Monthly Archives: June 2015

Norwich Photographic Mascot

I saw on Good Morning America that a small boy accidentally left behind at the Tampa International Airport his beloved stuffed Hobbs. The airport officials cared for Hobbs and took him on a well-documented adventure throughout the airport and presented a scrapbook and Hobbs to the boy and his family when they returned from their travels.  

The leaders of Norwich are desperately trying to create the image that Norwich is an active tourist destination in Connecticut; so maybe this is the time to introduce a tourism ambassador that residents and visitors can relate to.

New London has “Flat Stanley” and he has appeared and disappeared in displays and photographs for years now. I am thinking about perhaps the silhouette of Christopher Leffingwell (from the Leffingwell House Museum) would be a great ‘ambassador.’ Leffingwell also had a large family that could expand the possibilities. Or my personal hero, hater of taxes, John Durkee . Or it might be fun to bring forth an image of the first Norwich Mayor, Benjamin Huntington (1784-1796) so he could be shown how much Norwich had grown and changed in size, shape and demeanor.  My last but not least choice is for a hostess of Norwich and I would like to nominate  from 1957, the first female 1st Selectperson of Norwich Viola J. Buddington.

I discarded inanimate objects like a rose and a living being like a fish that could walk or talk because I saw a walking fish once in Florida and it gave me the creeps for weeks. A deer could be a lot of fun and Norwich has a great history with them and lots of stories. So now it is up to you.

Who or what would you like to see as a photographic mascot of Norwich. Who would you like to carry with you and photograph as you walk, ride, bike, shop and eat in Norwich?

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com.

 

Adult Playgrounds

 

Oh boy did I do it again. I mentioned that I had read an interesting article and thought it would work well in Norwich in a variety of spaces including Mohegan Park, city housing¸ schools and the senior center to name a few. From that point was a rapid descent of how it would never work in a city like Norwich. There is not enough funding for places like that. No one would be interested in using it.

 

The idea I brought up for discussion was an adult playground.

 

The adult playground concept is borrowed from China and parts of Europe, where outdoor fitness areas for adults are routine in in preventive care, particularly for older people.

 

Now a growing number of city and park officials, health experts and community leaders throughout the country are praising the health and social benefits of adult playgrounds. They say that the playgrounds will succeed where treadmills have failed in combating obesity and related illnesses by enticing the grown-ups out for play dates. The play areas may also help new mothers shed baby weight and veterans to maintain their physique and for endurance training.

 

There is much support for the Heritage Trail so perhaps there could be some support for exercise stations at some of the scenic spots along the trail as well. The chosen spots could begin with static pieces like chin-up bars or strength and stretch bars and additional stations can be added as residents and visitors become used to the fitness circuits. Backus Hospital published 30 Active Ways to have fun in Norwich and number 24 was to have an adventure on the playscape at Ouelett Park so I am certain they would be in favor of recreational equipment for the adult size and weight.

 

Someday Norwich could even have comprehensive workout areas and equipment with moving pieces. Prices for the equipment begin at about $15,000 and grow from there. Some of the recommended equipment even I recognized such as the push up bar, tai chi spinner, self-weighted rowers and bounding bars.

 

It would be nice to have some exercise equipment designed for people in wheel chairs, or who use canes or crutches but I think that’s a rant for another day although accessible playgrounds in Connecticut can be found in Avon, Berlin, Bristol, Bloomfield, Burlington, Cheshire, East Windsor, Farmington, Glastonbury, Groton, Hartford, Killingly, Manchester, New Haven, New London,  Newington, Ridgefield, Southington, Simsbury, South Windsor, Stamford, Waterbury, Wethersfield, and Willimantic and I think it would be nice if Norwich could be added to the list.

 

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com.

 

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com.

