If it’s New Year’s, it’s time to … get rid of the Christmas tree.
It can be disposed of online — well, the registration is done that way, anyway. Scout Troops 39 and 139 will happily pick up yours. Click here for the form.
You’ll get a confirmation email. Then, this Saturday (January 7 — by 6:30 a.m.), put your tree by your mailbox.
There’s a suggestion donation of $20 per tree. Tape an envelope with cash or check (payable to “Boy Scout Troop 39”) to your front door.
NOTE: All Christmas trees are mulched into wood chips, and donated to the town. So no wreaths or garlands (the wires ruin the machinery).
Also seen at Compo Beach: this message to “rock” (ho ho) 2023.
It’s the handiwork of Ross and Wendy McKeon. And the “rock” part can be taken literally: They’re the parents of 2000 Staples High School graduate Drew McKeon. Among his many talents, he’s the longtime drummer in fellow Westporter Michael Bolton’s band.
Yesterday’s Roundup included a photo of a utility pole on Hillandale Road. An “06880” reader explained why it’s hard to get broken ones fixed, or obsolete wires or cables removed.
The example shown was hardly the worst. Michael Lonsdale noticed more, on the short stretch of Kings Highway North between Main and Canal Streets.
(Photos/Michael Lonsdale)
It will not be easy to address the issue. Each pole has multiple “owners” — Eversource, Altice and Frontier, for example.
Low hanging wires and excess poles are low priorities. They’re prime candidates for buck-passing.
But the lower the wires droop, and the more old poles tilt and rot, the more dangerous they are.
When they come down in a storm, excess poles and obsolete cables make clean-up that much harder.
Our electric and telecom companies have lots to do. Removing unsightly — even dangerous — wires and poles are not at the top of their lists.
And unlike weeds or brush, this is not something we can take in our own hands.
Thoughts? Click “Comments” below. Please be constructive, not nasty. And be sure to use your full, real name.
It’s winter in Westport. Plenty of folks are dreaming of Hawaii.
The Orphenians will actually go there.
Well, not until June. But Staples High School’s elite a cappella choral group is already making plans. And rehearsing.
And raising funds.
The trip to the International Luau of Song Festival, with director Luke Rosenberg and conductor Pearl Shangkuan of Calvin College, will include learning about cultural music, performing, and touring on both Oahu and the Big Island.
All 42 Orphenians are going. They’ve set a goal of $45,000, to cover expenses of those who cannot afford it all.
So think leis and grass skirts, and get ready for an “Aloha Cabaret.” It’s set for January 22, at the Westport Library.
Broadway and Metropolitan Opera star, Tony Award-winning Kelli O’Hara — a Westporter, and Orphenians fan — will perform. Choral alumni like Clay Singer, Georgia Wright and others joins her on stage.
Rosenberg will sing too. For those who know him only from the back, as he wields his baton, that’s a special treat.
The emcee is David Pogue. Among many other talents, the “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent is a former Broadway arranger and conductor (and father of Orphenians).
A silent auction includes an array of items, from Caribbean stays and jewelry to lessons and coaching. There are Hawaiian-themed light bites too.
Just what we need for a cold — but also very cool — January night.
(VIP tickets are $225 per person; they include 6 p.m. early entry, choice seating, and a meet-and-greet with performers. General admission tickets are $150 per person, for 6:30 p.m. entry. Click here to purchase. To make a donation without purchasing, click here. Questions? Email Staples.Music.Parents.Assn@gmail.com.)
Click below for the Orphenians’ most recent Westport Library event. They performed holiday music, and selections from their fall concert.
My Christmas gift to Photo Challenge enthusiasts last Sunday was posting an easy image.
Eric Bosch’s shot showed 4 empty chairs, in a row on the ground. (Click here to see.)
As readers quickly interrupted their holiday meals to note, they’re by the Saugatuck River at Riverside Park (near the Riverside Avenue/Saugatuck Avenue split).
They were there before the spot was renovated. They’re there still, providing new and old visitors alike with a calming view up and down the waterway.
Congratulations, and a time of Santa’s hat to Mark Soboslai, Mark Mathias, Cathy Walsh, Andrew Colabella, Ralph Balducci, Susan Katz, Johanna Keyser Rossi, Peggy O’Halloran, Bill Christiaanse, Linda Vita Velez and Joelle Malec, for nailing last week’s challenge.
This week’s photo shows (obviously) an AED. There are dozens of the life-saving devices, in schools and public places around town.
