SMITHFIELD MAGAZINE Meet the Mulherns Your
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SMITHFIELD MAGAZINE Meet the Mulherns Your
Your SMITHFIELD MAGAZINE Volume 1, Number 9 April 2007 Meet the Mulherns Smithfield brothers riding high on local radio PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID Providence, RI Permit No. 653 Also inside: Substance Abuse A wake-up call for the town GOLDEN PIZZA/GOLDEN MART BUY 1 LRG.CHEESE PIZZA at reg. price get a 2 LITER COKE FREE 1 SM. CHEESE PIZZA FREE when you spend $ 25 at convenience store - Convenience store will deliver for a minimum fee of $3. Excludes cigarettes and milk and delivery charges. Cannot be combined with other offers. Deliveries within a mile range. OPENYS 7 DA 314 Waterman Ave. Smithfield, RI 02917 Served with French fries, cole slaw and tartar sauce. Served daily. Large Pizza Special 2 large 16” pizzas with 1 topping each 16.50 Extra cheese 1.00. Must present 1 ad per customer. $ $ Cannot be combined with any other offer. Expires 5/31/07 Large Pizza Special 7.50 Must present 1 ad per customer. 1 large 16” cheese pizza $ Cannot be combined with any other offer. Expires 5/31/07 Pizza & Wings Special E E 1 large cheese pizza - 10 Buffalo wings $ 11.99 Must present 1 ad per customer. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Expires 5/31/07 Small Sub Special 1 sm. sub, 1 can soda, 1 bag chips Pickup only $ 4.95 Must present 1 ad per customer. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Expires 5/31/07 WE ACCEPT ALL COMPETITOR’S COUPONS. Add 8% Sales Tax. Harmony Child Care and Learning Center Inc. 185 Putnam Pike, Harmony 949-KIDS (5437) OPEN HOUSE MAY 5TH 10:00AM-12:00PM Retirement years You have made it to financial independence! But the planning continues… We can help you… > Convert retirement savings to life income streams > Adjust your savings, investment, and retirement Hands On Learning Center Based Activity Infant - Toddlers - Preschool Before & After School & Summer Programs programs to meet your changing objectives > Initiate your Long Term Care plan > Evaluate your pension options, Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid > Finalize your will, trusts, and transfer of assets to your family Based on Rhode Island Early Learning Standards We look forward to being your advisors for life. Call us at 401-949-4196, email us at info@LoringAdvice.com or visit www.LoringAdvice.com. Fee-for-service consultation available. Please come and visit our center and meet with our staff. Jeffrey W. Loring*, CFP®, CLTC CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Colleen M. Farley, LTCP, CLTC LONG-TERM CARE PROFESSIONAL NOW ENROLLING FOR UPCOMING SCHOOL YEAR 600 Putnam Pike, Suite 4, Greenville, Rhode Island 02828 P: 401.949.4196 F: 401.949.3068 W : www.LoringAdvice.com * Securities and Advisor y Services Offered Through Commonwealth Financial Network; Member NASD/SIPC, A Register ed Investment Advisor Your SMITHFIELD MAGAZINE Publishers/ Editors Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. Ron Scopelliti Contributing Journalists Harry Anderson Terri Bozigian Bruce Butterfield Stephen Demers Glenn Laxton Dick Martin Carol Monahan Jamie Remillard Lauryn Sasso Patti Shaffer Sales Marie Broadfoot Cynthia Cambio Kathryn Sasso Support Nancy Christen Christine Diggle John Murphy Your Smithfield Magazine is published once each month by Smithfield Publishing Inc., and is mailed to some 9,500 households and businesses in Smithfield. The magazine is free, though paid subscriptions are available to those living out of town. Subscriptions are $25 per year. Mailing address: P.O. Box 481, Greenville, RI 02828 Phone: 401-349-4910 Fax: 401-349-4911 e-mail: smithfieldmag@spi.necoxmail.com Smithfield Publishing Inc. is located at 645 Putnam Pike in Greenville. All contents are ©2007, Smithfield Publishing Inc., unless otherwise noted. “Smitty,” the Your Smithfield Magazine mascot, © 2006/2007 Catherine Jean DeMello. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent from the publishers. Smithfield Publishing, Inc. does not assume any financial responsibility for typographical errors in advertisements, but will reprint that portion of an advertisement in which the typographical error occurs. Member of the Rhode Island Press Association, New England Press Association, North Central Chamber of Commerce, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Printed at Ocean State Offset, Warwick, R.I. Contents On the Cover Smithfield natives (l-r) Kevin and Brian Mulhern have forged a career in comedy and broadcasting, most recently landing at WHJY and Coast FM, in adjacent Providence radio studios. Read about their journey to Hollywood and back on page 6. 4 Charting a new course in learning by Ron Scopelliti 6 Walking on air by Terri Bozigian 12 As I Was Saying by Laurence J. Sasso Jr. 14 The Substance Abuse Task Force says: We want to wake people up by Laurence J. Sasso Jr. 18 Oh my! I remember that now by Harry Anderson 20 A Nerd’s Eye View by Ron Scopelliti 38 What’s up with... Burleigh Briggs By Laurence J. Sasso Jr. 40 A Taste of the Town by Lauryn E. Sasso 44 At the high school, softball is coming on fast by Stephen Demers 48 A Smithfield Love Story byGlenn Laxton 58 Citizen of the Month: David Day By Laurence J. Sasso Jr. From The Publishers Last month we mentioned that there would be a big announcement about the magazine, and a few people expressed concerns that we would be changing our format or our distribution. We can assure you that we are not changing either of these – we like the magazine the way it is, and hope that you do, too. The announcement is that in April, we’ll be unveiling our new web site, www.yoursmithfield.com. We’re starting off slowly and building it in stages, but keep checking in as new features are added. We plan to make the site an integral part of our operation, updating it regularly, adding new features, and making it a hub of information for our town. Copies of our past issues will posted in their entirety as Adobe PDF files, so you can read our articles anywhere you go, even if you’ve left your magazine home. If you forgot the address of that restaurant advertised in the November issue, just go to the web site, flip through the pages, and track it down. As we get the site up and running we’ll be including photo galleries, showcasing pictures that have appeared in the magazine, and those that we couldn’t fit in, or couldn’t get to before deadline. Eventually, you’ll be able to purchase copies of the photos through the web site. We’ll also be including links to other sources of information within the town and region. And, after several months spent realizing how clumsy our current e-mail addresses are, we’ve created new addresses that are easier to remember. We’ll be publishing our new addresses in next month’s magazine. In addition to our big news about the website, in this issue we have a rich and varied array of stories about area people and events that we think will please you. Three of them deserve your very special attention. Every month we try to offer a mix of reporting and feature writing, as well as photos and columns that provide a crosssection view of the community, the sort of combination that might allow a stranger to have a pretty good idea of what Smithfield is like just from reading it. There is so much to be proud of and to ballyhoo, though, that we sometimes forget that everything here is not perfect. For instance, the story on page 14 about a new federally-funded grant for the Smithfield Substance Abuse Task Force brings the community face to face with a disturbing truth. Our otherwise superb town is among the leaders in Rhode Island in the incidence of underage consumption of alcohol. The statistics are so troubling that Smithfield qualified for a large grant to combat the problem. Accepting the challenge by accepting the truth might be the first step toward fixing it. We hope that residents will heed the call and get involved with the work of the task force as time goes forward. However, we also hope that the issue will be considered in the context of the wonderful news coming from our education system. The story on page 4 about Smithfield’s being the first school system to partner with pioneering undersea explorer Bob Ballard shows what high regard the community enjoys among educators at the highest levels. Also, consider the story on page 24 about the national recognition that the Old County Road School received for its Title 1 program. The schools couldn’t excel if the students didn’t. There is so much that is right with the town’s efforts to provide the youth of Smithfield with the best start in life imaginable. The way that they respond to the challenges suggests that it is inconceivable the problem of underage drinking can’t be met head on and defeated. As a community it is time to step up. We at Your Smithfield Magazine pledge to make our pages available to publicize the efforts of the Substance Abuse Task Force and to use our presence to get out the message about this critically important issue. Together we all can make a difference. Meanwhile, enjoy the reading and the website and shop and trade with local merchants and service providers. They are our neighbors and fellow townsfolk, and they work hard. Larry and Ron Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Charting a New Course in Learning Smithfield High School hosts its first virtual oceanography expedition By Ron Scopelliti For one week in the beginning of March, the media center at Smithfield High School had students and their parents glued to three 46-inch video screens, gasping, gaping, and cheering as if they were watching a fireworks display or an IMAX presentation. As children and adults held up cell phones to photograph what they were seeing, it was evident that they were experiencing something greater than a fleeting visual spectacle. They were experiencing the thrill of scientific discovery as it happened, live, before their eyes. They were given this opportunity through a high-tech hookup between Smithfield High School and oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard. Ballard, a veteran of more than 100 ocean expeditions, is best known as the man who discovered the wreck of the Titanic. He also tracked down the wrecks of the German battleship Bismark, the “lost fleet” of Guadalcanal, and the American aircraft carrier Yorktown, sunk during the Battle of Midway. A 1977 expedition he led to the Galapagos Rift found hydrothermal vents that supported exotic ecosystems deep below the surface of the ocean – a major scientific discovery. From March 5 through 9, students and residents of Smithfield got their first taste of a new partnership between Dr. Ballard, the town, and the University of Rhode Island. Ballard, a professor of oceanography at URI and president of the Institute for Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium, chose Smithfield High School as the first school in the world to receive a science console identical to that at URI’s Inner Space Center. The console consists of three 46-inch plasma video screens, and a telecommunications system that allows students to interact live with scientists in the field. Speaking with Your Smithfield Magazine during the February unveiling of the console, Ballard said this system would be the prototype for similar systems that would be installed Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 nationwide. There were several reasons for choosing to start the program in Rhode Island, including the state’s capability to use the “Internet 2” (I-2) computer communications protocol in its schools. “This is the prototype,” said Ballard. “Rhode Island’s ahead of everybody because they’re I-2. They’re the only state in America that’s I-2, K to 12, so they’re stepping up to the plate, as well.” “Plus, it’s the Ocean State, plus, the new [National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration] ship of exploration’s going to be based here, plus, we’re building the inner space center here,” he added. “All the ducks aligned.” He says that Smithfield was chosen as the first town to receive the system because of the administrators’ enthusiasm and commitment to the project. “They wanted to do it,” said Ballard. “They stepped up to the plate, and that’s my kind of place.” “I don’t want to push this on anybody,” he said. “You have to want to do it, and they want to do it. I’ve got people stacked in behind them though, that were just one nanosecond slower.” Announcing the unveiling, school superintendent Robert O’Brien stated “I have the same vision that Robert Ballard has, and I’m just as excited about it. This technology is so natural because it’s the way kids learn today. This will really engage our students to learn about the oceans. After all, we are the Ocean State.” The equipment will be used to integrate oceanic learning into the town’s curriculum for grades K-12, and the teachers have already begun aligning the program with the state’s science frameworks. Other disciplines, such as art and social science will follow suit. Smithfield students got their first chance to use the system on March 5. For the next four days, they tagged along with Ballard’s expedition to the Flower Garden Banks National Smithfield High School recently became the first school in the world to install a science console connecting them with oceanographer Bob Ballards Institute for Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium. Above: Smithfield School Department Technology Coordinator Ed Hill speaks to students from Old Counrty Road School as they watch the progress of the Remotely Operated Vehicle Argus along the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) Top: Students also had a live connection with the crew of the research vessel Carolyn Chouest during the Gulf of Mexico expedition (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy) Oceanographer Robert Ballard (on screen) fields a question from fifth-grader Cassandra Duffy of Anna McCabe School, via the newlyinstalled science console in the Smithfield High School Media Center. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico, 115 miles of the Texas/Louisiana coast. Ballard coordinated the mission remotely, from the Mystic Aquarium, communicating with the scientists in the field through a system like the one at Smithfield High. In the Gulf were the United States Navy’s nuclear research submarine NR-1, and the 238-foot support ship Carolyn Chouest, towing the remotely operated, underwater research vehicle (ROV) Argus. The vessels explored coral reefs, brine seeps, mud volcanoes, and other geological features on the sea floor, also searching for Native American artifacts along the now-submerged ancient shorelines. A session on the penultimate day of the expedition found the anticipation building among students, parents, and faculty as the ROV Argus traveled methodically toward a mud volcano on the floor of the Gulf. Students from Old County Road School attending in the morning arrived to see a rather barren seascape, as the Argus transmitted images from 140 meters below the surface, just feet off the ocean floor, illuminating the area with its onboard lights. “I expected the sea to be more crowded,” chimed a student from Old County Road School. Ed Hill, the school department’s technology coordinator, and a longtime science teacher at the High School, reminded him, “The ocean is a really big place.” As the Argus moved along the children’s excitement came through as they began seeing fish and coral formations. “This is live video no one in the world has ever seen before,” Mr. Hill told the children. “This is the real, true bottom of the ocean.” Continued on next page P: 401.949.3755 or 401.270.8253 F: 401.270.8255 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Continued from previous page Speaking briefly with the Old County Road School students, Ballard told them “I’ve been on 120 expeditions, but this is the first one ever that I’ve done through telepresence. So I’m looking at the same console you’re looking at, but I have communications with the ship, and I can talk to the pilot. This is really cool, because I can do much more exploring than I ever thought I could.” During an afternoon session attended by Anna McCabe School students and their parents, the excitement built. Ballard held a longer interactive session with the students, tracking the progress of the Argus along with them. “Periodically, I’m going to look over my shoulder to see if that mud volcano’s coming up,” he told them as he began to field questions from the students. The students came to the event well-prepared. Teachers have been attending workshops as the program developed, getting students ready for the expedition. Fifth-grade teacher Deb Cote of McCabe School noted that students have been doing background research on oceanography, and taking part in experiments that simulated mapping the ocean floor. “We had children doing experiments that had to do with salt mounds – how a salt mound is formed,” she said. “They also read and discussed how coral reefs are formed.” They came to their session at the High School prepared to act as part of the crew, armed with observation sheets to record what they were seeing, and questions for Dr. Ballard. The questions included queries about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on Lunch and Dinner YOUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT 102 Putnam Pike, Harmony 949-1846 Mon.-Sat. 11:30am-1am and Sun. 8am-1pm EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 8TH Now taking reservations Brunch 9:30am-12:30pm Dinner 1pm-4pm SUNDAY BREAKFAST the sanctuary, the top speed of the Argus, and the eating habits of sea turtles. One student offered the question, “After this exploration, what do you expect to accomplish?” This gave Ballard a chance to explain the patience and hard work behind the glamour of the big discoveries. “You realize,” he said, “that we are collecting this data 24 hours a day, and no one can go ten days without sleep. So quite honestly, no one has seen all the data. We’re going to bring it back here to Mystic, to the Institute for Exploration, and we’re going to look at all of it.” “I want to ask you a question,” the explorer asked the students, “Can you identify the hat I have on my head? He was answered with cheers as the children realized it was a Smithfield Sentinels baseball cap. The cheers continued after Ballard signed off and the Argus finally reached the mud volcano, and the audience watched it spewing gas from beneath the ocean floor, creating plumes of mud. Speaking after the event, Superintendent O’Brien said, “This has worked just the way they hoped.” “The reaction of the kids has been phenomenal,” he said, though he noted that there is much more to come, including an expedition Ballard is leading this summer to explore Phoenician shipwrecks in the Black Sea. The environmental conditions at the location have left the ancient vessels remarkably well-preserved. “He’ll come up with things that are unbelievable, said O’Brien. “This is just the beginning.” POOLS PLUS INC. 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Relax by one of our fireplaces and enjoy some traditional favorites for less than $10 per entree Specials may include: Meat Loaf, Shepard’s Pie, Chicken Pot Pie & More WEDDING AND BANQUET FACILITIES AVAILABLE Your Smithfield Magazine, September 2006 Over 17 tubs on showroom floor TUBS starting at $ 2799 Now carrying Nordic Hot Tubs AN ISL D R NO THE RHOD N E R PHYSICAL THERAPY 1 Garnett Lane Greenville 949-0380 652 George Washington Hwy. Lincoln 333-3211 Orthopedic/Sports Physical Therapy • Back Rehabilitation Athletic Performance Enhancement • Vestibular Retraining We at Northern Rhode Island Physical Therapy would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Smithfield • Northern Rhode Island area. We are proud to be a member of this community, providing quality physical therapy care for over 15 years. Walking On Air Radio personalities Brian and Kevin Mulhern are serious about comedy, and their writing has taken them from Rhode Island to Hollywood and back again. By Terri Bozigian Everyone else was asleep when the telephone call pierced the late night air at the Mulhern house in Greenville, and Brian answered it. The call was for him. “Hi, uh, this is Jay Leno,” said the voice on the other end. “I like your stuff. Do you do stand-up?” Brian Mulhern recalls that night 18 years ago with a smile and an extemporaneous Leno impersonation. He also recalls his kid brother, who was awake by then, cutting into the conversation on another extension. “Hi, Jay, how you doing? I’m Kevin.” Kevin Mulhern continues the story with a laugh, impersonating himself as an excited 16-year-old before adding, “At that point, the conversation came to a screeching halt.” No harm done, however, because Leno--who was filling in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show at the time--bought one of the freelance jokes Brian had sent him. “I have the $50 check from Big Dog Productions framed and hanging above my fireplace,” Brian says about the sale, made when he was a Rhode Island College Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 student. Brian and Kevin Mulhern have been writing comedy for sketches, radio, television, and film half their lives, and the Leno deal is one of the few times they did not work as a team. Right now their full-time jobs are in Rhode Island radio, Brian as co-host of the morning drive-time The Tad and Brian Show on 93.3 Coast FM, and Kevin producing, writing, and doing on-the-air segments for The Paul and Al Show on 94 HJY in the same time slot. Clear Channel owns both Providence stations, and the brothers work in the same building on the same floor. “We grew up just really liking shows like Saturday Night Live, (David) Letterman, sketch comedy,” Kevin says. In the mid-1980’s, their parents bought a VHS home video camera, and the brothers started writing and filming comedy sketches and giving the tapes to friends and neighbors. “We would spoof commercials, parody shows, create characters,” Brian continues. Neighbors soon learned not to be alarmed if they saw one of the brothers throwing a “body” off the roof of their house; it was just the Mulhern boys with a stuffed dummy, staging and filming a comedy sketch. “We’re horribly embarrassed when watching those tapes now,” Kevin comments. “But that’s good, because it shows our progression.” The early videotapes served Brian Mulhern another purpose, too. “We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were building up a reel,” Brian says. Eventually, their portfolio of audio and video clips would take them all the way to Hollywood where they would land jobs writing comedy as a team. Their break came in 1993 when Brian, then 23 and working at HJY, sent a packet of clips to comedian Phil Hartman of SNL fame. “It was a ‘sliding door’ moment,” he recounts, alluding to the title of a Gwyneth Paltrow movie that