bruce Lessels of Zoar Outseveral features to its Web site, door raised the possibility of www.massartandculture.org, to making a kayakers’ water park make it easier to use. by rearranging boulders in the The site now offers artists the river below the Potholes to ability to create profiles and create wave patterns to suit upload images, listing under “playboaters.” various media. Rockwell said the dominant There is also a new online theme of the charrette was conforum through which artists can nections, within and around the talk with one another. village and among activities, people and businesses. Participants’ ideas for using small areas of open space, such as the steep Submitted/ArtSchwenger triangle of land between Salmon Brian DeVriese leads a discussion. Falls Marketplace and the river, open up new possibilities for CHESTERFIELD—The Massabeautiful and usable public few present were in their 30s or compile them into a vision and space, she said. older, and that, with a couple of action plan to be presented later chusetts Department of Business and Technology has awarded “We have more opportuni- exceptions, natives of the area for comment and critique. ties than we realize,” Rockwell did not turn out to give their Rockwell praised the materi- $71,500 to Hilltown Community said. views. als the firm produced for other Development Corporation to help small businesses in the rural A number of participants Related to the lack of younger Urban Rivers projects. lamented the fact that all but a people at the charrette, several “It’s fabulous,” she said. “It’s hilltowns west of Northampton. The funding makes it possible people spoke of the difficulty a wonderful and concise written local youth have finding suitable and graphic representation of for Hilltown CDC to expand its work in the region and the re- what towns feel are their most Business Assistance Program to sulting demographic hole when important issues and opportuni- help all businesses in the hillthose in their 20s are obliged to ties relating to rivers and other towns with 20 or fewer employBasic Blacksmithing ees. Ongoing business workshops go elsewhere to make a living. water bodies.” AND Exploring MIG, TIG, Participants’ comments will and the CDC’s continuing techniGoody Clancy consultants and ARC Welding will now comb through the maps be posted at www.urbanrivervision2. cal assistance program will also expand to cover more subject and pages of notes generated org. Classes start 4/10, 4/11. areas of interest while, at the by the discussion groups and same, the CDC will continue to Morrell Metalsmiths help small businesses get going 207 Greenfield Rd, Colrain and grow. Call 413-624-1200 for more info. Hilltown CDC is actively seeking input from businesses about their needs as the Business Assistance Program grows in size CHARLEMONT—“It’s ba- will offer something new to the and scope. Business surveys are Pat Beck, D.C. included in the Hilltown CDC sically Christopher’s Grind- town. ers number two,” Christopher Christopher’s Grinders, his newsletter, which will reach Bouchard says of the pizza and existing business in Shelburne every address in the hilltowns sandwich shop he intends to Falls on State Street, is also near before April 6. The Hilltown CDC Business open at what is now the Char- an establishment serving similar Assistance Program serves elevlemont Mini-Mart. Bouchard will fare. appear at the April 5 meeting of “Competition is always good. It en rural hilltowns including the Charlemont Planning Board keeps you on top of your game,” Ashfield, Chester, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Huntingto present his application for a Bouchard says. change of use of the property. Planning Board member Gise- ton, Plainfield, Middlefield, Don McLaughlin, owner of the la Walker says that she expects Westhampton, Williamsburg and Village Restaurant in Shelburne there will be discussion about Worthington. 5 State Street For more information, contact Falls, and another person, whom the restaurant’s signage and Shelburne Falls, MA Bouchard said he could not men- parking at the meeting. New Seth Isman, Economic Develop01370 tion, are partners with Bouchard businesses in the village center ment director, at (413) 296-4536 413-625-8494 always draw considerable inter- ext. 12 or visit www.hilltowncdc. in the new business. org. Charlemont Pizza is also on est, she says. Main Street not far from the spot where Bouchard plans to open 25 Main Street his eatery, but he thinks there’s Northampton, MA enough business to go around, 01060 and says his Italian style pizza 413-585-5969

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WEST COUNTY MILESTONES Aji Palar, 14, son of Valerie Palar of Shelburne, recently walked across Massachusetts with Peace Pagoda to call for abolishment of nuclear weapons and to protest a number of other issues. Friends Javin and Patti Waters of Shelburne Falls and Tyler McNamara of Greenfield joined Palar on the last day of the walk. This was his second year of participation in the journey. • Kathy Kippenberger of Ashfield is among the nurses of Baystate Franklin Medical Center’s Oncology Dept. who are all now nationally certified. “Any nurse entering this department is committed is to being specialty certified within 30 months of employment,” said oncology Nurse Manager Danielle Pierotti, RN, MSN, AOCN. “Certification requirements include two years of specialty practice experience, demonstrated knowledge of the latest research, and evidence of core technical competencies. Nurses then sit for a rigorous examination, and the preparation is intense.” • Willow Rose Cohen of Ashfield, daughter of Alan Surprenant of Ashfield and Dvora Cohen of Wendell, was named to the dean’s list at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for the 2006 fall semester. She is recently accepted to the UMass/ Amherst School of Nursing. •