The question is: Where — based on the skimpy cropping on the sides — would you find this particular one?
A second question is: Why on earth would there be a lock on it, with a sign saying “Call 911 for Code”? In a situation where every second counts, fumbling for your phone, making that call, waiting for a dispatcher and then waiting longer for a code before unlocking the combination — could be the difference between life and death.
If there was a concern about theft: I can’t imagine someone stealing an AED.
And if they would: Well, karma’s a bitch.
Thank goodness someone had the smarts to open this lock before it’s needed.
As the New Year begins with bang here, we think of our friends in Westport’s sister city of Lyman.
They greet 2023 in homes without heat — in some cases, even roofs and walls.
They lack electricity and running water. Their police and fire departments have no vehicles.
Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of “06880” readers, they’ve gotten some help. They had homemade meals on Christmas, and all 491 children left in Lyman got gifts.
They need much more. We set an audacious goal of $250,000. In just 13 days, we’ve raised $227,700.
How’s this for our New Year’s resolution: We’ll raise that final $22,300 today.
If every Westport resident gave $1, that would get us over the top. That’s right: With just $1 from every Westporter, we’d reach and pass our target for Lyman.
Come on, Westport! Take 2 minutes from watching football, getting ready for a party or beach walk, or whatever else makes life here so good.
There’s no better way to ring in 2023 than with $1 for our sister city.
Tax-deductible donations can be made to Lyman through Ukraine Aid International. Pleaseclick here. Click the “I want to support” box; then select “Support for the City of Lyman.” Scroll down on that page for other tax-deductible donation options (mail, wire transfer and Venmo). You can also donate directly, via Stripe (click here).
PS: Our partners on the ground, Ukraine Aid International — co-founded by Westporters Brian and Marshall Mayer — are purchasing building supplies right now for Lyman. They will be shipped soon to the town.
Barbara Walters — the pioneering newscaster and interviewer who died Friday at 93 — inspired countless aspiring journalists. Many were girls.
Alisyn Camerota was one. The author, “CNN Newsroom” anchor and Westport resident described Walters’ early influence, in an opinion pieces posted on CNN+ yesterday.
“Whenever people ask me about the moment I decided to become a broadcast journalist, I explain that it happened in utero,” Camerota begins.
How did that happen? Click here to read the full piece.
Howard Simon, a longtime resident of Weston, died Friday after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 90 years old.
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Howard studied business administration at the University of Minnesota, and was a member of Phi Epsilon fraternity.
He joined his family’s manufacturing business, Simon and Mogilner, in Birmingham, Alabama where he directed sales and marketing before becoming CEO. Howard then worked as an early pioneer in financing for cellular communications and independent TV stations, before representing Major League Baseball players as an agent.
Howard was an avid tennis player and sports fan, and loved his monthly poker game. He followed politics and current events with keen interest. He was a mentor and advisor who was always happy to provide advice and business guidance. Above all, his family says, “he was known for his affable personality, engaging everyone he met with Midwestern charm.”
He is survived by his wife Amy Simon; daughters Katherine McCarty (Matthew) and Lisa Simon Bailey (Jeff); sons Matthew, David (Andrea) and James, and grandchildren Ross and Evan Simon, Marshall Bailey, and Reed and Kira McCarty. Howard was predeceased by his brothers Jerrold and Ronald, and his son Bruce.
Funeral services will be held Wednesday (January 4, 11 a.m., Abraham Green & Son, Fairfield). Memorial contributions may be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Howard’s family is grateful to the staff at Jewish Senior Services of Bridgeport, who cared for him with great compassion and kindness.
… and wrote: “For all the money we pay to Eversource, you would think they would not include a 5-6-foot extra pole about 2/3 up an existing one pole.”
I’ve learned not to fire first and ask questions later. So I forwarded this to my utility “source” — er, expert.
He replied:
Poles in Westport are 95+% owned and installed by Eversource as the custodian utility. Across Connecticut the ratio is 50/50. Eversource has half and Frontier half, as owners and custodians.
There is no joint agreement on attaching or shifting wires and equipment on and off of poles. The company that owns them installs, maintains and removes the attachments’to each overhead wood pole.
Now comes the tricky/frustrating part. When a pole is damaged or replaced, the custodian does the pole setting/replacement, but each “owner” of the attachments (wires, transformers, streetlights, etc.) does the work to shift their equipment onto the new pole,
In this photo, the top primary voltage electric wire (sitting on the gray transformer) belongs to Eversource, so they set them onto the new pole. The bottom of the transformer has secondary (120 volt) wires running to the left and right from the transformer — owned and installed by Eversource as well.
