If you haven’t been to The Porch @ Christie’s, you might not have seen the brightly colored painting of flowers and bees on the side of the ice cream kiosk.
That was last week’s Photo Challenge. Lynn Untermeyer Miller, Cia Marion, Andrew Colabella, Lou Mall and Jennifer Zorick-Pressman all knew exactly where to find that artwork (which, as Lou noted, was created by 2015 Staples High School graduate Jessica Spector).
Here’s my follow-up challenge: If you haven’t been to The Porch @ Christie’s: Why not? The bakery/deli/and more (ice cream!) spot on Cross Highway is a popular spot not for coffee, breakfast, lunch or dinner, but for meeting friends and hanging out.
Plus, they employ people with disabilities — and get their baked goods from Sweet P Bakery, which does the same.
If you haven’t been to The Porch on Cross Highway: go!
And when you’re there, check out the painting on the ice cream stand.
This week’s Photo Challenge is timely. If you know where in Westport you’d see this, click “Comments” below.
With fall foliage at its peak, Aspetuck Land Trust recommends several great hikes. Two are in Westport.
Caryl & Edna Haskins Preserve is tucked away off Compo Road South. Gentle flat trails circle both ponds. They’re great spots to observe wildlife, and beautiful foliage colors reflecting off the water. A wooded trail near the brook is moderately steep. Click here for the back story on Haskins Preserve.
The red trail through the Newman Poses Preserve (off Bayberry Lane) winds through a wetland on a boardwalk to a meadow marked by large bayberry bushes. Through the meadow towards the lowlands lies the Aspetuck River. A favorite spot for quiet contemplation is the stone bench on the riverbank where neighbor Paul Newman enjoyed floating. The trail loops back by the meadow, into the uplands and back to its starting point.
Trout Brook Valley Conservation Area in Weston is ALT’s biggest preserve: 1,009 acres, with 20 miles of trails. For the best views, start at the orchard. Hike to the highest point; then look south all the way to the Sound and Long Island.
Click here for full details on Aspetuck Land Trust’s preserves.
Cris Jacobs and his band returned to Westport last night for a long-awaited return of the “Supper & Soul” series.
The event — sponsored by the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce — included a concert at the Westport Library. It was sandwiched in between a 3-course dinner at participating restaurants, and post-concert drinks.
A large crowd enjoyed the music, the food and beverages — and the return to normal entertainment, following the long COVID siege.
“Supper & Soul” at the Westport Library. (Photo/Dinkin Fotografix)
The Westport Country Playhouse production of “From the Mississippi Delta” explores the African American experience in the South, during the Great Migration and civil rights movement.
An insert in the program describes Westport’s role in the movement. An accompanying exhibit on the Great Migration of Blacks out of the South is on view at the Playhouse’s Lucille Lortel White Barn, weekdays from noon to 6 p.m. and on performance dates until intermission.
But the Playhouse also acknowledges current issues. Another insert urges theater-goers to support the Mississippi Rising Coalitions, which addresses the water crisis in Jackson. Click here for more information on that project.
Clck here for more information on “From the Mississippi Delta.” The show runs through October 30.
The cast of “Mississippi Delta” acknowledges applause, From left: Tameishia Peterson, Claudia Logan, Erin Margaret Pettigrew. (Photo/Dave Matlow)
If the weather is clear Tuesday, November 8, the Westport Astronomical Society will have telescopes available for the public to view the lunar eclipse. The observatory is at 182 Bayberry Lane, behind the Aspetuck Health District.
It’s from 4 to 6 a.m. — before the polls open. They’ll post on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Meetup if bad weather scraps their plan.
This is the first Election Day total lunar eclipse in US history. The next one won’t happen again until November 8, 2394. Chances are good you won’t be around for that one.
Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is perfectly safe to view == and lasts hours. The moon glides into earth’s shadow, and can be viewed over a large part of the planet.
It will turn a notable reddish color for 84 minutes, as the light from the sun passes through the earth’s atmosphere to reach the moon’s surface. This “blood moon” is the final total lunar eclipse visible from North America until 2025.
This partial lunar eclipse was photographed by Westport Astronomical Society member Carl Lancaster this past May.
