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The towns of Bolton, Lancaster and Stow celebrated the graduation of their high school seniors at Nashoba Regional High School today on June 7, 2009. This "best of" slideshow chronicles the entire event. If you are searching for more images, please visit the full NRHS 2009 Graduation Gallery. All images are available for purchase with proceeds going to Stow's Community Chest.
Art teacher Marion Rayner loves art and her enthusiasm is a gift to the children she teaches. Tomorrow there will be hundreds of framed art pieces at Center School in Stow for the annual Arts Buffet. This year, the school is trying to raise funds to replace the broken kiln. Framed art can be purchased for $29.95 plus tax, with 20% of the sales going directly to the "Kiln Fund." If you would prefer to donate directly to the fund, you can make out a check to "Stow PTO" and write "Kiln Fund" in the memo line.
Walden Pond is a wonderful place to visit if you don't follow the masses. For those of you who do not know, Walden Pond was the residence of Henry David Thoreau from 1845 to 1847. Conservationists regularly quote his book Walden which is inspiring. It is a treatise on simple living in nature. As a kid we were taught how difficult it must have been for him to live in a one room house (replica shown here). Now as an adult sometimes I wish for such an existence. This quote from Walden is particularly inspiring:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived.
The worst time to visit Walden, because it will be least inspiring, is on hot summer days. People from all over flock here to swim. You will have many babies in diapers, tons of noise, and full parking lots. If you want to experience the tranquility of this place like Thoreau did, come here during the off season. Fall is the best time to visit. Bring a canoe or hike along the perimeter of the pond. Winter is another good season to visit and you should make sure to bring your snowshoes.
Thoreau grew up in Concord, attended Harvard, and became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson introduced him to other famous Concord authors, Alcott, Fuller, and Hawthorne being the most prominent, and he followed their Trascendental Movement. This movement subscribed to the philosophy that personal intuition rather than religion allowed one to achieve insight. Thoreau was a principled man. He refused to pay taxes for several years over his opposition to slavery and the Mexican-American War. Try to do that now!
If you make a trip to Walden, be sure to visit downtown Concord and the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Thoreau is buried at Author's Ridge, along with many other famous authors. If you have time, visit the Concord Museum which is just outside downtown Concord.The park has many activities scheduled for August. These include guided hikes, nature crafts, and kayaking. To view the schedule, click on the Events and Programs link on the Walden Pond homepage below.
External Link: Walden Pond Reservation
School may be out for the summer, but local libraries are definitely in! At the opening of Randall Library's Summer Reading Program in Stow, children's librarian Denise Flynn once again brought back the fun moonwalks. This year, the reading program kicked off on the last day of school. Children signed up for the program inside the library, received their packets with reading logs, and then went off to have fun. One child (you know who you were) was even reading on the lawn! Children receive points for how many books they read (or listen to) and get prizes at the end of the summer. In addition, there are a number of events scheduled including a magic show, dinosaur presentation, jungle encounters, and Three Apple Storytelling.
Outside of Stow, the Concord Free Public Library is having their own summer reading program where young readers write short reviews of books online. The library website also lists the Concord Public School's reading lists for incoming first through eighth graders. On Wednesday evenings the library hosts a "Music on the Lawn" concert series featuring bluegrass, reggae, and afro pop. Sudbury's Goodnow Library has a Wednesday evening book discussion group for 4th-6th graders. Truck Day is July 16th where kids (and adults) get to see and touch all the trucks owned by the town. Lincoln Public Library is hosting "Wild Times" on Wednesdays at 11am featuring presentations about animals. Hudson Public Library hosts their own reading club, a weekly Monday morning Bingo contest, picnics for kids 5 and under, and more. The Marlborough Public Library has a "knights" theme to most of their events. They have a number of activities that require registration and are limited to a small number of children. If your little one is interested in magical creatures or "Harry Potter", you will not want to miss the activities in Marlborough. Finally, in Harvard you can find reading lists for Bromfield School students, participate in an online reading log club, and attend a variety of activities.
External Links:
The social and entertainment event of the year in our neck of the woods has to be the Battle of the Bands at Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton. This is the second annual event and proceeds benefit the Friends of Sudanese, an organization that assists Sudanese refugees who were brought to the Boston area in 2001 by the State Department after 9 years in a Kenyan refugee camp. Last year we had the opportunity to meet one of these people who told us how different things are here and helped us to appreciate just how great this country is.
I bring my daughters to this annual event because there are very few opportunities for 9 and 6 year olds to see live rock concerts. To them, these musicians are every bit as famous as Avril Lavigne or Miley Cyrus--well, okay maybe not that famous. They dress up in their concert gear (i.e., leather) and sit in the front row and take in all the sights and sounds. They have a couple of teachers host the event, with some bad jokes that the students are quick to jump on, and this year's show was coordinated by Stow's Sam Tobia. They have judges. They have scoring. And, yes, they have a winner. But the winner doesn't get a recording contract. Instead they get a $100 gift certificate to a local music shop. What did you think this was Fox's America's Best Band?
Top Image: Stow's Adrienne Wickham-Gobert adds a female vocal presence to the all-acoustic trio The Travis and Wes Experience (plus Adi). Bottom Image: Stow's Mike Sestito fronts for the rock band Timeless Infamy.
Destination ImagiNation (aka DI) is a wonderful program that encourages creativity and problem-solving skills. Kids work in teams, grouped by age, and are lead by Team Managers who provide the problems each week and guide the team as it works on its challenges. There were several Stow teams who competed at Regionals ranging from kindergarten through high school. Yours truly was honored to have managed a K-2 team (called History Kids) who did an exceptional job in the non-competitive Rising Stars division.
The fourth and fifth grade team from Center School (pictured) came in first place at the 2008 Massachusetts state championships and will be competing at the Global Finals in Tennessee. Their performance utilized some engineering skills (i.e., creating the illusion of a long school corridor using blinds) and theatrical skills.
There are basically two components to DI: the Instant Challenges and Central Challenge. Instant Challenges are tasks that the team needs to solve in a short time interval. For example, when we were preparing for our regional competition, most of the Stow teams got together and were given an Instant Challenge by some older kids who had been to Globals in years past. My kids were given a strange looking object and were supposed to make a skit that answered "What it was?", "Why it was here?", "How it works?", etc. The Central Challenge is a long term project that teams work on throughout the season and perform at the competition. Our team's challenge was to take something from history, make a prop that will change history, make a play about it, and sing a song. Our team chose Abraham Lincoln's assassination as the period of history and decided to change it by inventing a TV remote control and having Paul Revere come riding in on a horse to scare away John Wilkes Booth.
External Link: Stow Destination ImagiNation
Tragedy struck Stow last week with the death of Frankie DeMeo in an automobile accident. Frankie was a star wrestler for the Nashoba-Clinton varsity wrestling squad in the 112-pound weight class. DeMeo was a hard working student who struggled with learning but succeeded in the classroom and on the wrestling mat. Memorials are listed on Facebook and on MassWrestling.com. Image: Frankie's teammates at wrestling sectionals last weekend honored him by wearing "For Frankie" t-shirts.
External Link: Jordana Foster's 'For Frankie' article (reprinted from The Stow Independent).
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"The place for happenings in Massachusetts' Apple Country"
Welcome to Apple Country Living. This site mainly covers events in area towns such as Acton, Bolton, Concord, Harvard, Hudson, Lincoln, Maynard, Stow and Sudbury. There's a bit of a special emphasis on my hometown of Stow. The goal is to chronicle our area of the world in images and text.
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