Shelley Roberts of Buckland, daughter of Cathy and John Roberts, has been chosen one of 39 students chosen to study opera in Florence, Italy. The UMass junior will study abroad from May 28-June 17. • Betty Miles of Colrain has been recognized by the USA Swimming Association for her role in promoting water safety in her work of many years with the YMCA aquatics program. She and her husband, Walker, were feted in Boston at the “Make a Splash” ceremony honoring local heroes. Miles was the only “hero” recognized from Massachusetts. “Ages three to five are a great age for children to really start to learn to swim,” Miles said. “I love this age group for their energy and enthusiasm.” • Rozalyn Sophia Schempp was born Feb. 18 at 3:24 a.m. to Amy Armstrong and Robert Schempp of Heath. Rosalyn weighed in at 6 pounds, 4 ounces and was 19 inches long. R o z a l y n h a s a s i s t e r, Madison. Grandparents are Michael and Carolyn Armstrong of Heath, Lisa and Dennis O’Gorman of South Deerfield and Keith and Carol Schempp of Buckland. Great grandparents are Carol Semanie of Greenfield, Muriel and Jim Breen of Buckland and Fred Schempp of Westfield.

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RELAY FOR LIFE

The Shelburne Falls Independent will offer a free listing in this space each issue from now until the 12th annual Relay for Life, June 8-9, at the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Greenfield, for West County teams to advertise their fundraising events. E-mail ads@ sfindependent.net. • Trinity Church team, the Holy Strollers - team member Cathy Roberts is selling cancer awareness bracelets, each with 18 colored crystals signifying different cancers. $30 each, $10 goes to the American Cancer Society via the team. Call Cathy at 625-2035 to order. • Trinity Church team, the Holy Strollers - team members Shelley and Cathy Roberts have organized a quilt drawing for a quilt

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ing, backcountry, skating. Extensive inventory, all levels. Snowboards, too! 45 min. to Shelburne. Berkshire Outfitters, Rt. 8, Adams. 413-743-5900.

" FOR SALE ROBERTS BROTHERS LUMBER.

Logging, lumber, bark mulch, cordwood. 628-3333. 17-inch model, 1.67-GHz processor and 1.5 GB RAM, beautiful high-resolution screen. Works great as a desktop computer with external monitor. Only one year old; my work demands a newer model with a different microprocessor. $1,500 or best offer. (413) 625-8646 or (413) 303-9883. POWERBOOK G4

electric stove. White. Good condition. $250.00. Call 413-625-2648. HOTPOINT

" HELP WANTED BRIDGE OF FLOWERS assis-

tant gardener. Assist head gardener in all aspects of gardening, designing, and working with volunteers. 15 hours per week from April-October. $10/ hour. Send resume with references to: Bridge of Flowers Committee, Box 335, Shelburne Falls, MA 01370

" REAL ESTATE Low heat and electric costs! Energy efficient 4 bedroom house under construction by Rural Development, Inc.’s award winning Home Ownership Program. Features a 3.2 Kwh solar electric system. Income limits apply. (413) 863-9781 ext. 149. COLRAIN:

REGIONAL NEWS AND NOTES

Open house to help parents find summer fun for kids SHELBURNE—Girl Scout troop leaders in western Franklin County will host a “Summer Program Open House” on Monday, April 9 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School. “The idea is that parents can find out what options are available to their children for summer programs,” says organizer and Scout leader Sherry Taylor. “Parents will see many options at one time and can work with the parents of their kids’ friends and work together in coming up with a summer program their kids will want to attend.” More than 40 summer program organizers have been asked to bring informational flyers about their programs and the necessary registration paperwork to the event. To date the group has heard from Camp Howe, YMCA Camp Apex, YMCA Gymnastics Camp, Buckland Recreation Committee, First Congregational Church of Shelburne Vacation Bible School, Girl Scouts of Western Mass, Mary Lyon Foundation and Karen Shulda Dance adn expect more participants. Any group interested in participating ism welcome to call Taylor at (413) 834-3112 or (413) 625-8172 after 6 p.m.

YMCA fundraiser now in progress GREENFIELD—During the next few weeks 140 volunteers will be contacting friends and fellow YMCA members seeking pledges for the Y’s annual Sustaining Campaign which provides the financial support for many Y youth programs and the bulk of the $200,000 in financial assistance the Y provides to area youth and families to participate at the YMCA each year. Donations can be sent to YMCA Sustaining Campaign, 451 Main St. Greenfield, Mass. 01301 Parents/ families seeking financial assistance should stop by the YMCA or call (413) 773-3646. This campaign makes it possible that no child will ever be turned away from the YMCA for lack of funds.

" SERVICES

WISDOM WAY SELF STORAGE. Safe, clean, secure.

We’ll keep your stuff buff! Greenfield, 775-9333.

GREEN SHEEN CLEANING COMPANY. Environment-

and people-friendly, nontoxic housecleaning. Call Meredith, 413-625-2252.

DEVOTED TO ANIMALS. TLC for a variety of companions, multiple visits, good walks, play, feeding, meds, special needs. In-home dog boarding, housesitting, trips to vet, grooming, etc. Vet tech experience. Call Cheryl, 624-3616,

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