Letters to the Editor - November 24

Community came to aid after fire

Thanksgiving. Giving thanks. With the season of Thanksgiving upon us, the Grimaldi family has much to be thankful for. Out of our tragic fire came the daily affirmation that we are loved, cared for and belong to a community that truly helps one another in times of need. The outpouring of support and generosity by so many — family, friends and even people we are not even acquainted with — has caused us to be completely overwhelmed with gratitude, appreciation and pride to call this community our home.

Thank you to the local fire companies and rescue squads who gave their time, energy and resources to come to our aid. Because so many cared and wanted to help, the spaghetti dinner fundraiser had to be relocated from the Grove to the Lakeville Firehouse (thanks to Mike Fitting and Larry).

So many were instrumental in giving of themselves to make the dinner a memorable event. Special thanks goes to Buddy Riva (C.A. Lindell Hardware); David Zucco; Brian and Todd Faedi; Renee Sartori; Ellen Fontaine; Laurie and AT Keilty; Mike Hodgkins; and Carolyn and Clareann Grimaldi for their generosity and for serving more than half the town with a smile.

Thanks to The Hotchkiss Community; The Woodland Restaurant staff and patrons; Magic Wand customers; The Salisbury Bank; The Salisbury Central School and PTO; St. Mary’s Church; Salisbury Youth Hockey; Deano’s Pizza; Kara Zinke Fund; and so many others behind the scenes.

In these times of economic hardships, people have been incredibly generous, and we will be forever thankful and indebted for their support. Our lives have been changed by not only what we have lost, but also for what we have gained. The community has demonstrated to us that the true value in life is in the spirit of giving and helping others, and in this regard, we are fortunate beyond measure.

We have been the recipients of an enormous feeling of community spirit and love, and we feel truly blessed.

Thank you to all.

Mark, Karen, Mickaela
and Liam Grimaldi
Salisbury

Farmers markets a treat

Since they began in the beginning of the summer I have been a frequent patron of all the local farmers markets and local farm stands, and I will surely be missing them over the winter. They are a refreshing reminder of how wonderful life can be in many regards.

I grew up in the city streets and it always seemed customary to make sure that everything was always locked. The front door, your car, and all the gates and windows were always kept secure or surely your possessions would be gone.

Pulling up to a farm stand on a quiet country road with nobody around, and being on the honor system to leave the proper exchange in a cigar box, was a reawakening reality.

In the past two years I have become very health-conscious and have lost a considerable amount of weight. I have changed my diet and adopted a purely vegan/vegetarian organic regimen. As my body has adapted and reacquired its normal levels of sugar and salt and ridded itself of toxins, (as my tastebuds had become desensitized from years of eating improperly), I have become very aware of the subtle nuances and qualities of the levels of freshness and impurities in the food that enters my body.

In the local supermarkets that I frequent, they have a small organic section where they sell several brands of “organic” marked commercial produce.  Once in a while they do have some locally grown as well.

At first when I originally switched and stopped eating produce that had pesticides in the production process, I thought there was a world of difference between the two qualities. Now that I have been buying food at the West Cornwall Farmers Market, the Millerton Farmers Market and rural local farm stands such as Hautboy Hill Farm and some very local ones up the road close to where I live, like the one on Town Street and another on Cream Hill Road in West Cornwall, I have come to the obvious conclusion that the word “organic” has been very distorted and does not represent pure food by any means.

People should be aware of this fact and the legalities of the wording and terminology of what exactly constitutes “organic.” There is no comparison to what the local farmers that do not use pesticides are growing and we should all support them.

I just wanted to say thank you to all the local farmers and say that you will surely be missed until next season. Your food was delicious, healthy, and a blessing.

If everyone would just replant the seeds from the fruits and vegetables they eat there would never be a person starving on this planet. The rain, the earth, and the multitude of seeds are a perpetual gift. If only we would recognize and conclude that it was never meant for us to have to earn, or to manipulate, the world could literally be a Garden of Eden again. We cannot improve on God’s handiwork.

Brett Diamond
West Cornwall

Voting procedure in Sharon is unfair
I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with the official ballot for Sharon selectmen. I think it was not only unclear and illogical, but is unfair, denying many voters the opportunity to make appropriate choices.

We have three selectmen. The first selectman is, in our town and I think not in most towns, in a class by himself. The two second selectmen are in a separate class. While I think that is not the best way, that is the way it is and we can live with that.

With three selectmen to be elected, each registered voter should have the opportunity to vote for one individual for each slot. That means two votes for the two second selectmen. On Nov. 8, we were given only one vote.

It was “explained” to me, quite unsatisfactorily, that the law requires that not all selectmen can be of the same major party. (As far as I know, there is no exception for third or fourth parties, such as “The Green Party,” etc.) So if the only candidate for first selectman is a Republican (and he was) and only one of the candidates for second selectman is a Democrat, she is automatically elected with only one vote. Therefore, the voter should know and understand this and not waste his or her vote voting for that position; 186 voters did so waste their ballots.

