The committee for the Carver, Marion, Wareham Regional Refuse Disposal District (CMWRRDD) announced on April 15 that it was dropping its civil lawsuit against the surviving defendants involved in the Ray Pickles embezzlement case.

            The CMWRRDD filed the lawsuit on June 22, 2018, alleging that the former executive director for the trash district, Ray Pickles, age 85 at the time, defrauded the CMWRRDD of $838,000 between 2012 and 2017, while also listing Pickles’ wife, Diane Bondi-Pickles, 67, and former CMWRRDD committee chairman and Carver Health Agent Robert Tinkham, Jr., 58, as defendants.

            A Grand Jury on March 18, 2019, indicted Pickles and Tinkham on criminal charges. Pickles faced six felony counts of Grand Larceny for allegedly stealing $675,000 from the CMWRRDD, and Tinkham was charged with one count of Larceny and one count of Presentation of False Claims for allegedly accepting unauthorized payments totaling $35,000 issued by Pickles and backed by phony invoices for services not rendered.

            The trash district’s civil lawsuit was temporarily suspended while the plaintiff awaited the outcome of the criminal trial that was scheduled to begin February 24, 2020.

            Pickles died on December 20, 2019, at the age of 86, resulting in the dismissal of those criminal charges against him and Tinkham.

            The CMWRRDD committee maintained the option to continue its civil lawsuit against Bondi-Pickles and Tinkham to try to recover its losses, but according to a statement issued by CMWRRDD Chairman Stephen Cushing the committee voted on April 9 to drop the civil lawsuit against all the parties involved.

            “The difficult decision was made after the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office recently dropped its criminal case against all defendants following the death of… Ray Pickles, the primary suspect in the case,” stated Cushing.

            Cushing continued, “Due to these factors, the committee was advised by its legal counsel that the cost of continued civil litigation against the remaining defendants would cost more than the district would likely be able to recover if the lawsuit was successful.”

            What sparked the events that led to the civil lawsuit and subsequent criminal charges came in March of 2017 when Pickles issued the Town of Marion a bill for waste disposal for $25,000, the town’s first bill since 2012. As a district, the three towns would owe a total of $153,000 despite the full reimbursement of the district’s operating costs by SEMASS and income from the district’s two transfer stations.

            The CMWRRDD committee had rarely met regularly during the years in question, with the exception of the odd postings of a few meetings taking place in restaurants. A newly constituted committee started reviewing the financials for the trash district in January 2018, finding various irregularities and transactions without supporting documentation.

            The committee fired Pickles on January 29, 2018, and began to meet regularly as it sought a forensic financial audit of the last six years of Pickles’ tenure.

            Pickles had been the executive director for the trash district since its formation in 1973, while also serving as the executive secretary to the Marion Board of Selectmen from 1972-2001.

            When the civil lawsuit was filed, the complaint alleged that Pickles had cashed checks he wrote to himself totaling nearly $113,000, made unauthorized cash withdrawals totaling $150,000 from secret bank accounts he allegedly opened under the CMWRRDD, collected $31,000 in mileage reimbursements, and used over $13,000 in district funds to fuel his private boat.

            Upon retirement from his position as executive secretary in 2001, Pickles began receiving his salary under the name Moss Hollow Management, a corporation that listed Bondi-Pickles as the president, Pickles’ son Christopher Bondi-Pickles as director, and Pickles himself as secretary. The civil complaint named Moss Hollow Management as a defendant, accusing Pickles and Bondi-Pickles of further embezzling another $281,000 in unauthorized payments exceeding Pickles’ regular salary from 2012 to 2018.

            Pickles pleaded not guilty to the charges and blamed his age and the CMWRRDD committee’s lack of oversight for the alleged financial discrepancies.

            Pickles was still the elected town clerk for the Town of Marion when the civil case and subsequent criminal case was first introduced. The Marion Board of Selectmen asked Pickles to resign during its April 19, 2019 meeting, and then just weeks later Town Meeting voted to de-fund the town clerk’s salary line item for the fiscal year 2020 budget.

            Pickles officially resigned as town clerk on September 3, 2019, citing his diminishing health.

            Since 2018, the future of the CMWRRDD had never been more uncertain as the December 31, 2020 expiration of the district’s contract with SEMASS loomed. The CMWRRDD committee in December 2019 hired a new temporary, part-time executive director, Jeffrey Osuch, to guide the committee as it considered its options and to oversee the transition should the committee decide to dissolve the district.

