Archive for the ‘Columns & Essays’ Category

May 6 Sweetser Lecture in Wakefield, MA “As a kid, I was drawn to big stories on broad canvasses,” says historical novelist William Martin, who will be at The Savings Bank Theater on Tuesday, May 6 to deliver the final Sweetser Lecture of the season. His talk will focus on Civil War Washington as depicted […]


Boston Globe sports columnist delivers Sweetser Lecture The world of Boston sports came to Wakefield, MA this week in the person of longtime Boston Globe sportswriter and columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who entertained the Sweetser lecture audience with colorful and at times hilarious stories from his career interacting with some of the biggest sports figures of […]


Boston Globe Sports Columnist Speaks in Wakefield Tuesday, April 29 His book, Francona: the Red Sox Years just came out in paperback, but Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy plans to talk about the Red Sox and the whole range of Boston sports when comes to Wakefield next Tuesday, April 29 to deliver the second […]


Call it the calm before the storm. The fiery debate that raged in Wakefield, MA over the downtown parking garage issue up to the April 1 special election has of late been reduced to glowing embers. But it is beginning to heat up again in anticipation of the May 5 Annual Town Meeting. The hot […]


On stage at The Umbrella in Concord, MA through May 4 I did not see the 2008 Elliot Award-winning Boston Theatre Works production of Angels in America directed by Nancy Curran Willis. In fact, I had never seen Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play at all. So I headed to Concord, MA for the Umbrella Community […]


Dock Rescue

13Apr14

April 12 is now officially the earliest date that I have physically entered a body of water in the state of Massachusetts. It is a personal record that I hope will never be broken. It was a perfect spring day for yard work, warm and dry. That’s exactly what I was – warm and dry […]


Twilight Zoning

10Apr14

Well, as it stands right now, there will not be a parking garage in downtown Wakefield, Massachusetts and based on recent developments, you might want to hold off on that down payment on an assisted living unit. It’s been anything but dull in our sleepy little town over the last few weeks. There’s blame being […]


[Wakefield Daily Item, March 25, 2014] Between 150 and 200 local residents packed The Savings Bank Theater at Wakefield High School on Monday, March 24 for a forum on a proposal to build a downtown parking garage in conjunction with an assisted living facility. The evening was evenly divided between presentations by town officials and […]


Starting July 1 Starting July 1, you won’t be able to buy cigarettes or any other tobacco products in Wakefield, Massachusetts if you are less than 21 years old. The Board of Health voted to amend local regulations this week by raising the age for purchasing tobacco from 18 to 21. The board’s unanimous vote […]


It depends on who you ask Downtown Wakefield is changing, in case you haven’t noticed or have been hibernating under a rock somewhere for the last few months, in which case you could hardly be blamed given the winter that thankfully officially ended at 12:57 p.m. on March 20. In any case, the downtown area […]