The next wire down just below is a telecom (Optimum’s?) wire with a roundish spreader (left side of pole), but attached to the new pole. Now come the last 2 wires going down the photo, both telecom wires, likely owned by Frontier … and still attached to that 3-foot long piece of the old pole, dangling in the air!
From my experience it’s likely to remain like that for months, because it’s low (very low!) priority for the company that owns those telecom wires.
So advise your reader that it’s not Eversource’s problem!
Then he added a PS:
Look at every pole you pass by just in this town alone. Count how many “double” poles there are — not just a piece of a pole dangling 15 feet up, but the entire old pole, from the ground up to the top telecom wires.
I’d guess something around 1 in 20 or 30 poles will have one of these hideous double poles. And some lean out from the new straight (and usually sturdier pole), looking a bit precarious.
Take a look. You’ll be amazed!
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Westporters don’t always get along.
Nor do other animals.
Perhaps — as the new year begins — we should take a page from today’s “Westport … Naturally” photo.
For a while now, “06880” has rung in the new year with an iconic photo: The “blue marble” image of Earth, suspended in space.
Taken by Apollo 17 astronauts in December 1972, for half a century it’s symbolized the beauty and fragility of our planet, and the interconnectedness of us all.
This year, I’m going intergalactic.
In the 5 months since the James Webb Space Telescope beamed its first pictures back to us, the world has been mesmerized.
We thought we knew how vast and amazing the universe is.
Now, we realize, we don’t know the half — or the hundredth, or squintillionth — of it.
Gazing at photos like the one above, we realize how insignificant we truly are. Our planet is just one grain of sand, on an obscure beach, in an out-of-the-way location.
We really don’t matter at all.
Except to us.
Take a look at that photo again.
That landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region in the Carina Nebula. For the first time, we see stars being born.
We look billions of light years into the past. That’s crazy stuff.
So — back here on Earth, in our tiny Zip code in our small state in our big country in our average-sized planet — we have to wonder: What actually matters?
Is it whether the new building in Saugatuck is 5 stories tall, or only 4? Is it a tile mural? Is it the inconvenience of traffic on our roads, or whether certain books should be banned in school libraries, or kept?
The answer is: Yes.
These things matter.
They matter because they are part of our lives here in Westport. Sure, the universe seems endless, we still can’t really conceive of the fourth dimension, and our universe itself may be part of another, “living” life form.
In other words, the Westport — and the world — we know may just be atoms in an infinitely more complex something-or-other.
But all that’s for another day (or time).
Meanwhile, we’re looking for the answers to life out there. But right now, it’s our own lives to lead, right here in “06880.”
Let’s lead them well.
And so … bringing us back to what we know best … here’s that beautiful blue marble, once more.
As the year ends, Westporters look back on a tough one. COVID is still hanging around. The stock market plummeted. Our nation is politically divided.
Compared to Ukraine though, we live on Easy Street.
Our new sister city of Lyman is entering its 10th month of hell. The Russians are gone after 5 months of occupation. But they left devastation behind.
Buildings lack roofs and walls. There is virtually no electricity or heat. Fire trucks and police cars were demolished. Debris is everywhere.
You can click here to read the latest devastating news, from yesterday’s New York Times. (This news just in: Earlier today, a Russian missile hit the police station. Only 2 patrol cars are left in the town.)
You can see some brutal images too — taken, coincidentally, by Westport native/Staples High School graduate/Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Tyler Hicks.
A Lyman firefighter battles a blaze with just a trickle of water, in bitter cold. (Photo/Tyler Hicks for the New York Times)
On this final day of 2022, please help Westport’s drive to help Lyman.
Our goal is $250,000. As of yesterday — less than 2 weeks after we began — we’ve raised $219,200. Wouldn’t it be great to reach our target today?
Tax-deductible donations can be made to Lyman through Ukraine Aid International — the non-profit co-founded by Westporter Brian Mayer. Pleaseclick here. Click the “I want to support” box; then select “Support for the City of Lyman.” Scroll down on that page for other tax-deductible donation options (mail, wire transfer and Venmo). You can also donate directly, via Stripe (click here).
When blandly named but popular Westport Chinese Takeout closed in October, it left a void in Saugatuck.
That’s where — decades earlier — the original Arrow Restaurant began. (The name comes from the angle of the road, where Franklin Street meets Saugatuck Avenue.) When it outgrow that location, the Arrow moved around the corner to Charles Street.
