What do you do if you’ve spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf Coast, killed 11 workers, diminished the livelihood of thousands, and befouled the habitat for years to come?
If you’re BP you lop a few cents off each gallon of gas, and hope customers pour in.
We spotted this sign at the BP station across from Blockbuster.
Will Westporters buy it?
Of the many memories I have of President Kennedy’s assassination, the most searing may be seeing flags at half-staff.
For 30 days, every American flag flew sadly, partway up its pole. It was a powerful reminder of the tremendous loss our country suffered.
Flags flew at half-staff on similarly sad occasions — when presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson died, for example. I can’t remember any other time, when I was a teenager, that I saw flags that way.
Today, it seems, flags are almost permanently at half-staff.
The tribute is awarded to former police officers, firefighters and town employees, as well as every Connecticut resident killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the soldiers’ cases, the flag remains at half-staff until after the burial.
I do not want to diminish anyone’s death — not the men and women who served our town, or those from our state who gave their lives serving our country.
But I can’t help wondering whether flying flags at half-staff so often doesn’t diminish their deaths in some way. Most of the time, we don’t know who’s being honored. There’s no one to tell us, so we ignore the symbolism. Half-staff flags become part of the scenery.
I know many “06880” readers will disagree. I’m not even sure I agree with myself.
But — in true American spirit — let the debate begin.
“06880” is not the only blog to give a shout-out to the New York Times story on hovering parents.
“Gawker” took note too. Here’s a response from a reader named “Admiral_Awesome”:
An aunt of mine is a complete and total combination cool-mom-syndrome/helicopter parent, although she’d never admit to it in a million years, and gets really angry when you say that to her. Her family lives in Westport Connecticut….
She rented out a nightclub and hired strippers for her younger sons Bar Mitzvah, lets the kids and all their friends drink and smoke pot openly at their house, threw a 400-guest fully catered graduation party with an open bar and cocktail waitresses, they each get a new car every year… you get the idea.
Anyway, the dad is pretty much an absentee … more concerned with his tennis club and social circle than his wife (my aunt), so the older son was always kind of a surrogate to her, running errands, doing household stuff, and generally treated like the man of the house. When he had to go off to college … she was completely devastated and he was intensely homesick. She had his entire dorm room redecorated in the style of Van Wilder meets Ralph Lauren, and got an apartment near the school to make visits easier. Yeah.
Its gotten a bit better since then, but at this point he’s a complete neurotic wreck in general, losing his hair at age 20 and living entirely on Adderall, marijuana and Pepsi. He also decided he was gay. And a Republican. He’s a gay Republican. Although that isn’t such a shocker, as our family is very conservative in general. Its just a little hilarious.
Fact or fiction? “06880” — which hears plenty of stories — has never heard this one.
But the fact that “Gawker” — with millions of page views a month, it’s even bigger than “06880” — would provide a nationally known platform for this Westport tale shows what the world is saying about us.
As of yesterday, no one had posted an anti-Westport remark in the “Comments” section. I guess “06880” readers are not also “Gawker” fans.
Like many Westporters, I read with both horror and fascination yesterday’s New York Times story on parental over-involvement.
Titled “Students, Welcome to College; Parents, Go Home,” it detailed the many ways in which moms and dads are unable to say goodbye after taking their freshmen sons and daughters to college.
The story described the mother who planned to “hang around for a while in Princeton for her son just in case.” In case what? In case he suddenly had a brain malfunction, and was no longer smart enough to figure his way around an Ivy League campus?
It told of a mother who — dreading separation since “the umbilical cord falls off” — read books about the stages of grief.
And — just so regular Times-reading parents don’t feel bad — it ended with an anecdote about a father who made reservations at a B-and-B near campus, so he could take his daughter to breakfast after her first night at college. The kicker: He himself is vice president of student affairs at another school.
Preparation for college begins in high school.
The timing of the piece was not coincidental. This is the time of year when hundreds of Westport parents take their children young adults to college. They (the parents) are filled with far more anxiety, I bet, than their sons and daughters.
It’s an instructive story too for parents of Staples students. I am fully aware that with no kids of my own, I can’t understand the need to hang around “just in case.” Or read books on grief.
But I do spend many hours each day with teenagers. I do know that when my generation went off to college, our parents bolted as soon as they unpacked the last box of albums (music). And the fact that we called once a week (Sundays, for some reason) did not mean our relationships were any less real.