And finally … on this day in 1998, a court supported the superintendent at Fort Zumwalt High School in St. Louis, and his decision that the marching band could not play “White Rabbit” in their act, because of its drug references.
(After your Aspetuck Land Trust preserve hike, thank “06880” for the suggestion. Contributions of any amount are welcome! Please click here to help.)
“06880” has performed many civic functions over the years.
We’ve told you where to get COVID vaccines (remember those?).
We’ve given you details on dumping your yard waste after a storm. We’ve provided primers on septic systems.
Today, we’re a Driver Ed teacher.
Alert “06880 reader — and terrified-to-be-on-the-road-these-days Westporter — Lynn Flint sends along these reminders of who has the right-of-way at 4-way stop signs.
Three examples: Hillspoint and Greens Farms Roads; Cross Highway and Bayberry Lane; Cross Highway and North Avenue (tricky, because one of the stops is not visible to all other drivers).
The North Avenue/Cross Highway intersection may be the most dangerous one in Westport without a light. Who goes first?
Here are the rules:
1. The first vehicle to arrive has the right of way. Pretty easy: You get there (clearly) first, you go first.
2. Always yield to the right. When 2 vehicles arrive side by side, the one furthest to the right has the right of way. (That’s “right” — an easy way to remember it.) If there are 3 vehicles, the one furthest left goes last (“left = last”).
3. Straight traffic has the right of way over turning traffic. This applies when 2 cars face each other. If they’re both heading straight, or turning in the same direction (say, both left or both right), both can go at the same time. If one is turning, but the other is not, the turning driver yields to the straight-ahead driver. NOTE: This assumes that a driver who is turning uses the turn signal. That’s the little arm on the steering column. It is not difficult to push up or down, and it is not there for decoration.
4. Right turns take the right of way over left turns. This is Advanced Placement Driver Ed. Imagine 2 cars facing each other. One is turning right; the other is turning left. If they both go at the same time, they’ll crash. So the car turning right — the one closest to the turn — goes first.
There is no written test for this — just a practical exam.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Among the lives we’ve lost: Westporter Lisa Laudico, in August.
Her friend Anne Craig says, “It was her dying wish, to help create awareness about metastatic breast cancer, nd continue her work supporting other women with the disease through research, grants, funding and love.”
A nonprofit — started in 2019 by a Madison woman, Roberta Lombardi — helps single mothers with MBC from underserved populations pay rent, and get gas , groceries and clothes for their children. Monthly grants of $1,000 change lives.
Audiences are very impressed with “From the Mississippi Delta.” The Westport Country Playhouse’s final production of 2022 ended previews yesterday. The official opening is tonight at 8.
The Pulitzer Prize-nominated play traces the story of one woman’s triumphant journey out of a difficult childhood in Mississippi, through the civil rights movement and beyond. It’s a gripping tale of resilience, and the human spirit.
The show runs through October 30. For more information and tickets, click here.
The cast of “Mississippi Delta” acknowledges applause last night. From left: Tameishia Peterson, Claudia Logan, Erin Margaret Pettigrew. (Photo and hat tip: Dave Matlow)
The latest twist in the bizarre yet compelling Hans Niemann-Magnus Carlsen chess saga:
Niemann is counterattacking. He is suing the world champion — who suggested that Niemann cheated in an upset victory — for defamation. You can read the latest here, from NPR.
And why is this “06880”-worthy?
For 2 years, Niemann — now 19 years old — attended Weston High School. He left after sophomore year.
Last week was gorgeous. But 15 artists, photographers, needle-pointers and necklace makers stayed inside long enough to send their submissions in to our online art gallery.
That’s the most ever, since this feature was born in the first lonely weeks of the pandemic.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now keep ’em coming!
Remember: This is your feature. All readers are invited to contribute. Age, level of experience, subject matter — there are no restrictions.
All genres are encouraged. Watercolors, oils, charcoal, pen-and-ink, acrylics, lithographs, macramé, jewelry, sculpture, decoupage and (yes) needlepoint — whatever you’ve got, email it to 06880blog@gmail.com. Share your work with the world!
“Fallen Leaves” (Karen Weingarten)
“Pumpkin Time” (June Rose Whittaker)
Diane Yormark’s “fall-themed” needlepoint.
