Roundup: George And Pat Jensen, Kids’ Yoga, Cumby’s …

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Due to today’s snow, the Westport Library will open at 1 p.m. today.

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It’s 10 a.m. Are your kids bored with their snow day yet?

Here’s something they might enjoy: Carly Walker’s first yoga video aimed at youngsters. It comes from Child’s Pose Yoga, the Church Street South studio.

Namaste.

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Longtime Westporters Jørgen and Pat Jensen died peacefully, together, at their home on December 22. He was 92; she was 88.

Jorgen — known as “George” — served 9 terms on the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), and was a prominent member of the Y’s Men and their Hoot Owls singing group. He was also an avid bridge player.

Pat worked for many years for the Westport Public Schools. She also served  with the Westport Woman’s Club.

Both were active in retirement at the Senior Center, and were lifelong boaters. At the Senior Center George was in charge of the Garden Club. He grew tomatoes, and distributed them widely.

George was born in Copenhagen, and graduated from the university there with an MS in mechanical engineering.

Pat — a native of Bridgeport — graduated from Sacred Heart University.

Both were world travelers. They met while working at General Electric in Bridgeport. He worked there until retirement, in 1985.

Pat retired in 2000, after serving as director of purchasing at Staples High School. She was a master knitter and crocheter.

While on the RTM, George worked to purchase the Baron’s property, and on construction of the Senior Center and Saugatuck senior housing. Both he and Pat were active in the movement to save Cockenoe Island from becoming a nuclear power plant, in the 1960s.

George and Pat are survived by their children Elisa (John McKay), Eric (Michele Ryan) and Aline Maynard (Garth); 7 grandchildren and George’s brother Steen Folmer.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Westport Center for Senior Activities, 21 Imperial Avenue, Westport, CT 06880.

Pat and George Jensen (Photos courtesy of Westport Journal)

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Three of Westport’s most important institutions — The Library, Wakeman Town Farm and Westport Farmers Market — are partnering for a delicious presentation.

“Dinner Disrupted: How We Eat” (Tuesday, January 11, 7 pm., in-person at the Library and via Zoom) features a conversation with market researcher and author of How We Eat: The Brave New World of Food and Drink, Paco Underhill.

The book describes how cities are getting countrified with the rise of farmer’s markets and rooftop farms; how supermarkets use their parking lots to grow food and host community events, and how marijuana farmers have developed a playbook so mainstream merchants and farmers across the world can grow food in an uncertain future. Click here to register.

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Among other effects, COVID’s Omicron variant has created staffing shortages at businesses around town.

Among them: Cumberland Farms.

The always-reliable convenience store has posted this brief — but telling — notice on its door:

(Photo/Matt Murray)

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Every Martin Luther King Day, I run a story on the civil rights leader’s visit to Westport — and the wood carvings that local artist Roe Halper presented to him. They hung for years in his Atlanta home.

Halper is still a working artist. Her works are now colorful and abstract.

They are so colorful, in fact, that her current exhibit — at the Westport Library — is called simply “Orange.”

It is “a warm, radiant color with positive energy,” Halper says — “exactly the message I wanted to portray as I pushed bold strokes of power on the canvases  with my Chinese brushes. A person must have a positive attitude to survive in life, and be able to be productive.”

Check out “Orange” — and many other colors — at the Westport Library Gallery.

Roe Halper, at her exhibit.

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It’s school course selection time. What to take? When? Why?

College admissions counselor Amy Chatterjee offers a free webinar on Tuesday (7 p.m.): “Why Course Selection is Important to the College Application Process.” Click here to register.

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Today’s “Westport … Naturally” creature is perfect. A “snowshoe Siamese” cat is quite happy to stay indoors!

(Photo/Jo Shields Sherman)

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And finally … on this day in 1904, the distress signal “CQD” was established internationally. Two years later, it was replaced by a different one: “SOS.”