My perspective is limited. But this is my blog, so I’m going to share that perspective, through one piece of advice. It’s applicable, I think, to students in a broad array of activities at Staples.
If your son or daughter forgets something, you don’t have to drop everything to deliver it. If it’s sports equipment, he’ll figure something out — like borrowing from a teammate. Or he’ll sit out that day, and probably never forget it again.
If it’s homework, she’ll learn how to communicate with a teacher, person to person. She’ll learn the art of compromise, or perhaps the lesson that actions have consequences. And one late assignment will not mean the difference between admission to Princeton, and rejection. Trust me on this.
Sports is a great area in which to learn life lessons. So are Staples Players, music, Inklings, and of course the classroom.
I realize this is a sensitive topic. Every time parents take charge of their child’s life — or try to ease the burden on their kids’ already stressful, fully scheduled lives — they have what sounds like a valid reason to do so.
But in the end, that doesn’t help their son or daughter grow, mature and develop.
Education takes many forms. Despite its stellar faculty, Staples offers infinite opportunities for parents to be the best teachers their children ever had.
Let them figure things out for themselves. You’ve already given them roots; now let them flap their wings.
If you do, when you drop them off at college — 1, 2, 3 or 4 years from now — you may still leave with tears in your eyes.
But hopefully without grief in your heart.
Farmers like to grow things. They don’t like to market, advertise and transport them.
Bill Taibe likes to cook. He loves using local ingredients — the fresher the better.
The convergence of area farmers and Taibe is good news for diners — and not just fans of Le Farm, Taibe’s Colonial Green restaurant that earns raves for showcasing market-based food cooked and presented in a homey, comfortable and very sustainable atmosphere.
Bill Taibe wears his convictions on his chest.
Thanks to RSA — “Restaurant Supported Agriculture,” a concept that Taibe knows needs a zippier name — 5 local restaurants now offer the best in local products. Banding together, they guarantee farmers a market for their goods.
Promising to buy takes pressure off the farmers. They reciprocate by planting what the chefs request. Make no mistake: It’s not just lettuce, tomatoes and corn anymore.
Taibe — who built 2 previous restaurants on the barter system, and admits he “may have been born in the wrong century” — explains that RSA is based on the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model currently enjoyed by many Westporters at the Wakeman Town Farm.
RSA is less structured –shares are not bought in advance from farmers — but the concept is similar.
Once a week — via the Green Village Initiative — 5 restaurants (Le Farm, the Boathouse and Dressing Room in Westport, plus Wilton’s Schoolhouse and Fat Cat Pie Company in Norwalk) receive a list from local growers of whatever’s ripe.
By 4 p.m. each Monday the chefs respond with their own list: what they want.
The farmers pick the crops on Tuesday morning; by 2:30 that afternoon GVI volunteers have gathered it, transported it back to Wakeman Farm, and it’s ready for pick-up by the restaurateurs.
“We sit around there for half an hour talking, eating each other’s tomatoes, and sharing ideas,” Taibe says. “It’s fantastic. Do you know how hard it is to get 5 chefs together any time?”
Then they head back to their restaurants, to cook.
Taibe enjoys working with RSA partners. “There’s a lot of jealousy and competition in this business,” he admits. “But people don’t eat at just 1 restaurant. They go to other places. I prefer they go to places with like-minded owners and chefs.”
Taibe gives huge props to GVI. “They get nothing out of this, other than fulfilling their passion. I only wish to be so good-hearted.”
He also loves the “circular economy” that RSA helps develop.
“This gives hard-working farmers a guaranteed place to sell their products,” Taibe says. “If we can get them delivered to us, they can stay and do what they do best. And not worry about the rest.”
The Hickories in Ridgefield and Stone Gardens in Shelton are RSA’s 1st mainstay farms. Soon, Taibe hopes to add milk, cheeses — and maybe protein and livestock — to the list of farms.
Right now, he says, “We need farmers to trust us, so they can plant what we want. Everyone today grows a lot of the little stuff — kale, bell peppers, whatever’s safe. We want to branch out.
“The key is for us to guarantee we’ll purchase what they buy.”
He hopes to continue the concept through the winter. “Farmers have greenhouses,” he notes. “We’ll keep getting products from around the state.”
RSA is, Taibe says, “a really simple formula. It’s sure to grow.”
And, like all the food prepared and served so freshly and creatively at the 5 RSA restaurants, it will grow with love, care and goodness.