            Marion was the first town to initiate the withdrawal process from the district upon Marion voters’ acceptance of the motion during the October 2019 Fall Special Town Meeting, which kicked off negotiations between Marion and the district for an equitable exit. In February of this year, the committee voted to call it quits on the CMWRRDD, and voters during the three towns’ 2020 annual spring town meetings will vote to accept the dissolution agreement.

            The dissolution agreement will include granting the Town of Marion ownership of the Benson Brook Transfer Station, one of two district-owned transfer stations.

By Jean Perry

            At this time of year in Marion, there is a glorious bright spot which I look forward to with great excitement and anticipation: the return of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird! It seems especially poignant and uplifting this year.

            These fascinating “fairy” birds travel thousands of miles every year to return to their birth nesting origins. Some estimate that only 30 percent will survive the grueling journey. They generally spend the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, before migrating to Eastern North America to breed in the summer. They double their weight prior to embarking on this arduous marathon flight over the Gulf of Mexico, which offers no landing in sight! I often think of what these little lives have had to endure to arrive back here at my feeders; storms, predators, lack of food sources, and all that mother nature can throw at them. In some way, they seem to help put our current circumstances into perspective.

            I can’t remember exactly when I became enthralled by these miracles of nature, but it has been several years of utter infatuation for me. It began with one feeder and a handful of hummingbirds, but when the fighting over the feeder started, I put up a second feeder and then a third. Currently, I have a total of six feeders, and I estimate between 30–50 hummingbirds who have made our property their home. Guests have witnessed the incredible activity of my birds with awe and amazement as they zip and buzz over our heads from nest to feeders incessantly.

            Filling six feeders and keeping them clean is a full-time summer job! Every day, I refresh the formula, which consists of one cup of sugar to four cups of water, lightly heated over the stove until the crystals are dissolved. It’s also necessary to regularly run the feeders through the dishwasher to reduce bacteria and keep hummingbirds healthy. As the weather warms up, the feeders have to be refreshed and cleaned at least every other day. It is a labor of love that I anticipate every spring and mourn with their departure in the fall.

A few fun facts about these little marvels:

Average length: 3.5 inches

Average weight: 1/8 ounce

Body temperature: 105-108 degrees (F)

Wing beats: 40-80 per second, with an average about 52 

Respiration: 250 per minute

Heart rate: 250 beats/minute resting; 1200 beats/min feeding

Flight speed: 30 mph normal; 50 mph escape; 63 mph dive 

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward.

Females typically lay two eggs that are the size of a Tic Tac! Hummingbird eggs are among the smallest eggs of any bird species. The Bee Hummingbird is the smallest hummingbird and often mistaken for a bee due to its minute size.

            The biggest threat to hummingbirds are humans, who when landscaping often cut branches that hold their tiny camouflaged nests. If this ever happens to you or you find a hummingbird nest on the ground, try to put it back as close to its original location as possible, as the mother will search for days for a missing nest. If you can ask landscapers to prune limbs in late fall after the hummingbirds have migrated, it may save these little lives.

            So, while confined and quarantined, shrouded with an onslaught of depressing news and negativity, I am uplifted with great anticipation and excitement, tracking the migration for the arrival of my precious, darling fairies! If you keep an eye out, you just might see some, too!

By Elizabeth Hatch

            In 1965, I entered Wareham High School. I had one major goal: graduation – period – nothing else. Graduation meant, as far as I was concerned, total liberation from teachers who, for the most part, tolerated me as I tolerated them. Not that I was a class clown or worse, troublemaker, no. I was just an anonymous frowning face in the crowd, destination unknown. But there were certain classes I enjoyed either because of the teacher or in spite of the same.

            I liked typing and shorthand. Good thing because my rudimentary skill-level of those business-office must-haves landed me much-needed jobs right out of high school. I also enjoyed Civics (if you were born after 1970 you won’t know what that is), Social Studies, History, English Literature (not grammar as you know), and Science.

            Most of the other girls in my class also enjoyed Home Economics simply called “Home-Ec.” These girls liked learning about household budgets, baking pans, cooking from scratch, and sewing. I did not. But Home-Ec was mandatory for girls as shop classes were for boys. It was either in the sophomore or junior years we were conscripted for duty in our practical vocational classes.