“Silver Dollar Plant Harvest in Morning Light” (Linda Sugarman)
Artist Steve Stein says: “Every kindergartener has a nightmare that when they get to school ,,,’Every Cubby is Taken!'”
Photographer Lisa Tantillo was I was at Westoberfest last weekend, and saw a bubble machine. She snapped this photo before the bubble burst. She likes how “the event space (aka the Elm Street parking lot) is reflected in the bubble.”
“Vermont Village” (Lucy Johnson)
“The Reading Room” (Lawrence Weisman)
Untitled (Tom Doran)
“Whoa! It’s a Stutz Bearcat Roadster, 1920) (Peter Barlow)
Untitled — Lauri Weiser’s latest project
“Tuscany” (Werner Liepolt)
Untitled. Artist Sharon Paulsen says, “this is from the latest full moon. It is partially hidden behind trees at the right, but a brilliant star (planet) caught my eye on the left, so that was my focus.”
Untitled (Ann Chernow)
“Who Done It?” Photographer Mike Hibbard says, There is a quarter-mile long brushy hillside on our walking route, used as a dump by passersby traveling between the Post Road to Greens Farm Road. My wife and I periodically do a clean-up along that stretch. Here is our latest bounty. The good news is that in our entire 4-mile walk around our neighborhood, we found only one discarded plastic bag of puppy-poo. Thank you to the many dog walkers in our area.”
On Wednesday, my family and I discovered an offensive sticker placed on our “Black Lives Matter” sign. Someone came onto our property, and placed it there.
The sticker placed on a Westporter’s sign, on their property.
Whatever happened to civility? Difference of opinions? Discussion?
The values I was taught decades ago here in Westport, by family, church and school, are under assault, right here in “River City”!
I would happily sit and converse about our differences. We are proud to display our concern for civil rights, social justice, and defeating racism.
Our first BLM lawn sign was stolen. We reported it. The police came.
We replaced it immediately with a hand-painted sign, right after George Floyd was killed. It has stood on our front lawn since spring of 2020.
It’s our right to display our support of factual history, all people’s history being taught, and our concern over voter suppression, and violence.
The lawn sign, with its sticker.
I grew up in this town. The progress of civil rights has been my concern for decades, as it was and is for many Westporters.
What shocked me about this sticker assault was the personalized insult of the attack: “F—k you for voting for Biden.”
Really? I am a product of the Westport school system. I grew up in a time of stellar history and English teachers. We were taught to verify opinion with facts, support our statements with outside resources, discuss our differences and listen to one another — to speak our minds with passion, but also to respect differences.
Civility and civics were taught, along with the fundamental agreement that elections are decided by our democratic participation and voting.
My family moved to Westport in the 1940’s. As a long-time Westporter, I’m upset that someone came into our yard, defaced our sign and attacked our opinion.
I respect their right to vote the way they choose. But civil rights, expanding rather than shrinking voter registration, respecting proven vote results, and improving law enforcement training with sensitivity to racism and tactics to defuse conflicts are issues we care about deeply.
Want to have coffee and chat about those ideas? I do!
But this was a crude act of censorship, bullying and cowardice.
I remember when conservatives were not so fragile. This sticker is an attempt to erase our large message with a small and petty one.
Our hearts, minds, ideas and signs are bigger than this. We will continue to display our sign proudly, despite this act of shameless vandalism.
Due to the current climate, I have asked Dan to withhold my name.
(“06880” is proud to provide a forum for debating ideas like these. Please click here to support our work.)
In the aftermath of this morning’s lockdown at Staples High School, and a “shelter in place” order at Bedford Middle School, superintendent of schools Thomas Scarice provided this information:
This morning the Westport Police received a phone call indicating a potential threat at Staples High School. Although we have since learned that multiple schools across the state received the same threat, at the time, the response protocol warranted a thorough onsite evaluation of Staples, including an armed room by room threat assessment.
The incident began at 9:10 a.m. Westport’s Emergency Communications Center received a call from a person reporting an active shooter inside Staples High School.
The patrol and detective divisions as well as officers in administrative rolls immediately went to the school. As officers were responding they contacted the School Resource Officer, who said there was no indication of a problem at the location.