The house on the Mill Pond, by Clark Hanford
Cottages. Wooden bridges. Ducks, egrets, herons, gulls, swans, cormorants. And the Mill Pond itself.
It’s an artist’s dream, and from dawn mist to dusky sunset, folks are out there painting.
Now everyone can see their work.
Clark Hanford — painter, sculptor and Old Mill resident — has gathered several other artists together. This Saturday (Aug. 28, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), they’ll present an outdoor exhibit of their work.
The show — highlighting the infinite moods of Old Mill and Compo Cove — takes place at Hanford’s home: 31 Old Mill.
You can’t ask for a better curator. A 1962 Staples graduate, Hanford has been a working artist for over 4 decades.
“Although I sometimes saw people painting on the beach, I’d be busy in my studio doing portraits or sculpting,” he says.
“I just enjoy being here. I don’t have a need to paint it.”
But this winter — when it was cold and nasty, and he vowed to do something special when if summer finally arrived — Hanford decided to paint outside. Then he hit on the idea of a little show.
Scouting for artists with different styles and points of view, he found talented folks like Cornelia Gaines Olsen, Judy Katz and Bobbi Eike Mullen.
Once upon a time, Westport was an “artists’ colony.” On Saturday, the special colony of Old Mill honors the artists who honor it.
Old Mill Beach, by Clark Hanford
The world, says Paula Poundstone, is just waking up from a giant party. There are pizza crusts and broken bottles all around. We had a good time last night, but this morning we all have to pitch in and clean up — however we can.
That’s an analogy, of course. But she continues it by offering her own method: comedy.
Paula Poundstone
Poundstone is a comedian with impeccable credentials: regular panelist on NPR’s sassy news quiz show, “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me“; 1st woman to perform at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; star of her own show on HBO and ABC.
She brings her act to Westport on Friday, Sept. 10 (9 p.m., Levitt Pavilion). It’s Homes with Hope‘s 3rd annual benefit.
So what’s it like to be spectacularly funny at an event to ease homelessness?
“People come to be entertained,” she says. “The fact that it’s for a good cause is icing on the cake. If people didn’t want to see me or another comedian, they’d just send in a check.”
Her act combines stand-up with audience interaction. “Don’t call it improv,” she warns. “That’s too high-falutin’. Say that it’s ‘unplanned.’ A lot of stuff unfolds from talking with the crowd.”
Poundstone lives in California, but she grew up in Massachusetts and looks forward to returning to New England. She doesn’t know much about Westport, though she knows it’s near Stew Leonard’s. “He’s got that petting zoo and milk thing, right?” she asks.
The first person tor recognize her comedic talents was her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bump. “What a great name,” she marvels. “If Charles Dickens knew anything about kindergarten, he’d have named a teacher Mrs. Bump.”
Told that a Mr. Bump — Fred — was a long-time science teacher in Westport, she wonders if he is part of “the famous Bump teaching dynasty.”
Comedy Central named Poundstone one of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. She’s honored, but pays homage to stars who paved the way for her. “In my home, we very much value the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, and Bob and Ray,” she says.
They’re all good — but none has Paula Poundstone’s 21st-century sensibility. On Sept. 10, Westporters will enjoy her razor-sharp wit first hand.
And help a great cause, while laughing very, very hard.
(Tickets are $45 and $100. Pre-show festivities — including cocktails, catering an an auction — are open to all sponsors and $100 ticket holders, beginning at 7 p.m. For tickets and more information, click here or call 203-226-3426.
Posted in Entertainment, Organizations, People
Tagged Comedy Central, homelessness, Homes With Hope, Paula Poundstone, Stew Leonard's
Avid “06880” reader Bill Scheffler liked last year’s list of long-gone, much-loved (or, conversely, quickly forgotten) Westport restaurants.
He responded with a list of his own: old local hotels.
It was a great, blog-worthy idea. I was going to run it — honest, I was — but I guess 21st-century life intruded.
Back in the day -- and in another location -- this was the original Westport Inn.
I found Bill’s email the other day. Because bygone buildings have no sell-by date, his list is as fresh as ever.
Bill begins by noting our most recent hotel closing — the Inn at National Hall — along with the Westport Inn’s predecessor, the New Englander.
That’s too easy. Here are others. Some may be dimly recalled by old-time Westporters; others may be lost in the shrouds of time to all. In alphabetical order, they are:
Beachside Inn: Described by Bill as “a large, impressive oceanfront Victorian building in Green’s Farms.”