considers how split-second decisions can change the course of a life. Brian was watching Late Show with David Letterman when Hartman came on to talk about plans for his new prime time comedy, The Phil Show. Letterman asked if he had a writing staff yet, Hartman said “sort of,” and Brian submitted clips from his and Kevin’s videos, their former cable television show, his radio work on HJY, and Kevin’s on WRIU at the University of Rhode Island. “If I hadn’t done that, our whole lives would be different,” Brian says, recalling the day soon after when his parents called him at the radio station to say that “some guy from Saturday Night Live just called and wants you to call him back tomorrow.” It was Hartman, who said the next day, “I really like your stuff.” That December, the brothers met him in New York City on the set of SNL before starting work as writers on The Phil Show. When NBC decided not to include the show in its new line-up, they maintained their friendship with Hartman and continued to work on projects with him. “He took us under his wing and encouraged us,” Kevin says. When Joel Gallen, executive producer of The Phil Show and a URI graduate, needed writers for the MTV movie awards, he tapped Brian and Kevin three times-in `95, `99, and 2003. When Brian had an idea for a movie in `97 for Hartman to star in, Hartman agreed to co-write it. The news of Phil Hartman’s shooting death in May 1998, in what Los Angeles police called a murder-suicide committed by the comedian’s wife, devastated the brothers. Hartman had just telephoned Brian the night before to discuss their movie script. “He talked about his great family life, he talked to me about priorities, and the Kevin Mulhern next day at work I learned he was dead,” Brian recounts. “What that did to us... We loved this guy.” Brian took a leave of absence from the radio station to finish writing the movie. “I had to, I think more for my mental health,” he says. Adds Kevin, who was writing for a community newspaper and organizing a sketch comedy group in the New York City area at the time, “My heart wasn’t in it.” Continued on next page LINCOLN PEST CONTROL YOUR TERMITE SPECIALISTS MEMBER RHODE ISLAND WELCOME HOME BERT Alexis Jaime FREE ESTIMATES 728-4720 1-800-542-1511 Certified Insured Senior Citizen Discounts LINCOLN PEST CONTROL FREEDOM FROM WHAT BUGS YOU Sentricon Colony Elimination System Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Continued from previous page They pushed through their grief, and writing offers followed. Gallen called them for the `99 MTV show. Brian--known to area radio audiences by the name “Brian the Pharmacist” coined from a former job at Gregg’s Pharmacy--returned to HJY, then moved to WRX in “We’ve always been better when we’re working together,” -Kevin Mulhern Providence to co-host Jaxon and the Pharmacist. He invited his brother onto the show-“He’s quick with a mike”-- and together they developed stunts like Kevin sitting on a car traveling through a car wash and rolling (with padding) off a truck at increasing speeds (he got to 35 m.p.h.). “When you’re trying to do something funny, you lose all logic and common sense,” Kevin observes Foot and Ankle Specialist calmly. When FNX Boston bought WRX, Jaxon and the Pharmacist moved to the Boston market and Kevin joined them full-time as producer. The call of comedy persisted, however, and in 2003 the brothers drove back to the West Coast. “I just felt, even though I didn’t like LA--the commute, the noise-that I had to get it out of my system,” Brian says. Writing jobs followed: the third MTV awards show, bonus material for Friends DVD’s, Street Smarts for Warner Brothers television. Kevin also did some standup. “There were jobs all over the place,” Brian says--including Rhode Island radio where his former boss at HJY and WRX was now at 93.3 Coast FM. He returned to Rhode Island for personal reasons and because “I got LA out of my system--I knew I could do it.” Kevin, who was getting married that fall, returned soon after. The brothers are Rhode Islanders at heart. Growing up in Greenville, they attended St. Philip School and played youth league sports. Their dad Tom, who worked in the banking industry, coached sports--basketball, soccer, and Little League baseball. Their mom, Barbara, is a retired Smithfield deputy tax assessor. Kevin attended Smithfield High School, Brian the former Our Lady of Providence. They graduated from state colleges. No surprise, then, that they’re right at home with Rhode Island radio. They like their co-workers and the creativity their work affords them. They like writing comedy bits. They like talking to celebrities--Brian interviewed his boyhood idol, Baseball Hall-of-Famer and former Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk; Kevin covered the L.A. opening of the movie Anchorman starring Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Christina Applegate. Above all, they like being a team. “We’ve always been better when we’re working together,” Kevin says. “It’s a joy to work with each other,” Brian agrees. Through it all, they’re still walking on air--from Hollywood to home. We’re moving, so you can, too. When your feet hurt, you can’t Smithfield Medical Center move the way you want to. 41 Sanderson Road So we’re moving our practice Suite 207 to a brand-new state-of-the-art Smithfield, RI 02917-2603 medical center to bring you 401.949.3220 even better care with the latest technology. Its patient-friendly Drs. David Colannino and design and convenient parking, David Golden will start seeing will make it even easier for patients at the new office on you to visit us. March 12, 2007. 10 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Mercer & George Attorneys at Law • Real Estate Titles & Transactions • Wills, Trusts, Probate & Estate Planning • Small Business Formation Initial consultation free of charge William T. George, Esq. Matthew L. Mercer, Esq. Greenville 949-0801 Rhode Island does not have a procedure for certification and recognition of lawyers by specialization. Tribute Auto Sales & Spa www would like to invite you to Our 1st Annual Charity Car Wash 100% of the proceeds will be donated to The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Saturday, April 28 • 10:00am to 4:00pm Rain date Saturday, May 5 FOOD FUN RAFFL ES “Treat your car to a day at the Spa” With a Deluxe Hand Wash $25 Help children & families living with Cystic Fibrosis 293 Waterman Avenue, Smithfield 349-4406 As I Was Saying By Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. Hard to let go We find it hard to let go of things. As least many of us do. As a community we sometimes agonize over when it is time to dispose of something and replace it with something else. Historic buildings are a prime example. Years ago we pretty much agreed that the Smith-Appleby House in Stillwater was worth saving. After a major effort and tireless fund-raising by a dedicated group of supporters over many years the historic structure was restored. Today it is one of the area’s better known landmarks. It is featured on the town website, listed as a tourist destination, and visited by many for special events and programs. The Resolved Waterman Tavern Ell, now known as the Smithfield Exchange Bank is a different matter. The small building next door to the Greenville Fire Station has become a lightning rod for controversy. Advocates striving to save and restore it find themselves opposed by implacable opponents who want it razed. The fact that the folks who decide such things have found it possessed of enough significant value to place it on the DARNBROUGH INSURANCE AGENCY 949-5090 Donald Darnbrough You’re in good hands. Jane Waterman 559 Putnam Pike, Greenville 35 Years of Professional Service 12 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 National Register of Historic Places lends some weight to the argument for preserving it. Those against keeping the building say it has been neglected too long and that it is located in a spot that is difficult to use. The eventual outcome of the debate remains to be determined. It is worth observing, though, that our attitude toward saving things or parting with them usually begins with our individual inclinations. Some of us are savers. Some of us are not. History at its most fundamental level is personal. Probably half the attics and cellars in Smithfield harbor old uniforms from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War. Or maybe not. Maybe there are more neatniks and minimalists among us than we think and all they saved was their combat infantry man badge or their beret. It’s not easy for some of us to let go of the things that we identify with passages in our lives. First communion suits and dresses get tucked away in the cedar closet, and as the classified ads sometimes attest, after once happy marriages dissolve, nearly every bride has saved her wedding gown. The loving descriptions of the dress, used only once, kept in perfect condition, no stains, contradict the hard-headed decision to sell the once cherished frock when the dreams have turned to ashes. Savers hang onto to strange things. There is the dish grandfather last ate from, the watch he carried. There is his cane left hanging by the back door when he needed it no more. Some of us can send to the rummage sale the carefully inscribed book mother gave us at junior high school graduation, give away the Christmas present a wife or sibling watched us open with such anticipation and delight several years ago. Others add them to the growing pile of things that give us meaning and document our life. Things we cannot throw away. Reason is a tenuous element in the struggle to strike a balance. One English professor at a university not that far away often wore the same flannel shirt with a torn pocket and wispy, stray stains of paint on it. Surely it had some special private significance, but no one dared to ask. We get attached to shoes that carried us to the scene of some small triumph or cleats that carried us around the bases. We hang onto skates that we wore playing high school hockey. Some of us. Others long ago have consigned such things to yard sale tables or the trash. A minister recently offered a children’s lesson that illustrated the point. He had prepared several large boxes. He wrapped them in brown paper and labeled them with such inscriptions as THINGS, TOYS, and PROPERTY etc. He then asked one youngster to hold the boxes as he piled them up so high she couldn’t be seen. Then he asked one of the other children to come forward and hug the one holding the boxes. It was of course impossible. The les- son was simple. You shouldn’t let things get in the way of people, of being available to others. Yet when it comes down to getting rid of the shirt you wore to college graduation or the tools your father used to fix things around the house or the gift your spouse gave you for your first anniversary it isn’t that easy. If we can’t decide on how long to keep the Christmas ties our mother-in-law gave us, is it any wonder, then, that it’s so hard to reach consensus on what village landmarks we should save or give over to the inexorable grindstone called time? Floor Covering Sale Whether you are looking for hardwood, laminate, carpet or tile, it’s all available here at Douglas! Mid-Winter Flooring Specials • Bruce Waltham PreFinished Natural Strip $ 3.59 sf • Dal Tile 12x12 Brazos or Brixton 7 colors to choose from $.99 sf • Plush/Berber Carpet With Pad Installed $18.99 syd Basic labor only Offers expire March 31, 2007 GREYSTONE AUTO CENTER, INC. Expert Installation Available! Collision Specialists 232-0480 • Fax 232-0419 129 Waterman Avenue, North Providence License No. 806 Nelson Boucher, General Manager FLOOR COVERING • 231-6800 ext. 285/253 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 13 Substance abuse task force says: ‘We want to wake people up’ By Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. The Smithfield Substance Abuse Task Force recently received some very positive news. Owing to the terms of a federal grant to the State of Rhode Island the town will be receiving no less than $140,000 a year for the next three years to combat underage drinking and drug use. However, there is also some very troubling news for the community connected to the grant. Smithfield really needs the money. Disturbing statistics compiled by the state in doing a needs assessment to determine which communities would get SPRING IS IN THE AIR Home sales are on the rise and interest rates are low At last month’s meeting of the Smithfield Substance Abuse Task Force, members learned that the group will be receiving a major federal grant to help carry out their mission. The funding will vastly improve the task force’s ability to reach the community with its message about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. At left (front to back) are Jean Vickers, task force coordinator; Barry Sutcliffe, chairman; Peter Massaro of the Fire Department; Kris Sarro of the high school art department; and at right (front to back) Harold Hemberger CEO of the YMCA; Ron Manni of the Town Council and Tri-Town; Donna Mann, social worker at the high school and elementary schools; and Martha Iachetta, student assistance counselor for the high school and middle school. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) funding revealed that this town has a serious problem, especially when it comes to underage drinking. “The good news is Smithfield qualified for the [large amount of] money. The bad news is Smithfield ranked fourth in the state [in the incidence of underage drink- Barbara A. Scanlon REMAX Broker Associate ABR, CRS, e-PRO, PMNn, SRES 334-5144 949-1689 Call now for a free market analysis of your home 14 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 ing],” says Jean Vickers, the Tri-Town Community Action Agency’s coordinator of prevention services, who also coordinates the town’s Substance Abuse Task Force. The reason Smithfield qualified for the money is due to the severity of the problem here, she explained. In reviewing the town’s ranking the state looked at a lot of different criteria and examined a wide range of data, Mrs. Vickers notes. The needs assessment took into account the health practices questionnaire results from the 2005 School Accountability for Learning and Teaching (SALT) survey. They also reviewed arrest records, substance abuse admissions to hospitals and health care agencies, traffic stops, and traffic fatalities. When all the numbers were added up the outcome wasn’t good. Such an attractive and nurturing town in so many ways, Smithfield has a major problem when it comes to illegal, underage drinking and to a lesser but equally concerning degree, drug use. “Smithfield is a more economically advantaged community than many, but that is actually seen as a risk factor,” observes Mrs. Vickers. Affluent teenag- ers have more opportunities to indulge in underage drinking and drugs, and they have more resources to devote to those pursuits, she comments. “A lot of the issue is denial. The Smithfield community doesn’t think it has a problem,” she adds. Clearly it seems to have one though. The needs assessment compared all 39 of the state’s cities and towns in making its decision about which ones would receive funds. The top 14 would qualify. Smithfield is near the head of the list. When asked what he sees as the group’s top priority in light of the study, Barry Sutcliffe of Bradford Sutcliffe Insurance Agency, chairman of the Substance Abuse Task Force since 2006 said, “We want to wake people up”. Apparently it will take some shaking to get the community aroused, though. Both Mr. Sutcliffe, who is elected by the rest of the task force to his post, and Mrs. Vickers who is the person delegated by Tri-Town to staff the group, agree that the main objective for the board will be to educate parents and townspeople to the extent of the town’s troubles. In prior years the complacency might have even extended to the Task force itself, confides Mr. Sutcliffe, who makes reference to meetings in the past when only three people showed up. Today, however, things are very different, he says, reporting that as many as 15 people, many of them in pivotal roles in the town, turn out for the monthly get-togethers where strategy and program development are discussed and plans and policy are made. Originally established as the Smithfield Youth Development Council (SYDC) in response to the 1988 Rhode Island Substance Abuse Prevention Act, the SYDC was subsumed by Tri-Town in 1997 after the then director Brenda Amodei approached them. The substance abuse prevention act had made it possible for communities all over the state to receive funds to address the issue of substance abuse. Joining up with Tri-Town gave the program access to more funds via federal grants and the like. However the annual funding for Smithfield stayed in the area of $34,000 a year. The bulk of the money comes from the General Assembly under the terms of the 1988 prevention act, explains Mrs. Vickers. According to Mr. Sutcliffe and Mrs. Vickers although many worthwhile projects and activities have been undertaken, given such a constricted budget the task force has not frequently been able to generate sufficient awareness community wide. Neither has it attained the momentum necessary to make large enough inroads toward reversing the trends that put Smithfield in the top tier of communities about to receive the new federal grants. Now, however, the potential for a dramatic infusion of funds could set the stage for a major surge in programming and information dissemination. It all began two years ago, explains Mrs. Vickers, when the Rhode Island Department of Human Services wrote a grant application to the federal government and received $12,000,000. Eighty percent of the monies are designated to go to direct services in several Rhode Island cities and towns, she relates. It is this provision that necessitated the needs assessment study with the aim of identifying the 14 communities in the state that are most in need of the resources. After the analysis was done, Smithfield, it proved, was high among those municipalities qualifying. Mrs. Vickers says the smallest amount the town will receive annually for three years is the aforementioned $140,000, but given its ranking it could receive as much as $260,000, both sums that could make a huge difference in the drive to raise awareness and involve the various segments of the community in the effort to confront underage drinking and illegal drug use in Smithfield. “Our budget was very limited before,” Mr. Sutcliffe states flatly. “I’ve challenged our task force to really make a difference. Now we really should have the funds to make an impact,” he declares, adding “we have some really influential and effective people on the task force now.” Previously, however, the leaders of the task force say there has been a fairly widespread apathy on the part of parents and townspeople. Both Mr. Sutcliffe and Mrs. Vickers are quick to praise such efforts as the annual chemical free post graduation party at the high school, prom pledges not to drink or use drugs and other awareness initiatives. However, they also cannot ignore the fact that a study commissioned by the task force in 2003-2004 revealed that Smithfield was far ahead of other communities when it came to “transition rates.” These are the statistics regarding the rate of change in attitude about behavior related to substance abuse that occurs between middle school Continued on next page DePetrillo’s Pizza & Bakery Happy Easter Full - 18 strips cut in 1/3 = 54 pieces Red $13.99 White $10.99 Half - 9 strips cut in 1/3 = 27 pieces Red $7.99 White $6.25 Rolls Broccoli & Cheese............................ $6.99 Pepperoni & Cheese........................ $6.99 Spinach, Pepperoni & Cheese..........$7.25 Stromboli...........................................$7.25 Pizza 1 strip............... .99 • 3 strips.............$2.50 1 strip white..... .75 • 3 strips white....$2.00 105 Pleasant View Ave., Smithfield • 231-4600 Mon.-Thurs. 6:30am-7pm, Fri. & Sat. 6:30am-8pm, Sun. 7am-6pm Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 15 Continued from previous page TENT SALE SATURDAY, APRIL 21 • 10AM-4PM Come visit Rhode Island’s newest Husqvarna dealer and service center Husqvarna factory representative will be present 10% OFF Husqvarna products from April 16-22 FREE FOOD AND GIVEAWAYS GREENVILLE HARDWARE 633 Putnam Pike, Greenville • 949-1150 Hours: Mon.-Sat. 7:30am-7pm, Sun. 8:30am-5pm aged students and high school aged students. For example, in the 2003-2004 study, which drew on earlier (but the same kind of) SALT data used to determine Smithfield’s eligibility for the new grant funds, one statistic was very alarming. It showed that while 77 percent of middle school students saw smoking marijuana to be a great risk, only 42 percent of high school students viewed the drug that way. That is a transition rate of some 35 percent. This compared to a statewide average of 21 percent. Despite the presence of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) programs and all the other efforts aimed at adolescents something happens between middle school and high school in Smithfield that dramatically alters the attitudes of many of the young people in town. Mr. Sutcliffe reveals a touch of dismay when discussing the issue of community involvement aimed at addressing the situation. He cites a forum that the task force organized last March to focus on the matters under scrutiny in the surveys. “We were lucky if there were 35 people there,” he says betraying his frustration. “I think it goes back to the problem that people just don’t think there is a problem in Smithfield. When I was elected to head the task force I challenged some of the key people in town to get involved and many have. I asked them ‘are we going to do something or just sit around and talk about it?’” Mrs. Vickers echoes the sentiment, agreeing that participation in the task force’s activities has always been problematic, TOWN OF SMITHFIELD FY 2008 BUDGET HEARING TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2007 7:00 P.M. SMITHFIELD HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM FINANCIAL TOWN MEETING LYDIA’S DELI Our food is made fresh daily Hot & Cold Grinders • Soups • Salads Prepared Foods • Homemade Calzones Free chips with any sandwich order FREE DELIVERY from 11-4:30 $ 8 minimum - Seniors 10% Off 127 Dean Ave., Smithfield 369-9041 Tel/Fax Hours: Tues.