As the Earth on its axis continues to turn the face of the northern hemisphere away from the direct rays of the sun, the migration of Striped Bass continued to march to the orchestration of heavenly spheres on their journey north through Buzzards Bay.

            As they passed the seasonal moment of autumnal equinox on the calendar, our own popular, old songs came to mind, bringing memories such as, “The days grow short when you reach September as well as autumnal leaves fly by my window when you reach November.”

            From my picture seaside window, the deciduous foliage has this year been painted bright colors by colder nights into deeper shades of crimson, yellow and orange, much more defined that decorates the passing pageant of migratory Bass than we remember in recent years. The Striped Bass presence comes into view with seagulls suddenly gathering and screaming overhead where they have cornered bait fish, thrashing around to the surface into crowded corners of coves.

            The bodies of Striped Bass, as in my illustration, have stout features of seven to eight continuous horizontal stripes for which they are named, mostly colored a light olive green, with steel blue on top as well as white or iridescent undersides. They often have a long life of up to 30 years, growing to 5 feet in length and weighing up to 77 pounds. Both male and females are sexually mature when they are eight years old. They have very few predators, except for sharks, seals and human fishermen.

            For centuries they have supported both recreational and commercial fisheries on the Atlantic coast. In all 16 marked-out areas, the commercial-operation systems include gill nets, haul up into boat seines, trawling and hand-held lines.

            Meanwhile in the past year, recreational harvest was estimated at 1,710,000 Bass. The latest, strict individual regulation limit is only one fish per person and that must be at least 28 inches in length. These sharply difficult criteria have increased the Atlantic population dramatically.

            Stripers must now continue their northern journey into the entrance of the Cape Cod Canal by schooling up into marching legions to fit through the narrow passage.

            Gathering large numbers of anglers with spinning rods can cast all the way across either side of the channel with artificial or live bait.

            At the other end, they can return to wider waters and leave behind their passage exposure. We wish them well to complete their final challenge under the emancipation of the catch-and-release conditions that will bring them back again for another next year.

By George B. Emmons

Howard Tinkham and his extended family have worked the land in Mattapoisett for over 100 years. For Howard, that constitutes his entire life. Now on the eve of his 100th birthday, a celebration is being planned to honor not just the fact of his chronological age but also to thank the man who has done so much for his family and community over all those decades.

            We recently met Howard at his home where, over the course of 80 minutes, he expounded with extemporal clarity from one decade to another about his life and times.

            In his early life, Howard worked on his father’s dairy farm, rising at dawn to milk the cows and perform farm duties we can all imagine were physically taxing. Yet one gets the sense it was a good life filled with sibling teasing and play, including Howard’s sense of humor as exemplified when he named his pet cow after one of his sisters – Ethel. “Oh, she was riled at that,” he recalled with a wide grin.

            On the horizon for Howard and hundreds of thousands of other young men and women around the globe would be World War II. As he labored away back on the farm, he would eventually join the Army after receiving permission from his father to do so.

            “When I left for the Army, (my father) had to buy two (newly invented) milking machines and hire a man, then he knew I was worth something,” said Howard, noting that his father had confessed he would not stand in his way but that he would be, “worried about you.”

            Howard was stationed in England throughout the war planning bombing raids. He noted that there has been a Tinkham serving in every war since the beginning of the country.

            Regarding WWII, Howard recalled how the pilots challenged one another to hit their targets like a bullseye or suffer tough taunting once back on the ground. He recalled one pilot who failed to drop his lethal payload.

            “He just couldn’t do it. Whether it was his religion or something else I don’t know, but he just couldn’t do it,” said Howard, supposing it may simply have been a sudden awareness of killing people on the ground. He said that rather than a discharge, the pilot was sent away to receive care. This memory of compassionate care for a fellow serviceman during the height of war watered Howard’s eyes all these decades later.

            Never one to waste time that could be used to advance one’s education, during his deployment the former farmer took correspondence courses, he said. He could not have imagined that this would be the stepping-off point for a long career as a professor of mechanical engineering.

            Using grants offered through the GI Bill, Howard studied at the former New Bedford Institute of Technology (founded in 1899), a school primarily geared towards the textile industry, the predominate industry in the area, second only to fishing.

            “They were good at what they did,” Howard said of his time studying at NBIT.

            But technology was changing, and post-war, industrial demands meant engineering students needed more than the two-year certificate program being offered. Howard would go on to earn a Mechanical Engineering degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1949.

            There would be a series of mergers that in 1964 would find NBIT combined with the Bradford Durfee College in Fall River and later, Southeastern Massachusetts University. Today known as UMass Dartmouth, the engineering program has achieved status among other university systems.

            In a 2005 interview by Frederick Vincent Gifun, journalist for the university’s Trials and Triumphs 1960-2006 publication, Howard said, “After Worcester ‘poly-tech,’ I was immediately offered a position teaching (at SMU.)”

            For the next five years, Howard’s teaching load would be 34 hours a week in classrooms and laboratories until SMU was sufficiently funded to hire more educators. “It changed from a textile school to a technical school,” said Howard, who aided in effectuating those changes. “The 1960 course catalog contained more than just textile classes for the first time.”

