Monthly Archives: January 2010

They Didn’t Teach That In Health Class

Posted on January 14, 2010 | 1 comment

Tim Stalling graduated from Staples in 1986 with lots of knowledge.  Delivering babies was not one of them.

Office Tim Stalling

He learned that skill at the Police Academy.  He probably thought he’d never need it — but Kendra D’Andrea’s baby thought differently.

Stalling — a Fairfield police officer — was working at 4:45 this morning when he was received a 911 call.  D’Andrea and her husband, Daniel Acuff, were ready to head to the hospital with a police escort.

Young Annika had different plans.  Stalling helped D’Andrea delivere the baby in the living room.

According to CTPost.com, the couple’s 2 other daughters “were kind of not sure what to think” of the unplanned home delivery of their new sister.  “I told them to go upstairs,” D’Andrea said, “and I heard the older one say to the younger one, ‘Did you hear a baby cry?'”

Stalling — the first emergency responder on the scene — and the EMT “were great,” D’Andrea said.  “The EMT held the baby for me the entire ride into the hospital.”

“We’re very proud of Officer Stalling,” said Fairfield Deputy Police Chief Gary McNamara.  “We don’t very often have an opportunity to do something so meaningful, and bring so much joy into a person’s life.”

Mother, father, daughter — and Stalling — are all resting comfortably tonight.

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Posted in People, Police

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Joe Ziegahn Tributes Set

Posted on January 14, 2010 | 1 comment

A memorial service for much-admired Staples art teacher Joe Ziegahn will be held this Saturday, January 16, at 2 p.m.  The site is St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in New Canaan.

In addition, Staples Players will honor Joe — their beloved technical director — at the March 20 performance of “Little Shop of Horrors.”  In a tribute to his fondness for reusing scenery, Players will use a large “recycled” set.

Following the performance, cast and audience members are invited to the backstage workroom — Joe’s home for many years — to hang a sign memorializing  him, and exchange “Joe stories.”

Players director David Roth said:  “Those of us who attended Players’ 50th anniversary celebration last May saw Joe emotionally moved.  Many, many people — Jim Wheeler, Judy Luster, Jon Blackburn, Will Adams and others — honored him by their words, and he was given a standing ovation by the entire audience.”

(To purchase a DVD of the evening, email david_roth@westport.k12.ct.us)

In June, Players will introduce the Joe Ziegahn Award for Craftsmanship, Artistry and Ingenuity in Technical Theater.  Each year the troupe will honor a graduating senior who embodies the traits that made Joe such a genius.

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Posted in Arts, People, Staples HS

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Bedroom Matters

Posted on January 14, 2010 | 2 comments

Shaw’s closed; Fresh Market opened.  Sweet.

Depot Liquors is gone; another package store will take its place.  No big deal.

But Bedroom Matters is shutting its doors tomorrow.  That is very bad news for thousands of Westport women — plus their partners. 

Bedroom Matters is a boutique across from the railroad station — a few doors down from Depot Liquors, in fact.  It sells the usual:  lingerie, massage candles, rhinestone pasties, Kama Sutra honey dust, vibrators, Bad Girl cuffs.

Margaret Wagner

In 2 years, it’s developed a loyal following.  “Our customers are amazing,” says founder Margaret Wagner.

But rents are high.  So tomorrow (Friday) is her last day as a brick-and-mortar retailer.  All merchandise is 50 percent off.  A final event tomorrow night will clear everything off the shelves.

Customers — many of whom thank Wagner for spicing up their sex lives and/or saving their marriages — need not despair.  She will continue to sell her products — including bedding, intimate objects, and educational and erotic books — online. 

Her classes (intimacy, lap-dancing — “anything fun and sexy,” Wagner says) and her Sensual Circles women’s groups will be held in several area locations. 

“We have 2,500 women on our mailing list,” Wagner says.  Places like Arogya and Soleil Toile are very interested in having our events at their place.”

Kama Sutra massage oil is $19.99 on the Bedroom Matters website.

Wagner says she is “passionate about one thing:  living a sensual life.” 

But sex, she says, “has become an action, a verb. Its soul is lost as it gets tracked through the mud of everything from pornography to Cougar Town.”

 She founded Bedroom Matters to “reintroduce sex and intimacy as a core of our being.  (I wanted) to build a platform for sensuality and sexuality that is beautiful, respectful, fun and intimate.”

She calls her store “an expensive tool to help women — and couples — with relationships and intimacy.”  It’s time now, she says, to move more toward the educational side of the business.  And to sell products in an environment with no overhead.

As Shoeless Joe Jackson says in “Field of Dreams”:  “If you build it, they will come.”

(Wagner also blogs.  Click here to read “Margaret’s Bedroom.”)