Work has begun on Lomito. The windows are still papered over. But there are new steps, and a spiffy logo. Two signs promise: “Opening soon.”
Connecticut Magazine is out with their annual “40 Under 40” list.
Among the 40 people under 40 years old who are “changing the game in Connecticut and beyond”: Westporters Drew Angus and Julia Marino.
The writeup on Angus — a 2007 Staples High School graduate — says:
Finding success as a musician is not easy, explains this Bridgeport-based and Westport-raised singer-songwriter. “In this business, behind all the accomplishments and successes are many more unsuccessful projects and ideas that just never quite worked out,” Angus says. “It takes a certain kind of drive and a sick love for things not working out to be successful in creative ventures like music.”
Fortunately for him and fans of music everywhere, Angus has that drive, as his easy-to-listen-to, melodic New Americana music propelled him to be a finalist on American Idol in 2016. He’s also shared the stage with Harry Styles and Nile Rogers on Saturday Night Live, as well as Pat Benatar, Ann Wilson of Heart, and Andrea Bocelli. He has also toured with Marc Broussard and last summer impressed his hometown music fans with a set at Sound on Sound festival in Bridgeport.
When asked what advice he has for aspiring songwriters, he urges artists to not over-revise their work. “Finish those songs and put them out,” he says. “There’s a point of diminishing returns when changing lyric, melody or mix on a song no longer makes it better but just different or actually worse. Sometimes version one is actually the magic take.”
Drew Angus
For Olympic silver medalist Marino, it reads:
Lots of notable folks can boast about throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for a Red Sox game at fabled Fenway Park, including slopestyle and Big Air snowboarder and Westport native Marino. But she also has bragging rights none of those others can touch. In 2016, Marino, then an 18-year-old World Cup newcomer, replaced an injured teammate to compete in the Polartec Big Air event held at Fenway Park … and won.
A hit at Fenway, she returned to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in 2017, and again for a Red Sox-Yankees game in August 2022. Eighteen was a good age for Marino, who that year also became the first woman to land a double in slopestyle competition, according to her U.S. Ski & Snowboard team bio, landing two in the same run, a cab double underflip and a double backflip. Marino is most famous, of course, for winning a silver medal in women’s slopestyle at the 2022 Beijing Olympics (slopestyle is snowboarding down a course filled with terrain-park features and obstacles like rails and jumps.)
Also a 2018 Olympian and a seven-time X Games medalist, Marino loves photography, making videos, and spending time outdoors with her family and dog.
Julia Marino, on the Olympic podium.
Click here for the full Connecticut Magazine “40 Under 40.”
Matt Murray noticed all these shoes lined up at Old Mill Beach.
(Photo/Matt Murray)
There was no one nearby. No one swimming.
Who owns them? Why are they there?
Maybe it’s part of SyFy’s annual “Twilight Zone” marathon. The annual event — an homage to the show and its creator, former Westporter Rod Serling — began at 5 a.m. today. It runs through 4 a.m. on Tuesday.
Click here for the full schedule. (In case you’re wondering: “A Stop at Willoughby” — the classic Westport-themed episode — airs Monday, at 5 p.m.)
Congratulations to Dr. Cindy Dunbar. The 1976 Staples High School graduate was recently inducted into the National Academy of Medicine.
A Harvard graduate who specializes in hematology, she’s had an amazing career. Click here for an in-depth interview. (She begins with her youth in Westport — and her interest in music and theater. It continues to this day.)
Click here for a more scientifically oriented piece. (Hat tip: Ed Stalling)
And finally … who needs Guy Lombardo (or Dan Fogelberg), when we’ve got Mariah Carey?!
(The year is not yet over! You’ve still got a few hours to support “06880” — and, because we’re a non-profit, take a tax write-off. Please click here. Thank you!)
Our final online art gallery of 2022 looks back (at Hanukkah), forward (at 2023), and — as always — in every other direction.
As we say all year long, every year: 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, collages, macramé, jewelry, sculpture, decoupage and (yes) needlepoint — whatever you’ve got, email it to 06880blog@gmail.com. Share your work with the world!
“The Last Night of Hanukkah” (Karen Weingarten)
“Bunny, It’s Cold Outside!” (Mike Hibbard)
Untitled abstract (Tom Doran)
“Watching the RTM” (Lawrence Weisman)
“When a Rolls Really Was a Rolls” — 1921 Silver Ghost Tourer (Peter Barlow)
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)
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