The voter was expected to choose between the two other candidates who are registered Republicans. The bureaucrat who established the ballot and programmed the ballot-counting device made the rule that only one vote could be counted. I understand the counting device rejected some 50 or so ballots because the voter had voted for two candidates, presumably the one Democrat and one of the two Republicans.

It would have been much more simple and fair to have three columns: one for first selectman and two, one each, for the second selectmen. The voter could vote for one candidate in each column. Or, allow each voter to make two selections using the two columns that were offered, instead of the admonition that the voter could make only one selection.

What was done is so outrageous as to warrant a lawsuit challenging this highly irregular procedure, calling for a re-vote for the position of second selectman. The recorded vote was very close. Only a few accurately recorded wishes of the voters is likely to change the result.

My complaint is not so much with the result but with the horrendously wrong procedure which we may be stuck with in the future unless steps are taken to correct it.

Harry Hall
Sharon

‘Spirit of Sharon’ photo contest

Our first photo contest was a great success. Thank you to all our participants and our judges: Jonathan Doster, Jenny Hensell and Brian Wilcox.

All the submitted photographs will be on display  at www.sharonct.org. Looking forward to next year’s contest and many more great photos of Sharon.

Kathleen Fuhr
Sharon

Thanks to CL&P employee

Damned squirrel! Got vaporized at 3 p.m. last Monday, somewhere on Lakeview Avenue in Lakeville.

A big bang, off goes the squirrel. And no power, again, for four hours, bringing back very, very bad memories.

At 7 p.m. came the CL&P truck, moving slowly down the street.

One truck, one man: I had to greet him. Together we went to a transformer down Lakeview that was the scene, four weeks ago, of the premature departure of another squirrel.

I thanked Chris Valenti, so he came down from the truck to shake my hand — and to thank me for thanking him ...

“Twenty-two days nonstop, you know, 16 hours a day.”

Then he climbed on the lift, up and up, moving between the cables with the grace of an acrobat, a little on the left, then to the right along the pole. He took a flashlight — what a marvel of modern technology! — and inspected the pole, the transformer and the pine trees below, looking for the faintest trace of a dead squirrel that would indicate where the damage was made.

Nothing.

Chris came down, disappointed. “I’ll have to check every other pole, may take two hours,” he said, and told me he was from Long Island. A mechanic there. Bored. So he moved three years ago to Goshen to work for CL&P. “Love it,” he added, “such a nice open area.”

I told him I was an artist and he revealed that his mother was sculpting wood: Santas, animals, birds. “She can take a massive piece of wood, and in an hour she will have sculpted a delicate pine cone.” Impressive.

All of that in pitch black, with the truck humming low.

Then someone came to us and announced he had seen the tail of a squirrel hanging from another transformer.

Chris climbed again, pulled a long tool to catch the remains of the animal on top of the big box, worked two or three minutes up there. “We had good luck,” he said.

He had time to talk briefly about the cost of repairs of two weeks ago, $100 million that will be passed on to the customers.

Then Chris from Goshen went to Route 44, toyed with a fuse, and hop! Glorious power was back.

Thanks, man.

Etienne Delessert
Lakeville
 

Reflections on unexpected October storm

I want to express my gratitude for the hard work performed by the towns of Sharon and Salisbury, Northeast Utilities, Connecticut Light & Power, The Hotchkiss Library and the very efficient, hardworking, out-of-state crews that came to our aid. It was a long and arduous task; a lot of us had to endure from the unexpected storm that grabbed us all by surprise.

My son and I were on our way back from Sheffield by way of North Cornwall when the first snowflakes began to fall like a harbinger of things to come. Once we arrived at my brother’s house, I took a quick shower and began filling buckets of water immediately. We rushed about, putting away the warm weather tools and taking out the snow shovels.

Later, my son and I helped my brother put the snowplow on his truck and were soon ready. The storm got worse as it piled more snow, along with wind and a whiteout condition. It wasn’t long until the power went out and the trees around the area fell. My brother would never consider buying a generator as they’re very noisy, so I went about collecting a few pots full of snow for the refrigerator and collected buckets and pans of water from the roof as the snow melted. The evenings were chilling as we went to bed and kept warm under our covers. At least we got much-deserved sleep! Each day I’d collect snow for the refrigerator as I’d discard the melted snow from the pots.

I must also thank Jamie Casey at the Sharon Fire Department for the warming center for the residents of Sharon through these tough times.

Our best suggestion to any of the residents of the northwestern area of Connecticut is they should do their best to cut or trim their tall trees and vines that are growing too close to the power lines, so no one should have to deal with the ongoing problems of power outages.

I know we all love the country and its beauty, its wild animals that roam about, the adventure of its hiking trails and the survival of it all, but the forests and the woods are never immune to falling trees, which can fall even when there isn’t a breeze to blow against them.

I wanted to bring the crews a container of chocolate cookies that my brother had bought for them, but we went to do some errands and they were done before we knew it. We caught up with the crews when we were headed up to Sheffield, so instead I had to wave to them as we passed them. We saw they were pretty beat from working so hard. Thanks again, and keep up the great work.        

Anita and Erick Hansen
Sharon