-Sat. 10am-5pm THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2007 7:00 P.M. SMITHFIELD HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM APRIL 10, 2007, 4:00 P.M. is the deadline for individuals to register to vote, in order to vote at the Financial Town Meeting. Residents who will be 18 years of age on or before the Financial Town Meeting, May 10, 2007, are eligible to register to vote. Voter Registration forms may be obtained in the Town Clerk’s Office, Greenville Library, East Smithfield Library, or on the RI Board of Elections web site: www.elections.state.ri.us Dianne L. Ady, MPA Town Clerk but she goes on to outline what she thinks must happen now that substantial resources will soon be available. She volunteers the opinion that “the goal once we begin receiving funds is to promote a community buy-in. We must get parents involved [in larger numbers] and we must educate the community to the issues. “It has to be multi-domained, global. It cannot just be students, just be schools, just be teachers, just be parents; you have to get the message out through all the domains in the community. It’s not enough to just tell the kids. My son has been to the funerals of five of his classmates. Too many of our kids are dying in town [from substance abuse related causes].” Acknowledging the good work that has been done by the group in prior years, however, she and Barry Sutcliffe hasten to point out some of the many activities which the task force has helped to facilitate over the years. They cite such endeavors as the funding of police officers to be trained in the training of servers of alcohol. Mrs. Vickers points out that the training of alcohol servers in this community is an initiative which has long been required by local statute, and it preceded the statewide law requiring it. Mrs. Vickers also mentions skating parties at the town rink which promoted awareness, the All Star Program at the town’s libraries, the training of task force staff and members in educational methods, the supplying of informational and educational materials and the like. The big difference now, though, is the vast amount of money that soon will be arriving to carry out much more ambitious programming. “We’ve done a lot of good, but we’ve never had this kind of money,” Mrs. Vickers notes. The challenge, she and Mr. Sutcliffe both told Your Smithfield Magazine in separate interviews, will be to make the money count, to get the attention of the entire community, and to set up programs that will last beyond the end of the grant. With that in mind the task force is seeking input from the community and is always ready to welcome new members, Jean Vickers says. “If we save even one life, it will be more than worth it,” Barry Sutcliffe observes. To find out more about the work of the task force or to volunteer call Jean Vickers at Tri-Town at 351-2750, Extension 1137. Unforgettable moments We have the Easter egg and the Easter bunny charms PANDORA® Jewelry UNCLE’S TRANSMISSION Proud, Honest Service • Foreign & Domestic • Overdrive • Clutches • Rebuilt Transmissions • Vehicles up to 27 ft. or 10,000 lbs. • Computer Scanning • Front Wheel Drive Now working on late model BMW, Jaguar & Audi transmissions “We Accept Most Extended Warranties” 231-1611 • 5 Larch Street, Smithfield Eric Whalen, Owner/Operator Ephraim Doumato Jewelers 19 Sanderson Road • Greenville, RI 02828 • (401) 949-4220 The Wakefield Mall • Wakefield, RI 02879 • (401) 789-2500 www.doumatojewelers.com • Sold in Greenville location only U.S. Pat. No. 7.007.507 • Copyright • All rights reserved www.pandora-jewelry.com Oh my! I remember that now A short memoir about writing memoirs By Harry Anderson Summers were always hot in our third floor tenement on Bradford Street on Federal Hill. So, when my uncle Joe came over from Sicily to live with us, my father bought a lot in the woods off River Avenue. I was only a little girl when I went with my sister to watch my father and uncle build a cabin in the woods where for many summers my family would stay. It was so nice and cool there. Today the woods and our cabin are gone. Providence College is there now. A resident of the Village at Waterman Lake wrote this snippet of a memory, although she was nearly blind (she could not see the words that she scrawled with a black felt pen). “Blind or not, I have to write my memories,” she says. “My family wants me to.” Here’s another snippet from a memory piece written by a Village resident: I was only nineteen in 1942 and married to Steve for a little over three months. He was in the Navy based in Newport. We Crickets Forget the Rest...Come to the Best! Come Join Us For Easter Brunch All Day 10am-4pm Reservations recommended Banquet Facilities www.DiningQuest.com/Crickets Washington Highway, Route 116, Smithfield 232-0300 18 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 In the library of the Chalet at the Village at Waterman Lake Harry Anderson talks over some ideas about the writing personal memoirs with resident Phyllis Rodgers. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) knew, of course, that at some time he would have to go to the war. His orders to report to the base in Biloxi, Mississippi, came too, too quickly. He would undergo training for combat and then be sent somewhere far away. I was very depressed, but what could we do? There was an enemy out there that had to be defeated, and it was Steve’s duty to help defeat it. His loneliness showed in his letter from Mississippi, so much so that I asked Pop (Steve’s dad) if I could drive his ’39 Chevie to Biloxi. “You’re crazy,” he said. “But here’s the key. Good luck.” The first night I was in Maryland and stayed at a cheap roadside “cottage” (motels weren’t around then). Before turning off the light, I prayed for the courage to continue this journey and got into the bed, happy to know that I would be with Steve in two more days, if my reckoning was correct. For twelve years I have listened to memory pieces (as I call them) written and read by people winding down their lives in retirement communities. Believing that there is a need in us to tell our stories, I had the idea to start up a memoir writing group at the Village at Waterman Lake here in Smithfield. Its activities director, excited by the idea, gathered about seven residents to come to the first meeting. That was on a Tuesday afternoon in 1994. To tell the truth, I had expected the activities director to terminate me after four or five sessions. Memoir writing was an idea gone bad, she would say. To the contrary, the group grew to fourteen; and they were writing memory pieces – three typed pages on average – with much enthusiasm. Activities directors apparently network, because word spread of the success of the memoir writing scheme at the Village at Waterman. Calls for me to start up groups came from The Seasons (East Greenwich), The Villa at St. Antoine’s (No. Smithfield), The Village at Hillsgrove (Warwick), and Temple Torah Israel (Cranston). Then there were the visits to Block Island and to Darien, Connecticut, to advise directors of elderly affairs how to set up a memoir writing program. What began in Smithfield has spread afar. My belief that we want to tell our stories seems to be a fact. Indeed, some of us with the funds and a lack of confidence in our writing skills – who yet want our stories told – can sign up with a ghost writer to get the job done. Speaking of a lack of confidence in our writing skills, that is one of two formidable hurdles that I must help people to leap over. “Look,” I say, “pick your audience . . . perhaps a son or daughter, a grandchild. That’s step one. Step two, focus on a particular subject, and that can be anything from a Christmas morning when you were a child to a vacation trip with your family, to moving into your first house. Endless are the subjects.” “But . . . I can’t write!” “Sure you can,” I answer. “All you have to do is imagine the one you’ve picked to hear your story is sitting with you. Then be conversational. Let your pen be your tongue. You’ll see. The words will come, and before you know it, you’ll have filled one, or two, or three pages.” The second formidable hurdle to be jumped over is the delusion that nothing in their lives had enough importance to be worthy of being retold in writing. Nothing more upsets me than to hear this. Every single life has importance, worthy to be recorded by the written word. That is a personal credo, and that has been my motive in my retirement years to inspire the elderly to record their memories. I was six years old. I lived in Austria with my mother and father. I was a happy child. But we were Jews, and the Black Shirts were one by one taking away our neighbors. One night Mama woke me and said to get dressed and said we must go. It was cold outside and snow was on the ground. My aunt and uncle and two cousins were there. Papa and Uncle whispered, and then waved us to follow them. We came to the rail yard and dogs were barking behind us. The Black Shirts were coming. Everyone was across the tracks and into the woods except Mama and me. My foot got stuck in the rail. Mama could not get it loose, and she screamed. I hear her scream every night. Every memory piece I have heard evokes emotions such as Sylvia’s remembrance of her terrifying moment. Some pieces make me chuckle, such as Aaron’s. A cow farmer in the Catskills near Grossinger’s Resort, he remembers instructing Jimmy Durante in how to milk a cow. Many memoirs chronicle historic moments; such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the great hurricane of ’38, the death of FDR. Most of the memory pieces, however, give personal accounts of courtship, family affairs, school days, vacation trips. Many are larded with colorful details of yesteryear: a trolley car, fish mongers and icemen and ragmen, the Outlet Company’s Santa Clause, Sears & Roebuck’s “wish book.” My husband and I went to Mexico to live for one year in a provincial village east of Mexico City close to the mountains. A real estate agent showed a house that was for rent. The place was filthy, and my husband said, ‘No, no. This isn’t appropriate.’ The agent responded, ‘But, senor, Maria comes with it. She is yours.’ Maria, a beautiful dark-skinned woman came when the agent whistled. My husband stuttered, ‘But . . . But . . . My wife?’ ‘This is Ramon.’ Then he said, ‘The last Americans to rent this house for one month stayed for six months.’ We laughed and laughed at this one. Some others, however, evoked tears. I had to come up with an idea to lift the spirits of my three young sons who were terribly depressed after the death of their father. So, I visited a neighbor whom I knew had a cottage on Bailey’s Island up in Maine to inquire about the possibility of renting it for a week. She and her husband were very sympathetic, not only sacrificing a week in July for us to say in their cottage but also refusing to charge rent. . . On the last night of our enchanted week on Bailey’s Island, I followed the boys down the path to the dock where Ziggy tied up his skiff. Ziggy’s lived all of his fifty or so years of life on the island, lobstering for a living. He’s a kindly man with soft blue eyes set into a face as weather beaten as the old lobster pot which I was sitting on as I watched the boys whoop it up on the dock. Ziggy had just tied up and was transferring the day’s catch from wooden barrels on the deck of his boat into plastic bins. The boys helped. When the job was done, Ziggy said something that made the boys laugh. It was good seeing them laugh. He put his long arms around them and squeezed them. Even Peter, Junior, age 16, let himself be hugged. Behind them on the horizon where Casco Bay meets the sky, the biggest, brightest orange full moon was rising. Still too angry to pray, I wept and wished my dear Peter were there with his sons on Ziggy’s dock. I feel deeply privileged to be privy to these outpourings of memories that heretofore had been untold. More than that, I am thankful to fate for granting me the knack of eliciting from these people who were in the denouement of their lives their buried stories. It must be noted that all but one of the authors of the snippets of memory pieces that I have cited have passed away. Harry Anderson of Glocester is the retired chairman of the Mansfield, Massachusetts High School English Department. Besides being a writer and conducting memoir writing gatherings, he also leads book discussion groups, notably one at the Harmony Library which has been going for 12 years and has read more than 170 books. Georgiaville Baptist Church invites you to worship with us on Sundays at 9:30am at 100 Farnum Pike, Smithfield We are handicap accessible Sunday School for children is held at the same hour Join us on EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 8TH at 6:30am in the church yard for Easter Sunrise Worship (indoors if raining) followed by a full Easter Breakfast in the church hall and Morning Worship at 9:30am - there will be special music by the choirs For more information call 568-4412 A Nerd’s Eye View By Ron Scopelliti Professional writer on a closed course Don’t try this at home. I’m a trained professional with years of experience. Writing a column without the proper training can result in serious physical and psychological injury. I’m sorry for starting a column like that, but I’ve been remiss in not doing so sooner. You can’t be too careful these days in protecting yourself from liability. If you’re presenting information to the public, you need a disclaimer, and this is obvious in TV commercials. I challenge you to find a commercial that doesn’t have lines of text running along the bottom at regular intervals throughout the ad, explaining that what you’re seeing is dangerous, impossible, an exaggeration, available only by prescription, or only applicable if you sign a two-year service agreement. This column does not require a prescription, and there is no two-year service agreement required. If there were, I’d have to include a disclaimer to protect myself should I run out of column ideas or be driven to excessive consumption of alcohol through the writing of said column. (Note: Comic depiction of alcohol abuse is not an en- BUD BALFOUR INSURANCE (401) 949-5660 • 401 Putnam Pike, Harmony Call Us for ALL of Your Insurance Needs Call Us for a Quote Now! • Auto • Life • Home • Snowmobiles • Boats • Motorcycle/ATV SINCE 1987 20 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 dorsement. Please drink responsibly and always have a designated driver; seek medical help if anyone orders an Alabama Slammer) Car commercials are notorious for their disclaimers, like the Toyota ad where they have a custom-built, thirty-foot high, football-field-long, steel see-saw to test their full-size pickup. They warn viewers not to try this at home. I’m personally not inclined to try this at home because the apparatus would be bigger than my home and more expensive than my home. (Note: see-saw and home values are estimated. Home values may fluctuate based on the real estate market; see-saw may go up or down due to gravity) You may think I’m joking about writing being dangerous, and feeling the need to put disclaimers in my column. But I’m already worrying about the response Toyota might have to my previous paragraph. If you’re putting something out in print, you have to constantly worry about getting sued. That explains why I substituted “Alabama Slammer” for the brand name beer I had originally used. Do you see where it’s getting us? You can’t pick up a coffee cup without a disclaimer on it, warning you that your coffee may be hot. At Starbucks, the cardboard sleeve they give you to protect your hands from the heat has a warning that your coffee may be hot. If you throw caution to the wind and take the sleeve off, there’s an identical warning on the cup itself. It’s only a matter of time before scientists find a way to actually imprint a warning in the coffee, defying fluid dynamics and Brownian motion to protect us from ourselves. I’m glad, at least, that the coffee companies haven’t gone the same route as drug companies, hawking their latest product and following their sales pitch with a litany of potential problems. Something like: Side effects may include slaking of thirst, cessation of drowsiness, and a craving for biscotti. Those visiting Starbucks may become disoriented and believe that “tall” is synonymous with “small.” Call your doctor if you have a latte that lasts more than four hours. I can see a future where the number of disclaimers I’ve thrown into this column becomes a necessity rather than a repetitive joke. Works of music, drama, and fiction may soon need disclaimers included throughout. Just like the Ford Edge commercial has to remind viewers that a car cannot really travel on two wheels along a four-inch ledge on a rooftop, the next Superman movie may need to run a disclaimer along the bottom of each flying scene, noting that all flying sequences are simulated. The next Star Trek movie may warn viewers: “Simulated starship on closed course; Always obey local traffic laws. Do not exceed the speed of light.” It will eventually work its way across all arts. The next production of Romeo and Juliet may note that “all suicides are simulated and for entertainment purposes only. No actors were harmed in the production of this play.” Poetry anthologies will point out that Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening may lead to hypothermia or loitering charges. The lyric sheet to Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road will warn that “your results may vary” when you tell a girl “You ain’t a beauty, but hey you’re alright.” Is it too late to stop the trend? Maybe I’m being alarmist. Maybe a world of disclaimers run amuck isn’t hovering just around the corner. Maybe I’m extrapolating a trend just for the sake of extrapolation (don’t you hate it when that happens?) But if you see this column as a slightly distorted reflection of reality, and consider the slightly distorted view through your car’s passenger-side mirror, I say there’s a parallel, and therefore warn you: Observations in this column are closer than they appear. 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According to his parents, Cory started riding motorcycles at 4 ½, and would have started sooner if it were his choice. “We said, ‘when you can ride your bike without training wheels, then you can ride a dirt bike,’” recalls Cory’s father, Todd. Cory soon began running pee-wee hare scrambles, a form of motorcycle competition that keeps the bikes mostly on the ground. He then moved on to BMX (bicycle motocross). Though it relies on pedal-power, the sport gave Cory a glimpse of the air time he would soon become accustomed to on a motorcycle. Mother Karen recalls, “I said to my husband, ‘I think he likes the air.’” The transition from BMX to motocross brought a couple of benefits, says Cory. “Motocross is faster and more exciting,” he says. “And in BMX you only get to go around the track once.” Motocross races are usually divided into two segments (called motos), each of which lasts about 5 laps (ten to fifteen minutes). The sport requires a full-time commitment, not only from Cory, but from his family. Last year, he raced in 65 and 85 cc classes, so-named because of the engine-size of the motorcycles. He required a race bike and a spare for each class. This year, he’ll race exclusively on the larger bikes, and his racing stable will consist of two 85cc KTM machines. “This is a very big expense,” says Karen, noting that the commitment also includes a camper, and a truck to pull the 22 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Cory Beety displays the trophy he received for winning the spring championship in the New England Motocross Association’s 65B division. camper and carry the motorcycles. “A new washer and dryer comes second,” she says. “The bikes come first. It’s all about the motocross.” There is also a significant time commitment, with races every week from spring through fall. The race weekends, however, offer a family atmosphere that’s enjoyable for the parents as well as the racers. “It’s like going camping every weekend,” says Karen. “You might have one weekend a month off.” “We’ve had good friends that Cory knows and hangs with,” she says. “We know them well and we hang with their parents. It’s like going camping every weekend. We all put the campers together at the track. “We all bring out the food, and the kids are playing – we just have a lot of fun. “You’ve got your family, you’ve got your friends, and then you’ve got your motocross family,” says Karen. The closeness is evident when riders are injured. “We’ve seen some kids airlifted out,” Karen says. “We’ve seen friends taken out in the rescue.” When this happens, she says, the families come together, “tag-teaming” to take care of brothers and sisters as the parents accompany their rider to the hospital. Though Cory hasn’t suffered any injuries in motocross, Karen says that some parents ask her how she can let her son take part in a potentially dangerous sport. “I say, ‘How can you let your child out the front door?’” she responds. She admits, though, that there are times when the nerves set in. “I’ve seen him take one crash,” she says, recalling how he cart-wheeled off the bike before hitting the ground. “I screamed.” Cory, however, got back on his bike and continued running so he wouldn’t be listed with a DNF (Did Not Finish) in the point standings. “He wanted to finish that race,” she says, noting that referees will go out of their way to protect overzealous riders, pulling kids off the track if they appear to be riding injured. “These organizations are great for the kids,” she says. “He’s met a lot of friends from all over New England. They all help each others – they’re a bunch of nice kids.” She feels that their mutual involvement in a sport that’s outside the mainstream forms a bond. Cory points to an example that took place when he went to South Carolina to train with older riders during Christmas break. “One kid, he barely knew me,” Cory says, “but he took a whole day of riding out just to show me how to do stuff.” Cory says he’d like to go pro one day, and would like to stay in racing, rather than crossing over into the “freestyle” stunt competitions that have become popular in the past few years. He says he would also prefer to stay away from indoor racing. “I like to stay outside,” he says. “The tracks are bigger, and the jumps are more stretched out. So if you don’t clear something, you still have time to gain to get to the next jump.” Asked what he likes most about motocross, his answer is simple and straight to the point: “Just the fun of it,” Cory says. Spring has Sprung at The Country Gardener in North Scituate. Easter is Sunday, April 8th and our greenhouses are overflowing with Easter Lilies • Tulips • Hyacinths Daffodils • Hydrangeas And lots more Open daily 9:00am-6:00pm Open Easter Sun. 9:30 til 12:00Noon The Country Gardener Top: One of the trademarks of motocross racing is “big air,” and Cory gets plenty of it here. Center: taking the checkered flag at the end of a race in Connecticut. Bottom: Cory is known for his “holeshots,” beating other competitors to the first turn. Here he leads the pack off the starting line. (photos by Karen Beety) 617 Greenville Road (Rt. 116) N. Scituate 647-2208 Visa & MC accepted Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 23 Old County Road School Makes the Grade Elementary school receives national honor By Ron Scopelliti Earlier this year, one of Smithfield’s elementary schools received a national honor that speaks not only to its dedication to academics, but also to its connection with the community. Old County Road Elementary School, was named a distinguished school by the National Association of State Title 1 Directors. To those outside academia, it may not be immediately apparent what this honor means, but a conversation with the school’s principal, Jill Barnhardt, makes it clear that Old County Road School is serving a unique function in our school system, and doing it well. The school, which currently has 240 students from Esmond and Georgiaville, is the only school in the town taking part in the federally funded Title 1 program. Principal Barnhardt explains that Title 1 is targeted at lower socio-economic groups, with the aim of improving reading and math skills. According to the RAND Corporation, a non-profit think tank, “many children from disadvantaged backgrounds fail to meet grade-level expectations on core subjects.” Educational assessments for grades 8-12 show that some 50 percent of children from disadvantaged backgrounds score below basic levels in reading and math. Old County Road School falls under the Title 1 program because of the demographics of the student body. 24 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Alicia Gibney, substituting for Old County Road Elementary School reading specialist Julie Russell, works with students (l-r) Kelsey Safford and Kimberly Major. The school was recently recognized for its efforts in the federally-funded Title 1 program which focuses on improving reading and math skills in schools with higher percentages of students from lower socio-economic groups. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) “This is a school with a lower socioeconomic background,” says Barnhardt, “It’s all based on the percentage of the students that participate in the federal free and reduced lunch program.” 40 students from the school (16.6 percent of the population) qualify for free or reduced lunch. Built in 1957, the building served as the town’s Junior High School until 1976, and the opening of a new building which is now the Vincent J. Gallagher Middle School. Barnhardt has been at the school for eight years. Her immediate predecessor was current school superintendent Robert O’Brien. Schools with a high incidence of poverty have school-wide Title 1 programs. This is not the case at Old County Road. Some 49 students at the school receive Title 1 services in reading and/or math. “We’re a targeted-assistance program,” Barnhardt explains, “so we identify the children who need the most assistance academically, and we gear all of our Title I funding towards providing support for them.” “Right now, the Title 1 funds provide one-and-a-half teaching positions to the school,” she says. “It’s the equivalent of a full-time reading teacher, and a halftime math teacher. Taking part in the program are Math teacher Dorothy Ainley (whose position is half funded through Title 1, and half funded through the school district), reading teacher Kristen DeAmaral, and reading teacher Julie Russell, who is currently on maternity leave. The services provided by these teachers are highly varied. They can include one-on-one sessions with students, group work, and co-teaching with the classroom instructors. They also work with the classroom teachers doing common planning and professional development. “One of the big things that the Title 1 teachers do is they help classroom teachers assess students,” Barnhardt notes. “The federal funds also provide us with funding for professional development for the teachers, funding to run parent programs, and funding for materials and supplies used in the programs,” she adds. “Probably the thing I’m most proud of about our Title I program is, if you walked into a classroom, you wouldn’t be able to identify who is a title I student, who is a special education student, and who is a general ed student,” Barnhardt says. “The way the funding is arranged, we have the flexibility for our teachers to work with anyone who needs it.” One recent development made possible partly through the Title 1 funding, is Old County Road School’s Literacy Closet – a large collection of reading material in a small room on the school’s second floor. The Literacy Closet has been in the works for the past three years. Working with classroom teachers, they pulled together books that were already in the school, and then added to them each year, using combined funds. “We have hundreds and hundreds of books,” Barnhardt says. “We purchased a lot of the books in there with the Title 1 funds.” The reach of the Title 1 program, however, extends beyond the classroom, and beyond the walls of the school, into the community. “One of the key pieces of the Title 1 legislation,” says Barnhardt, “is that we try to involve families as much as we can.” This year, for example, the school hosted a “First Day” program, inviting all the parents to come to school with their children on the first day of classes. They attended a wholeschool assembly, and then visited each classroom. “We felt like it was a huge success,” says Barnhardt. Later this academic year, they will invite all families of incoming kindergarten students to come into school for a story time. “It takes away a little bit of that anxiety,” says the principal. During the summer, staff and faculty volunteer at the East Smithfield Public Library to have summer reading storytimes. They usually take place twice a week, with teachers bringing stories and activities. “They volunteer to do that, just to keep that home/school connection going through the summer,” says Barnhardt. Further strengthening the connection between the school and the nearby library, Babs Wells, one of the children’s librarians, comes to storytimes at the school once a month, and also takes part in a story time for incoming kindergarteners. “Miss Babs” also comes to a whole-school assembly at the end of the year to help promote the summer reading program, and inform the children of the library’s summer calendar of events. “We have a really nice collaboration with them,” Barnhardt says of the library. Asked if she thinks the school’s Title 1 status has helped forge a bond with the surrounding community, Barnhardt says “I think it’s added to the connection,” noting that the programs are things they would probably like to do anyway. She notes, however, “It gives you a little more initiative to get out there and make those connections.” Box Sets $ 99 Starting at MSRP Each • Over 20 styles available • Solid Hardwood Box • 14k Diamond Pendant • 16” 14K Gold Rope Chain • White or Yellow Gold • All Initials A to Z (white only) • A Perfect Gift A.C. JEWELERS 180 Pleasant View Ave., Smithfield • Rob Richards 349-4094 THE INN COME EXPERIENCE FINE FOOD AT REASONABLE PRICES Famous Prime Rib on Fri. & Sat. Rehearsal Dinners/Showers Insurance Plus Service Since 1957 Bradford-Sutcliffe, Assoc. Lawrence-Sutcliffe, Inc. Barry J. Sutcliffe President 511 Putnam Pike, P.O. Box 580, Greenville, RI 02828 949-3500 Fax 949-5999 E-mail: barry@bradfordsutcliffe.com www.bradfordsutcliffe.com OPEN EASTER SUNDAY 12:00-2:00-4:00 Open during the day for private functions 36 Smith Avenue • Route 116S, Greenville 949-4020 Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 4pm-10pm, Fri. & Sat. 4pm-11pm, Sun. 12noon-10pm Owners of Tribute Auto want to boost charities Giving something back is goal of business couple Todd and Kim Walker By Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. Todd Walker almost never sits down. When he talks he paces back and forth seeming to draw ever more energy from moving in a tight circle while his ideas pour out. He appears tireless. Kim, his wife and business partner, sits nearby providing a seamless counterpoint to his passionate remarks. Together they are explaining their plan to create a climate of community awareness about the importance of supporting charitable causes. If Todd can inspire in others the enthusiasm he seems to have in abundance it’s hard to imagine him failing. In business three years, the couple own Tribute Auto Sales and Spa in Esmond. At the end of this month on April 28 they will host their first annual car wash for a cause. One hundred percent of the proceeds will be given to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, they emphasize. “We like the idea of paying it forward,” observes Kim, with a reference to the Kevin Spacey film which was about doing good deeds for others because you have been the recipient of good deeds yourself. The car wash will be their first effort as a business aimed at raising money for a cause. It won’t be their first personal effort, though. Todd is reluctant to talk about it, saying the work they do is not about personal glory, but each year for some time now, he notes that he and Kim have raised between three and five thousand dollars for charities. Business Commercial Auto Home, Life All Lines of Insurance FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED FOR OVER 35 YEARS Nationwide® On Your Side EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY INSURER Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Affiliated Companies. Life insurance issued by Nationwide Life Insurance Company. Home Office: Columbus, Ohio 432152220. Nationwide, the Nationwide Framemark and On Your Side are federally registered service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Zelano Insurance Agency 37 Pleasant View Ave., Smithfield/Greenville 949-1550 The staff and a host of volunteers will be on hand April 28 when Tribute Auto Sales & Spa holds a car wash to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Todd and Kim Walker, owners of the company, say it is the first of what they envision will be an ongoing series of annual charity events at their place of business. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) Now they want to use the growing recognition of their business to generate even more support for worthy causes. “We’re finally at a point where people know of the quality of the work we do and will come in [and support this] because of that,” says Todd. “You look for ways to improve yourself, your business, and the community in which you run your business,” he adds. The couple has planned not simply a car wash, but a fun event. They will have food, raffles, and entertaining activities. They, their staff, and a host of volunteers will be on hand to make sure that the results of the car wash are what they term “deluxe.” “We want to do something like this at least once, maybe twice every year,” Kim explains. The beneficiary of their fund-raising won’t necessarily always be the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. They envision working with the community and perhaps other businesses and individuals to call attention to and raise money for a variety of good causes. The proceeds of this first annual car wash and fund drive will be given to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation because Kim has a friend whose child has the disease. “In the future, though, the cause we choose doesn’t even have to be related to someone we know,” she says. According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation the illness is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States and some 70,000 world wide. A defective gene causes the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening infections. It also obstructs the pancreas and blocks natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food. In the 1950s few children afflicted with cystic fibrosis lived long enough to attend elementary school. Today, due to medical advances many people with the disease can expect to live into their thirties, forties, and even beyond. Kim reflects on this and comments “When you hear that the life expectancy is in the thirties . . . I look at our staff who are in their early twenties and I think . . . .” Her voice trails off. Todd interjects, “If you can’t give of yourself, what is the use of being here [on earth]. What are you doing? Where are you going?” The couple is asked by a reporter how they became so committed to doing charitable deeds. “When people say you are really nice, we like the way you treated us, it’s a tribute to our families, our parents. They raised us well,” Kim says. “They taught us the value of giving to others.” In fact, the couple explains, they named their business Tribute Auto Sales and Spa in honor of their late mothers, Mary Kelly, Elizabeth Jane Walker, and Todd’s grandmother Mary Simon. “It’s a tribute to them,” Kim remarks. The Walkers are hoping for a large turnout on April 28. They are, Todd assures, ready to handle as many cars as show up. “I hope to do a minimum of 100,” Todd declares, “but I’d like to do 200.” Everything they bring in will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation they promise. “If people come in and pay by check we want them to make it out directly to the foundation,” Todd notes. Kim adds, “We’re scheduling the event two weeks or so in advance of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Great Strides [fund-raising] walk in May so the money can funnel into that effort.” The foundation reports that since the first Great Strides walk in 1989 more than $180 million has been raised to support research and care programs. There are more than 80 chapters of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation across the country. It also supports more than 115 certified cystic fibrosis care centers nationwide. According to its website it is “one of the most efficient organizations of its kind,” claiming that in 2005 nearly 90 percent of every dollar of revenue raised “was available for investment in CF research, care, and education programs.” “Sometimes the car business has a negative reputation,” Kim says. “We want to change that.” “One customer at a time,” Todd joins in. He then points out that he and Kim want to network with customers, other businesses, community organizations and the like to foster an atmosphere of giving and helping. “We want to network. Some day I would like to have the Tribute Foundation. I want to help as many people as I can.” Todd muses. “We want to do fund-raisers that everyone can feel a part of,” they both agree. Then Todd offers one final thought about the upcoming car wash, “Everyone should come. It will be cool.” The Tribute Auto Sales and Spa First Annual Car Wash will be held Saturday, April 28 at the company’s premises, 293 Waterman Avenue, Smithfield. All of the $25 donation will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Hours are 10-4. Event includes food and a raffle and other activities for the family. The rain date is Saturday May 5. Phone 349-4406. Forte’s Atwood Grill 2086 Mineral Spring Ave. North Providence 223-7404 223-7405 Fax 223-7406 Make Easter Reservations Early Remember Mother’s Day May 13 SUN. ALL DAY/NIGHT Full 3 course roast dinner $999 MON. EVENINGS after 4pm Free Appetizers TUESDAY ALL DAY/NIGHTChildren eat free SUNDAY THRU THURSDAYFree bottle of wine with the purchase of two entrees for $2499 E FORTE’S LUNCH PROMOTION Everything on the lunch menu $5.99 Valid with the purchase of any beverage. Valid Monday thru Thursday from 11:30 to 4:00 pm. No copies accepted. Valid the month of March. Up to two people per coupon. For All Your Powertrain Needs Since 1985 Serving Rhode Island for 20 Years Foreign & Domestic Automatic & Standard Differential & Transfercase 21 Sanderson Road, Smithfield 949-9990 Ernie LaMontagne Meetings Bryant University President’s Cultural Series Presents Eguie Castrillo Thursday, April 12 Concert at 7:30 p.m. Janikies Theatre Alumni Achievement Awards 6 p.m., Koffler Rotunda Percussionist Eguie Castrillo is a native of Puerto Rico who has played with Tito Puente, Arturo Sandoval, Jennifer Lopez, and many others. Castrillo and his 18-piece orchestra are a tight, energetic ensemble that will get the pulse racing with a sizzling mambo program. Castrillo and his orchestra will perform following the presentation of Bryant University’s Alumni Achievement Awards. Call (401) 232-6595 for information or to charge tickets by phone. A limited number of free tickets are available to Smithfield residents. Call (401) 232-6595 to reserve tickets (maximum of four). This performance is brought to you in conjunction with the Alumni Achievement Awards. Call the alumni relations office at (401) 232-6377 for more information on the Alumni Achievement Awards. This event is sponsored by The Pawtucket Times and The Woonsocket Call. 28 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Monday April 2 Smithfield School Committee Meeting Time: 7 p.m. Location: Smithfield High School Media Center, 90 Pleasant View Ave. Tuesday April 3 Smithfield Town Council Meeting Time: 7:30 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike. Smithfield Town Council Meetings can be viewed on the Wednesday and Saturday following each meeting at 6 p.m. on Cox Cable Channel 18. Wednesday April 4 Smithfield Housing Authority Meeting Time: 3 p.m. Location: Smithfield Housing Authority, 7 Church Street Smithfield Conservation Commission Meeting Time: 7 p.m. Location: Leo Bouchard Conservation Center, 225 Pleasant View Ave. Thursday April 5 Smithfield Probate Court Time: 9 a.m. Location: Smithfield Town ig^c^in gZeZgidgn XdbeVcn Girl meets boy. Girl gets boy. Now what? The Fantasticks book & lyrics by Tom Jones music by Harvey Schmidt Now – April 29 Tickets start at just $10! sponsored by Marc & Claire Perlman season sponsored by TRINITYReP.Com • 351-4242 GRouPS 521-1100, x223 201 WASHINGToN ST. PRoVIDeNCe • RI Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Smithfield Land Trust Meeting Time: 7 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Saturday April 21 Town Hall closed at noon for Good Friday. Smithfield Planning Board Site Visits Time: 9 a.m. Location: Various – see agenda The Smithfield Planning Board is doing monthly Site Visits on Saturdays for planning board applications. See agenda for locations. Tuesday April 10 Monday April 23 Friday April 6 Annual Public Budget Hearing Time: 7 p.m. Location: Smithfield High School, 90 Pleasant View Ave. Monday April 16 Affordable Housing Advisory Committee Time: 6:30 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Tuesday April 17 Smithfield Town Council Meeting Time: 7:30 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Wednesday April 18 Sewer Authority Time: 7 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 2nd floor conference room, 64 Farnum Pike Thursday April 19 Smithfield Land Trust Meeting Time: 7 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Smithfield School Committee Meeting Time: 7 p.m. Location: Smithfield High School Media Center, 90 Pleasant View Ave. Zoning Board of Review Meeting Time: 7:30 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Thursday April 26 Economic Development Commission Meeting Time: 6 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Soil Erosion & Sediment Control Meeting Time: 6:30 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Smithfield Planning Board Meeting Time: 7:30 p.m. Location: Smithfield Town Hall, 64 Farnum Pike Back to the true spirit of banking. 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Also, “Open Mic” forum for aspiring poets to read their works and get pointers from the members of the Stone and Plank Group. 949-3630. ‘COMPANY’ presented by the Providence College’s Department of Theatre at the Angell Blackfriars Theatre, Smith Center for the Arts, Providence College. Performance of the Tony Awardwinning musical comedy begins at 2 p.m. Performances will also be held on Friday, April 13 and Saturday, April 14 at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students. Call 865-2218 for more information or for reservations. Tuesday April 3 YAKOV SMIRNOFF – travel with the Smithfield Seniors to the Garde Arts Theater in Connecticut. Enjoy a fourhour stay at Foxwoods, with casino package. Cost $52 per person. For more information, call Karen at 949-4590. SMITHFIELD VIKINGS registration to be held at Smithfield High School Gym from 6 to 9 p.m.; and Saturday, April 7, from 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon. Registration fee is $85 per person, $120 per family. Cheerleading, call Bonnie Marra at 231-0549. Football, call Mike Montella at 640-4062. NIGHT OF THE RISING STARS annual dinner hosted by the North Central Chamber of Commerce at 5:30 p.m. at Lombardi’s 1025 Club. Tickets are $45. For tickets or further details, call the North Central Chamber at 349-4674, or visit www.NCRIchamber. com. Wednesday April 4 LET’S DECORATE EGGS, for ages 6-10, at the Greenville Public Library, at 4 p.m. Bring a half dozen hard-boiled eggs to decorate and the library will provide the rest. Call 949-3630 for details. SCENE IT? FOR TEENS at the Greenville Public Library at 4 p.m. Lights! Camera! Action! Young adults between the ages of 11 and 17 are invited to the library to play the challenging, multimedia trivia game. Call 949-3630. ART IN THE AFTERNOON for children in grades 2-4 will be offered every Wednesday at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 4 to 5 p.m. To register, call Michael Cardin at 231-5150. HOMEWORK EXPRESS on Thursdays, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., at the East Smithfield Public Library. For children in grades K-8. For further information, contact children’s librarian Babs Wells at 2315150. Friday April 6 GAME DAY on Fridays, from 2 to 4:30 p.m., at the East Smithfield Public Library. Play a board game, bring a STEPHEN ROY POWER EQUIPMENT 146 Putnam Ave., Johnston 231-8210 • Mon.-Fri. 8am-5pm, Sat. 8am-1pm • www.stephenroypower.com BUILT STRONGER TO WORK FASTER. 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PREMIUM KOHLER® ENGINE Provides extended durability and quiet performance. HEAVY-DUTY GARDEN TRACTOR GT 2542 • Heavy-duty shaft drive • 42” heavy-duty twin-blade mowing deck • 20 HP* Kohler® Command® V-Twin OHV engine • Cast-iron transmission with heavy-duty hydrostatic pump and spin-on oil filter for long life • Tighter, 20” turning radius • Patented SmartJetTM high-pressure deck washing system ZERO SALE $3,199** Additional models available with 44”, 50” or 54” decks. SHAFT DRIVE No belts to slip, stretch or break. friend, or make a new friend. 