Despite the possibility of a hoax, the high school was placed on lockdown. Police proceeded as if there was an active threat.
Because police weapons were visible to students and staff, teachers were asked to focus on the social/emotional needs of students for the rest of the day. Emotional support was available for anyone who needed it.
Scarice added, “While this evaluation was conducted, all of the other schools in Westport were supported with an onsite police presence and put into place appropriate safety protocols.
“We are grateful for the swift response of our police department and the communication between the schools and WPD in handling this matter.
Nearly an hour after Staples High School went into lockdown this morning, an ambulance and police car sat outside the building. (Photo/Jim Honeycutt)
Connecticut is not the only state targeted for fake threats.
According to a Washington Post article last month — sent today to “06880” by reader Tracy Porosoff — “a troubling scenario” is happening in schools across the country. The story begins:
A call comes in about a shooting at the school. Someone has a gun. Police respond, only to discover the report was a hoax.
More than a dozen schools in Minnesota were targeted with “swatting” incidents, reports of a false shooter or mass-casualty event. Threats in Denver forced the city to shut down all 25 of its public library branches, and an area high school to cancel classes Wednesday amid a surge of hoaxes reported at schools across the state. A Texas teen was arrested for calling in a fake threat to a campus as a “joke,” prompting a warning from Fort Worth police against school hoaxes.
The calls are part of a trend that is disrupting school days, prompting lockdowns and further traumatizing communities already on edge. Although these threats are fake, the menace of real violence looms just months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Tex., elementary school…
Schools in 14 states — Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — have reported swatting incidents since Sept. 13, according to the national group of school resource officers.
With a 6-part HBO Max series and a newly published memoir, Paul Newman has been back in the spotlight lately.
Both include plenty of details about his half century in Westport.
It’s well known that Newman and his wife, fellow actor Joanne Woodward, found our town thanks to the Nike Sites.
Proposed at the height of the Cold War as missile defense systems to protect electronics manufacturing facilities in Bridgeport — with the missiles housed underground on North Avenue, and a launch center on Bayberry Lane — they were highly controversial. (Click here for the full back story.)
Westport writer Max Shulman wrote about the Nike Sites — the town’s reaction, and how it dealt with frisky GIs — in his novel Rally Round the Flag, Boys!
In 1958, the book became a movie. Newman and Woodward played characters based on town official Ralph Sheffer and his wife Betty. They soon moved here — and never left.
The defense system was outdated from the moment it opened. In 1960, control was transferred from the US Army to the National Guard. The Nike Sites were closed 3 years later.
The Bayberry Lane barracks are now the Aspetuck Health District office; behind it is the Westport Astronomical Society’s observatory. (Now it makes sense why those structures are there, right?)
A typical Nike site — much like the North Avenue one. Missiles were buried underground.
For years the North Avenue site — just north of Staples High School — was abandoned. In 1973, the US government transferred control of the land to the town.
Neither CNN nor Newman’s memoir mention what happened next.
The Westport Astronomical Observatory — the former Nike Site launch center on Bayberry Lane — in 1975.
On October 1 of that year, a ceremony was held. Paul Newman took part.
He called it “a great day for Westport.” The Staples band played a couple of tunes, including — inexplicably — “On Wisconsin” and Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4.”
Paul Newman (far left) at the Nike Site ceremony on October 1, 1973. From left: 2 unidentified men; 1st Selectman John Kemish. (Photo courtesy of Jim Kemish)
First Selectman John Kemish said, “The land once needed for war will now be dedicated to the pursuit of peace. The property will now be redeveloped by our Board of Education as a facility for our children.”
It took a while for that to happen.
A plan to create a “Workshop to Nike” for Staples students — with bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, storage space, dorm rooms and a dining hall for any school group to use — was never completed.
Project Adventure — a one-quarter physical education option — installed a ropes course, high wire and 30-foot balance beam there. It too was abandoned.
Generations of Staples graduates recall the Nike Site as an overgrown, unpatrolled area — perfect for teenage mischief, tantalizingly close to the school.
Finally, the town found good use for the land. Today — shorn of any trace of both the military and its then-derelict state — it is the site of Bedford Middle School.
Few people remember those days. Fewer still remember the Paul Newman connection.
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