Who doesn’t have a childhood memory that includes Cinderella and Snow White, two cornerstone characters from Walt Disney’s studios? The joy of watching as Prince Charming places the glass slipper on Cinderella’s tiny foot, or kissing the ruby lips of Snow White awakening her to live happily ever after – sigh – magical.

            And magical is the correct word to describe the Mattapoisett Public Library’s event that took place on December 21 when sweeping into the library came a glittering Princess Elsa and Anna. These two characters are from the hit franchise Frozen, which has produced millions and millions of devoted petite-sized fans.

            The event titled “A Snow Kingdom Party” began with a crafting segment where the children created crowns, or dragons, or both, under the guiding eyes of parents and library staff. Hostesses for the party were Children’s Librarian Heather Ripley and Head Children’s Librarian and Assistant Director Chris Matos. The Friends of the Mattapoisett Library sponsored the party.

            Soon, the princesses glided into the room to the delighted squeals of the children. Princess Elsa wore her well-known ice-blue gown resplendent with glistening silver embroidery, long platinum hair fashioned in a thick rope-like braid, and gentle gestures that suggested everything from snow falling to building a snowman named Olaf.

            Her sister, the feisty sweet-hearted high-energy Anna, wore traditionally styled Norse-like clothing, a comfy dress of green, blue, and red, embellished cape, and a cap that held down red hair tied in braids threatening to run free at any moment.

            The two are actors from the performance group “Pretty As A Princess”, who provide entertainment at party venues from birthdays to celebrations of life. Princess Elsa, aka Brenna Griswold, is a college student who has been performing as various Disney princesses for five years. Shauna Brodsky, aka Anna, is also a college student who has been a part of the cast for four years.

            The two princesses concurred that they receive much more than they give during events such as this.

            “It’s very important to us to give the children magic, especially in today’s world,” they agreed. And spreading their magic is never more important as when they are at the bedside of a child at Hasbro Hospital, a frequent venue for the performers.

            After reading a story to the children about their frozen kingdom adventures, the princesses then told the story of how their kingdom became trapped in perpetual winter, their romp through the frozen tundra, meeting trolls, of course, and a talking snowman before finally breaking the cold spell and finding true love. Well, it is Disney, after all…

             Throughout the hour-long show, the children were held in rapture as they watched the princesses sing and magically create an imaginary snowy kingdom. After, the children were invited to meet the princesses as parents took photos of their little ones hugging the charming ladies or sitting on their laps.

            Clearly, the event warmed the hearts of all in attendance and that included the moms and the dads. Many of the little girls had arrived dressed as their favorite princess or bringing along their Elsa or Anna dolls.

            As for the singing, the princesses’ trained voices were in perfect harmony as the children added their tiny voices, especially to the song ‘Let It Go’ – a song of liberation, empowerment, and, yes, a future that is still evolving.

By Marilou Newell

            Once upon a time, I used one of the tiny circa 1960 bedroom closets as a repository for Christmas gifts, gifts in waiting for that special day. I took such pleasure in shopping year-round for our five granddaughters. Sale hunting was my sport of choice. Capturing a prized possession: earrings, Barbie dolls, Legos, books on insects, pink lip gloss, and lacey tops, each item would be stowed away in the Christmas closet, waiting for its great unveiling in the future.

            In the meantime, there were the necessary tasks of industry and commerce – that ‘8 to 5’ job that fueled the Christmas closet. The job required some stateside travel. And while attending to the demands of my responsibilities to my employer and our customers, I scoured the periphery for bargains.

            Deep within the recesses of a hotel gift shop on a dusty shelf, I’d oftentimes find a gem. Smiling a perpetual grin, sitting there, longing to be found, would be a soft dolly or glittery purse. Art sets, books, obscure games, crafts – there was an amazing abundance of slow-moving marked-down merchandise just waiting for someone like me, a grandmother shopping for the mere pleasure of finding a special something for a special little girl.

            Secreting those items in my suitcase for the trip back home, I’d imagine how each grandchild would respond to a gift no one else would ever have thought to buy for her. I was fully aware that the fun was transitory; kids are fickle as a whole. It didn’t matter. My expendable income used to buy gifts for the girls turned the December holiday into a year-round joyful quest for me.

            By October of each year, while the girls were little, such a brief period of time reflection has proven, the closet shelves would be stuffed with stuff. When the girls weren’t around, I’d pull everything out and sort the items according to their recipients. I needed to make sure the bounty was evenly shared, and that the items were appropriate, given where the child was in her growth cycle. After all, the older girls wouldn’t appreciate a doll, and the younger ones didn’t need earrings. Opening that closet door for me was like watching each beloved girl open gifts over and over again.

            For those few years when the girls were young enough to want to spend time with us, we’d make a Christmas sleepover weekend as close to the actual holiday as possible. In a blended family, it’s important that time concessions be made. On the appointed Saturday morning, my husband and I would drive the multi-passenger Dodge van, the one equipped with built-in child seats, to pick-up the girls and begin what would be an exhausting – but fun – 24 hours.

            There were those two years in a row that we took the kids to Edaville Railroad. The girls loved the train ride through cranberry bogs and piney woodlands where Christmas lights depicted animals and elves and even Santa. In the main building, there was hot chocolate, popcorn, and games to play. Some of the girls eagerly choose to sit on Santa’s lap for a picture; some didn’t. I have those pictures and will one day will surrender them to each respective girl, now a woman. As they look at themselves in that long-ago moment, either smiling or suffering silently, will they think of me, of my husband? Giving children happy childhood memories is the gift that keeps on giving long after we are gone.