This book includes a box to check after completing each of the 101 places.

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Posted in Economy, Local business, People, Saugatuck

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Remembering Robo

Posted on January 13, 2010 | Comments Off on Remembering Robo

It’s been a tough month for Staples graduates and former staff members.

Charley Rochlin (Class of 2003) and Jacquelyn Perez (’06) died in automobile accidents.

Players technical advisor/wizard Joe Zeigahn died of cancer.

On Monday, Jeff Meier passed away.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, this one will:  “Robo.”

Jeff was Staples’ original “RoboCop.”  That was the nickname students gave him as Staples’ longtime security guard.  It’s become the generic moniker for every guard who’s followed.  But it fit Jeff — a Staples grad (’69) himself — well.  The movie of the same name came out around the time Jeff started working at Staples.  He wasn’t a cyborg, but like his cinematic doppelganger, he had his hands full trying to tame a population bent on doing things their own way.  In high school terms, that meant heading to the parking lot to smoke, drink and leave campus.

As with Joe Zeighan’s death, the sad news about Robo spread quickly on Facebook.  Suddenly, once again, Westporters of various vintages were drawn together.  Once again, their thoughts turned back to high school.  Now — with the wisdom of a few years– they could look back and see Robo as a human being, not a cop out to ruin their fun.

Here are some of the comments from Facebook:

🙁 he had a tough job…

Students who didn’t know Robo cop didn’t know what it was like to go to Staples 🙂

Wow.  That’s the end of an era, alright.  Man that guy made skipping class a damn adventure.

Absolutly a end of a era, haa we used to hide in trunks and have blankets over us sneaking out of school, those were damn fun times

Terrible, that guy was unreal…

RIP Robo…. he did make skippin an adventure.

And finally this from Steve Haberstroh, who told me about Jeff’s death the old-fashioned way — via email:

He was great.  Always fair, friendly and a true professional.  Think about his gig:  keep eager, scheming, gifted teenagers from skipping class for quick cigarette, trip to Compo or a #2 combo at Fortunas — no easy task.

(The Meier family will receive friends Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. in the Harding Funeral Home, 210 Post Road East.  All are invited to attend a funeral service Friday at 10 a.m. in the funeral home.  Interment will follow in Willowbrook Cemetery, Westport.)

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Posted in People, Staples HS

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E-Mak And ‘Roids

Posted on January 13, 2010 | 3 comments

In the wake of Mark McGwire’s stunning, earth-shattering, no-one-ever-expected-such-a-thing admission that he actually used steroids, sports reporters across the country scrambled desperately to get a good angle on the story.

Evan Makovsky

Evan Makovsky nailed it.

The 1994 Staples graduate — now host of On the Edge, an “unfiltered, uncensored” daily sports talk radio show on St. Louis’ Team 1380 — was 1 of only 3 people in the country to interview Jose Canseco the next day.

Canseco and McGwire were teammates on the Oakland A’s.  McGwire insists that Canseco lied when he said that the two players injected each with performance-enhancing drugs in a bathroom stall.

Though Canseco bowed out of a scheduled “Larry King Live” interview — he said he was “emotionally drained,” and tired of defending himself — he spoke with Makovsky.  Their discussion included McGwire’s denial of their drug usage,  whether the Congressional-inquiry-lying “home run king” could have broken Roger Maris’s single-season record without ‘roids, and if the finally-disgraced-new-hitting-coach-for-the-St. Louis Cardinals belongs in the Hall of Fame.

As a result of the interview coup, “JT The  Brick” had Makovsky on his national Fox Sports talk show.

To hear Makovsky’s wide-ranging, sometimes surprising interview with Canseco, click here and scroll down.

Mark McGwire (left) and Jose Canseco, in a photo taken not in a bathroom stall.

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Posted in People, Sports

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Plus The Portions Were So Small…

Posted on January 13, 2010 | 2 comments

To the guy who took several free samples of the chicken stir fry today at Trader Joe’s, then complained it was cold:

I didn’t hear you say anything about the price.

Or “thank you.”

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Posted in Totally random

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The Record Hunter

Posted on January 13, 2010 | 10 comments

If you grew up in the 1960s, the soundtrack of your life was vinyl. 

And if you grew up in Westport in the 1960s, chances are you heard that soundtrack at the Record Hunter.

The Record Hunter held 2 distinctions that are rare these days:  It was a record store, and it was a small, independently owned business on Main Street. 

What remains today is the left section of Talbots.  The right side was the Remarkable Book Shop — a perfect complement to the Record Hunter.  Both were cozy, warm places where the product was less important than the customer.  Both were run by people who loved what they did, and did what they loved.

