Summer Solstice Fun in Menotomy Rocks

It’s almost time for Litha, also known as the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Druids, bonfires, ancient dances — all are associated with this Solstice, which is considered the beginning of the summer season. Midway between planting and harvest, the Summer Solstice (or Midsummer) celebrates fertility, the promise of bounty, and the power of the sun at its height.

The Druids celebrated the day as the wedding of heaven (God as Sun King) and earth (Goddess as Mother Earth). And Midsummer’s Eve is one of three annual spirit nights, when the “veils are thin” between the two worlds. But the Summer Solstice has been a time of festivity across centuries and cultures throughout the world. From Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Chumash Indians of California, Aztecs and Indigenous Europeans to traditions of modern day, people have reveled in the strength and the energy of the late-June sun with their own unique rituals.

Let’s celebrate the warmth and light in our own little corner. Come and share in a Summer Solstice Celebration on Sunday, June 22, in the front field of Menotomy Rocks Park. Bring your family and a picnic supper, and anything Solstice to share, and we’ll make merry from 5 p.m. until dusk.

A window into the imaginative play of students enjoying the playground renovation at the Bishop School. Many thanks to the Bishop Playground Improvement Committee and others in the community who helped to make the renovation possible.

The Sisters had recovered the arm. It was a feat of extreme bravery: the Sharks were vicious this time of day. The Mother had sent them so that the Baby could have her arm back. The Hospital on the Ship could easily re-attach a severed limb.

The Travelers seem forever fated to risk life and limb crossing the dangerous Bay. They’ve been trapped in these Shark infested waters ever since the Ship’s anchor snagged on a Lobster Trap, ending their voyage to the Great Destination. Lucky that they snagged near the New Home, with it’s Food and Supplies. Tragic that New Home is not the paradise promised at the Great Destination… so they cannot simply abandon the Ship. They wrestle a hard life out of the two locations: Ship and New Home.

New Home is an archipelago of wind-blasted, black islets. The Travelers can rest here after the frantic crossings. They dry their soaked hair in the hot sun. They gather the things they need from the land, but they cannot stay long on these inhospitable lumps of rock. Soon they must cross back to the Ship. They rest and prepare, hoping to outrun the Sharks on the return crossing.

The Ship offers sanctuary, at least for a while. The Landing where they will crawl out of the water. The wondrous Hospital where they cure the wounds inflicted by the Sharks. The perilous bridge to the Engine. The glorious, glittering Engine that must be maintained for heat and light, and to power the Hospital of course, but alas, never again to move the Ship.

The endless cycle: New Home to Ship, Ship to New Home, and always the looming threat of the great Sharks guarding the stretch of water separating the two.

Actually they’re small Sharks.

Small?

They’re the wood chips. We walk on them.

So many Sharks teaming in the waters that it was said a brave Traveler could walk across the Bay on their backs, without even getting wet.

Sometimes they get in your shoes too, and then they fall out in the Ship, so there are some Sharks in the Ship too.

So you like the new playground?

Yeah. It’s a creative place!

With your help, we exceeded even our own hopes and expectations.* All this means we’re in pretty good financial shape for the year ahead. At some point after that, we’re likely to be asking again; but that’s in the future.

More than that: With many of your contributions, we also received handwritten notes of support. Everyone likes to feel supported, ourselves included. It makes us feel good – and it vividly reminds us that we have a lot to live up to.

We are very grateful for your donations; yet we are even more grateful to know that there are so many of you out there who care about the Newsletter, and about our neighborhood, and who are willing to provide both material and moral support to help make our lives to- gether better and stronger. We are hopeful, for all of us.

At this point, we’ve run out of words. So thank you, from deep down.

* It was John Worden (Jason Street) who suggested the envelopes to us. Thank you, John.