Craft Beer Coming Soon

I have the world’s best and most creative friends in my internet world. This came from Bryon T about an event organized by the CT Beer Trail at City Steam Brewpub, 942 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103

If you have not been, go now to City Steam Brewery in Hartford.  It is its own work of art as it adds  its own warmth and charm to the Cheney building known for its gorgeous 1877 Romanesque architecture.   Their evening of art included a buffet from their upscale bar menu. Not just wings, chips and salsa. I am not even certain you’ll find those on their creative menu of made on site treats like their dumplings with lemon grass or bing cherry sauce. Pesto salmon with a tangerine butter sauce. For the vegans they even developed the Frickle which sounds a little strange but the fried pickle sandwich is an absolute crunchy delight to the taste buds. They serve wonderful, light and white omelets anytime too.   Desserts are made on site and they bake their own malted barley burger buns and other treats. Anyway, for only $35 the evening included a single craft beer of your choosing, a bar-bite buffet,  expert instruction from two local talented artists Suzanne Jill Levy and Michelle Thomas as attendees created artwork from paints  infused with the goodness of craft beer brewed on the premises.  Yes, the paints used were partially made from the beer hand-crafted at City Steam!  The evenings are proving to be a novel and fun way to celebrate with friends and to make some new friends too.

Norwich is trying to become an art center for Eastern CT and is very excited to become the home of two craft breweries. Both projects are in the development stages so I thought I would pass on what is available a forty-five minute drive away. Craft breweries are not typically local hang out bars but have rotating variety menus of beers, ales, stouts, pilsners, malts and sometimes IPA’s dependent on what is seasonally available. You can expect to hear involved conversations about taste, texture, colors, clarity, food pairings, and weather.

Ranking 33 in the nation for breweries, in 2012 Connecticut’s 22 breweries and brewpubs employed 430 people directly.    

I am hoping that this type of entertainment will also follow along in the development of our city.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com.

Telemarketers

Are telemarketers calling you? Has telling them to remove you from their list not worked?  Of course every year you have renewed your name and number on https://www.donotcall.gov/register/reg.aspx for your home and mobile phones. You have screamed at them. You have begged them to stop. But still the telemarketers call for donations, purchases and for you to sign up with their school. Don’t just hang up the phone. Hanging up on the telemarketer will not remove you from the call list. However, being just as nice as you can be and telling them a variation of any of these will take you off their hit list forever. 

  1. Tell them you have been unemployed for over a year now and are completely out of benefits. Inquire if they are calling from an area on a bus line and be certain to ask if their office is close by and is hiring.
  2. Ask if they accept food stamps. Explain that you are a federal, state, or county dependent and you can only participate if it’s allowed by the program. Don’t worry you don’t have to be specific about what program, the telemarketer will not care.
  3. Explain that you are only working part-time as your work release program specifies you can work only 15 – 18 hours a week so you can meet with your counselor, probation officer and anger management therapist.
  4. You would love to have a visitor for one hour or more as it will give your caretaker a break or an opportunity to run errands. Promise that your bandages or bed linen will be changed just before your scheduled appointment.
  5. Ask if this is a test by the judge. You had been warned by the court that you can’t sign any legal documents and the next time there would be a large fine. Comment you are going a little stir crazy as the court has taken away your cell phone, computer, e-mail and monitors your calls. Ask them to clearly identify themselves and their company and their business ID number if they know it should they be required to testify.
  6. Be so sorry but you are only renting your living space but will certainly pass the message on to the owners.

Word of caution, do not make an appointment and then not be home for it. This only prolongs the agony for both you and the telemarketer as they will be asked to call you and leave messages. Lots and lots of messages to re-schedule your appointment. This is annoying to you and the telemarketer who really is just trying to earn a minimum wage living. 

So who do telemarketers love?  Homeowners, who always have lots of extra disposable income and so do fulltime workers, parents, retired couples and pet owners.  You do not ever want to admit to being one of those even if that is who you really are. Good luck! 

 Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

Little Free Libraries

I am missing terribly one of my neighbors. Joe Geer passed away a couple of years ago and I just came across a project he would have enjoyed using his woodworking skills on. The project is called “Little Free Library.”

In 2009, to honor his mother, a retired schoolteacher, Todd Bol of Hudson Wisconsin built a wooden model of a one room schoolhouse and filled it with books and then posted it in his front yard with a sign that said FREE BOOKS. Take a book. Leave a book.  His neighbors loved it and asked him to build more for their yards.

Rick Brooks, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison,  saw Bol’s do-it-yourself project while they were discussing potential social enterprises. They collaborated using  various models including

  • Andrew Carnegie’s support of 2,509 free public libraries around the turn of the 19th to 20th century.
  •  “Take a book, leave a book” collections in coffee shops and public spaces.
  • Grassroots empowerment movements in Sri Lanka, India and other countries worldwide.

