A Monumental Achievement
This is how it’s done.
If you take on a worthy cause and through persistence and hard work, you create something of value, the public will turn out in droves to support you.
Wakefield’s World War II Memorial Committee could teach the “Occupy” organizers a thing or two.
About a thousand people packed Veterans’ Memorial Common on Veterans’ Day last Friday to witness the unveiling and dedication of the new World War II Monument. Many of them were the children or grandchildren of the servicemen who in their teens and twenties left their cozy hometown of Wakefield 70 years ago to fight and defeat ruthless dictators thousands of miles away. In those days, they understood that you don’t wait around for evil to arrive on your own doorstep.
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A Fitting World War II Monument
A grateful town paid tribute to its veterans on Friday, especially those who fought in World War II, as a huge crowd packed Veterans’ Memorial Common for the unveiling and dedication of the new granite World War II Monument.
The Veterans’ Day crowd, which some estimated at more than 1,000, included World War II veterans and descendants and relatives of World War II veterans who turned out to dedicate a new monument to those citizens of Wakefield, Massachusetts who left home in the 1940s to fight tyranny overseas.
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Occupational Therapy
I hate winter, but in this Year of the Occupation, I found myself dreaming of a white Halloween. Mother Nature obliged on Saturday, October 29.
Who says dreams don’t come true?
I suppose the Occupy protesters think that by camping on public and private urban parks indefinitely, they are demonstrating their commitment to whatever cause they are espousing. But have you noticed that when anything – good or bad – is around all the time, one of two things tends to happen? Either it wears out its welcome or it becomes part of the landscape and you stop noticing it.
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Columbus: the Man and the Myth
Another holiday, another opportunity to vilify the United States. Actually, the upcoming Columbus Day holiday is just a warm-up for the Thanksgiving main event.
We know the narrative by now. Christopher Columbus was not a heroic explorer who discovered a new world. He was a villain who set in motion the centuries-long American reign of terror, including rampant genocide in the pursuit of our greedy, imperialist corporate agenda of war and conquest. (Just ask the kids occupying Wall Street.)
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Teachable Moments
Last week, two things happened in Wakefield, Massachusetts that at least temporarily restored my hope for America’s self-image.
First, Paul D. Wedge, a lacrosse coach at Wakefield High School, convinced the Board of Selectmen to let him mount a bronze cast with Big Jim Landrigan’s Silver Star Citation at Landrigan Field where future generations of Wakefield students can see what it means to be a true American hero.
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Remember How We Felt on 9/11
Every generation has one of those “always remember where you were” dates. For the Greatest Generation, it was Pearl Harbor. For the Baby Boomers, it was the JFK assassination.
September 11, 2001 is one of those dates.
The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, and even more than any of the preceding anniversaries, the 10th is calculated to remind us of how we felt on that clear blue Tuesday morning.
As it should.
Those of us old enough on September 11, 2001 to see and comprehend what occurred will never forget the sights and sounds that day. Planes flying into skyscrapers. Skyscrapers collapsing in a colossal cloud of dust and debris. Horrified screams and cries audible even over the television.
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It’s unusual for events like memorial golf tournaments to last a quarter century. But on September 17, 2011, the 25th annual Matthew Sardella Memorial Golf Tournament will tee off at Reedy Meadow at Lynnfield Center Golf Course.
Matthew J. Sardella, a 1986 graduate of Wakefield High School, was a journalism student at Salem State College at the time of his death in May 1987. He was an outstanding goalie for the Wakefield High School hockey team from 1984-1986, and was named to the North All Star Team in his junior and senior years. He was awarded Top Defensive Player and MVP trophies. He also played high school football and baseball.
Matty was vice president of his class for four years, was a member of DECA and volunteered for various fundraising efforts including the Citizens’ Scholarship Foundation Telethon. He did all of these things while battling daily with the asthma that would eventually claim his life.
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Lighten Up
The Boston Globe recently ran a front-page story about people who are hoarding incandescent light bulbs in anticipation of a coming federal restriction on the sale of Edison’s most important invention. Count me among the hoarders. I’m not ready yet for my close-up on reality TV, but I have managed to lay in a small stockpile of my preferred lighting provisions.
I’m pro-choice when it comes to lighting. I believe in a homeowner’s right to control his own light fixtures. Keep illumination safe and legal. Get your environment off my filament!
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While Wakefield Police Officer Michael Pietrantonio was deployed last year with the United States Air Force in Iraq, he was very appreciative of the local support he received and the efforts made by the Wakefield Police Department and his fellow WPD officers to stay in touch while he was away serving in the 332nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron.
“We have a practice in our department to make sure we check up on our personnel and their families while they’re deployed,” Wakefield Police Chief Rick Smith told the Board of Selectmen Monday night before introducing Pietrantonio.
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The Price of Redemption
Debt ceiling, we hardly knew ye.
Now that the debt discussion that has held the national airwaves hostage for the past few months is over and the phony threat of default is in the rear view mirror, can we please get back to real issues – like littering?
Expanding the Massachusetts bottle law is the latest bad idea to emerge from Beacon Hill. In fact, attempting to expand the bottle law has become practically an annual exercise for the solons.
One of the perennial arguments in favor of expanding the existing bottle law by tacking a deposit on plastic water bottles is the notion that it would cut down on littering and the number of plastic bottles that end up in landfills.
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Tags: bottle, Bottle Bill, bottle deposit, Bottle Law, bottles, can, cans, Massachusetts, recycle, recycling
Mark Sardella 