The High Price of Privilege

Shelby Warner is a Reference Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her column this week in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.


Excerpt:

When I drop my ballot into the box on election day, I will remember Alice Paul. Who is Alice Paul? This is a good question since only recently have history books begun to cover in detail the crusade to which she devoted her life.

Alice Paul played a major role in the drama that unfolded from 1913-1920 in this country. She relentlessly pursued one goal - to change President Woodrow Wilson’s mind about women’s right to vote. She knew the proposed amendment which would grant this right would never pass without his support. While others had begun the battle and many worked beside her, she was definitely the leader of this final charge for victory. Alice was committed to the cause and willing to put her body on the line.

Norwood Folklore

Kelly Unsworth is head of Children's Services at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her entire article in this week's Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Excerpt:

A couple of weeks ago, as I was looking through the Wicked Local web site for photos from a children’s program that had been offered at the library, I came across the following question posed in the blogs section: “So, ever since I came on board as the reporter for the Transcript I’ve been hearing that Norwood is in Guinness World Records for the most number of people who are born in a town dying here. Is this true? If this is true, can you tell me where to find it?” The quote is from Chloe Gotsis, a new reporter for the Transcript. First, I would like to welcome Chloe to Norwood. Secondly, I would like to address her question.
Chloe, I noticed in your blog that on your first day on the job, you walked to Guarino’s Bakery for a pastry, and then on to Perks for a coffee. I must say, you have excellent taste, but if you had turned onto Walpole Street you would have found the Morrill Memorial Library, which, to answer part of your question, is the place where you can find the answer to your question. The library has access to a wealth of information: books, electronic, historical, and cultural. The staff, however, is one of the richest resources, and this is where I began my search.

The Company of a Book: Grieving a Loss

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her entire article in this week's Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I write this column this week on the anniversary of the death of my own child 29 years ago. Coleen was a beautiful, deeply intelligent toddler nearing her second birthday when a congenital heart condition wrested her from our loving family. Simply put, it was one of life’s tragedies that I’ll always struggle with and one that has caused me to cherish her younger sisters all the more.

The experience of the death of a child has also formed an indelible bond between my second husband, Gerry, who suffered the same loss as I did not very many years ago, but before we met. Our daughters, in fact, share a birthday week with their birthdates only one day apart.

Biking Boston's Neighborhoods

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her entire article in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Read past columns that are indexed and archived here.

Excerpt:

My husband and I have recently rediscovered the joys of old-fashioned, two-wheeled, human-propelled biking. Both of us learned to ride clunky one-speed Schwinns over a half-century ago. We eventually moved on to the newer ten-speeds in our teens and abandoned them for decades.

This summer we smartly invested in newfangled 21st century machines. These bikes, called hybrids, have lots of complicated gears, comfortable seats, sturdy tires, safe handbrakes and front-end shock absorbers. They are relatively inexpensive and are truly enjoyable.

I wrote recently about the wonderful off-road rail trails in New England that we’ve discovered on our weekend jaunts. Our biking excursions have grown in length; some of our now-favorite rail trails are 25 miles round trip. So we energetically took a leap on September 26th and joined over 4000 other bicyclists at one of Boston’s favorite events, Hub on Wheels.

You have until the morning of the ride to choose between three different loops – ten, thirty or fifty miles.

We chose what you might call the Mama Bear route. Not too short, not too long – just right. Delightfully, my eldest daughter, a triathlete who had recommended the biking event to us, shaved the additional twenty miles off her normal ride to join us.

No matter what town or city we were from, we were all Bostonians that day. All along our ride, volunteers and bystanders stood in all these local enclaves cheering us on and pointing us in the right direction. Several times I was met by a smiling face at the top of a hill assuring me that I was halfway there or that I only had ten more miles to go. It was one of the most delightful three-hour tours of Boston I will ever experience.