Jim Holden, a 28-year firefighter and EMT for the Rochester Fire Department, is retiring but not exactly going away or moving to Florida or anything of the sort. Holden’s retirement only means the active, 69-year-old family man gets to do what he wants to do.             Some of that might involve the artwork inspired […] Read more »

Two children with local ties took a time-honored tradition and turned it on its side, then did a very good deed.             One weekend this past summer, seven-year-old Ruby Cambra and eight-year-old Emma Grace Daniel went into business together at the end of a Rochester driveway but not to sell lemonade.             Ruby, a New […] Read more »

            I don’t generally write columns at someone’s request, but a high-ranking local official has been bugging me to write about UFO’s. I am a bit of a coward so I don’t want to cross this person in the event something comes up where I might need the person’s official help.             This same official […] Read more »

            In recent months, a mailbox-sized Little Free Diverse Library, its glass front requesting, “Diverse and Anti-Racist Books Only,” has been sitting on a post outside the Plumb Public Library’s front entrance.             The little library has drawn criticism, as Rochester residents crowded into the Senior Center meeting room for a Board of Library Trustees […] Read more »

            On Tuesday, the Mattapoisett Holy Ghost Grounds Reuse Committee met to review the results of a public survey taken to determine what the people would like to see at the former Holy Ghost Grounds off Park Street.             All were surprised that 553 surveys were submitted. Of that number, 80 were identified as non-full-time […] Read more »

            Albert Einstein once said that “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”             Far be it for me to disagree with old Al, but I know this: Much of any wisdom I have acquired over the years was learned in school. These lessons have carried me […] Read more »

There’s something magical about being in the presence of theatrical excellence. It is powerful, evocative and entertaining, all at the same time. That experience was shared by the members of the Sippican Woman’s Club as they watched a historical performance by Sheryl Faye, who personified Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Faye was the club’s August guest speaker, […] Read more »

            Shirley Haley of Mattapoisett knows a thing or two about writing. One aspect of writing that she fully appreciates is the labor-intensive nature of the process. It takes a disciplined mind to grind out page after page, follow up on all the edits and rewrites and absorb all the pressure associated with getting the […] Read more »

            While most of us want to put Covid behind us, recent news headlines make that hard to do. What should you know? What should you do?             The most important fact is that like it or not, Covid is probably here to stay. While the worst of the pandemic is thankfully behind us, Covid […] Read more »

            Everyone has a story of when they met or saw a celebrity. Maybe you got an autograph at a ballgame or stood in line behind a celebrity at the bank or had one wave at you at a stop light as I did with Dave Cowens of the Boston Celtics.             Milton Berle, the […] Read more »