Archive for the ‘Columns & Essays’ Category
A Month of Summer
Tuesday, June 21 was the first day of summer. I saw it on a calendar, so it must be true. Otherwise, how would anyone know? As long as the sun is out it feels almost like summer. But it’s late June and how many nights have there been when you could go out without a […]
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Challenge Your Future
My 2011 Commencement Address Winter ended a week ago, and that means it’s graduation time. So I am happy to be here delivering my 2011 commencement address. Graduates, distinguished members of the faculty, salutorian, valedictorian and vegetarians. I guess that covers everyone. I come here today not to tell you how to live your lives; […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, Opinion, Politics | 1 Comment
Tags: Anthony Weiner, commencement, commencement speech, Daily Item, graduates, graduation, graduation speech, school, speech, student, students, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item
Catering to Apathy
Note to 89 percent of the registered voters in Wakefield, Massachusetts: There was a Town Election on April 26, 2011. Sorry you couldn’t make it. Two selectmen, two School Committee Members and an Assessor were elected. And those were just the contested races. It’s been noted that the 2011 Wakefield Town Election may have seen […]
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Tags: apathy, campaign, campaigns, candidate, candidates, Daily Item, election, elections, Item, voter, voter apathy, voter turnout, voters, voting, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts
Sound Advice
We’ve all heard the expression “political echo chamber,” but until the recent debates who knew that the term referred to Wakefield‘s own Galvin Middle School Auditorium? I don’t know what it sounded like to the live audience of a dozen people who packed the hall, but for those of us on stage there was more […]
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Tags: cable TV, Daily Item, debate, debates, echo, Galvin Middle School, Politics, reverb, sound, Television, TV, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts, WCAT
Snow Conditions
Despite the official arrival of spring on March 20, Old Man Winter issued a reminder this week that he hasn’t yet ruled out an encore performance of Let It Snow. Still, the deep blanket of white that many of us feared would still be with us in June has all but disappeared, along with the […]
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Tags: boards, Daily Item, Order of Conditions, Planning Board, plowing, Shaw's, Shaw's Supermarket, snow, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts, winter, ZBA, Zoning Board of Appeals
A Wakefield Kid After All
On March 11, 2011, Scott Brown, the United States Senator who grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts will be inducted into the Wakefield High School Alumni Hall of Fame. Even Sen. Brown, whose time growing up here was often far from idyllic, would probably concede that Wakefield wasn’t a bad place to grow up. Just after […]
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Tags: Daily Item, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Scott Brown, Sen. Scott Brown, senate United States Senate, Senator Scott Brown, US Senate, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield High School Alumni Hall of Fame, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts
Cabin Fever Notebook
You’ve probably heard that Mark Twain once observed, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” The quote was intended to humorously illustrate the obvious point that humans can’t control the weather – or at least they couldn’t in the time of Mark Twain. Nowadays, scientists tell us that human activity not […]
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Tags: blizzard, Climate Change, cold, Daily Item, frozen, Global Warming, ice, Mark Sardella, Mark Twain, NOAA, snow, snow storms, snowfall, snowstorms, storm, storms, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, winter
Don’t hug me, bro!
Friday, January 21, 2011 is National Hugging Day. Participation is not mandatory, despite the dawning of our nation’s new Era of Civility. I will not be observing National Hugging Day. Partly by design and partly by default, I am not a hugger – not of people and most certainly not of trees. In this I […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, Opinion, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: Daily Item, hug, hugging, hugs, Humor, Mark Sardella, National Hugging Day, poles, utility pole, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Massachusetts
Mark Sardella 