            Later that evening they would open gifts, delighting at what they found inside the wrappings. Then it was time to set up the air mattresses on the living room floor, put on a video, and watch as each girl attempted to settle down sufficiently to rest their sleepy heads – or not. They sometimes stayed awake until the wee hours.

            In the morning, their grandfather would make pancakes as I cleaned up the bedding and got the girls dressed for the day. After breakfast and before we returned them home, we’d take them on an outdoor adventure, weather permitting. Maybe a walk along the beach to collect shells and rocks, or a visit to that farm in Westport where they could feed the pigs and chickens. Sundays would wind down slowly. Then it would be time to give the children back to their parents, each kid weighted down with gifts and rocks in their pockets.

            Returning to our home, the house would be deathly quiet. And though I was bone tired, that quiet was not really welcomed. These are fleeting occasions. How many Christmas seasons were actually spent that way – maybe five consecutive years before the older ones preferred spending time with friends or felt that they were too mature to sleep on their grandparents’ floor. But they were golden years for us.

            Now when Christmas comes around, my husband and I relive those days; laugh at something remembered, how exhausted we’d been after a girls’ sleepover weekend – the smell of pancakes lingers still. We gave them so much more than what came out of the Christmas closet. We gave them each other. We gave them ourselves. We gave them happy memories.

            In the winter of our lives, my husband and I unwrap those memories again and again – joy by way of a synapse that is still functioning. And although the Christmas closet is now the overflow closet for my coats, whenever I reach for the doorknob, I hear their voices and feel an abundance of gratitude. Their lives are a gift. We knew that then and we surely know that now.

This Mattapoisett Life

By Marilou Newell

They’re called “porch pirates”: people who steal unattended packages delivered to your doorstep. As this annoying petty crime has increased over the years as e-commerce grows, so has the prevalence of package theft.

            The online megacorporation Amazon acquired “Ring,” a startup that began making smart doorbells with security cameras, for $1 billion in February 2018. The security camera can be linked to an app called “Neighbors,” that can share footage from the camera on an online surveillance network set up much like a social media newsfeed.

            In essence, it’s a marriage between technology and the old-fashioned concept of a neighborhood watch group.

            Since launching this online surveillance network in May 2018, over 600 municipal police departments across the country have joined the network, which allows a user’s local police department to view, post, respond to incidents posted to the Neighbors app, and also formally request user footage to assist in an investigation.

            This month, Mattapoisett became one of those participating police departments, making it only the second such department on the entire South Coast and Cape Cod region.

            Dartmouth Police was the first in our region.

            “By working together, we can all make Mattapoisett a safer community,” Mattapoisett Police announced in a post to its Facebook page on December 18.

            The app is free and can be downloaded by anyone, not just Amazon Ring users. It’s being used to share information with residents in one’s own area about crimes, incidents surrounding public safety, suspicious observations, suspicious people, and even lost pets. App users can receive real-time alerts, share anonymous tips, directly from their smartphones, and stay current on local crime and safety.

            Across the county, the online surveillance network now dubbed the “new neighborhood watch,” has proven effective in deterring opportunistic crime such as porch pirating and capturing perpetrators; however, some privacy advocates, civil rights groups, and social justice organizations warn about the unintended consequences that exist as a result of the surveillance network, especially for people of color.

            Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey in a September 5, 2019 letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, expressed his own concern with the civil liberties issues that have surfaced.

            “Although innovative approaches to law enforcement to keep neighborhoods safe and combat crime are encouraged and welcome, the nature of Ring’s products and its partnerships with police departments raise serious privacy and civil liberties concern,” Markey wrote.

            In addition to the capturing and storing of video from millions of households of bystanders, many of whom are unaware that they are being filmed, Markey expressed another concern about civil liberties.

            “The integration of Ring’s network of cameras with law enforcement offices could easily create a surveillance network that places dangerous burdens on people of color and feeds racial anxieties in local communities,” Markey stated in his letter, adding that he was particularly alarmed to hear of Ring’s pursuit of a facial recognition technology to flag certain individuals based on their biometric information – technology that disproportionately misidentified people of Latinos and African Americans.

            In a December 17, 2019, open letter to Bezos and Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff, digital rights organization MediaJustice (formerly the Center for Media Justice) wrote regarding racism and Ring: 

            “…[Y]our company’s Neighbors app stokes false alarms over ‘rising’ crime by encouraging neighbors to spy on one another. This app is not designed to prevent crime, but rather it is designed to escalate neighborhood watch programs where individuals are likely to make assumptions about people of color, people experiencing homelessness, and other marginalized people. Your surveillance products weaponize race and digitize racial profiling so many communities of color already experience.”

            Ring does not currently use facial recognition in its Ring technology; however, it filed an application for a patent on facial recognition technology, which, in Amazon’s November 1 response to Senator Markey, is referred to as a “contemplated, but unreleased feature” of the Ring.

            In an email response to The Wanderer for comment on Mattapoisett Police joining Ring’s Neighbors network, Mattapoisett Police Chief Mary Lyons said on December 23, “There are always safety and security concerns when using the Internet to communicate. One would hope that the neighbors signed onto the group would be respectful of everyone and use the group network for the purpose it was designed for.”

            Lyons explained that in order to join a Neighbors group, they must be sent a code number to use to sign up. And some people may share that code with others who are not in the community or neighborhood, she said, adding those individuals could potentially misuse the site.

            “Everyone should be cautious when posting personal information to a public communication site,” said Lyons. “Many companies sell the database containing your personal information to other companies without notifying you. There are many cases of Internet fraud.”

            Mattapoisett Police reminds residents that use Ring or the Neighbors app that they should still call 911 in the event of an emergency.

By Jean Perry