Compo Inn: Edward Nash bought the old Christ Church on what was then West Church Street (now Ludlow Road), up the hill from Post Road West — now condos — and turned it into a summer hotel. He added a restaurant (Tony’s), which became a popular hangout.
Golden Door: One of several motels located on the Westport-Norwalk stretch of the Post Road. A few remain (in Norwalk), though from the looks of them I’m guessing you pay by the hour, not the day.
Hawthorne Inn: Located at the southeast corner of the Post Road and Compo Road South (current site of Patriot Bank).
Jassil’s Penguin Hotel and Shorehouse: Known familiarly as The Penguin, even after it became the Miramar and then the Sound View Hotel. An Art Deco landmark on Hillspoint Road — just beyond the I-95 and railroad bridges — it was believed (by my young friends and I, long after its heyday) — to be a bawdy place that, remarkably, rhymed with “shorehouse.”
Mathewson’s Tourist Cabins: A tourist guide listed it as “near the Greyhound Terminal and the Beaches.” Well, the bus depot was in the building where (most recently) the Peppermill stood. And “the beaches” haven’t moved. So I’m not exactly sure where one would have found Mathewson’s Tourist Cabins.
Open Door Inn: Later known as the General Putnam Inn, this was razed to make way for the current police station.
Pine Knoll: Perhaps more of a boardinghouse than a hotel, this old Victorian mansion stood in what is now Playhouse Square (behind the old Derma Clinic). It was owned by the Kemper family, who also owned the tannery that became the adjacent Westport Country Playhouse.
Westport Inn (the original): A guidebook called this, somewhat ungrammatically, “AAA’s only accredited inn at Westport, Conn. Center of Art Colony.” It’s still standing — the white building at the rear of Colonial Green. But it’s been moved twice from its original location, on the southeast corner of the Post Road and Imperial Avenue. The 1st move was to the front of Colonial Green, where Webster Bank now sits.
Thanks, Bill, for the trip down Memory Lane. Which may one of the few places in Westport to never house a hotel.
Posted in Looking back, Places
Tagged the Inn at National Hall, Westport hotels, Westport Inn
Cocoa Michelle — the downtown location, that is — is closing. Its last day is tomorrow (Friday).
The coffee-and-chocolates shop has many fans — though not enough, apparently.
Perhaps one of the reasons for its demise is this:
A while ago, I wanted a non-Starbucks place for an early morning meeting with a friend. He works near downtown, so Cocoa Michelle seemed like an obvious (okay, the only) choice. We planned to meet there at 8 a.m.
It wasn’t open.
We went to Starbucks instead — and spent our walk over wondering how and why a coffee place is not open at 8.
Have you always wanted to play baseball in Yankee Stadium?
Tough luck. Unless you’re a major leaguer, you can’t.
But there’s always Harbor Yard.
Thanks to a group of enterprising Staples students, on Labor Day (Sept. 6) you can not only play baseball at the cozy Bridgeport field — you’ll help raise money for A Better Chance of Westport (ABC) too.
Jordan Glick, Jesse Heussner, Dan Hirschberg, Jake Hirschberg and Erik Sawyer are Staples students who have been friends since elementary school. Jordan, Jesse, Dan and Jake play on the tennis team; Erik is on the baseball squad.
Modeling a similar program event run by Dan’s parents, the teenagers have planned a charity baseball/softball event. From 1-5 p.m., self-organized teams will compete against each other in friendly games, on the same field used by the Bridgeport Bluefish.
(From left) Jake Hirschberg, Jordan Glick, Jesse Heussner, Dan Hirschberg and Erik Sawyer take a break from planning their big Harbor Yard event.
Beyond baseball and softball, fun events are planned for younger children on and off the field, between and during innings.
The Staples athletes chose ABC for 100% of all donations because it’s local, important, part of their daily school life, and always in need of funds. “If anyone deserves money, it’s the hard-working kids at ABC House,” the organizers say.
The 4 boys hope for participation from local men’s softball teams, the Staples baseball and softball teams, ABC scholars and donors — and anyone else who “wants to have a good time on the field, and give back to the community at the same time.”
All players will receive a complimentary jersey, and food and drinks will be available for everyone all day long.
(Recommended donations are $250 per adult, and $100 per youth under 18. To register a team — or simply donate to the event, by check made out to “ABC” — contact Danny Hirschberg, 5 Boxwood La., Westport, CT 06880. For more information, email: abcfantasybaseball@gmail.com)
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