            At home there had been times when I was pressed into cooking duty because Ma was sick, or when I was younger still because I needed to make a fully planned meal for a Girl Scout badge. But I didn’t enjoy being in the kitchen. For one thing, my mother didn’t enjoy cooking. It was a chore primarily featuring canned meats and frozen vegetables. Occasionally she’d get creative and cook-up cream chipped beef over mashed potatoes, French toast as a dinner entrée or macaroni soup with melted Velveeta cheese. Yum. But mostly it was food for sustenance, not flavor.

            Sewing in our home was handwork, not sewing machine. Like prepackaged foods, Ma preferred off-the-rack clothing.

            In Home-Ec class, the bubbly instructor, Miss Jackson, enthusiastically described the joys of cooking, keeping a clean home, especially the bath and kitchen, and (drum roll please) how to operate a sewing machine.

            The Home-Ec classroom was set-up in two sections: a fully equipped kitchen and the sewing-machine room. We were required to spend half the year in the kitchen and the other at the machines. While the boys were busy learning carpentry and automotive skills, we were being prepped to become homemakers.

            Our teacher was perfect for her role. Miss Jackson was a peach; really, if a person can be called a fruit, peach suited her. She was originally from the south, wore her hair in a teased bouffant up-curl of yellowish fluff, and dressed each day in a stiffly starched, shirtwaist dress. She was a vision complete with either pinky pink or peachy peach lipstick. I did like her.

            Unfortunately, I was an incompetent seamstress, making me the bane of Miss Jackson’s day whenever my group rotated into her schedule. First and foremost, while I could darn socks, replace buttons, sew up a split seam and other small clothing-maintenance functions, the sewing machines terrified me. The worst part was winding the bobbin and threading that thick mechanized needle.

            Operating the sewing machine, whether it was an antiquated black Singer or a modern Zig Zag style, required the capabilities of an engineer to operate. There was the take-up lever, the tension wheel, spool pins and, last but not least, the needle.

            I wish I could tell you that I eventually achieved a level of adequacy that gave Miss Jackson the opportunity to move on to more complicated details of making a garment from whole cloth, but I’d be lying. I did not. She always had to help me, going slowly step-by-step until the machine was ready to actually sew parts together.

            Every year for decades, girls were required to complete two sewing projects to receive credit for the class – an a-line, wrap-around skirt and an apron with a pocket. These were considered easy projects quickly executed by anyone capable of chewing gum and walking at the same time. 

            As memory serves, we had to shop for the patterns at the 5 & Ten Store. Back in class we gingerly removed the paper patterns from their envelopes. Miss Jackson decoded the pattern’s language and symbols with the precision of an archeologist at a pyramid dig. Everyone seemed able to grasp the inner meaning of the markings on the pattern except yours truly. Fear coursed through my arms and hands as I tried with everything I had to understand the mathematics involved – yes, math. Another class I struggled with while learning how to operate an adding machine. But that’s another story.

            Suffice to say, Miss Jackson had to stand beside me to ensure I didn’t ruin the denim fabric intended to become, through some miracle, a skirt I could actually wear to school. Those who were really good at sewing were making two-piece ensembles of tweed trimmed with velveteen. I was simply hoping the seams of the four panels that made up my skirt would hold.

            Here’s what I remember clearly: I wasn’t able to finish on my own and, as the deadline for the fashion show, yeah the fashion show, approached, Miss Jackson helped me. The waistband’s attached belt was left for me to finish. It was a bit too short and poorly executed to say the least, but I sewed it onto the skirt and was grateful this exercise in humiliation was over. I was sick (cough-cough) the day of the fashion show.

            Oh, the apron faired a bit better, but the pocket was crooked and the tie uneven. My aunt, who wore a fresh clean apron every day of her life, became the recipient of that work of abstract art. Bless her soul, she did wear it whenever I was around.

            Sewing with a needle and thread minus the machine has served me well over the years. But today one of my regrets is not learning how to operate a sewing machine. I could and would be sewing up face masks instead of suffocating my husband and myself with the “no sewing required” models.

            I have been able to purchase cloth facemasks online. They arrived today. I studied the seams and the shape of the fabric while thinking, “I should have tried harder in Home-Ec.”

            Miss Jackson, wherever you are, thank you and I am sorry.

This Mattapoisett Life

By Marilou Newell