231-5150. Saturday April 7 EASTER EGG HUNT to be held at East Smithfield Public Library at 10:30 a.m. For children ages 2-4. To register, contact Babs Wells at 2315150. NATURE ACROSS THE CURRICULUM workshop offered at the Powder Mill Ledges Refuge, 12 Sanderson Road, 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon. Attendees will interactively participate in two standardbased nature lessons or activities per subject area. All activities will be aligned with current science GSEs. Fee is $10 per person. Registration is required. Space is limited. Call 949-5454. WATCHING WOODCOCKS – SUPPER AND SAUNTER at Audubon’s Powder Mill Ledges, 12 Sanderson Road, 5:30 to 8 p.m. Evening begins with soup and salad supper and an introduction to the Woodcock and its mating flights. Evening continues outdoors either at PML or Audubon’s new Newman Refuge in North Smithfield. Program will be postponed in the event of rain. Program Fee: $15 member adult, $7 member child; $20/non-member adult, $10/non-member child. For details or reservations, call 949-5454. Easter Sunday April 8 SUNRISE WORSHIP service will be held at 6:30 a.m. in the church yard at Georgiaville Baptist Church, 100 Farnum Pike. In the event of rain, the service will be held indoors. Easter breakfast will follow in the church hall. Morning Worship will be held at 9:30 a.m. with special music by the choirs. For more information, call 568-4412. Monday April 9 WATERCOLOR CLASS offered at the East Smithfield Public Library at 6:30 p.m. To register, contact Michelle Colicci at 231-5150. Greenville’s Best Kept Secret Tuesday April 10 SOROPTIMIST, a service club comprised of professional and business women, to meet at East Smithfield Public Library at 6:30 p.m. To register, contact Terry Moretti at 232-3115. Thursday April 12 MEDITATION AND WAND CRAFT offered at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. To register, call Maxine Paquette at 231-5150. Friday April 13 THE INCREDIBLE EDIBLE LANDFILL presented by Audubon Society of Rhode Island, 12 Sanderson Road, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Suitable for children 7 and over. Learn in a fun way about where your trash goes by building an edible version of a landfill. Program Fee: $10 member child, $12 non-member child. Call 949-5454. Sunday April 15 WINE TASTING DINNER TO BENEFIT the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer at Chester’s Restaurant, 102 Putnam Pike, Glocester, 4 to 7:30 p.m. Wines from around the world supplied by Christy’s Liquors. $45 per person. Tickets available at the restaurant, at Christy’s Liquor, 1184 Main St., Chepachet; or by calling Diane Couture, 232-7228. Saturday Evening Dinner Specials Come in and check out our dinner specials Beer & Wine Available 21 Smith Avenue, Greenville 949-7390 Hours: Monday-Wednesday 10:30am-3pm Thursday, Friday & Saturday 10:30am-9pm 949-HOME www.andersonsparn. An Independent Member Broker WATERFRONT BEAUTIES!! 16 Coolridge Road, Greenville: Waterfront on Slack’s Pond! Attractive 2 BR Cape with expansion for additional 2 br’s and bath on 2nd level. This sunny bright home has new roof, new windows, gutters and furnace. large dock for boat, entertaining or fishing. Reduced $414,900. 86 Aldrich Road, Glocester: Waterfront on Waterman’s Lake! Own your own year round retreat. Large DEM approved beach in cove with privacy for swimming and boating. Contemporary 3-5 bed 3 bath home with hardwoods, formal dining, fireplaced living room, 2 car garage and potential for inlaw or guest apartment. Asking $749,000. 136 Aldrich, Glocester: Waterfront on Waterman’s Lake! Location at a great price! Energy efficient home with year round views, sliders off living room to deck. 2 beds, 1.5 baths, open floor plan, dock and more!!! WOW!! $419,000. Calendar Monday April 16 BUTTERFLIES: HABITS AND HABITATS, for ages 6-10, at the Greenville Public Library, at 1 p.m. Children are invited to register for the slide show presentation of Eastern butterflies by Jerry Schneider, inventor of the Butterfly Game. Tee-shirt craft will follow the presentation. Children may bring their own heavycotton white tee-shirt or purchase one for $4 at the show. To register, call 949-3630. FUNKADELIC 60’S PARTY for ages 1-17 at the Greenville Public Library, from 2 to 4 p.m. Bring a t-shirt to tie-dye. While waiting for the dye to set, test yourself with trivia, listen to music, and do other activities relating to the 1960s. Call 949-3630. Smithfield Senior Center at 949-4590. Tuesday April 17 THESAURUSLY SPEAKING, a brown bag lunch program, presented at the Greenville Public Library, at 12 noon. This contest will see if participants can name popular songs, shows, and movies based on phrases that are synonymous with their titles. For details, call 9493630. TUESDAY NIGHT BOOK CLUB meets at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. To register, contact Bethany Mott at 231-5150. Wednesday April 18 MICHAEL AMANTE at the Log Cabin in Massachusetts. Meal and show $86 per person. For more information or reservations, call the PLANTING STRAWBERRY PLANTS, for ages 6-10, at the Greenville Public Library, at 10:30 a.m. Children can learn about growing strawberries, and then plant their own. Call 949-3630 for details. MAXWELL’S BACK at the Greenville Public Library, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. for ages 6-19. Max, the visiting pet therapy dog, loves to have children read to him. Small groups will be scheduled to read for 15 minute sessions. 949-3630. BUTT PILLOWS, a fun craft program for young adults, is being offered at the Greenville Public Library at 1 p.m. Bring in an old pair of jeans to use, cut, sew and decorate, to make a pillow. Call 9493630 for more details. POET-TREE ACTIVITY, for school-aged children, at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 1 to 3 p.m. To register, call Babs Wells at 231-5150. Thursday April 19 TEACHER WORKSHOP: VERNAL POOLS offered by Audubon Society of Rhode Island, 12 Sanderson Road, from 1 to 4 p.m. Learn about what a vernal pool is, who lives there, and what can be done to protect them. Portion of the workshop to be held outdoors. Program Fee is $15 for members, $20 for non members. Adults. Call 949-5454. HOT STUFF GLASS ETCHING for young adults between the ages of 11 and 17 at the Greenville Public Library, at 2 p.m. Various glass objects and some stencils will be provided by the library. To register, call 949-3630. Half a Century of Caring Service! Family Owned and Operated for Over 50 Years Centrally Located Preplanning Available Elliott Robbins Funeral Home is family owned and operated. People in the Northern Rhode Island area have known the Robbins family since 1948 as providers of friendly, personal, and sensitive service. Elliott M. Robbins Funeral Home 2251 Mineral Spring Avenue, North Providence • 231-9307 R O B B I N S SINCE 1948 Geoffrey D. Greene, Director • Jennifer L. (Greene) Fagan, Director www.robbinsfuneralhome.com TEEN NIGHT OUT at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Students in 6th grade and above are welcome to join for teen talk, book talk, and friendly and fun-filled conversation. Refreshments will be provided. To register, contact Babs wells at 231-5150. Friday April 20 PRE-SCHOOL STORY TIME featuring “Around the Pond: Who’s Been Here?” presented at Powder Mill Ledges Wildlife Refuge, 12 Sanderson Road. Program times are 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. For ages 3-5. Program Fee: $4 member child, $5 non-member child. Call 9495454. TUNES AND TALES FAMILY FUN, for families with children ages 3-10, presented at the Greenville Public Library, at 10:30 a.m. Laugh, sing and play along with storyteller/musician Anne-Marie Forer. Babies, toddlers, and older siblings are welcome. Call 949-3630. Saturday April 21 PASTA SUPPER FUNDRAISER, sponsored by the Greenville Public Library and the Smithfield YMCA, to be held at St. Philip’s Parish Center, at 6 p.m. Silent auction and family-rated hypnotic stage show featuring “The Sleepster.” Tickets are $15 for adults and $7 for children under 10. For information, call 949-3630. Sunday April 22 MILITARY WHIST at the Smithfield Senior Center at 1 p.m. Price is $5. Refreshments available after the game. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 949-4590. Tuesday April 24 LIBRARY RESEARCH WORKSHOP FOR HOMESCHOOLERS at the Greenville Public Library at 11 a.m. Children between the ages of 9 and 17 will learn how to use the various electronic databases the library subscribes for them to use for their projects. Call 949-3630 for more details. Thursday April 26 SHARE-A-STORY BOOK GROUP at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 7:15 to 8:30 p.m. Children in grades 4 and 5 and their parent(s)/caregiver(s) are invited to come to the library and share their thoughts about a book they have read together. For further information and the title of this month’s book, contact Babs Wells at 231-5150. Saturday April 28 GARDENING WORKSHOP, for all ages, offered at the East Smithfield Public Library, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. To register, contact Babs Wells at 231.5150. Sunday April 29 THE HISTORY OF MILLINERY: 1850 – 1950 program featured at Greenville Public Library, from 2 to 3 p.m. Ms. Elsie Collins will present a lecture and display of period and original reproduction hats, spanning 100 years. Program free and open to the public. For more details, call 949-3630. Monday April 30 POETRY READING by Elsie Collins at the Greenville Public Library, from 7 to 8 p.m. Free and open to the public. 949-3630. Don’t Be Fooled By Gimmicks! • If you’re offered $100 off or a free set of glasses, you’re probably being charged too much to begin with! • We offer quality lenses at reasonable prices with personalized professional service • New prescriptions filled • Present glasses duplicated • Same day service in many cases • Eye exams on premises by Dr. Dennis Forman, O.D. By appointment on Wed. & Sat. • Most third party payments accepted Collins Optical Northern R.I.’s One Stop Optical Center 3 Commerce Street, behind A&W, Greenville 949-5330 Barry Collins, Lic. Optician Hours: Mon.-Fri. 10:00-5:00, Sat. 10:00-1:00 World-Class Wines from Your Neighborhood Liquor Store 10% Off Wine Cases Mix and Match Imported and Domestic Liquors Wines and Beers Kegs Party Needs Ice Cubes Mac’s Liquor Mart 200 Pleasant View Ave., Rte. 5, Smithfield • 231-3980 Crossword Solution on page 59 Nails • Waxing • Fades The Family Haircutter™ A Full Service Salon VOTED #1 HAIR SALON 3 YEARS IN A ROW We would like to welcome Joy DiPietro to our staff Full Head Foiling starting at $65 with Joy only - with mention of this ad Gift certificates always available Senior Citizens’ Day Tuesdays with Jackie Call for details We Do Up-Do’s For All Occasions Paul Mitchell • Matrix 200 Pleasant View Avenue, Smithfield 231-3125 Open Tues. & Fri. 9-6, Wed. 2-6, Thurs. 9-7, Sat. 8:30-3 34 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 CLUES ACROSS 1. At all times 5. Am. National Standards Institute (abbr.) 9. Sew loosely 14. A female operatic star 15. Rings 16. CO ski resort 17. Copyread 18. Narrow escape 20. Savor 22. Block 23. Fixed charge 24. Oxford Un. College est. 1870 26. Bowls 29. South Dakota (abbr.) 30. High craggy hills (Old English) 34. Succulent plants for purging 35. Political action committee 36. Pitches 37. ____ritan: generous helper 38. Native western people 39. Lowest point of a cut gem 40. A pool of standing water 42. Atomic number 56 44. Gets to one’s feet 45. X 2 = German spa city 48. Slang for raincoat 49. The queen of the gods 50. Brings together 54. Near misses 59. Virginia: 1st English offspring 60. Yemen capital 61. Manner of speaking 62. Lake __, one of the Greats 63. Arboreally trapped 64. Ova 65. Chemise CLUES DOWN 1. German river 2. See (Latin) 3. The quality of being morally wrong 4. Makes legally valid 5. Curved structures for support 6. Nothing 7. Artist’s protective garments 8. Published 9. City in NW Switzerland 10. Residue of something burned 11. Health resort 12. Tera-electron volt (abbr.) 13. Point between northeast and east 19. Falloff 21. ____ible: reasonable 25. And, Latin 26. Georgian seaport 27. Having winglike extensions 28. More tender or painful 31. Opaque gems 32. Tall perennial herb of tropical Asia 33. Sings in nonsense syllables 37. Mass killings at The People’s Temple 39. ____berry: red acidic fruit 41. Charlotte’s Web’s White 42. Assail verbally 43. Timepiece having hands 44. Makes somebody laugh 46. In front of 47. Month (abbr.) 51. Scarlett’s home 52. ____ Idle: Python star 53. Try to locate 54. Central Time (abbr.) 55. Household god (Roman) 56. Characterized by unity 57. Car engineer’s group (abbr.) 58. Liquefied natural gas (abbr.) Business Bio Danny’s Appliance If you need to update or replace your appliances, you need to visit Danny Santos at Danny’s Appliance. The Santos family has been in business since 1970, when Danny’s father Danny Sr. and his mother Roberta began the company. Throughout its 37 years history Danny’s Appliance has continued to grow and expand its offerings at the same time it has made buying appliances affordable and easy for all. This area is served by Danny’s Appliance II on Putnam Pike just over the Johnston-Smithfield line. However, the big news this month is that on April 7 Danny’s Appliance is having the grand opening of their third store at 1668 Warwick Avenue in Warwick. It will be well worth the trip to see the store and meet Danny and 92 PRO-FM personality Davey Morris, who will be helping celebrate the opening of the new location. There will also be the chance to win a free trip to Las Vegas and enjoy a great party too. Wow. Of course any time you visit Danny’s Appliance you’ll say “Wow” because you will find the kind of bargains and service the company is known for. Offering a wide range of brand names, they sell stoves, refrigerators, washers, driers, trash compactors and more. Remember, the hot weather is coming and Danny’s carries a full line of LG air conditioners. In addition, they offer complete 24 hour emergency service on all the products they sell. Danny’s Appliance also services all major appliances and commercial equipment, including commercial refrigeration and central air-conditioning systems, whether they sold them or not. Anyone visiting any of Danny’s Appliance’s branches will find a wide selection of new and used appliances for sale, including many brand new “scratch and dent” items that sell for as much as 40 percent off the regular retail price. These appliances carry a full factory warranty and the blemishes are normally so minor as to be undetectable. Through the years Danny’s has had thousands of customers who enjoy these savings and they are very satisfied. In addition to the warranty on new products, Danny’s Appliance gives a 90 day warranty on re-conditioned items too, and they also promise free same day delivery anywhere in Rhode Island. Danny’s Appliance II is located at 59 Putnam Avenue in Johnston. The phone number is 233-2244. Call or visit today. Danny’s Appliances 1 Log Road Smithfield Gem Rastelli 233-2444 Sales Sales & & Service Service New, New, Used, Used, Scratch Scratch & & Dent Dent Appliances Appliances •• Variety Variety of of stainless stainless appliances appliances •• Same Same Day Day Delivery Delivery •• 33 Locations Locations NEW NEW STORE: STORE: 1668 1668 Warwick Warwick Ave., Ave., Warwick Warwick 463-2800 463-2800 59 59 Putnam Putnam Ave., Ave., Johnston Johnston 233-2244 233-2244 263 263 Academy Academy Avenue, Avenue, Providence Providence 351-0510 351-0510 ASPHALT PAVING & SEAL COATING TRUCK & AUTO SALES Retail Wholesale Reconditioning 1 Log Road Smithfield 233-2444 APPLE VALLEY OIL Let Our Family Keep Your Family Warm We Do Things The Old-Fashioned Way ESTABLISHED 1987 NEW DRIVEWAYS INSTALLED AND REPAIRED Crack Filling • Line Striping Residential • Commercial 232-0795 www.NULOOKINC.com Call us for a price quote Family owned and operated 24 hour service • Automatic delivery Heating assistance Everyday LOW prices! 949-0252 R.I. Petro Lic. 138 We care about our customers Business Bio Ever After Tucked away in an unassuming building on Pleasant View Avenue in Smithfield is a hidden kingdom, where fairytales really do come true. Just like walking through the wardrobe doors and into Narnia, a step through the doors of Ever After Kingdom of the Imagination leads you into another world. “Taking an idea that a child has and expanding it is our goal,” says Maria Sangiovanni, owner of the creative play and learning bookstore. A pirate adventure, a princess ball, a tea party in the garden, or a joust with knights are just some of the “Let’s Pretend” that takes place at Ever After. At the Lets Pretend Story Hours, children can dress up, if they like, into their favorite costume, jump on a magic carpet, and hear a wonderful story. Each week, the children enjoy a story based on a theme, and create a unique craft. Or how about puppets? Ever After has its own theater with many kinds of puppets for children to express their ideas. And speaking of expression, there are creative play and movement classes for Mommy and Me with musical instruction from Miss Maria or local music teacher Saskia Schulte. All-inclusive birthday parties mean that parents can host and enjoy the party with their children. All the finer details, set up, and cleanup are handled by the Ever After staff. The small staff makes for personalized service. The birthday Daily Storyhours Art & Music Programs Royal Birthday Parties Registration for the next session of Kingdom Kids Let’s Pretend! storyhour session begins April 2nd! 128 Pleasant View Ave. Smithfield www.everafterkingdom.org 349-4889 Simply Elegant Flowers Fresh Arrangements Roses European Gardens Silks Chocolates • Topiaries 231-4310 • 10 Cedar Swamp Road, Smithfield www.simplyelegantflowers.net • Worldwide Delivery parties are both charming and affordable – Maria and her staff see to it that everyone has a great time! The cozy, quaint space has a familiar flare, so children enjoy returning, whether it’s each week for story time or for their next birthday party. Finally, special events are a hit at Ever After. These include Brunch with the Easter Bunny, “Doll and Me” Slumber Parties, Parents Night Out, and School Vacation events, and many more. Miss Maria says, “It’s nice to have a place where parents can take their children and they can just play or imagine, without the worry of high prices and crowds. Ever After is located at 128 Pleasant View Avenue. Call 3494889, or visit www.everafterkingdom.org. Dr. Steven J. Short Dr. Daphne Papaefthimiou General Dentists Esthetic Dentistry Root Canals Crown & Bridge Dentures & Partials Now at our new location! Greenville Medical Center 7 Smith Ave., Smithfield 949-1402 Currently accepting new patients We work with many insurance plans and welcome those without insurance. K&T Plumbing & Heating, Inc. 232-3932 Residential • Commercial Repairs • Installations Drain Cleaning • Boiler Work Free Estimates • Insured Serving all of Rhode Island Kevin Omar • R.I. MP#1821 • MPF#6423 Full Service Salon Spa Pedicure with Manicure $39 $ 5 Off Any Hair Service $ 5 Off Full Set or Fills • $10 Off Facial 204 Waterman Avenue ~ North Providence, RI 02911 Telephone 401-349-0266 Enchanted Yesteryears Find antiques, furniture, glassware & primitives in a beautiful setting. 143 Danielson Pike N. Scituate 647-0600 Buy a Business Bio today! Let every household and business in Smithfield know what your business is all about. Our six-month Business Bio package includes two professionally-written articles (with photo) over the course of the run. Each month, an eighth-page display ad will also appear in the Business Bio section. Cost is $125 per month. A full-year run includes four articles. Call 349-4910 for rates and scheduling information. Sudoku Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle! Solution on page 53 Your Smithfield Magazine, March 2007 37 What’s up with . . . Burleigh Briggs By Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. It almost seems easier to say what’s not up with Burleigh Briggs than to report what is. He’s that active. A member of the Town Council from 1990-94 and again in 1998-2002 Mr. Briggs, a Democrat, was also vice president of the panel twice. He had the opportunity to be president but turned it down. “I never wanted to be president, but today I’m a little sorry I didn’t go for it,” he reflects. His service on the Council was the capstone of a lot of other involvement in the community over the years. Long dedicated to the development of youth sports in town, Burleigh was one of the original founders of Girls Softball in Smithfield and was instrumental, with the assistance of Bob Bateman, Barry Dana and former Recreation Director Bill Nangle, in starting the annual Fourth of July Firecracker tournament in the mid-1980s. The tournament has been a major fund-raising event for the program ever since. Briggs was also instrumental in seeking and obtaining grant funding to refurbish and expand the Whipple Field athletic complex where the Girls Softball League plays. He has been connected to the league since 1975, when he was pressed into service as a coach. “I was a reluctant coach,” he says with a chuckle. “They needed coaches, so I did it. The next thing you know it became a labor of love.” Apparently, he was pretty good at it too. That first year his team only won a game or two, but over the next five years his squad went 80-6. He still hears from former players and every so often he gets invited to one of their weddings, he reports. In addition to the girls softball program Mr. Briggs has also been active in CYO basketball, he is a volunteer for Meals on Wheels and also volunteers with the Smithfield Land Trust, a body he helped to bring into being when he was on the Town Council. Beyond the borders of the town he also donates his time to the soup kitchen at the Mathewson Street Methodist Church in Providence, and he is a past president and member of the board of directors of the Providence Gridiron Club. He also is on the board of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program in Woonsocket. Several years ago he was inducted into the Smithfield Heritage Hall of Fame. More about the Land Trust later, but first a little background on this very vigorous 75 year-old. A native of Providence, he was named after his grandfather Briggs whose name was actually Burlington but who people called “Burly.” His family took the spelling Burleigh from the famous baseball pitcher Burleigh Grimes, the last hurler legally allowed to throw the spitball, who went on to become a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Burleigh’s father was a Providence policeman and Burleigh wanted to follow in his footsteps. “I always wanted to be a cop,” he declares. “My father was a cop. He rode a horse in the Beer Hill section of Providence 38 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Here, checking for his mail Burleigh Briggs likes to tell visitors about his combination granite lamp post and mail box. The unusual device was created from a part of the foundation of a house in Livermore Falls, Maine. It was installed by his neighbor Arthur Schofield. Mr. Briggs is a lover of history and the outdoors. