Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Town Meeting alibis
It’s almost time for that biannual funfest known as Town Meeting, so start dusting off your excuses now. “Nobody told me about it.” “I have to work that day.” “I have kids.” Wow, with extenuating circumstances like those, it’s a wonder anyone ever shows up. All kidding aside, nobody gives a rodent’s hindquarters whether you […]
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Tags: attendance, Betsy Sheeran, electronic voting, Facebook, Humor, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, municipal government, newspaper, Opinion, Politics, Town Clerk, Town Meeting, voting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, web site
Happy traditional Columbus Day!
As every kid in America used to know, it was on Oct. 12, 1492 that Columbus discovered America. Most kids also learned the little poem that began, “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” I learned it in kindergarten at Miss Hope’s progressive Studio School on Montrose Avenue. Do schools still teach that […]
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Tags: America, Christopher Columbus, Columbus Day, explorer, Greenwood School, History, holiday, Hope Dillaway, Humor, Indigenous Peoples Day, Italian-Americans, Mark Sardella, Opinion, Politics, Studio School, United States, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Name shaming
Wakefield’s inexorable slide from a proud, blue collar, working class town to the precious PC world inhabited by communities like Cambridge, Concord and Lexington accelerated just a bit this month when the Board of Selectmen decided that it would, after all, like to change its name to one that does not have the word “men” […]
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Tags: Ann Santos, Board of Selectmen, Brookline, definition, dictionary, Ed Dombroski, election, gender neutral, History, Humor, man, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Mehreen Butt, men, name, Opinion, PC, Peter May, political correctness, Politics, Rena M. Colson, sex, Steve Maio, Tony Longo, Town Meeting, tradition, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, women
Weeded out
The good news for the Cannabis Community is the Massachusetts Legislature finally finished tinkering with the law making recreational marijuana legal and Gov. Charlie Baker has signed it. The bad news is the first pot shops won’t open for another 324 days. But who’s counting.
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Tags: Attorney General, Boston 25 News, Boston Herald, business, Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, Charlie Baker, chronic, CHS, Colorado, doctors, ganja, hash, hemp, Jeff Sessions, joint, law, legalization, legislature, marijuana, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Maura Healey, pot, Question 4, Town Meeting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, weed
Name that board!
Right on the heels of the plastic bags crisis, the latest issue to rock Wakefield is what name we should use for the town’s executive body. For the past 370 years, “Board of Selectmen” has done quite nicely, but no more. The position contains the word “man” (and in the plural, “men”). In 2017, this […]
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Tags: attorney, Board of Selectmen, Cyrus Wakefield, gender neutral, History, humpr, lawyers, man, Mark Sardella, men, Opinion, Politics, select board, selectboard, selectman, tradition, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Warriors, Xena Warrior Princess
Town Meeting highs and lows
Let me be the first to say it. Hot enough for you? I know, it’s barely 70 degrees, but after the February weather we had earlier this week, today feels like Death Valley. It doesn’t get reliably warm around here until the summer solstice. Then it’s summer until about the Fourth of July, and it’s […]
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Tags: attendance, Bill Carroll, democracy, Humor, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Open Town Meeting, Opinion, Politics, Reading MA, Representative Town Meeting, solstice, Special interest, summer, sun, taxes, Town Moderator, vote, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Running down the downtown
“Wakefield has such a pretty downtown,” my friend in the passenger seat said as we drove past The Rockery on the right, with its rows of bright red and white tulips leading up to the Hiker Statue. It was a few weeks ago and the fountain hadn’t been turned on yet. “That’s not what our […]
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Tags: Albion Cultural Exchancge, business development, business district, commercial, downtown, economic revitalization, economy, ghost town, Lake Quannapowitt, Main Street, MAPC, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, merchants, parking, real estate, restaurants, retail, stores, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Main Streets
Mark Sardella 