Anne Moran rounded the bases more than once when HVRHS played Terryville High School April 16.
Riley Klein
Madison "Maddog" DeWitt hit 5-for-5 with 5 RBIs.Riley Klein
Anne Moran struck out seven Kangaroos.Riley Klein
Abby Hogan and Diana Portillo were all smiles after the win.Riley Klein
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To protect the rule of law, enforce it
It is extortion by Trump and bribery by the law firms which have promised nearly one billion dollars of “pro bono” legal services to causes approved by Trump. Both extortion and bribery are crimes under the penal laws of most States. Moreover, the extortion by Trump violates multiple provisions of the Constitution. This chaos caused by the Wannabe King must be stopped.
Where are the Attorneys General of the States?
The Attorneys General should consider multi-state indictments of Trump for extortion and the law firms which have capitulated for bribery.
As these cases move up through the appellate process of the court system, one can hope:
That even the Supreme Court will recognize that the immunity granted to Trump should not be available when his actions violate both the penal laws of the States and the Constitution of the United States, and
That even the law firms which have capitulated to Trump’s blackmail and are subject to criminal prosecution for bribery will repudiate their vague agreements with Trump to provide “pro bono” legal services.
While bribery is a crime, repudiation of a vague agreement which is the result of criminal extortion is not.
G. A. Mudge
Sharon
Affordable healthcare for women
She was petite with pale skin and shoulder length dark hair. She worked at the book shop in town. Her husband took care of his grandmother, her house and garden, so they could live in the grandmother’s apartment over the garage.They could not afford health insurance, but she told me that she was able to go for her annual checkup including cancer screening and birth control at Planned Parenthood for only three hundred dollars.It was such a relief for her.
Millions of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide go for their health care, birth control and cancer screening and it is paid for by Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is prohibited from using Medicaid funds for abortions.
Three southern states have blocked Planned Parenthood from seeing Medicaid patients. The Trump administration is withholding tens of millions of Medicaid dollars from Planned Parenthood clinics.South Carolina is backing a suit before the Supreme Court against Planned Parenthood to stop them from getting Medicaid payments for their patients, even though they do not use those funds for abortions.
This seems very cruel.Where will these women go to get the health care they need and can afford?
Lizbeth Piel
Sharon
On Every Face, That Day
Hope was palpable,
emblazoned on the faces
of all who gathered there; while he, his one lung
surely gasping
with the weight of expectation,
stepped forward from the shadows
of the ancient basilica—and his own humility—
into the footlights of all
he must embrace.
Even had they not been asked,
the thronging masses—there,
and glued to screens
around the globe—
would pray for him,
the aging pontiff,
pastor of the poor,
his smooth jowls
transformed to radiance
by joy and affirmation,
reaching out to upturned faces,
breaking ground on every front,
the name Francis, alone,
pregnant with promise—and possibility.
Betsy Sprague
Salisbury
Written March 13, 2013, upon Pope Francis’ election.
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Turning Back the Pages
Apr 23, 2025
125 years ago — April 1900
Oliver Jewell is ill at the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Jewell.
Misses Jennie Clark and Mamie Conklin were in Hartford on business this week.
Four members of a Torrington family were recently poisoned, supposedly by eating dried and salted codfish. It is not known whether the poisoning was due to the putrid condition of the fish before salting or to some preservative used in curing it. After eating the fish the members of the family were taken with violent retching.
E.H. Gilbert has been appointed postmaster of Kent Furnace, a fourth class office.
We understand that Dr. Knapp, the dentist at Millerton, is to be in Sharon on Wednesdays, occupying rooms in the Orton building.
SHARON — There is a rumor of a wedding in town next week Wednesday.
They say there is still two feet of snow in Vermont, and Goshen is yet to be heard from.
SHARON — Dwight St. John and Baldwin Reed made a business trip to Mt. Riga one day this week.
Died, on Friday, at his home, Alfred Malcuit of Sharon, age 32 years. Funeral was held on Monday. Mr. Malcuit was ill of the measles and going out of doors too soon took cold, pneumonia quickly seized him and death soon followed. He was well known to many people in the village.
A few days since a lady in town would have lost her life in attempting to cross the lake had it not been for the presence of mind of a clerk in one of the leading stores on Main street. Leaving home with $100 in her pocket she went to the stores of Bissell & Co.’s where she traded to the amount of that already stated and started to return home on the ice, when about two miles from the shore she discovered that she was being carried away on a large piece of ice, which in some manner had become detached from the large body in the lake, and was being carried with the tide at a terrible rate of speed toward the bridge which crosses the outlet, as she approached the structure she screeched several times and everyone in town at once started for the place of danger thinking that a locomotive had run some one down, on discovering the real cause a clerk in one of the stores where she had traded shouted to her to tie her stamp book about her waist and jump into the salty deep, and acting on his advice, she jumped, her feet struck bottom and she walked to the shore.
The spring peepers were heard last week Sunday for the first time this season. The weather wise affirm they will sustain three freeze-ups before coming out permanently. In other words that means three cold snaps before the real arrival of warm weather.
100 years ago — April 1925
George Storm and Chas. Cane are resigning from their work at Lea Farm May 1st, as it is to be run under college management.
