The Suffield Observer (https://thesuffieldobserver.com/category/opinion/editorial/page/8/)
Riding through Suffield Connecticut on a sunny fall day, one cannot help but be impressed by the stunning natural beauty of our town, from the stately and elegant sycamore trees lining historic Main Street to the open rich agricultural fields, recently groomed after harvest, and the vast open spaces, home to a large variety of native plants and wild life.
When people ask me what I am doing in my retirement, one of the first answers I give–proudly–is that I occasionally write for my town’s local newspaper, The Suffield Observer. I do it because I enjoy writing, and also because the very concept of a local volunteer newspaper pleases me.
Phones. So many people of a certain age – usually not elderly – have given up their landlines.
The community of Suffield should be thankful to Jackie Hemond, Library Director, and her library staff. With the Kent Memorial Library closed for almost five years, they managed to provide services to our residents through an undersized temporary building on Fyler Place.
True creative output comes from within and cannot be squeezed out by force. No school assignment could set off the same eruption of raw creative passion that I experience through accepting my sporadic impulse to write; to allow my ideas to surface and to watch them climb into the vessel of articulated language.
With the incoming school year commencing August 29, Suffield High School students will be forced to make some financial adjustments. That is, if they want to continue and/or take up playing a sport.
As a former 12-year member and Chair of the Suffield Board of Education during difficult economic times, I faced more than my fair share of difficult budget fights. Class sizes soared, building maintenance and desperately needed capital projects were put off, (to the town’s ultimate detriment I might add), administration was reduced, and extracurricular activities at the high school especially were eliminated.
When someone places a sign on the Town Green or along a roadside, I assume that they want the public to know something. Usually the main message is in large, readable letters.
As a volunteer and occasional coeditor at the Observer, I take exception to certain comments in First Selectman Melissa Mack’s column about the paper. In a discussion with Suffield Middle School students about her job, she chose to take a cheap shot at the Observer due to her distress over an article written about the Suffield Police Department.