Webutuck high schoolers Michael Johnson, left, and Lucas Vallely, right, watched their classmate Degan Bracey grapple with coach Thomas Monteverde at a recent practice session of the school’s new wrestling club.
Judith O'Hara Balfe
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Scents and sensibility
May 07, 2025
You may have missed the barrage of television commercials dredging up one of our most intimate concerns — body odor. Often a music video featuring very active and sweaty people or a scientific-looking authority figure in a white lab coat informs us that perspiration oozes everywhere all the time. Underarm protection is not enough. Fortunately, there is a solution to this recently manufactured need: whole body deodorant.
Marketing strategies exploiting our insecurities and anxieties can be counted on to sell almost anything. Implying a sexual deficiency with a testimonial from a professional sports figure, usually male, is particularly effective. Often, the word “clinical” is bandied about before a disclaimer in tiny print informs us that there is no FDA testing or approval.
Playing on our deepest fears not only moves merchandise but also guarantees that very few will risk embarrassment and complain about a worthless product.When former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson was hawking male enhancement pills I doubt that many men called the state attorney general’s office when results didn’t “measure up.” Sports personalities Doug Flutie and Frank Thomas promote a dietary supplement that’s been “clinically researched” to boost testosterone levels for men. The cringey tagline “… and she’ll like it too” adds just enough sexism and misogyny to put them in the snake oil hall of fame.
The cringey tagline “… and she’ll like it too” adds just enough sexism and misogyny to put them in the snake oil hall of fame.
It is tempting to blame or credit modern technology and our moral failings for the plethora of dubious solutions to real and imagined problems. In fact, all of this has its roots in the late 19th century. Before social media, before the internet, before television, before radio … there was Lydia Pinkham. The daughter of staunch abolitionists from Lynn, Massachusetts. Lydia Pinkham in 1876 pioneered mass marketing and the use of testimonials to sell Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound for menstrual and menopausal problems. It was an herbal-alcohol “women’s tonic” dismissed as quackery by a medical community generally apathetic to women’s health issues. In fairness to Pinkham and other purveyors of so-called patent medicines of the era, what passed for prescription drugs were often not very effective and sometimes more dangerous than home remedies. But it was her marketing approach that changed everything.
Lydia Pinkham put her own likeness on the label and marketed directly to women. She solicited their concerns and opinions and incorporated them into her advertisements. Shining a light on women’s health issues won her a legion of fans and a lot of sales. A reformulated version, Lydia Pinkham Liquid Herbal Supplement, is still available today at CVS and Walgreens, $17 at Amazon.
While body odor is generally considered unpleasant, sometimes our noses can mislead us. Conservatively, the underarm deodorant market is worth $8 billion. Armpits are approximately 4% of our body surface so convincing people to use whole body deodorant increases the market to $200 billion.
Now, take a deep breath.
Smells like money.
M.A. Duca is a resident of Twin Lakes, narrowly focused on everyday life.
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Who will he be? Papal thoughts
May 07, 2025
Little known is that you don’t have to be a priest to be the Pope.I have 18 years of Catholic education, six with the Jesuits, so why don’t I throw a red hat in the ring? I can wear a red sash, no, too Trumpian, with the best of them.And the red velvet shoes that the previous pope, Benedict XVI, wore, probably still wears, maybe not so much.
Years back, sitting in the lobby of the Palmer House hotel in Chicago with two pals, imbibing per usual,suddenly the noise shuts up.And in strolls the Cardinal, Francis George, with an entourage of young priests flanking him on all sides.Even those of us who thought he was an oppressive repressive yahoo were stopped in silence and awe. We were, somehow, in the presence of royalty.And quickly smoothly this presence became absence.
In 2024, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Blaise Cupich who succeeded George.Cupich had hit 75 and was required to submit his resignation.The Pope is not required to accept it, which he did not.Blaise, a pretty cool dude.Uncomfortable in the Cardinal’s traditional mansion, right down the street from the original Playboy club, the ghost of Hefner striding the Gold Coast of Chicago’s wealthy self,Blaise did not live in the papal mansion as did George and his predecessors, but rather in an apartment, 945 square feet, in Holy Name Cathedral near Chicago’s Loop.
Before being named Cardinal, Archbishop Cupich, in a first official act, visited three churches — one Black, one Latino and oneCentral European. Cupich was born into a Croatian family of nine and speaks six languages.