The Record Hunter was Jay Flaxman’s baby.  He didn’t just sell albums and 45s.  He sold you on the music, and the musicians. 

Jay was the man who introduced me to Richie Havens, Phil Ochs and Joan Baez.  He was the man who let my friends and me hang out for hours on Saturday mornings, listening to music he thought — no, he knew — we’d like. 

Jay was the man.

Jay Flaxman died Monday.  He was 80 years old.

The Record Hunter comprised only part of his life.  Even in a hip town like Westport, it was hard to make a living selling folk and classical music.  After it closed, he went to work for the Westport Transit District.  I was in college then — no Minnybuses for me — but I heard that in his new job, helping youngsters navigate the streets of Westport, he had as great an influence as he had on me and my musical tastes.

Vinyl is gone.  So is the Record Hunter, and now Jay Flaxman.  But Richie Havens, Phil Ochs and Joan Baez are on my iPod.  I can’t imagine a life without them.

Thanks, Jay, for those formative Saturday mornings so long ago — and for your long-enduring gift of music to me.

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Posted in Arts, Downtown, Looking back, People

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A New Environmental ‘Party’

Posted on January 12, 2010 | 1 comment

Sure, they’ve helped ban plastic bags, prodded us into Priuses, and made us feel guilty every time we eat a Ring Ding.

But that doesn’t mean the men and women of Westport’s Green Village Initative don’t know how to party down.

This Saturday (January 16), they’re throwing a Winter Party at the Unitarian Church.  From 7 p.m. to midnight there will be a Big Band-style dance band, good food, silent auction — and open bar.

Tickets are $50.  GVI has underwritten the cost of the party, so all proceeds will go to 2 environmental groups:  Save the Sound-Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters.

Al Gore may not show up, but it sounds like a fun night anyway.

(RSVP to Carmela: ci@mainstreetresources.com; 203-227-5320.)

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This Rabbi Walks Into A Comedy Club…

Posted on January 11, 2010 | 1 comment

Grossinger’s is closed.  “Seinfeld” is off the air.

But the Conservative Synagogue is about to showcase Jewish comedians, from the days of vaudeville and radio through today’s movies and stand-up.

Alan Katz

At 7 p.m. next Sunday (January 17), Weston resident Alan Katz will conduct a “virtual” tour of Jewish comedy.  The event is called “Shtick at the Shul.”  Oy.

Katz is a 5-time Emmy-nominated comedy writer for TV series, including Rosie O’Donnell and Tony Danza;  the Grammy and Tony Awards, and numerous cable programs.  He has written primetime specials, game shows and articles for the New York Times and Daily News, and is the author of more than 25 children’s books, including “Take Me Out of the Bathtub.”

Katz will talk about George Burns, Lenny Bruce and Adam Sandler.

You want more names?  So come to the event.

(Dessert and coffee will be served.  RSVP by January 13 to obtain a parking spot:  call 203-454-4673 or email lzisfein@gmail.com.)

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Posted in Entertainment, People, religion

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Knitting Knews

Posted on January 10, 2010 | 2 comments

Meat Loaf was wrong.  2 out of 3 is bad.

Knitting  Central — 1 of 3 adjacent stores in the strip mall opposite Fresh Market — is closing its doors.  With Princess Jewelers also supposedly going out of business — it’s been advertising 50 to 70% off for months, though recently the discount was upped to 80% — there will be only 1 place open of the 3.

That’s Body Quest — an “energizing fitness fusion class” — which occupies the spot held for 60 years by Beacon Electronics.

Knitting Central’s demise was announced in an email, and on the store’s website, by the owners.  They called New Year’s a time “to have a lifestyle change  and start a new chapter.”

The decision came after “an incredible amount of thought and conversation,” they said.  Though the store will close, they will continue to offer “the best and most unique fibers available” online.  Their internet store, they said, has grown well.

The owners — Cynthia and Rick — look forward to spending more time together, and with their family, while sharing their love of knitting and crocheting with their customers.

I never set foot inside Knitting Central — never knew it existed, to be honest — but “06880” reader Fran White called it “a wonderful store.  They were always willing to help with a problem, for both experienced and beginning knitters.”

Rick and Cynthia said they hoped they met the goals they set when they opened their Post Road East store — just west of Dunkin’ Donuts and the UPS Store — 6 years ago:  to grow a true knitting community, and provide a strong educational program.

A sale — 30-35% off — began yesterday.  It includes needles, accessories, books, patterns, sample garments and yarns.  Classes will continue as listed, and all special orders already placed will be delivered.

Though the decision to close involved many factors, looking at those soon-to-be-empty storefronts I think of another song, this one by Meat Loaf contemporaries Queen.  Another One Bites the Dust.

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Posted in Local business

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