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) in the Manton Avenue area. He broke up speakeasies during Prohibition.” Burleigh got his wish. He was accepted onto the force in Providence and almost immediately began making a name for himself as a savvy young police officer. Walking a beat in South Providence and some of the tougher parts of the city, he soon was making arrests that eventually earned him more than 20 departmental citations. “I was fortunate to be able to make a lot of good arrests. The vast majority of them were felony arrests,” he notes. He had the distinction of making the first drug arrest in the city of Providence by a uniform officer. Thinking back on it, he observes: “Boy have drugs gone from there [to what we have today].” Mr. Briggs’ successes as a beat patrolman allowed him to move up to detective in less than three years. Throughout his time on the force he drew assignments that saw him involved in some major cases including gangland slayings, organized crime wrong-doing, and serious auto theft investigations. He confides that he fired his weapon in the line of duty “more than once,” and shows a photo from his collection of personal memorabilia of a fatally wounded criminal being carried from the scene of a shoot out to which he responded. He says that he really loved his job, mentioning that “police work comes very easy to me,” but as a family man with young children he found the salary difficult to live on. So, after nine years on the job, having gotten acquainted with insurance work during his investigations of auto thefts, he got the chance to greatly improve his income by going to work in the insurance industry. He was offered a position with All State and he took it. The company sent him to Chicago to learn the business, and he explains that the company took a comprehensive approach to the training. Burleigh calls it “the full 360.” He recounts how he was sent to learn through extensive on the job instruction, spending time actually working in auto body shops, upholstery shops, and the like. When he was finished he was assigned to the task of appraising, but after awhile it became clear to his employers that his background in police work made him more valuable in the area of claims investigation. So that became his role. He worked for the company for 26 years. During fifteen of those years Burleigh got to keep his hand in police work too. He served as a part time special officer for Smithfield, to which he moved almost 40 years ago. (The community was familiar to him from boyhood visits to his parents’ friend Jack Holmes, who lived in the same area near Georgiaville Pond where Burleigh moved many years later and still lives). As for taking the post of a reserve officer here in town, Burleigh confesses “I couldn’t get it [police work] out of my system.” He tells a reporter that he drew details to “maintain law and order at [the one time local nightclub] Gulliver’s and other local hot spots.” It was, he points out, the era when the drinking age in Rhode Island had been During his nine years on the Providence Police Department Burleigh Briggs earned more lowered to 18, an act he feels was ill-conthan 20 commendations. He was involved in a number of high profile cases and saw his ceived, many teens being unable to handle share of action. Here he surveys a stolen car that crashed during a pursuit. (Photo courthe responsibility for drinking sensibly. It made police work at the clubs challenging at tesy Burleigh Briggs) times. “I was a big time early supporter of Deerfield Park and Island He mentions that “One of my last arrests as a Smithfield reserve [came when] I was working at a nightclub. I observed a Woods [the office park area now occupied by Fidelity Investcar pull up in the back of the building. The driver didn’t get out ments].” As a long time advocate for preserving open space he is and he was acting suspiciously. He seemed to be assembling pleased with the evolution of the town’s Land Trust and dosomething, perhaps drugs. I called for back up, looked into the nated his personal time to their efforts. His life-long interest in car, and saw he was loading a gun. I reached in and grabbed promoting youth sports and recreation in the community is also him and observed that he had another loaded gun on the conreflected in his backing of the development of Deerfield Park. sole. We arrested him.” The action led to another commenda“When I look around at Deerfield Park, Whipple Field, and tion for Briggs. all the land acquired by the Land Trust, I’m very proud of Although he retired from All State in 1993, he has never rethat,” he states quietly. ally stopped working. Burleigh and his wife Claire love living in Georgiaville near “I was retired for all of two weeks,” he laughs. “I had been the lake, he says. The couple has four children: Jean Patton, working since I was seven or eight when I began peddling Patricia Briggs, Elizabeth O’Brien, and Leigh Briggs. papers. I couldn’t sit still.” The family is looking to see how Burleigh will mark the So he went into business for himself doing investigative Continued on page 60 work related to auto accidents. Much of his effort is devoted to locating witnesses or perpetrators who have “disappeared.” He says somewhat dryly, “I tend to be able to find them. I’ve been doing this all my life – chasing the bad guys.” $ Not all of his work is limited to automobile cases, either. He reports that recently he reunited two children with their birth One month Any tanning mother. Student membership package “That was a big thing. I did it almost pro-bono because I felt with copays Discount of 10 visits VHO $3 per visit there was an injustice involved,” he remarks. To this day he is VHR $4 per visit on any regular utilizing the skills and experience he gathered as a policeman, or more Bed $5 per visit he points out. 1 person per priced package with this ad membership He continues, “Everything I do in life is based on my experience as a young policeman in Providence. It was like my Ph.D. in public service.” The reference to public service brings the conversation back 949-3270 466 Putnam Pike, Greenville to the Land Trust. It was the issues of conservation and ecoRental space available nomic development that compelled Burleigh Briggs to run for public office. Your Smithfield Magazine, March 2007 39 Referring to his service on the town Council he mentions, 10 OFF 15% $ 1999 Apple Valley Tanning & Gifts A Taste of theTown Easter feasting is fed by tradition “In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade. I’ll be all in clover and when they look you over I’ll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade.” --Irving Berlin, By Lauryn E. Sasso The Easter holiday, much like Christmas, is a celebration that has many associations in both the religious and secular worlds. The Christian festival of Easter which historically is linked quite closely to the Jewish observation of Passover - is commemorated in both the Catholic and Protestant churches, and in both Western and Eastern Christianity, though some of the specific traditions differ from culture to culture. For Christians, the holiday is the celebration of the Resurrection, Judy Kay (l) and her sister Lee Tucker (r) demonstrate the elaborate German-Swiss Easter egg coloring method they learned from their grandmother Barbara Bentz Suter. They share the recipe in this issue. Looking on is Lee’s sister-in-law Diana Tucker, who offers her grandmother’s secret for making Easter bread. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) and formerly was the most important part of the religious year (Christmas has recently overtaken Easter in popularity, quite possibly because of the secular festivity of the season preceding it). In researching the origins of Easter, you will encounter in the second century bishop Melito of Sardis, near Smyrna who wrote what is called the Paschal Announcing the opening of our new Smithfield office New Patients Dial ext. 18 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD Testing, ADHD Counceling Individual, Family & Couple Counseling Anger Management Anxiety and Depression Management Barry Josephson, Ph. D. Michael Gershon, Ph. D. Jonathan Gershon, Ph. D. Overcome phobias through Virtual Reality! Offering Study Skills, Social Skills & Parenting classes for all ages 401.821.4100 • 800.391.3888 889 Centerville Rd, Warwick www.psychologicalassociatesri.com 154 Waterman St, Providence located at 7 Austin Ave., Greenville 40 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Homily. This homily is now one of the oldest existing references to Easter, and it seems to indicate that by the second century, the holiday had already been around for many years. The Paschal Homily is written in very stark and direct language, though it is also very beautiful. One section of the homily that discusses the resurrection is as follows, “….I am your ransom, I am your light. I am your savior. I am your resurrection, I am your king…” Today, the religious traditions surrounding the holiday take many different forms. For Roman Catholics, Easter is part of a larger celebration called the Octave of Easter, which begins on Easter Sunday and ends on the following Sunday, with each day in between also being celebrated using Easter Sunday rites. The roughly month and a half prior to Easter is reserved for the celebration of Lent. The Lenten season is a time for performing acts of penance and charity, and those who choose to observe Lent often opt to give up items or habits that are considered indulgent. Easter is known as a time of great joy and blessing by various religions, and is often a time for new members to be baptized into the church they have chosen. For Christians, it can also be a time for the celebrations of Holy Communion and Confirmation. The secular traditions associated with Easter are also many and varied. There is, of course, the Easter Bunny. This popular American and European creature is supposed to hide brightly colored Easter eggs for children to find on Easter morning. Children may go on organized egg “hunts,” and often receive Easter baskets with several eggs inside. Another popular tradition is the decoration of Easter eggs in the days leading up to the holiday. Some Scandinavian countries, however, provide us with slightly more obscure ways in which to celebrate Easter. Norwegians, in addition to coloring their Easter eggs, enjoy solving murders as an Easter tradition. Television stations show murder mystery program marathons, newspapers run mystery stories, and milk cartons are even printed with mystery puzzles on their sides. Finnish and Swedish children paint eggs as well, but they also go from house to house with pussy willow branches and are given candy. Wikipedia.org notes that “this is a result of the mixing of an old Orthodox tradition (blessing houses with willow branches) and the Scandinavian Easter witch tradition.” Much closer to home, several Smithfield residents have graciously agreed to share their family traditions and recipes for this month’s column. Lee Tucker, a longtime resident, has offered the recipes various members of her family have used for years for Celery-Carrot Saute, Cole Slaw, and a Lemon-Lime Roll Cake. In addition, she has also divulged the method that she and her sister, Judy Kay, were taught as children for making traditional German-Swiss Easter eggs. Diana Tucker, who lives with her husband Jim on Waterman’s Lake, and who is Lee’s sister-in-law, revealed the secret of her grandmother Carrie’s Easter Bread. Each of these recipes has been an integral part of the Easter celebrations in this extended family for years. In celebrating with food, they are following yet another widely practiced Easter tradition. Many different cultures serve specific foods on Easter. For instance, in Finland, a spiced malt porridge called mämmi is often served with milk and sugar, American children often find jellybeans and chocolate eggs in their Easter baskets and in many Slavic cultures, families decorate beautiful Pisanki. Pisanki are eggs created using a process similar to that of batik printing, using a series of dye baths and layers of wax to seal in the colors. These eggs date back to pre-Christian pagan groups, but over time became associated with the Christian Easter Egg. Lee Tucker remembers making a complicated type of decorated egg with her family ever since she was a young girl. She noted that, “Easter in our family has always revolved around Church and family dinners together. One German-Swiss tradition that our Mom, Ruth Suter Kelley, and my sister Judy Kay and I have continued with our own families, began for us with our paternal grandmother, Barbara Bentz Suter teaching us to decorate eggs for Easter using onion skins to dye the eggs which were delicately wrapped with fresh greens and strong fine string. “As children, Judy and I can remember being sent outside to gather long blades of grass that grew by the brook that ran alongside our yard; and any leaves from daffodils that sometimes were in bloom at Easter. Now, we use parsley bought at the market; and instead of saving onion skins throughout the winter like our grandmother did, we go to the local grocers and clean out the onion bins for them.” She hopes that this traditional way of egg decorating will be part of her family for many years to come, and added “We Continued on next page Tired of Shaving? Get serious ... Throw away that razor & shaving gel Get ready for summer with Physician Administered Permanent Laser Hair Reduction Spring Special: March thru May, Reduced Prices Physician Administered: • YonKa Paris Facials • Botox and Restylane Fillers • Hot Stone Body Massage • Body Treatments, Muds, Scrubs and Wraps • Chemical Peels • Laser Hair Removal • Power Peel Microdermabrasion • Sclerotherapy for Spider Veins • Reiki • Electrology • For Your Eyes Only ... Designer Sunglasses Coming Soon! Permanent Makeup Application About Face Esthetics, Ltd. 600 Putnam Pike, Greenville 949-5895 Exclusively by appointment Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 41 Continued from previous page have continued the ritual of decorating our Easter eggs this way with our own children every year and hope they will carry on the tradition with their families. Easter really wouldn’t seem like Easter without the remembrance of being together to do the eggs this way. It always brings back happy memories, especially for Judy and me. We know our Grandmother would be pleased that we still carry this tradition on.” Lee, and her husband John and have cultivated many traditions surrounding Easter. In addition to the aforementioned eggs, she also shared the recipes for several other items that often show up on the Tucker Easter table. These recipes come from a variety of women within Lee’s family (along with one “contribution” from Dinah Shore), and she noted that “Our Easter dinners have always been joint efforts and kept simple. The menu usually includes baked ham with an orange marmalade glaze, creamed asparagus, baked potatoes, cole slaw and a carrot-celery saute finished with at least one dessert. Recently, we’ve had a lemon-lime cake roll that my daughter, Amy Tucker Hicks has contributed. The cole slaw recipe is one from my mother-in-law, Anna Tucker and is always a favorite. The carrot-celery sauté was from a cook- book written by Dinah Shore back in the 70’s.” Diana Tucker, who is Lee’s sister-in-law (she is married to John’s brother Jim), and who teaches seventh grade mathematics at Ponaganset Middle School, is of Italian heritage. She also has fond memories of traditional Easter foods often made in her home. One of these recipes was handed down from her grandmother Carrie, and she mentioned that “When I was a little girl my Grandma Carrie would always make all thirteen of her grandchildren Easter Bread in the shape of chicks or rabbits, and the round Easter Bread for our parents. We all looked forward to our Easter treat! I have many fond memories of spending Easter dinner together with my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The tradition of making Easter Bread [a tradition in many Italian families] has continued over the years and even though Grandma has been dead for 24 years, her loving memory lives on.” The connections to the traditions we experience in our youth can be deep, and often lay the formative groundwork for how we continue to experience holidays as an adult. As Diana notes, “Easter just wouldn’t be Easter without Grandma Carrie’s Easter Bread.” But whether you choose to celebrate Easter with religious observance, secular traditions, or a combination of both, there is something elemental and ritualistic about creating the same food year after year as part of the celebration. Hopefully you will all enjoy these recipes, and perhaps they will grace your table not simply this year, but for years to come. Anna Tucker’s Cole Slaw 3 lbs cabbage shredded 1 chopped onion 1 chopped green pepper 2 C sugar Combine & bring to a boil: 1C oil 2 Tblsp celery seed 1C vinegar (cider) 2 Tblsp sugar 2 Tblsp salt Pour over chopped vegetables & marinate overnight. Celery-Carrot Saute 4 carrots 4 stalks celery Clean and slice the carrots. Strip any tough strings from the stalks of celery. Slice thinly on a slant with a sharp knife. Split wider, pale ends lengthwise. Mix with carrots. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in heavy pan. Add carrots and celery. Keeping heat high, stir and fry about 2 minutes. Add 1/3 cup boiling water, about ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon sugar. Cover tightly. When water boils, turn heat low and simmer until tender but crisp (7 to 10 minutes). Add a tablespoon of butter, if you wish, but you really don’t need it. Serve at once. Serves 6. Amy’s Lemon-Lime Roll (Amy thinks it originally came from Good Housekeeping magazine about 10 years ago - it’s easy, delicious and low cal/fat.) 1 ¼ cups sugar 1/3 cup cornstarch 1/3 cup lemon juice 1/3 cup lime juice 1 egg yolk 1 cup water 1 tablespoon butter or margarine 1 package angel food cake mix confectioners sugar 1. In saucepan, whisk granulated sugar and cornstarch until combined. Whisk in lemon juice, lime juice, egg yolk and 1 cup water until blended. Heat mixture to boiling over medium heat, whisking constantly. Boil 1 minute, whisking. Remove from heat; stir in butter. Pour lemon mixture into medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cool. 2. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease bottom of 15 ½ x 10 ½ jelly-roll pan. Line pan with waxed paper. Do not grease waxed paper. Prepare angel food cake mix according to package directions. Spread batter in jelly-roll pan. Bake 20 minutes or until cake is golden brown. 3. Sprinkle top of cake with confectioners’ sugar to evenly coat. Place clean cloth towel and wire rack over top of cake and invert cake in pan; cool completely. 4. When cake is cool, run small metal spatula around sides of cake to loosen from pan. Remove pan. Peel off waxed paper and discard. With metal spatula, spread cooled lemon filling to within 2 inches of edges. Starting from a long side, roll cake without towel jelly-roll fashion. Place rolled cake, seam side down, on long platter. Refrigerate if not serving right away. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar before serving. Grandma Carrie’s Easter Bread (Makes 2 loaves) 6 c flour 2pkgs yeast 1/4 c warm water 1 c milk 1/2 c butter 1 c sugar 1 tsp salt 3 eggs (beaten) 2 tbp vanilla 1/2 c citron 1 tsp annisette Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch pans. Melt yeast in 1/4 c of warm water & set aside. Beat warm milk & butter together with salt & sugar. Add 2 c flour and mix until smooth. Beat in eggs & yeast until smooth. Add remaining flour and flavorings and mix until soft dough is formed. Place on table and knead for 15 minutes. Shape into ball and let it rise in a greased bowl, covered for 2-3 hrs. Punch down. Make 2 balls & let rest. Divide each ball into 3 pieces & roll each piece into a cylinder 18 in long. Braid 3 pieces together. Place each braid into a 9 in round pan, joining ends together. (Optional - Add hard-boiled egg(s) into the middle) Let rise for 1 hr. Brush top with egg & water mix. Sprinkle the top of dough with colored sprinkles. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Tucker Family German-Swiss Easter Eggs First, prepare an area to do the eggs. We usually spread newspapers out on our kitchen table and have scissors, parsley, brown eggs, and a spool of fine strong string. I think we still use the same spool of string used by our grandmother, and then mother. To wrap the eggs, you need to select some parsely or celery leaves; and hold the egg while wrapping the greens around the egg trying not to hold the egg too tightly, for obvious reasons. Then take a long piece of string and wrap the greens onto the egg, knotting it at one end with a “tail” on the end to help lift them out of the pot. You need 1 or 2 large pans, each about 6-8 qt. size. Put some salt in each, a good pinch. Then put a lot of onion skins into each pot (about ¾ the size of the pot), this helps to cushion the eggs as well as dye them. Lay the wrapped eggs on top of the skins and add enough water to cover the eggs. Put about 2TBS. of cider vinegar into the pot. That helps to set the dye from the skins. Bring to a light boil, and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon running each one under cold water. Remove the strings and greens. Rub the finished eggs, using some wax paper and shortening on it to give them a little sheen. The end product is always different, but beautiful. Each egg has a natural fossil design in browns and yellows. They look pretty as a centerpiece in a basket with Easter grass. With the month of May comes Memorial Day, and with Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer. Picnics and cookouts are a popular way of celebrating the occasion, and for our May issue, we at Your Smithfield Magazine want your best cookout recipes. Do you make a killer potato salad? Are your burgers the best on your block? Are your baked beans the envy of the neighborhood? Please send us your favorite recipe for cook-out fare, along with an anecdote about its history in your family. Submissions must be received by April 15, and may be mailed to: P.O. Box 481, Greenville, R.I. 02828 or emailed to: Smithfieldmag@spi.necoxmail.com Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 43 At the high school softball is coming on fast By Stephen Demers Since Smithfield High School’s softball program made the transition from slow-pitch to fast-pitch five years ago, the program has compiled a 41-23 record and made four straight playoff appearances. As Coach Tony Torregrossa and his players prepare for another season, they are looking to win the program’s first fast-pitch state title. Last season the Sentinels compiled a 13-1 record during the regular season, but they fell victim to Toll Gate High School in the winner’s bracket finals. The loss was certainly a disappointment, but the nucleus of the team returns intact for the 2007 season. Coach Torregrossa returns eight out of nine starters from last year’s squad, including his pitching ace Jessie Reniere. Reniere, a senior this year, pitched every game last year for the Sentinels. During her high school career, she has proved trouble for opposing batters and has helped solidify the Sentinels as a pre-season favorite. “She is one of the hardest working athletes I have ever coached,” said Torregrossa. The rest of the Sentinels starting line up includes seniors Brittany Annunziata, Meghan Di Cenzo, Alexandria Gerlach, “She is one of the hardest working athletes I have ever coached,” says Smithfield High School Softball Coach Tony Torregrossa of senior pitching standout Jessie Reniere. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) ANOTHER PARENT’S PERSPECTIVE! Question: What do you think of the curriculum that we provide? "We came from another preschool where the structure and focus were more like a k-12 school. I was anxious at first at Bright Start because the philosophy and set up are so different. BUT now it is that very philosophy that I love so much, You are caring and very nurturing, yet you promote independence and learning. The play and exploration components of the curriculum balance nicely with everything else you do. The academic content is delivered in a way that promotes discovery and fuels the curiosity of students. The themes work really well too, with corresponding activities. I feel that my son is growing in so many ways because of your curriculum- he is learning letters, how to write and hold a pencil, but he is also learning to be honest, thoughtful, polite and conscientious. It is great!" Laurie, Mapleville, mother of 4 year old 44 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 juniors Briana Moretti, Kim Gerlach, and sophomore Ashlee Martin. The final starting spot will be won in pre-season practices. The Sentinels also have a second pitcher on their roster this season. Freshman Cassie Acciaioli helped Gallagher Middle School reach the state finals last year, and she will be heavily relied upon in the future for the Sentinels. “She will get some innings and should be ready for next year,” said Torregrossa. As a slow-pitch program, the Sentinels were extremely successful. They won three state titles during the program’s history, but the popularity of slow-pitch soon waned. During their final season of slow-pitch in 2002, they were only one of sixteen high schools in the state playing the game. As of this year, the slow-pitch program no longer exists in Rhode Island. The fast-pitch and slow-pitch games are extremely different. “Fast-pitch is a pitcher-catcher game. Slow-pitch forces defense, because everyone hits the ball,” said Torregrossa. Coach Torregrossa feels many factors contributed to the successful transition that his program made, including the middle school and JV teams. He believes it is important to construct a program, not just a team. “You don’t win at any level without anything else being partially responsible,” he said. The Sentinels will open up their season on April 4th against North Providence, one of four new teams competing in Division II-North. West Warwick, Burrillville, and Ponagansett are the other new teams. Defending D-II champions, Toll Gate and Cranston West, moved up to Division I. As the Sentinels prepare for the upcoming season, they are looking to stay competitive and challenge for a fast-pitch softball title. Coach Torregrossa knows that he is lucky to have such a group of dedicated players on his team. “I’m very fortunate to have athletes that work hard, put time in, and do anything you ask them to do.” Stephen Demers of Smithfield is sports editor for the Bryant University student newspaper The Archway. He is a graduate of Smithfield High School, where he was editor of the student newspaper, Our 2 Cents. He recently became a contributor to Inside Lacrosse Magazine. Gregg’s Gifts & More Specialty Gifts & Decorations for Easter Easter Cards • Easter Balloons Variety of Easter Candies Easter Basket Fillers All Greeting Cards 50% Off All The Time RI Lottery • Licensed Sports Merchandise Bill Payment Center Tel. 231-4470 • Lorraine M. Natale 269A Greenville Ave., Johnston • 233-1633 J & D’s Just Delicious! Happy Easter from all of us at J&D’s! • Breakfast Served All Day • Two Private Function Rooms Available for Bridal Showers, First Communions, etc... J&D’s Family Restaurant Established 1969 46 Putnam Pike, Rte. 44, Johnston 231-3660 Hours: Sunday-Thursday 7:00am-10:00pm, Friday & Saturday 7:00am-11:00pm Your Town, Your Turn Summer of ‘75 To the Editors: Mr. Sasso’s column recently related some monumental metaphysical observations concerning a rogue tire at the corner of route 44 and Austin Ave. Growing up in Smithfield, I realize that there exists a special relationship between the rest of the world, and the residents of my chowdery Yankee hometown. Coming of age in that peculiar Rhode Island setting, was a truly unique opportunity, and there are many events, places, faces, and memories that compose a vast reservoir of pure thought, reserved respectfully for those of us displaying a dysfunctional sense of humor. I don’t drop names, but you know who you are. Accordingly, the events that transpired during May and June of 1975 were to be forged forever as benchmarks of late twentieth-century civil disobedience in the Town of Smithfield. One of the trends during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, was the appearance of large changeable letter signs along route 44. More specifically, the cinema and the Club 44 restaurant, Letters Welcome We welcome the chance to put your views into print, in our Your Town, Your Turn feature. Send your letter to the editor to Your Smithfield Magazine, P.O. Box 481, Greenville, RI 02828, or e-mail it to smithfieldmag@spi.necoxmail.com. Please be sure to include a phone number where we can reach you if we have any questions. “Smitty” 46 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 among others. On a memorable Saturday morning, during a trip to Benny’s, which was then located near the fire station on route 44, my mother, father, and myself witnessed a remarkable sight. As we were viewing the usual specs, I noticed that the dinner specials advertised at the restaurant were not at all pleasing. What was advertised was not food at all, or for that matter, something that should ever come in contact with casual dining. Although the subject matter was disgusting, we all broke out in instantaneous laughter. The further we drove west on 44, the better it got. Even by today’s standards, the subject matter was obscene. The films playing at the cinema captured the same outrage and deviance someone had given the dinner specials. I secretly admired the conspirator(s). Although this act was in no way original, it more or less captured a loss of innocence theme, an inevitable breaking point that was festering to burst. Moreover, you have to admire the perpetrators’ persistence. Although the mastermind obviously knew of the criminality involved, it appeared that this new sense of interactive art was begging to be “fooled around with”. The act was repeated several times with different themes during the next few months. I’m not sure whether the artist was eventually caught, or the novelty just wore off. Did he come up with the anagrams spontaneously, or were they planned ahead of time, with malice and forethought? I remember I was twelve, Nixon and Vietnam had just gone down, and Elvis was still alive. And for all of us who had this dysfunctional sense of humor, this was important! Respectfully, Jonathan Dobson Palm Bay, FL We would like to recapture some of the stories To the editors: Friday October 12, 2007 will be the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Georgiaville Baptist Church building. A committee has been formed to plan some special events and a service of re-dedication which is set for Saturday, October 13 at 2 p.m. Also scheduled already is a special musical program to be held in the church sanctuary on Sunday, September 23 at 4 p.m. The program will be performed by the Praise Chorus from the Phillips Memorial Baptist Church. Mark your calendars now and plan to attend these special events. More details will also be coming on these and other programs. The present sanctuary of Georgiaville Baptist Church (formed in 1837 as the Georgiaville Free Baptist Society) has been a meeting place and a reminder of God’s presence for people for 100 years. Since the founding of the church, record-keeping has not always been a priority and many stories of faithful witness, work, and fellowship have been lost. As we celebrate this important milestone in the life of the church we would like to recapture some of the stories from the past. Members, former members, and friends of the church are asked to help in the compilation of a book of memories. Please share with us a story from your past association with the Georgiaville Baptist Church. It may be from your own involvement or a story your parents or grandparents told to you. Every story is important. You don’t have to write a book – just one or two memories from the past. Also, if you have a picture or two or an old newspaper photo or article pertaining to your story, please consider loaning it to us to copy for the Book of Memories. Please be assured all photos and clippings will be returned to you. Written stories, photos, and newspaper clippings should be forwarded to the church by May 14. The memory books will be distributed at the October 13th service of re-dedication. You may mail your story and/or materials to: Georgiaville Baptist Church, P.O. Box 17474, Smithfield, R.I. 02917 or e-mail them to geobapt@netzero.net. You may also call Celine Bell at 949-1655. As we look forward to sharing this special anniversary with the community, we thank you for all the help you may give. Sincerely, Celine Bell 10 other committee members also signed this letter Smithfield I am grateful for the opportunity to serve our communities in the General Assembly and I look forward to working with Senator Fogarty to encourage my colleagues to contribute to the cost of our health insurance as an issue of basic fairness and fiscal responsibility. Sincerely, Tom Winfield State Representative Greenville U.S. Mail on the World Wide Web Dear Editor: Almost anything that can be done at a Post Office can now be done at www.USPS.com at a time that is convenient to the customer, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You can ship a package, buy stamps, look up a ZIP Code, have your mail held or forwarded, schedule a carrier pickup as well as design, print and mail greeting cards and other types of mail. There are more than 24 services available through the Postal Service website, Continued on page 53 Sharing the expense Dear Editor: With so many people talking about the health care benefits received by Rhode Island legislators, I wanted to take the time to let you know where I stand on the issue. Since first winning election to the General Assembly in 1992, I have donated my legislative salary to local charities and causes here in our community. I own a small business, one which allows me the time and the opportunity to engage in public service. It isn’t always easy, because time spent away from my business means that work isn’t getting done. But it is a sacrifice I make because I believe in giving something back to the community in which I live, work and socialize. Over the years, I have taken the health care benefit offered to legislators because I approach the job of being a State Representative as a full-time task. The session may end in July, but I work for the citizens of my district all year round—responding to constituent problems, researching matters of concern to Smithfield and Glocester, and tracking a range of state and local issues. However, I support the proposal put forward by Senator Paul Fogarty to have all recipients of that benefit contribute their fare share toward that expense. Every other state employee pays a 10% co-pay for their health care and there is no reason legislators shouldn’t be doing the same and tightening their belts when the state is in the midst of a budget crisis. Whether this legislation passes or not, I have already begun to pay the state for that 10% share of my health care benefits and will continue to do so. IS HERE... DECK IS OPEN!!! KARAOKE EVERY SAT. • NOW BOOKING PARTIES Our kitchen is now open with a full menu 45 Cedar Swamp Road Smithfield Take out 233-0660 Hours: Mon.-Fri. 2pm-1am, Sat. & Sun. 11am-1am Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 47 A Smithfield Love Story By Glenn Laxton Battles raged throughout the East during the Revolutionary War, yet the leaders managed to find time to relax at places like Hacker’s Hall on South Main Street in Providence. General George Washington had first visited Providence on April 5, 1776 and, working closely with General Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Count de Rochambeau and his regiments and the Marquis de Lafayette, secured liberty and justice for all. The stories about the revolution are familiar to many but the drama that unfolded when Rochambeau’s son Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, Vicomte de Rochambeau first laid eyes on Betsey Whipple of Cumberland is little spoken about or remembered. He had come to America as aide-de-camp to his father when the French fleet landed at Newport with 44 vessels and 5,000 men on July 11, 1780. Traveling around the state, he first saw her when she was dismounting from her horse at the Friend’s Quaker Meeting House along the Great Road in the part of Smithfield which later became Lincoln. That dismounting rock is still there as is the Friend’s Meeting House which is Bobbi’s Place Social Ballroom Dance Studio The Mansi Building, 14 Cedar Swamp Rd., Unit 1, Smithfield 949-2814 • 447-6216 • bobbispl@naisp.net Easter Surprise For Your Sweetheart! Learning to Dance with Bobbi is Easy & Fun! Member of Dance Teachers’ Club of Boston, Inc. Singles • Couples • Private & Groups Wedding Preparation a Specialty Featured on NBC Channel 10 The Wedding Planner Group classes start Sun., April 15 5 weeks A Gift Certificate is a Wonderful Easter Surprise! Private Lessons by Appointment 10% Discount on 5 Lesson Purchase $ 50 per person for (5) 1 Hr. Classes - Your dance choice 3pm Absolute Beginner Swing 4pm Beginner/Intermed. Waltz/Foxtrot 5pm Intermed. Waltz/Foxtrot-Beg. Waltz/Foxtrot prereq. 6pm Intermed./Advanced Refresher W-FT-T-R-CL-Salsa 48 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 The Arnold House today, looking much as it did when Betsey Whipple was courted by the Count de Rochambeau. used for worship services. Later he saw her dancing with General Washington at a party given by his father at Hacker’s Hall, the magnificent social gathering place. Truly a belle of the ball, Betsey was asked to sit at Washington’s side during this and similar events. Betsey often visited her uncle, who lived in what was then part of Smithfield in a large house where Eleazer Arnold and his family resided. The house sits today on Great Road in Lincoln and is occupied by another family who open it for tours. She enjoyed the frequent visits of the 21 year old officer and the two, although chaperoned, began a romance. Imagine the sight of this young, gallant and decorated soldier in his Bourbonais uniform riding up to that house on his magnificent black charger, Le Duc. The young count couldn’t keep away from Betsey nor she from him and a romance soon blossomed as bright as the vale lilies they planted in her uncle’s garden. In 1782 the war was all but over and the French troops were returning from the British surrender at Yorktown. It meant they would soon sail for France and that included the young count. Rushing to Betsey, he asked her to come with him where they would be married. Reluctantly she declined after word had reached her that the count was supposed to marry another woman as part of an arrangement that would join two highly respected families in France. Her Quaker nature would not allow her to become part of a breakup regardless of how the count felt about it. Sadly, they parted and the French troops left Providence on the way to Boston and then across the Atlantic. They never saw each other again. Two days after the troops moved out a messenger came, with a gift, to the Arnold house where Betsey was staying. It was Le Duc, the black charger the Count had ridden throughout the war. Attached to his mane was a note: “ Thou canst not return LeDuc for his master is far away. I am leaving him in thy care while life lasts...Adieu forever.” The note was signed Donatien-Marie Joseph de Vimeur Rochambeau. Betsey cared for the animal for the rest of its life, even spoon feeding it porridge when it could no longer stand. Young Rochambeau continued in the military, once spending nine years in a British prison. He was killed in the Battle of Nations in October, 1813 at the age of 59. Betsey lived for another 65 years dying at the age of 96 on July 30th, 1847. She had never left Smithfield, a portion of which became Lincoln in 1871. Nor did she leave Cumberland, where her will is still on file at the town hall. She was buried with her parents and sister beneath a shady tree at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence overlooking the Seekonk River. In her will, which she dictated in 1832 and which was recorded at Cumberland Town Hall on September 6, 1847 shortly after her death, Betsey mentioned several family members to whom she gave small amounts of money. She also wrote about Sally Collar “who was brought up by me” and given “the sum of $25 to be paid her by my said executrix within one year of my decease.” In 1976 the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission selected the romance of the Count and Betsey Whipple as the theme for its float, with a replica of the Eleazer Arnold house and the two young lovers watched over by Mr. and Mrs. Arnold. It was entered into four major parades that summer and won first prize in all of them. The mounting stone, just as it was when Betsey was helped onto her horse by the young the Count de Rochambeau in 1780. 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Blair, CTC, President Continental Travel Agency 20 Cedar Swamp Road, Smithfield 232-0980 (800) 234-5209 Fax (401) 232-0470 www.continentaltravelagency.com • License #1259 Skates • Skate Sharpening • Accessories Wave Lengths HAIR - SKIN - NAILS A Unisex Salon • Walk-Ins Welcome Angela Chiperas • 949-3446 3 Austin Avenue, Greenville Ron Rathier Tenor Soloist Voice and Piano Lessons 233-8287 RonTenor1@cox.net 50 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 115 Pleasant View Avenue, Smithfield • 233-2408 Hours: Tues. 12pm-7pm, Wed. 12pm-8pm, Thurs.-Fri. 12pm-7pm, Sat. 10am-5pm Lynne F. Kulisch Associate An Independent Associate Representing Aflac Smithfield Resident Since 1965 401-787-3044 business 401-231-6767 fax lynne_kulisch@us.aflac.com aflac.com Business Card Directory CLARK BROS. BUILDERS Quality Homes House lots available in Smithfield and Glocester 28 Lakeside Drive, Smithfield, RI 02917 231-7098 486-6292 Cell DAVE’S TOWING Daniel Halpren-Ruder, MD, PhD 400 Farnum Pike Suite E Smithfield, RI 02917 Tel (401) 232-7001 Fax (401) 232-7388 2140 Mendon Road Suite 101 Cumberland, RI 02864 Tel (401) 475-3000 Fax (401) 475-3204 Jonathan von Breton, LCMHC Service Inc. 24 Hour Towing and Road Service 119 Pleasant View Avenue Smithfield, RI 02917 (401) 231-5359 Garage Door Service Specializing in Commercial, Industrial & Residential Repairs, Installation & Related Work GEORGE’S MOBILE SHOP SVC. “Experience & Service Second To None” Cell (401) 323-5220 • Insured R.I. Reg. #17220 PICKLES Plumbing & Heating New Installations * Repairs Over 25 Years of Service No Job Too Small 568-5210 Industrial Security & Investigators, Inc. License #1 Security Guards Courier Service • Patrol Investigations Genevieve Dionne, Vice President 58 Waterman Avenue, North Providence 231-8130 Fax 231-8169 www.industrialsecurity.net Dora C. Howard Centre, Ltd. A catered program designed to provide nursing and secure care for the elderly KATHY BIDDLE, RN • SUE MARINEAU, RN Adult Day Services Building 715 Putnam Pike, Greenville, RI 02828 949-3890 • Fax 949-5666 e-mail dorachoward@verizon.net Your Smithfield Magazine, March 2007 51 Business Card Directory ROACH HOME IMPROVEMENT LLC. Joseph Roach “Specializing in Home Maintenance and Repair” 323-1293 • North Providence Join our #1 Team License #28816 Kate’s Place Plant & Gift Boutique Denise Campbell Executive Unit Leader Training Specialist Certified Beauty Advisor 353-2058 800-286-6515 AVONRI@aol.com www.youravon.com/dcampbell Independent Representative Call me today for a complimentary financial and insurance review. 401-233-0800 Kerri Lawton 151 Douglas Pike Smithfield 205 Farnum Pike, Smithfield Wednesday-Sunday 10:00am-7:00pm Katie Kahler 349-0901 Subject to availability and qualifications.Allstate Life Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois ©2006 Allstate Insurance Company. KLEEN SWEEP JANITORIAL, LLC Professional Cleaning Services Commercial & Residential P.O. Box 436 Greenville, RI 02828 Member Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce Professional Building & Office Cleaning Restroom Cleaning & Hygiene Services Disease Prevention & Odor Control Expert Carpet Cleaning 949-3100 Fax 949-2250 Insured & Bonded • Ed & Alanna 1342 Douglas Ave. 432-6899 Fax: 432-6898 Andra J. Renzi Owner Tues.-Thurs. 10am-6pm Fri. 10am-3pm Sat. 9am-1pm Classes Underway 52 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Business Card Directory JOHN E. TUCKER TOM ROY Registered Piano Technician Since 1984 Piano Tuning and Repair 232-2629 • 8 Dongay Road, Smithfield James A. Balukjian, D.D.S. P.O. Box 451 26 Hartford Pike North Scituate CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT TUCKER AND COMPANY, LLC 592 Putnam Pike, Suite 6 Greenville, RI 02828 Tel. (401) 949-1040 (401) 949-3675 Fax E Mail: JTucker623@aol.com Advertise in Your Smithfield Magazine Reach every home, business, and post office box in town, every month! 