Many thanks to the hard-working VOLUNTEERS who contributed their time,
energy. and enthusiasm during 2007 to help rid Menotomy Rocks Park of
invasive plants and trash — and, after the park renovation — to
plant 8 trees, 100 shrubs, 128 ferns, grasses and vines, as well as
many perennials – all native to our part of the world:

Jane Auger
Lorri Berenberg
David Bean
Lolly Bennett
Neil Budzinski
Eliza Burden
Melissa Carr
Paul Conway
Michelle Deziel
MaryAnna Foskett
Monica Freeman
Peggy Gardner
Richard Goldberg
Julia Harper
Jo Hartel
Ed Heck
Peter Howard
Carol Kalauskas
Peter Kalauskas
Judy Krulewitz
Tom Ladenburg
Judy Larsen
Suzi Lubar
Anna Magill-Dohan
Biff Maier
Sylvain Malfroy-Camine
Don Mattheisen
Deborah Matthews
Raphael Meister
Laura Quinto
Bill & Ellen Reed
Elizabeth Rehfeld
Doug Rosner
Clarissa Rowe
Greg Ruccio
Ted Siegan
Emil Valdes
Judy Weinberg
Elizabeth Woods
Phil Young

& Nancy, Atwood, Charlotte & Andy

Thanks, too, to all those who clean up trash on a
daily basis and make the Park safe and beautiful for us
all.

Accordingly, I called my friend Carol.

“Carol,” I said. “We need to do something athletic in honor of my birthday. What do you suggest?”

“How about hiking in the Blue Hills?” said Carol.

“No,” I said, “the Arlington fifth graders just went to Science Camp where they had to hike every day. Andre [my son] needs a change.”

“I know!” said Carol. “We can play tennis. They have courts in Lexington and we can go out for pizza afterward.”

“Perfect!” I said, not bothering to worry about the fact that I don’t really know how to play tennis. Tennis, after all, is important for a child’s development. I thought back fondly to the five or so minutes that my father spent trying to teach me the sport before realizing that a monkey on a typewriter had a better chance of hitting the tennis ball than I did.

“Dave,” I said. “We’re going to play tennis in honor of my birthday.” Dave didn’t bother pointing out that he hadn’t played tennis in more than fifteen years.

I guess I had that look in my eye, the one that says, “We have to do this or my little heart will be broken.”

We headed to Carol’s house and admired her healthy vegetable garden that was still in bloom on Sunday, October 21st. Not only is Carol athletic, she also has a green thumb. When we got to the tennis courts, Andre and Rick took a position on one side of the net. Carol and Dave stood on the other side. I took my favorite position, seated by the fence ready to catch any errant yellow balls.

“Goldie,” said Dave. “Come and play.”

“No, I’ll play later.” I said. I had done my part, I felt, by transporting my little family to a healthy and athletic venue. This was enough exertion for one day.

Dave was playing hard. Andre was hitting one ball after the other.

“Come on,” Carol said. “You can play with me on the other court. It will be fun.”

When I realized that Carol would persist with me the way she did with her vegetables and wouldn’t take no for an answer, I got up reluctantly. I did hit the occasional ball when it came up and kissed my racket. Then, it happened. David fell to the ground.

“Oh, no!” we all cried in unison.

“I feel dizzy,” said Dave.

We drove him to Carol’s house and applied ice to his injury. Then we headed to Bruce’s. You could have knocked me over with a feather on the following Tuesday when I got the call.

“I’ve ruptured my Achilles tendon,” Dave said. “I may need surgery.”

My vocal cords failed me.

“Hello, hello? Anyone there?” David asked.

“Yes,” I croaked weakly.

Dave decided not to have the surgery. He got a cast that went from the bottom of his right foot to his upper thigh. As of December, he had a festive Christmas Green cast from the bottom of his right foot up to his knee. He has missed a lot of work. Andre and I have added shoveling to our winter sports repertoire. I am trying to train the cat, Zuzu, to shovel. She claims that since her fur is white, no one will be able to see her and she might get injured.

I have a new philosophy about this whole family athletic thing. My feeling now is this: It’s only a crutch. As I’ve said to Dave on many an occasion, “Let’s just head over to Barnes and Noble and read a good book.” After all, literacy is very important. Andre gets lots of exercise playing with his friends. There is no need for us to go overboard with this sports thing. If anyone needs information about sports, I’ll be happy to look it up. Just give me a call at the library.

On a warm sunny morning in May our family found ourselves surrounded by scores of people, ankle deep in the Lower Mystic Lake. Hundreds of herring swam around our feet and it was our job to catch them gently and place them in buckets. As the water poured from the dam between the two lakes we stood in the current and sat our borrowed nets in the water, waiting. Every once in a while we were rewarded with one or two fish in our nets. Into the buckets they went, to be peered at suspiciously by our 2 year old daughter. “Fishies?”