            Howard would become head of the Mechanical Engineering Department as the school once again merged into the University of Massachusetts. He spent 39 years as a professor, a time that he said “was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

            Now, as he sat sharing insights into his professional life, he pointed to a black wooden chair he received from the university upon the occasion of his retirement. But what really makes him proud, “I handed out the very first Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering to Arthur Ashley. His father owned Revere Copper and Brass.”

            Sitting in his comfortable living room where he can look out an expansive picture window across a meadow and down to Tinkham Pond, Howard recalled winter skating parties.

            “My father would stack wood for bonfires, and everyone would park their cars on the grass and point their headlights towards the pond,” his face aglow, as if feeling the bonfire heat once again. Today he maintains ownership of the pond to roughly the center in an effort to conserve the land and its resources from development.

            “I don’t want to see all the forests gone!” he said.

            Some years ago, Howard was able to parlay the sale of many acres of his land to the Mattapoisett River Valley Water District with monies acquired by the towns of Fairhaven and Mattapoisett from the 2003 Bouchard Oil Spill settlement. “I always say, ‘the land that oil-spill money bought.’” He has also worked with the town and other entities to protect lands adjacent to the Mattapoisett River and river-valley watershed.

            Howard remains fully engaged in the world around him, especially matters dealing with land conservation, natural resources and wildlife. One of the latest charities he is supporting is for the protection and reinvigoration of wild and domesticated bee populations. As a cranberry grower, he fully appreciates the stress placed on wildlife by humans. He also has deeded into perpetuity 5 acres of forested land for a Boy Scout camp.

            And there has been travel, extensive travel. On a map in his living room, Howard has placed pins denoting all the countries the family has visited – crossing all or nearly all the oceans of the world, sometimes twice. He said those trips were funded by profits from his cranberry bogs.

            Of those trips, his daughter Cheryl Baum said, “It was fascinating.” But a much bigger lesson is her take-way, even more than the exotic ports-of-call they experienced. “Dad never met a stranger.” She said her father never ceased to amaze her with his ability to make new friends and acquaintances wherever they went. “He believes people are interesting, and I get that from him too.”

            In a 2018 remembrance he shared with the Mattapoisett Historical Commission as they prepared to erect an historic panel at the site of the former box-board mill that was situated at Tinkham Pond, Howard said, “A box-board mill used waterpower to drive belts that pulled pine logs into the saw blades. This was before cardboard boxes when everything from grain to biscuits was stored in a wooden box. Dried boards were sent to factories to be turned into boxes. There were several mills along the Mattapoisett River and its streams. Grist mills ran in tandem in the same mill cracking corn as feed or grinding it into meal. When I was 12, my grandfather Tom Tinkham let me open the big water wheel that allowed the water to flow into the mill. It was thrilling! He let me turn the capstan in the mill that raised the sluice gate out at the dam to start the turbine spinning as the mill came to full power.”

            An inscribed brick at the historic site reads, “Farmer, Educator, Friend,” placed there by the commission to honor Howard Tinkham.

            Howard’s parting words to us were humble when asked if looking back over the vast lens of time, he could sum up what he believes has been important to his success. “Luck! I’ve been very, very lucky.”

            A parade in celebration of Howard’s 100th birthday is planned for Sunday, November 20, stepping off at 1:00 pm from the American Legion Hall on Depot Street. The parade, in which Howard will be riding in a classic car, will wind its way along Main and Water Street to Ned’s Point Lighthouse and back to the Legion Hall. Refreshments and entertainment are also planned.

By Marilou Newell

Tri-Town Against Racism invited the public to the third in a series of “Community Conversations,” focusing November 14 on “The Importance of Representation in Literacy” during the 90-minute session at the Stroud Center on the Tabor Academy campus in Marion.

Representation of diverse groups in school and public libraries became a hot topic in the tri-towns in 2020 after then-10-year-old Rochester resident Kelcey Robertson sold heads of lettuce off his family’s backyard garden to raise money to buy books about minorities and offer them to local school libraries.

At the same time that Robertson’s effort was gaining national recognition, Tri-Town Against Racism began erecting remote-location “Little Free Diverse” libraries to encourage the circulation of such books.

More recently, the depictions of sexual activity in books available at the Old Rochester Regional High School and Junior High libraries have become the subject of heated debate.

Tri-Town Against Racism did not veil its support of the inclusion of the controversial books that not only represent diversity in race and color but also in sexual orientation and gender identity.

Before panelists responded to pre-submitted questions from preregistered audience members, ORR junior Alia Cusolito was invited to read from the book “Gender Queer.” The section Cusolito chose focused on a transexual’s first-person account about the decades it took to find a version of the subject that did not feel shameful. Cusolito, who identifies as non-binary in gender, was glad to have read the book, saying it helped “them” understand their life better.

After the question-and-answer session with the panel yielded many facts about libraries and librarians for different age groups, Jason Chisholm, executive director of TTAR, said, “We want to create an environment where people can show up and be their true selves.”

That environment, he insists, extends to those who do not agree with the inclusion of such material in school or public libraries.