So who will Blaise vote for? His saint’s name is after the patron of throat health.(My pal Patrick Lynch of Sharon had throat cancer earlier in his life and succumbed recently to various complications.)
Will he vote for one of two African Cardinals, one a rabid homophobe or the other, Cardinal Antoine Kamabanda, who is Rwandan. The latter lost most of his family to the genocide of the Hutus by the Tutsis. (The Tutsis are tall, the Hutus are short, so of course the Hutus had to be exterminated.)
Or the Filipino, Luis Antonio Tagle, known as the Asian Francis.Luis has Spanish names, as do many Filipinos.
A close friend, steeped in Jesuiticisms, said —What did Francis, a Jesuit, do? Nothing for women, never explicitly promoting LGBTQ rights (“Who am I to say?” when asked about gay priests, a quote quoted roundly round the globe.)
I, falling on the thorns of bleeding platitudes, responded, Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And Francis, by any account, was a good man.
I dare say we don’t want Our Dear Leader who is pictured dressed like the Pope.More to the point, his backside showing his corpulent handles swinging a golf club, his shirt hiked up revealing the tattoo with MS-13. That’s it! Send him to Cecot, the Venezuelan paradise, where Senor Garcia awaits, bolo in hand.
Not even Francis would wish that on him.
Eager to see the white smoke and hear Habemus Papam!
Lonnie Carter is a playwright, Obie winner and his signature play is “The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy.”
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Dunkin’ receives Inland Wetlands approval
May 07, 2025
NORTH CANAAN — At the April meeting of the Inland Wetlands and Conservation Commission, applicants for a new Dunkin’ store presented an updated plan.
The property location is across from Stop & Shop on Route 44. The application showed a roughly 2,000-square-foot rectangular building with 16 parking spots and a drive-thru.
Although about one-third of the parcel is wetlands, the Commission was assured that development would not negatively impact the wetlands. The proposal, aside from the addition of a rain garden, previously received approval from the Commission in 2013.
Due to the large percentage of wetlands on the property, Commissioner Matt Freund suggested consulting WMC Engineering for a third-party review of the application.
Commissioner Mike O’Connor presented a previous approval letter from WMC Engineering back in 2013 from a review of the initial application.
After further discussion, IWCC approved the application as presented on April 24.
The applicants will go before the Planning and Zoning Commission at its next meeting Monday, May 12.
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Sharon real estate sales
May 07, 2025
Built in 1740 the antique cottage at 70 North Main St. is one of Sharon’s oldest houses.
Christine Bates
SHARON — Real estate activity picked up slightly in Sharon in March and April with seven real estate transfers recorded across a broad price range.
On the high end, a $1.2 million purchase of a spacious home with acreage and on the low end, $117,730 for vacant land.
Sharon’s median price for a single family residence calculated on a rolling 12 month average is $560,000.
Currently listed for sale are 19 vacant land parcels and 10 homes with a median price of over $700,000. Inventory levels haven’t risen yet.
Transactions
44 Jackson Road — 2 bedroom/2 bath home on 19.41 acres sold by Estate of Jame E. Morehouse to Bad Boy Binx LLC for $875,000 on Feb. 25 and recorded on March 3.
92 Amenia Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on 0.48 acres sold by Ralph McDermid Jr. to Elizabeth Pallay for $420,000 on March 4.
1 Jackson Hill Road — 2 bedroom/2 bath Cape Cod home on 0.47 acres sold by Kelly A. Hughes to Leslie Moore Murray for $450,000 on March 27.
38 Luta Heights — 4 bedroom/3 bath home on 13.9 acres sold by Robert Ritch and Ryocihi Saito to Veronica Relea for $1,200,000 on March 26 recorded on April 1.
70 North Main St. — 2 bedroom/3.5 bath antique home on 0.75 acres sold by Janina Kean to Kari S. Englehart and Charles Brooks Englehart Trustees for $685,000 on April 3.
2 Northrup Road — 3 bedroom/3 bath ranch on 9.24 acres sold by Candance D Hellman to Lisa Snow Naumann and Michael P Naumann for $730,000 on April 14
Lambert Road — Vacant land sold by Jeanette J. Dean to Myron S Rolfe and Bruce F. Tracy for $117,730 on April 18.
*Town of Sharon real estate transfers recorded as transferred/sold between March 1, 2025, and April 30, 2025, provided by the Sharon Town Clerk. Transfers without consideration are not included. Current market listings from Smart MLS. Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Salesperson with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
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