What in the world were we doing? Well, the herring need to get over the dam in order to reach their spawning grounds. Plans for a fish ladder are in the works but, until then, the fish need our help! This 2-day “Herring Brigade” was sponsored by the Medford Boat Club and dozens of volunteers from all over came to move the fish, in buckets, over the dam and into the Upper Mystic Lake. After hearing about it on the trusty Arlington List, we decided to join them. We are so glad we did!

It was surprisingly relaxing to wait for a fish to swim into the net, pull it up, and start all over again. But it was not as easy as you might think, despite the large numbers of fish we could easily see - they are quite fast! Eventually we staked our claim on a good fishing spot and our 5 year old daughter started hauling them in! When the bucket had a few fish in it, someone would carry it over to the dam, hook it on a rope and away it would go. There were about twenty people up on the dam, hauling buckets up and dumping the fish down a slide on the other side. Pete Luongo from the DCR kept a tally of the fish. The final numbers? Over the course of the 2 6-hour sessions, 19,358 fish were moved!

We plan to watch for this event every year and hope to make “fishing day” a new family tradition - and we hope that next year maybe some of our neighbors can join us!

Weathering winter in the neighborhood is described as a pleasure or a test of endurance depending on whom you ask. Age is certainly a factor when snow is involved and icy streets complicate all our lives but, overall, we seem able to make the best of the cold, dark season. Hill’s Pond becomes an animated Currier and Ives scene every year but this year, the skating extended from the pond onto the paths with the Jason Street path being glacial from the first snow fall in December to today (2/21/08). I was glad to see some of it melting in the recent heavy rains until I noticed that it was melting into my basement!

I decided to ask neighbors how they deal with New England winters in hopes of finding inspiration to get me through till April. I emailed a survey of six questions to our Neighborhood Newsletter email list and share some of their responses with you.

1. How does winter affect your neighborhood social life? For example, do neighbors spend more time talking with or visiting other neighbors in winter because winter makes it easier to spend more time in the neighborhood? Or do they spend less time with neighbors, because they are outside less and don’t see their neighbors around as much?

• Aside from skating, winter doesn’t really present opportunity for social contact. I tend to hibernate, but I do spend quality time with my immediate neighbors while shoveling snow.

• While it’s true that we see each other less (and come spring we greet each other like groundhogs at the first sight of sun) we also rely on each other more. The worse the weather gets, the more we learn to reach out. We share shovels, and snow blowers, and advice; we borrow eggs or cups of sugar. We share rides when cars won’t start, water when the pipes freeze, and candles when the power goes. A big snow can feel like a giant camp-out.

• I spent those last two snow and ice-filled weeks of December in South Florida, so I’m not emotionally qualified to respond. Still, warm and sunny as it was, I would never trade it for this place, even in retirement. I like a little snow and ice in my life, just as I appreciate the warmth and sun of summer. What could make our winter a little better would be to get rid of the winter glacier that makes half of the Hill’s Pond circumference unwalkable in winter.

• One neighbor had a spontaneous brunch party on a particularly snowy Sunday. It was fun and unexpected.

• Fewer interactions, overall, but still many. We have a shared snow thrower at the top of our street, and people have get-togethers to show vacation slides or whatever.

• We spend a lot of time outside playing and shoveling with neighbors in the winter. I am not sure if this is more of less time than we spend with them in other months.

2. Do you fight off periodic bouts of cabin fever? If so, how?

• I get outside every day, have lots of company and cook for whoever will visit me. I also teach everyday and that’s a great way to stave off winter blues.

• We seem to use the weather as an excuse to get stuff done inside the house, go to the movies, and read.

• I get really down when the days are shorter and colder. Winter is a season of a constant runny nose, cold hands and feeling cooped up.

• A little walk usually does the trick.

• Yes, by getting outside and enjoying winter activities.

3. Do you love to be out in the cold, snow and ice? If so, why?

• A new snowfall is quite beautiful. Watching my dog romp in the snow or my daughter sledding at Robbins Hill Farm is the upside of the freezing temperatures.

• It’s pretty for a few minutes, but then the romance fades, and the elements become at best a distraction, at worst a perilous obstruction.

• I love to cross country ski and the kids love to play in the snow - either building forts, having snowball fights, or sledding.

• I love the cold and snow, but NOT ice because it’s dangerous. I find the cold invigorating.