“If you have a real problem with content, send a letter, talk to the powers to be. Keep in mind the intent of what these educators are doing … thoughtfulness has gone into the content that has been provided to our children,” said Chisholm. “Be courageous. But to try to be divisive is not going to be constructive.”

Chisholm said the world is changing rapidly and that the debated content is going to be made available to young people. He said parents can let them find it on their own or participate in a guidance that he strongly believes will lead to a healthier outcome for the child.

“If anyone disagrees with anything they’ve heard, we invite you to have a conversation respectively,” he said.

Ground rules for the question-and-answer discussion included welcoming all and agreements to listen respectfully to others’ experiences and perspectives and to speak from one’s own experiences and perspectives.

The panel of librarians consisted of: Laura Gardner (Dartmouth middle school and Fairhaven mother of two); Maura Deedy (library specialist at the state level); Kyle DeCicco-Carey (director at Millicent Library in Fairhaven, whose daughter recently graduated from ORR and whose son attends Center School in Mattapoisett), Allie Thiel (Millicent Library); and Ann Richard (head librarian at Tabor Academy and Fairhaven resident).

Randomly the panelists took turns responding to the questions read aloud to the audience by Rhonda Baptiste, TTAR’s vice president of Community Engagement.

Gardner, who has been at Dartmouth for over 13 years, said her favorite part of being a librarian is selecting, reading and recommending books.

“A big part of the way that I select books is I read them before I buy them, and I decide, ‘Is this a book that’s going to fit my community, is this a book that students are going to want to read?’ Because we all have limited budgets, so we have to make sure we spend our money effectively,” she said. “And, also, is this book going to support all of my students? I want to buy books that support the students who want to learn about their favorite sport, and I also want to support the students who are interested in reading graphic novels … and I want to support my kids who don’t see representation maybe all the time, but I want to support my LGBTQ kids and I definitely want to support kids of color … because that’s something that’s been very underrepresented in literature over time.

“Once I see an author who writes really great books for kids of color and it’s an author of color, I want to buy all their books, and I want to have them on the shelf, not just for the kids of color but for all the kids so they can all understand what it’s like to live all of these experiences.”

A professional reviewer for publications, Gardner said she uses Library Journal and Booklist along with blogs to see other professional opinions but said she does not need to use a professional company to send her books.

“I know what books I want for my library, I know what books are going to fit in my community,” she said.

Richard said that, as is the case with most libraries, Tabor Academy has a collection-development policy. She said she purchases books that go along with the school’s curriculum for research purposes and has a fiction collection.

“It’s not just fiction books that we need to think about with different voices, we need to hear voices that are current and voices that are different from maybe what we had in our collection 50 years ago,” said Richard. “We have to think about our changing curriculum and our different classes that we teach here at Tabor and what books need to support that.”

Gardner said middle-school libraries offer more fiction, while high school libraries focus more on research. She asserted that middle-school students have more time to read.

“I think that one of the biggest ways I build my collection is by knowing the kids and the families that come in and use that collection all the time,” said Thiel, noting the excitement that goes with bringing in books on subjects that pique the interest of children in their current state of fascination.

Deedy explained that the collection policy influencing public libraries is informed by standards established by the American Library Association. Library trustees (an elected office at the municipal level) approve policy and library directors execute those policies, she said. “Any changes to that policy should be done in collaboration between your board of trustees and the library director.”

Gardner said, whether school libraries have a collection policy is determined by the school committee. Dartmouth, she said, has a collection policy voted for approval in 2019. She stated further that towns lacking a collection policy are getting caught “flat-footed” without one.

Asked if books stay in the library forever and how it is decided which ones are removed as leveraged by space constraints, Richard mentioned the new library under construction at Tabor and how it affects current operations.

“We have to weed the collection,” she said, indicating that changes in curriculum and the frequency at which a book has been checked out can influence such decisions. “Space is limited, and even in our new space we have to think about limited shelf space, so we have to go through and decide what books to keep and what books to not keep.”

Thiel said children’s books especially have a natural cycle and humorously noted how some are tattered and torn and need to be replaced. Non-fiction, she said, must stay current with accurate information. Pluto, for instance, is no longer classified by the astronomy community as a planet.

DeCicco-Carey estimated that Millicent Library has approximately 57,000 books in its collection. He referenced a 2021 article estimating that 1,500,000 new books were published in the United States, not counting e-books or self-published books.

“When there’s that many books, you have to choose and you have to pick,” he said.

The task of making readers out of young people is at the forefront of public and school librarians, and the theme of the November 14 event, “Representation in Literacy,” is a front-and-center issue for librarians.

DeCicco-Carey, who classified himself as a “straight, white, middle-aged man,” said that reading “Gender Queer” opened his eyes to others’ experiences.

Gardner said, over the last couple of years, she has diversified reading options and added a “queer” category. “I’m really proud of that,” she said. “I want students who graduate from our district to have a rounding … and more empathy as well.”

Baptiste told the gathering that a survey will be going out, and people can unsubscribe from receiving it.

The next topic of TTAR’s Community Conversations was yet to be determined as of November 14.

Tri-Town Against Racism

By Mick Colageo