Clarence P. Allen of Ore Hill met a tragic death on Tuesday. While driving a pair of horses at Spencers Corner the team became frightened and reared and plunged about. Allen was jerked from his position on the wagon and fell heavily to the ground striking on his head and shoulders. He was immediately taken to his home in an unconscious condition and died before a physician could reach him. Dr. A.F. Hoag of Millerton pronounced the cause of death as a broken neck. Medical examiner Bissell reviewed the remains and gave a decision that death was purely accidental. Allen lived in Lakeville about a year ago, being in the employ of E.L. Peabody. He was considered an excellent teamster.
Dwight M. Cowles has started the construction of a building to be used as a Roadside Market, which will be open during the summer for the sale of fruits, vegetables and poultry products from Woodmere Gardens.
Burt Ball has given up his position at Roberts Store and it is understood is moving to Poughkeepsie.
Liquor cannot legally be carried in autos in Massachusetts, according to a ruling of the supreme court of that state. Wonder if that applies to the liquor inside the driver.
50 years ago — April 1975
Housatonic Valley Chapter members of the Future Farmers of America, Matthew Freund of East Canaan, a senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School and president of the local FFA chapter, and Gerry Christinat, a freshman at HVRHS from East Canaan and president of the Junior local FFA chapter, each have achieved second-place honors in district FFA competition in public speaking and creed speaking, respectively. Their achievements enable the two to go on to state-wide competition in June.
Because of declining orders, the Becton-Dickinson Company in Canaan has had to order the layoff of 21 full-time employees. Workers were notified last Thursday with their job terminations effective May 9. This is the second time in three months that B-D has had to reduce its work force. In February, a total of 43 employees were let go.
Sharon volunteer firemen were called out to an early morning fire last Thursday at a vacant cottage on Mudge Pond Road in Sharon. The origin of the fire has been described as suspicious since the building has been vacant and because of the time the fire was discovered. The fire whistle sounded shortly 3 a.m. Thursday morning and was originally reported as a brush fire.
The public is invited to the grand opening April 26 of a custom upholstering and gift shop in Cornwall Bridge, owned and operated by Junne Adair Steeples and Dorothy Partridge, both residents of Cornwall. The shop — to be known as “Nip ‘n Tuck” — is located in the former offices of the National Iron Bank at the junction of routes 7 and 4 in Cornwall Bridge. The front section of the shop will serve as a gift shop, and the old teller’s counter will serve to divide the gift shop from the working area for custom upholstering, over which visitors can view the work that is in progress in that section.
25 years ago — April 2000
Heather Sykes of Winsted caught the largest fish in her three-to-six-year-old age category — a one-pound, one-ounce trout — in the opening day fishing derby at Lake Wononscopomuc Saturday. Also enjoying opening day fishing at Factory Pond were her uncle, Richard Pilch, and cousin Tyler Pilch of Canaan.
FALLS VILLAGE — Fast Tracks, the restaurant located on Route 7 across from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, closed its doors today after more than two years of operation. Owner Sandra Gomez said negotiations are underway with someone who will lease the building and continue it as an eatery. She echoed the woes of many merchants recently, who say securing employees is a major problem.
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Juxtaposing present crises with those of the past
You might find the present in the past on any day of history you choose.
For instance, here’s a quote about another time:
“This is an age of the world where nations are trembling and convulsed. A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom great and unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion.”
Aside from an antique verbiage — one seldom mentions a nation’s bosom anymore — the un-lilted paragraph might be lifted from a column by George Will or even David Brooks, both of whom would surely posit answers as to America’s safety, or lack thereof, in the present moment.
In its time, however, the passage was more a prophecy than an observation. The author glimpsed a future involving a “last convulsion.” Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote it in a weekly serial published by “The National Era,” an antislavery newspaper in Washington, D.C., in 1851. The next year, the paper’s publisher wisely contracted with the author to publish the series as a book. Both were called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
The juxtaposition of past on present inevitably brings to mind the apocryphal aphorism, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.” (Mark Twain is given credit; surely he’d accept it.) Mrs. Stowe made her prediction based on what she observed of the nation’s fraying cultural, political, and societal foundations in those antebellum years. Almost exactly a decade later, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter.
At present, the United States tolerates no slavery. In 1851, the country had no Trump. Yet there are similarities that force comparison:
The toxic effects of a recent unpopular, costly foreign war. Then: The Mexican War of 1846-8. Now: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, take your pick.
Dubious presidents. Then: Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan. Now: Trump.
Long-lasting and damaging economic struggles. Then: the financial Panic of 1837, the South’s monetary dependence on slavery, the North’s industry, its dependence on immigrant labor. Now: the financial crisis of 2008, fiscal inequality, and the creation of the 1% billionaire class...and recently, the revelatory stupidity of Trump’s tariff destruction.
Geographical expansion. Then: “Manifest Destiny,” the U.S. lust for more territory, not only for more than half of Mexico, but Cuba as another slave state. Now: Greenland, Panama, Canada as a 51st state, the Gulf of “America.”
The conflict between states. Then: slave-states v. free-states, leading to shooting wars between them, such as in “Bleeding Kansas.” Now: red states v. blue states, no wars yet, but countless pockets of preparation.
Many more comparisons can be found in the history. Could Mrs. Stowe’s future vision of a “last convulsion” be justified today, looking to 2035, a decade from now?
Could history indeed rhyme?
William Kinsolving is the author of five books. He will read and discuss his book “Dangerous Times” on May 15 at The Scoville Library, along with his wife Susan Kinsolving, who will also read and talk about her novel “The Head’s Tale.”
For more and reservations, go to scovillelibrary.libcal.com/event/14014494.