By the summer of 2010 they had their mission and their goal to build 2,510 Little Free Libraries—as many as Andrew Carnegie—and keep going for the promotion of reading, literacy and libraries around the world.  They achieved their goal in August of 2012 and more than 25,000 Little Free Libraries have been built around the world.

More information and blueprints are available at the  www.littlefreelibrary.org  website. It is a movement built around the enthusiasm of residents within their own communities and with the enthusiastic backing of local libraries and school districts.

Otis, Slater and 3 Rivers library users and supporters could use the building of the Little Free Libraries as a fundraiser for their main libraries, and as an outreach and distribution program for gently used books within the communities of Norwich, CT. Not everyone is comfortable or able to use the various library facilities but they enjoy reading and this is a way to reach out to them. Bookmobiles are costly.  Little Free Libraries would also be great companions for the buddy benches that have found homes throughout the Norwich area.

Please consider taking this project on for your group, troop, class or personal project.  I will be at the  One for One Book Swap August 19th from 10 AM – 2 PM at the Norwich Farmers Market near Brown Park if you want to discuss it further but feel free to take it on and make it happen on your own.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com.

A coffee house

I was at the Downtown Norwich First Friday of June 2015, an absolutely gorgeous day of slightly cool pleasant temperature and low humidity. I began my evening by checking out the Bold As Love Guild & Emporium tent by the Gazebo at Brown Park. Stephanie Fear and Eric Sheffield are working hard to create an atmosphere for area crafters to feel comfortable selling their various wares in Norwich. It is a very ambitious project and I wish them success with their efforts.

From there I met a friend  for dinner  at Mi Casa, the Mexican Restaurant across the street from Otis Library. The food was good and the atmosphere was fine.  I had a fried shrimp salad and a tamarind soda.

Then up to the Gallery at the Wauregan.  Dan Topalis always has a wonderful display of art. I don’t always like it or understand it but I count on it to always be welcoming, interesting and entertaining. This Friday Dan had encouraged  friends to play music on the street and later there was an impromptu hula hoop performance. I am sorry to have missed that.

Silenced reigned as we walked up the street to Encore Justified where a man sat playing happy tunes on a piano and a small group wandered about checking out the wonderful selection of antiques and collectables that are there at truly bargain basement prices. Norwich is very lucky to have this tiny treasure in Norwich.

Backtracking a tiny bit we followed the chalk arrows to the Reliance House Gallery.  I enjoy chalk art and wish more encouragement was given to artists with the skills to make visions come alive on pavement.  This time there gallery was filled with oil paintings of various outdoor scenes. I was transfixed by three different paintings of a white birch grove and my friend by another   painting of an arch that made her curious as to what was on the other side. The artist was very excited to be part of the mural project being planned for the city.

Then we were onto the NAC or the Norwich Art Center.  I liked a series of copper prints. The silence of the gallery was deafening. People spoke in whispers and kept their hands to themselves as they examined not just the art on the walls but the jewelry and note cards that have been on sale for so long they are now seen as permanent  displays . I knew that there was a musical fundraiser for the NAC playing that night and I wanted to run upstairs to beg a copy of whatever cd the performers might have and play it in the gallery as a teaser to direct people to the performance  upstairs.   

It was still early and my friend and I had not finished chatting and were ready for a cup of coffee and a sweet treat but there was no place to go. An enterprising fundraiser for one of the churches in the area might be to have a coffee house on the First Friday open from  7pm – 10pm for the people who have come to Norwich for the art and are not into the bar scene.  Just a thought.

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Ellen O’Nell, Dr. Faunce and Miss Marshall

You just never know where you are going to trip over another bit of Norwich history. This time from The Connecticut Irish American Historical Society, Ethnic Heritage Center, 270 Fitch Street, New Haven. For more information visit ctiahs.com or call 203-392-6126.

Ellen O’Neill was an Irish immigrant who found both a suitable workplace and a sort of home away from home. Nellie, as she was known, arrived at Ellis Island in May 1897 from Sneem, County Kerry, with three brothers. Her brothers became coachmen and gardeners. She was hired as a cook and housekeeper at 71 Williams Street, Norwich, the upscale home of two professional women, Christiana Faunce, a physician, and Helen Marshall, a high-school Latin teacher. Nellie’s grandson, Paul Keroack, says that O’Neill family tradition has it that her employers treated Nellie like a daughter. When Nellie left to marry after seven years, Faunce and Marshall gave her a set of fine china. Keroack treasures two of his grandmother’s belongings: the cookbook Nellie used in the kitchen of her employers and a greeting card given Nellie upon her departure bearing the inscription, “The latch string is always out at 71 Williams Street.”