934-2666 For information call 349-4910 or e-mail smithfieldmag@spi.necoxmail.com Letters Continued from page 47 USPS.com. It’s never been easier to do business with the Postal Service. Log on and step into a Post Office. Skip the trip. Online postal services are quick, easy and convenient. Our web site has been designed with the customer in mind. It’s easy to navigate. Each section is clearly labeled and guides the customer step-by-step. The site is completely secure and protected. More than 250 million customers took advantage of the services offered at USPS.com in 2004. About 50,000 new business customers are signing up for Click-N-Ship each month. One of the more popular features of the site, Click-N-Ship allows customers to print labels for packages with or without postage at no additional charge. And you can arrange to have your letter carrier pick up your Priority Mail and Express Mail packages and envelopes — at no extra charge — from the website. Sudoku Solution Today’s world is a busy place. If you don’t have time to go to a Post Office, we bring the Post Office to you with USPS.com. Sincerely, Michael C. Anderson Postmaster Greenville Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 53 Personal Favorites It is quite a leap from the frozen tubs of artisan ice cream that are his signature at Powder Mill Creamery to the frozen wilds of Alberta and British Columbia, but Bill Abramek can often be found in those Canadian provinces skiing where others rarely venture. Bill, 58, who with his wife Alison has been running the ice cream shop on Waterman’s Lake for 12 years, is an inveterate outdoorsman. At the mention of skiing he will bring out a catalog and begin explaining the special equipment needed to trek up the unspoiled mountains where he likes to ski across virgin expanses of snow and through untouched stands of trees. It is a much different Dutch Auto Body Rhode Island law states you may choose the body shop of your choice, not the choice of the insurance company. We will take care of all your insurance needs from beginning to end. • Free estimates • Unibody and frame straightening • Expert paint matching with Dupont Chroma Premier • No job too small Dutch Auto Body Darryl Dutch, Owner 12 Terrace Drive Greenville, RI 02828 Ph: 949-1608 Family owned and operated since 1946 54 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 sport than the more conventional down hill or alpine skiing most people know about. “I call it skiing the glades,” Bill says with undisguised enthusiasm. The sport – some call it all terrain skiing - requires its own kind of skis, ones that have a special bottom surface or “skin” that allows the wearer to move uphill without sliding back. It also calls for special boots and bindings that can be positioned at the different angles necessary for going uphill and then cross country or downhill. “I do a lot of skiing in British Columbia,” he notes, ticking off the names of destinations that would be familiar to other aficionados, but might sound exotic to the uninitiated. He mentions places like Kicking Horse, Whistler, and Panorama in British Columbia, and Sunshine Village and Lake Louise in Alberta. When the seasons change Bill shifts his focus. “Flyfishing is my other big sport,” he declares. Asked where his favorite spot is, he answers that he will fish anywhere but in Rhode Island and proceeds to extol the virtues of fishing in New Hampshire and the Berkshires. “They are excellent and they afford a quick visit,” he says. He also grows rhapsodic about the pleasures of angling on the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada. There are, he reports, 23 “beautiful, crystal clear streams coming out of the mountains.” They’re full of trout and salmon, he adds. Besides skiing and fly-fishing Bill enjoys piloting sail planes and gliders. He holds a glider pilot’s license, he notes, explaining “I learned to fly gliders in Wasserkuppe, Germany.” Clearly, world travel is one of his favorite activities too. When he’s not fishing, soaring above the ground, or skiing across snow fields Mr. Abramek might be found hiking in the mountains, snorkeling or scuba diving in any number of locales. He also enjoys boating. “I love sailing at Bitter End Yacht Club in the British Virgin Islands,” he remarks. At home in Smithfield he spends a lot of his free time working on his property, a good-sized estate in the more rural part of town. He says he gets a lot of satisfaction from cutting wood, improving the landscape and just walking around on his land with his dog or his family. “That’s my other passion,” he confides. He and Alison have three daughters. They have been pleased to raise them in town in a country setting. The children are Elizabeth, 25, Meredith, 22, and Sarah, 21. If you can catch him indoors you might find him either cooking, playing the piano or pouring over maps. He says he is always on the look out for undiscovered places to visit, seeking, as he terms it, the “road less traveled.” “I get so much enjoyment out of reading maps,” he comments. As for his other indoor pursuits, he points out that he studied music in college, honing his talents at the University of Albuquerque, Tahoe College, and the Berklee College of Music. He won’t say which style of music he prefers, claiming instead that he likes everything. When he moves from the keyboard to the kitchen he is equally universal in his explorations and his tastes. He tries a wide variety of dishes and cooks mostly to please himself. “When I’m cooking I’m not in competition with anyone . . . well maybe just myself,” he observes, adding “I just like to cook.” He does take pride, though, in his creativity. “It’s like the ice cream [at the creamery]. We all know how creative we are with that.” When pressed to name a favorite food he ponders the question awhile and replies a bit surprisingly that he really enjoys a “good old-fashioned fish and chip dinner with salt and vinegar . . . . that and, of course, my wife’s cherry squares. They’re decadent.” While it might seem like Bill Abramek has already done a lot of the things a man might hope to experience in a lifetime, he doesn’t seem ready to slow down any time soon. He has been making beer as a hobby for his whole adult life and harbors an ambition to some day turn his avocation into a business. “One of my dreams in life has been to have a bona fide beer hall, a beer garden,” he says. He isn’t finished hiking and climbing mountains either. “Before I check out of this world,” he declares, “there are two mountains I want to climb.” He won’t name them. The peaks are previously un-hiked, he notes, and he wants to be the first to do it. Kids’ Zone Your Smithfield Magazine, March 2007 55 At Trinity – ‘A Delicate Balance’ demonstrates poise Review by Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. Trinity Repertory Company’s set for A Delicate Balance confines the players at the same time it defines the play. This is as it should be. The people in A Delicate Balance certainly are confined by their lifestyle and defined by its material reality. The 1966 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Edward Albee was on stage at Trinity Repertory Company from February 16 – March 25. The press opening came too late to publish a review in the magazine last month. Kevin Moriarty directed the piece. Set in an upper-middle class house in a fashionable suburb, A Delicate Balance, as the title implies, requires some careful attention to equilibrium. The well-furnished and decorated home is soon recognized as the box which the characters find it impossible to think outside of. It reflects their lifestyle and values at the same time it contains them and limits their options. Before anything happens on stage it is apparent that the people who live in this space are not going anywhere willingly. It is the material expression of what they hold in highest regard, the outward manifestation of a lifestyle that has crystallized around them and which may mean more than the life they are trying to live within its margins. Not far into the play the dialog confirms that no matter what the people who reside in this place suffer, they seem to have tacitly agreed that leaving is not an option; adapting to the circumstances is how they cope. The British would call it the stiff upper lip response. At the center of the household are Agnes and Tobias. Their relationship is teetering in the sort of equipoise that the title of the play suggests. Agnes, who has views and opinions on everything that matters and some things that don’t, keeps things focused whether anyone likes it or not. “I shall keep this family in shape,” she declares at one point, underscoring precisely what she perceives her role to be. Also, she observes, “both joy and sorrow work their wonder on me slowly.” It reflects her belief that it is her self-appointed job to keep things centered, to avoid the extremes. Tobias, buffeted and reticent, struggles to put an agreeable Lyn - Art Studio & Framery • Custom Framing • Fine Art • Prints & Posters • Art Instructions LYNNE MELELEU 3 Austin Avenue Greenville, RI 02828 56 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 GENE MELELEU (401) 949-1286 Angela Brazil (l) as Julia and Anne Scurria as Claire appeared in A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee, directed by Kevin Moriarty, at Trinity Repertory Company last month. (Photo by T Charles Erickson) face on things, even when he is acutely troubled by the necessity to do so. While Agnes strives to keep things balanced, Tobias works overtime to be a predictable element in the equation. Complicating things mightily is the presence in the home of Agnes’ sister Claire. Acerbic and brittle, Claire has perpetuated the sibling rivalry she has apparently always shared with Agnes even though she lives with her and Tobias at their pleasure. Alcoholic and angry at the world, Claire is one of those people who believe candor and bluntness trump the social virtues. She is like a resident Greek Chorus of one, always ready to counter the efforts of those around her to maintain appearances and preserve the peace. At times her frankness is tonic and refreshing. At other times it is cruel and ill-conceived. Into this matrix of domestic waspishness come Agnes’ and Tobias’ daughter Julia, who in her mid-thirties is returning to live with them after her fourth marriage begins to implode. Add the unexpected arrival of Harry and Edna, lifelong friends of Tobias and Agnes and the cast is complete. Perhaps most intriguing is the provocative, but never explained, reason this couple gives for inviting themselves over to stay. Almost matter of fact in their delivery, Harry and Edna say they were sitting at home alone when they suddenly became frightened. The feeling was profound enough that they couldn’t remain there by themselves. So they packed their bags and came to move in with Agnes and Tobias. In fact, they tell them they will sleep in Julia’s room, the same room she is intending to re-occupy. The situation proves to be the catalyst that sets in motion a chain reaction of deeply charged encounters among all the parties. Beneath the surface of carefully nurtured routines – cocktail hour rituals, meal planning, club dates – we discover there are serious emotional scars. Profound pain over the loss of a son has permanently frozen the marriage of Tobias and Agnes. The daily mannered minuet of surface behaviors is what sustains their ability to go on with the charade. Just under the veneer, though, there is frustration over Tobias’ past infidelity, the guilt and regret that attend it, and the quandary of how to deal with Julia’s messed up life. Harry and Edna, their oldest friends, interject their own opinions about Julia and Claire, who continues to snipe and harp at every target of opportunity that comes into her ken. Under the cool skin of the piece much repressed passion, anger, and hurt is exposed, but in the final analysis for all the heat that is revealed A Delicate Balance smacks more of the hothouse than the fires of passion and ambition. It is tempting to seek evidence that the 40 year old play is dated, but one would have a challenge to find the proof. More justifiable might be the charge that it is contrived and that finding can make it feel dated even though it mostly sounds fresh and contemporary. Like Albee’s much more famous play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Delicate Balance suggests a time – the midtwentieth century – when drama often concerned itself with examining the way people chose to conduct themselves in the framework of family and peers. It is as much about how people choose to live and why they are living the way they do. A Delicate Balance is more than anything about the effort to come to terms with life by defining the role a person must play in the context of his or her peer groups and networks. Albee’s method is to probe for the discovery of truths by playing off the effects of the era’s accepted social norms and behaviors on the characters as they submit to them. At the same time they gradually reveal the real passions, fears, and anger they repress in order to conform. These were major social issues half a century ago. To create a situation within which to explore these paradoxical forces, some writers in the 1950s and 1960s brought their characters together the way a scientist conducts an experiment, introducing them to a controlled environment sequentially and setting them in motion to collide with one another. This somewhat transparent and artificial device makes A Delicate Balance feel a bit force fed if anything does. Yet, when all is said and done, it is a play which lingers not lightly in the consciousness. We are, it seems, all fraught with contradictory impulses, caught between our outward selves and the secret person that yearns inside us to be vindicated and set free from the imperatives of our culture. In A Delicate Balance Albee makes us see and understand this very well. The wonderful set for the Trinity production, complete with carefully framed family photos on the end tables, was designed by Michael McGarty. As the iron-willed Agnes, Janice Duclos, though cast against her usual type of character, was entirely credible and convincing. She makes it clear how difficult it is to be the glue that holds the family together and suggests how much it is for her own sake as much anyone else’s. Timothy Crowe offered a powerful performance as Tobias, suggesting the man’s torments and vulnerabilities while maintaining his tenuous glib grasp on the requirements of his position in the family and in society. Anne Scurria played Claire. Her portrayal was right on, capturing the vitriol and the vinegar but also the suffering, the dolor and the rue involved with being the truth teller. William Damkoehler and Cynthia Strickland, husband and wife in reality, played Harry and Edna. They succeeded in conveying the kind of rational presumption that masks irrational anxiety. By nonchalantly acting as if their sudden intrusion into Agnes’ and Tobias’ home is as normal and ordinary as borrowing a cup of sugar, they blur the boundaries between accepted social conventions and the disarming revelation of unexplained paranoia. The unquestioning reception they enjoy from Tobias and Agnes brings into focus the contrast between common courtesy and uncommon compassion. Damkoehler and Strickland maintained a perfect counter-point between their utter neediness and their refusal to be apologetic or abject. Their willingness to be annoying, even aggressive despite creating an enormous imposition was communicated with consummate adroitness. Finally, Angela Brazil was superbly self-contained, if a bit self-limiting in range as the troubled Julia. Note: With the press opening coming after Your Smithfield Magazine’s deadline, this review must fall into the category of an appreciation after the fact. I hope that readers will not find it an exercise in frustration to read about a play that has closed. We publish it because we believe the production had substantial merit and justified the above commentary. We would appreciate your views on this. Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. Contact me at Larry@spi.necoxmail.com VAUGHN OIL CO. Your Dependable Full Service Oil Company RI Lic. #254 • MP Lic. #6412 We offer: Automatic delivery • Annual service contracts • Budget payments Boiler cleanings • 24 hour emergency service • Free estimates 264 Putnam Pike, Rte. 44, Smithfield 949-1000 Complete Installations of High Efficiency Heating Systems Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 57 April 2007 Citizen of the Month – David Day By Laurence J. Sasso, Jr. Sometimes it must seem as though there isn’t enough day for David Day. “I’m an Energizer Bunny kind of guy,” observes the Senior Center meal site volunteer and Meals on Wheels delivery driver. “I plan to just keep going until the battery quits,” he adds. Mr. Day, 66, is a familiar face to visitors at the town Senior Center and to the people on his Meals on Wheels route. He not only delivers the meals to shut-ins, he often gets in early and helps prepare the food “for the road.” He also volunteers in the kitchen whenever there is a special event or party at the center. “I’m the kind of person that it doesn’t matter what they ask me to do,” he declares. A resident of Greenville for 30 years, Mr. Day originally came to Smithfield from Auburn in upstate New York, a community that is home to the Willard Chapel, an extremely rare example of the work of Louis C. Tiffany and Tiffany Glass and Decoration Co. It is the only complete and unaltered Tiffany chapel known to exist. Smithfield held its own charms for the now retired textile industry plant manager, though, and Mr. Day is happy to live here with his wife Susan. The couple has three children, David, Jeffrey, and Melinda, who is better known as Mindy. The Business Commercial Auto Home, Life All Lines of Insurance FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED FOR OVER 35 YEARS Nationwide® On Your Side EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY INSURER Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Affiliated Companies. Life insurance issued by Nationwide Life Insurance Company. Home Office: Columbus, Ohio 432152220. Nationwide, the Nationwide Framemark and On Your Side are federally registered service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Zelano Insurance Agency 37 Pleasant View Ave., Smithfield/Greenville 949-1550 58 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 Several mornings a week David Day can be found in the kitchen at the town’s Senior Center where he volunteers at the meal site and delivers meals on wheels to a regular route of clients. Helping out is a life-long habit, he says. (Your Smithfield Magazine photo) children grew up here and excelled in youth and school sports. David and Mindy were outstanding athletes at Smithfield High, Jeffrey at LaSalle. Mr. Day, who worked 60 hours a day in his job, had been a Boy Scout leader back in New York state, but here had little extra time for volunteering when his family was younger. He did, though, coach Little League baseball in the community here, and notes that “if I wasn’t coaching it was taxi service [for the kids].” After he retired, however, it wasn’t long before he began looking for something to do to make himself useful. Earlier in his life he had been a very active member of the Kiwanis Club in New York. There he took on the challenge of organizing and running teen dances at a pavilion on Lake Owasco, one of the Finger Lakes. The events drew between 1000 and 1,500 young people to the dance hall every Saturday night. The youth who came out to hear the live bands and to dance were charged $1 each in those days. “We made a ton of money at a dollar a head. All the money was turned back into projects for the kids,” he explains. With this history of donating his time and energy as part of his experience, it probably isn’t surprising that after he retired he gravitated to volunteer work. “I got kind of bored doing nothing,” he says. One day he dropped in at the Senior Center and offered his services. As a result he was put to work in the kitchen. Soon it progressed to helping prepare and deliver the meals on wheels. Today, David does three regular shifts at the meal site at the Senior Center and he also drives a route bringing the meals to shut ins. Typically he gets there early and helps out any way he can, he says. He is not averse to doing clean up or washing the dishes, pointing out that “no one fights me for the [job of doing] the dishes.” “It has been our pleasure for one and a half years to have Mr. Day as part of our volunteer staff at the Smithfield Senior Center,” says Director Janet Prairie. “David commits himself on a regular basis whether it is packaging meals on wheels, food preparation, serving meals in our dining room, dish-washing or delivering meals to our homebound whenever needed,” she adds. As a delivery person for the Meals on Wheels program David is also a potential lifeline for the shut in people who cannot get out of their homes. Besides bringing these residents a healthy lunch he, like his fellow volunteers, often serves to keep an eye on the elders. “There have been people when I get there where the door’s open and nobody is home.” In those cases he calls the center and they place a call to the police department to check in on the resident. “Like so many of our other volunteers David portrays that type of caring individual that we now depend on to serve and bring happiness to others. His hospitality, good humor, and touches of modesty do not go unnoticed,” comments Mrs. Prairie. “I know his thoughtfulness is felt among the staff and members of the Senior Center.” Asked if he could identify the origins of his charitable outlook on life, he simply remarks, “I’ve always been a doer. Even as a kid I just went out and shoveled the sidewalk just because it needed to be done.’ Each month during 2007 Your Smithfield Magazine will profile a Citizen of the Month. At the end of the year readers will be able to vote on the Citizen of the Year from among the 12 people profiled. The Citizen of the Year will be featured on the cover of the January 2008 edition. Your Smithfield Magazine will make a donation to the charity of choice for each Citizen of the Month – this month’s donation will go to Woonsocket Senior Services which coordinates Meals on Wheels for northern Rhode Island. Please send us your nominations for Citizen of the Month right now. Mail nominations with supporting information to Your Smithfield Magazine at Box 481, Greenville, R.I. 02828 or e-mail them to Smithfieldmag@spi.necoxmail. com or call us at 349-4910. Crossword Solution The Terrace Thai Restaurant Take Out Dining • Lunch • Dinner • Keno Serving Beer & Wine • Open 7 days a week Come try our Pad Thai with Thai Beer and Brown Soy Noodles 5 Sanderson Rd., Greenville • 349-4971 www.theterraceri.com What Do You Want To Read? If there’s a story that you think needs to be told, we would like to hear about it. Your Smithfield Magazine is always open to suggestions from the readers. Call 349-4910 or e-mail Larry or Ron. Their addresses are larry@spi. necoxmail.com and ron@spi.necoxmail.com. Eastern Paint Center Come in NOW and SAVE 40% - 50% OFF BREWSTER Brand Wallpapers On Custom Order Books. In Stock Wall Coverings and Borders Also Available 1926 Smith Street, N. Providence 232-0600 32-0600 Your Smithfield Magazine, April 2007 59 Briggs Continued from page 39 observance of his 75th birthday. When he turned 70 he climbed Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, training for weeks by hiking up Whipple Hill carrying a backpack full of weights. He had commemorated other birthdays with bicycle tours in Holland and the like. “I have varied interests. I don’t want to let any of them go,” he says. Left: Burleigh Briggs as he looked after first joining the Providence Police. Above: When President Lyndon B. 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