Well honeybunch, jest like that it’s summer. Jest a couple o’ weeks ago, yew read my displeasure at the fack that it seemed like March decided to overstay it’s welcome by a month and a half. Heck in the week leading up to Memorial Day, the heat was on cuz the temps at night were in the 40s. Well, it seems that stretch is over, and the sun and fun can begin.
But that also means that the humidity and stickiness that we are sooooo used to around here are coming as well. Heck, Cobina was driving her gassamobuggy down Beach Street to take a gander at what was going on construction-wise (more about that later), and saw the haze hanging over the harbor. Not something one expecks to see in the first weeks of June, but better than damp and cold, I guess.
Of course, it being the nation’s 250th, thoughts are starting to think toward the annual fireworks display that’ll be on July 3 in these parts. Plans are up and running, we hear-tell, and Iyam sure in the next week or so we will see fire personnel manning several key intersections looking for drivers to “fill the boot” to help pay for the ‘works.
Also, the administration, I was told by the Wag, is still low-balling the hype on the fireworks, hoping to keep the number of visitors to a minimum. The days of 100,000 on the shore are a distant memory. The wear-and-tear on personnel was one things, but trying to keep that many people in order was a job and a half. Soooo, whilst there are people expected from neighboring communes, the big invites that used to accompany the ‘works are a memory.
And, given the fack that a lit’le more than a year ago, the administration had to handle a sudden influx of students to the beach that caused quite the stir, one can understand the need for prudence in these matters. That was quite something as I remember.
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Of course, by the time yew git this missive the papyrus will be out the day the seniors of the Class of 2026 will be traversing the halls of WHHS for the last time. Graduation is planned for this eventide, weather cooperating. If not, it’ll be tomorrow evening. Tennyrate, it’s a bit later than previous years cuz, circling back to what’s above, the weather in the winter was some of the worst we’ve had in quite some time. There were plenty o’ snow days added to the schedule, pushing back the end of the school term.
I guess the “remote learning” so touted as the wave of the future has been a bit of an eye-opener for educators, who have perty much abandoned the practice at least in these parts. The lure of a snow day is too much for everyone, and tho’ the technology is there, it doesn’t matter effen people don’t take advantage.
Of course, the statistics concerning remote learning follying the feau-demic of 2020 (the more we are learning, the more we see incompetence masking as “experts), are perty bleak, and effen this is gonna be used again, it’ll probably be a while, when people’s memories of those dank days is somewhat clouded.
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When yew see the papyrus, the second part of Steve Hildrich’s walk down Memory Lane concerning the shore redevelopment is in Dan Shine’s colyume on page 13. Cobina got a gander of the article whilst it was in editing, and it brought back things that she had stored in her memory banks, but hadn’t seen the light of day in quite a while.
Names like Ted Adams (a direct descendent of Samual Adams), Sylvia Terk, Joe Pascale, Lucian Picard (poppa of the future mayor) and many others besides Hildrich came to mind. Those were heady days we remember. It seemed like the redevelopment plans – ones that were passed with not so much as a by your leave by city officials – became the overriding controversy of this berg for nearly four decades.
We remember when Summerset Ltd announced the plan for a dozen 12-story condos and that under the then-current legislation would own the land up to the mid-high-water mark of the tides on the Sound. That announcement was followed by an uproar the likes of which the city ain’t seen before or since, and there have been many uproars hereabouts.
Things came into the local parlance like “parcel” when talking about real estate lots that were divvied up along the shore, including Savin Rock proper. And as Hildrich perts out, the move to change the plan after it was passed was the thing of legend. After a referendum against the plan, the fack that it was passed by the powers that be meant only the developers could make the decision, negating the vote.
This was to play out many times over the next several years, and wasn’t decided until a compromise was hammered out, and the plan for a passive park along the shore was finally allowed.
You can read the rest of it over there, but Cobina remembers that whilst the redevelopment plan’s life of 40 years was extant, people still had visions of the will of the people being usurped. ‘Twasn’t until the fall of 2006 that the plan lapsed into history, and a long gasp of relief was had by politico and resident alike. Everyone wanted to see an end of the issue, and it finally happened.
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Sammy Bluejay noted that he was fluttering about the berg the other day, and it seemed that electric scooters and bikes are becoming the choice of the youngsters and some young adults. That’s all well and good, but somebody should tell ‘em effen they are not the roadways they have the same responsibilities as drivers. Sammy sez that he witnessed a couple of bikers weaving betwixt cars and cutting across intersections much to the chagrin of motorists who didn’t wanna be on the business end of a collision.
It was jest a month or so ago that a group of more than a hundred of these vehicles went up onto I-91 and reeked havoc with motorists there. When the danged things can’t go more than about 30 miles an hour, it literally puts the brakes on those who are traversing at the speed limit in a 65 mile-and-hour area. How nobody is killed on these things is good fortune.
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Nelly Nuthatch noted that the City Council put through a resolution to ban computer “server farms” in the city for one year whilst the impack of setch things is studies. Well, a mention in the local papyrus noted the thing about the humming that was so much of an issue jest a half-a-year ago. One wonders effen the two things might be related. Nelly posed the query, and Cobina doesn’t know. But she thinks the local yokels in the Actors Colony don’t know either.
Nelly noted that Herroner asked for the resolution after going to a mayors conference where the matter was discussed. One wonders effen other cities had humming problems as well, and the server farms and the appearance of humming noises are seen as connected. I guess we will find out.
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Iva Lootey made mention of the fack – after we brought it up – that the Enterprise Zone along the West River seems to be a dead letter, and at least will be a dead letter for at least a year. Effen yew noticed in the last papyrus, the city is closing Spring Street to do some infrastructure work along the corridor along the West River marshes.
The Enterprise Zone, touted with a lotta hype six years ago or so, was supposed to be a high-tech pharmaceutical mecca for entrepreneurs. Well, excep’ for a bit of aid to businesses already in the zone, not much has happened, and the area is much the same now as it was when the plan was announced – like sooooo many other projecks that had grand announcements: Water Street Project, the Arts Center, the UNH Law School. The list does go on. Even projecks that finally got off the boards, like Walmart and those area businesses, saw about a decade of dilly-dallying before something actually happened.
Iva sez he believes the Enterprise Zone is never gonna be completed, and Cobina would agree that the closing of Spring Street for 12 month is a sign that not much is expected.
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Is it me, or are Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro Greenberg going a bit off their rockers lately. It seems that every time they make a pronouncement it’s will lotsa anger – and lotsa incoherence. Both are embarrassing, yet they still get elected cuz it’s (D)ifferent for them.
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With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,
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