But for the sake of my curiosity I am compelled to know who did Ellen O’Neill marry? What became of her three brothers? Who was female physician Dr. Christiana Faunce? There have to be some great stories of her practice here in Norwich. Which Helen Marshall became the high school Latin teacher? Was she the Latin teacher at Norwich Free Academy? Was this the Nantucketer Helen Marshall that was written  about by Margaret Moore Booker in her 2002 book “Helen Marshall’s Adventures Abroad?”

How different the adventures of these three women were and what a wonderful time they must have shared telling their tales.

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Danforth Pewter

Ever wondered if Norwich could present its history for a more modern audience? I do all the time and receive much criticism because while I have the vision I recognize that I do not have the skills to make the vision a reality.

For example, Thomas Danforth was a noted 18th century producer of pewter tableware. He was born in 1703 (died in 1792.)  in Taunton, Massachusetts and was the first of several generations of pewterers.  

Thomas moved to Norwich and opened a pewterer’s and brazier’s shop on the Norwichtown Green in 1733, built his home at 25 Scotland Road in 1746. His son John worked with his father until Thomas retired in 1773. The business name Thomas Danforth & Son was kept until John’s son Samuel took over the business in 1792, finally selling it in 1802 and moving to Ellsworth, Ohio.

The Leffingwell House Museum has a small collection of Danforth pewter on display on the shelves in the tavern room as well as some others. They are not original to the Inn but were gathered from the attics of many of the homes in the Norwich area. There are also displays of Danforth pewter at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Museum Collection at Colonial Williamsburg, VA.

From the Danforth history page I learned that after the Civil War, glass and ceramic became affordable to everyone and the pewter industry collapsed leading to the last of the colonial-era Danforths halting their work in pewter in 1873 but going on to invent the Danforth anchor among other things. One hundred years later, Thomas Danforth II’s great-great-great-great-great grandson Fred Danforth, and Fred’s wife Judi Danforth, revived the family tradition when they opened Danforth Pewter in Vermont in 1975. In 2008, Danforth Pewter acquired Shirley Pewter of Williamsburg, Virginia. In 2011, Danforth acquired Pewter Port line of products from WT Wilson Products of Providence Rhode Island. Today, every piece of Danforth, Shirley and Pewter Port pewter is crafted by handfrom 100% lead-free fine pewter in the Middlebury, Vermont workshop.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a Danforth Pewter distribution shop here in Norwich, Connecticut where it all started? Who is in charge of marketing Norwich as a great place to open a business?   Norwich has many empty historical and retail places available for the right customer. Maybe it is time to go out there and sell the city to its history makers that ran away so long ago.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com.

Harvey L Hazen Tribute

May was a very sad month for me. For some names familiar to me it was an anniversary of their passing and for others it was the announcement of their passing. Sometimes I can attend the wake or the funeral and for others, I have issues handling it emotionally for a variety of reasons. I am not always sad but not willing to be public even when they have been close to me.

Somehow I can read the obituaries of those from a hundred or more years ago with not so heavy a heart and occasionally I read one that touches my heart and wonder if perhaps a bell rings or an angel receives wings or a breeze beneath their wings when I think of them.  

Norwich, CT was once the home of many gifted and popular dancers and musicians and this particular write up from the June 30th, 1874  Indiana State sentinel made me smile.

“Harvey L. Hazen died last month at Norwich, Connecticut. All his life he had been a dancing master, and he taught in the old style of the young Turkey Trot,  cheek to cheek, and bow in hand. He was seventy-seven years of age, and came to his death at last in the course of his profession by catching a bad cold. His last request was that his fiddle and bow should be buried with him, and those who looked a farewell  at the body as it lay in the coffin saw a violin lying by his side, and a bow across the breast of the old dancing master.”

I am not certain when I’ll hear the Turkey Trot played next but when I do, I know I will think of again of Harvey Hazen, gone but not forgotten.

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