• Yes, I enjoy alpine and cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing.

• Okay, I admit it; I love shoveling. Those well-earned muscle aches, that feel of civic heroism. Even at my advanced age I also enjoy sledding. Several of us here love snow-shoeing. And when the ice is clear, going to Menotomy Rocks is like going to a circus: all those skaters on the pond, and dogs, and parents with wagonloads of little ones, and thermoses of cocoa. What makes me gnash my teeth is trying to walk to the bus down unshoveled sidewalks, or climbing the snow banks on corners where there’s no access from sidewalk to street.

• I’d rather watch it through a window. Shoveling and dealing with ice are bothersome for me.

4. Do you enjoy inside games or cozy hobbies? If so, what are they?

• We love to play board games together and often will spend a few hours doing that on a lazy Sunday.

• Movies, music, crossword puzzles, cooking.

• Jigsaw puzzles saved me from cabin madness in ’78.

• Games like Pictionary and Taboo.

• Lots of indoor activities: Movies, reading, community theatre (AFD), music get-togethers, etc.

• We sing together; play Scrabble, Boggle, Apples-to-Apples; go contra-dancing; build fires in the fireplace, mull cider, and cook lots.

• I like to read, listen to music, sew, knit, cook and have company.

5. Do you contemplate retirement in warmer climes? If so, where and why?

• No, I think we will always live somewhere with the changing seasons.

• Constantly—Europe tops the list every time. Cote d’Azur, Riviera, Ibiza, Provence—anyplace near those beaches.

• Absolutely, perhaps Austin Texas. Better yet splitting the year between here and somewhere warmer.

• Never! Death first! We are die-hard new Englanders, with no taste for Southern heat, humidity, or age-based communities.

• Not warm, but warmer with no snow. We can’t really shovel anymore.

• I’m retired now. Our friends are here. We’re staying.

6. What could we all do to make winter in our neighborhood more pleasant for all?

• Everyone should get after the Selectmen, Town Manger, and DPW to demand that the practice of piling up the maximum possible amount of snow at corners be reversed. This anti-pedestrian policy was only implemented within the last four years or so.

• More aggressive clearing of sidewalks would help, both for safety and for encouraging people to get out to walk to the Center or whatever.

• Get outside and talk and laugh and help; then have a potluck lunch or dinner.

• Maybe a neighborhood game night?

• We could walk more often, drive less, wave at each other, and go caroling (or the equivalent) out of season. We could offer rides or library runs or errands to stores. We could hold igloo-building parties at the park.

• People should shovel their sidewalks, including and especially the mounds pushed up by driveway plowing.

• A hot cocoa stand at Robbins Hill Farm on sledding days.

• Organized outdoor activity such as snowman/castle competitions, or building a warming hut at the pond, with hot cocoa!

The Friends of Spy Pond flyer is in THIS issue! One extra day in February in this leap year and then the Lion leading to the Lamb. I can’t wait to see you all playing outside again in just a few more weeks, and then we can celebrate making it through another New England winter together.

Have you noticed the wonderful new garden at the corner of Endicott and Gray Streets? The town redesigned the intersection to slow traffic and make crossing safer. Instead of just planting grass, Susan Vik and Dan Sheehy (both of Gray Street) asked for and received the town’s permission to plant flowers and ornamental bushes. Dan dug out rocks and old roots, and Susan put her horticultural talents (and hands) to work. Now we can all enjoy colorful foliage and blossoms through the seasons. Another beautiful spot in our neighborhood provided by one couple’s initiative. Thank you, Susan and Dan!

Do you know someone who deserves recognition? Anyone graduating, being promoted, or making praise-worthy progress? Let us know so we can congratulate them this spring.

People who don’t clean snow from the roof of their cars. Or those who don’t clean more than a peephole from one window. Come on, you can do it. Everybody’s in a hurry; think about safety and visibility! Legislation was introduced last year to require drivers to remove ice and snow from their vehicles before hitting the road, by State Rep. Cleon Turner of Dennis. A previous attempt by State Rep. Brian Knuuttila (Gardner) called for a fine of $500 and up to six months in jail for failure to clean. Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and several provinces of Canada have all proposed similar measures to make driving a snow fort a punishable offense. Right now, it is a penalty of insurance liability (you spray, you pay). Hopefully the oversight will extend to truckers who don’t cover their loads.