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.

Banned Books Week

Jenna Hecker is the Technology/Reference Librarian at the library. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week. Read past columns that are indexed and archived here.

Excerpt:

The first public library to ban Huckleberry Finn was the Concord Free Public Library, who in 1885 accused Twain’s then year-old work of containing coarse, inelegant language. The book has continued to be a source of tension and controversy – sometimes it was challenged or banned for portraying interracial friendships and taking an anti-slavery stance, other times modern challengers objected to its use of the ‘n’-word and its generally racially-charged language. All of these controversies have made the book one of the most-banned books of all time.
Each year, in the last week of September, the American Library Association and libraries nationwide host events and displays celebrating literature that has been challenged or banned in libraries and schools. Banned Books Week highlights the most frequently challenged books of the previous year and tries to give people a history of book challenges.

A Tour of Norwood Through Local Authors

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:

One of my favorite passages of the first chapter of “Mapping Norwood” is one in which Charles, his brother and mother ride the bus from their home to downtown Norwood. On this ride “down Walpole Street … I wave at my home away from home, the town’s public library.” Later on in the book Charles Fanning spends pages on his childhood spent reading, on one of his favorite books and on a place near and dear to both of our hearts, the Morrill Memorial Library.

The tour in Dr. Fanning’s book does not stop at just the library, however. Chapters are devoted to his family’s history, both Yankee and Irish-American, in Norwood and in a young America. It is a memoir rich with memories of small-town America, the sociology of ethnic groups ‘bumping’ against each other and the history of a family.

A Delightful Three-Hour Tour

Charlotte Canelli is the Library Director in Norwood. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Read past columns that are indexed and archived here.

Excerpt:

Once considered the dirtiest harbor in the world, the Boston Harbor is now one that sparkles after a serious cleanup and revitalization project in the late 20th century. In that harbor the thirty-four Boston Harbor Islands are all part of the National Park Area, each unique and each with a rich history.

This past summer Marguerite Krupp shared her love of the Boston Harbor Islands during two evening programs at our library. Her first program was so popular that we quickly scheduled another and both were given to rapt audiences.

I quickly decided on the whimsical idea to try one of the many Boston Harbor Islands cruises. I purchased tickets for a sunset cruise to Long Island through the Friends of the Boston Harbor Islands (FBHI.org.) The sunset cruise to Long Island happened to conveniently be given on one the nights that our 12-year grandson was on vacation with relatives.

Of course, whimsy at its best involves spontaneous planning but I know better when travel, tickets or food are involved.

The To-Do or Not-to-Do List

Charlotte Canelli is the Library Director in Norwood. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week. Read past columns that are indexed and archived here.

Excerpt:

Sometime last year I read an article about the Not-To-Do List and decided to make a mental list. My Not-To-Do List this year included items such as do not procrastinate, do not buy any more books, do not avoid exercise and do not wake up at 4:00 am and worry. I’ve made little progress on some of those and adequate progress on others so I think it might just have worked.

On the Trail of Tolstoy

Shelby Warner is a retired librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her entire column this week in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Read past columns that are indexed and archived here.

Excerpt:

The library is a treasure trove of information and the reference staff can help you find the key to your particular question.

Recently, I used this process for myself. Having just seen “The Last Station,” a film about the last year in the life of Leo Tolstoy, I had whetted my appetite to know more about this famous Russian author. I wondered what brought him to his sad end, what he was doing in Astapovo where he died, why his wife wasn’t allowed to see him until he was already in a coma and how his life made such an impact on the world.

These questions were just the tip of the iceberg, for I did not yet know much about Tolstoy. But I did know that within the walls of the library I could satisfy my curiosity. So, I launched myself on the trail of Tolstoy.

Confucius and Career Change

Charlotte Canelli is the Library Director in Norwood. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week.

Excerpt:

Change has been no stranger to my life. Before the age of seven I had moved four times and across the country from Boston to San Francisco. In over fifty years I have called more than two countries, five states and twenty towns my home.

Adapting has been fairly easy most of the time but sometimes more difficult. I never did fall in love with Texas, or Connecticut for that matter. The notable fact is, however, that I have survived all of it and have come out stronger on the other side.

Pulled kicking and screaming as teenagers my children have since told me that moving them during those delicate formative years was one of the best things that happened to them.

Attributed to no one in particular is this quote: “If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.”

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood.

Exercising Made Easier

April Cushing is the Adult Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read April's entire column this week in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Full text:

I started this exercise program purely by accident. I was happily pursing my sedentary lifestyle, browsing at the shop where my daughter works in Westwood, when hard-bodied Brenda walked in and invited me to join her workout class. I’m not sure if it was the fact that a) it was free; b) I get winded climbing the single flight of stairs to my comfy chair at the Norwood Library Reference Desk; or c) I’m really bad at saying no, but I agreed. Reluctantly.

At 6 p.m., the temperature a balmy 91, I arrived at the high school track with a pair of weights and a water bottle. I didn’t know quite where to go so I approached a group of fit looking females and asked if they were waiting for Brenda. Nope. I assumed class was probably cancelled due to the heat when I saw her speeding around the track. Darn.

To the beat of the boombox we squatted, kicked, lunged, and tore up and down the bleachers, leaving no muscle group unmolested. Then the C-word reared its ugly head. You know, the core, which I didn’t even know I had 10 years ago. Just when I figured it couldn’t get any worse I heard the three words that have pierced the hearts of mankind for millennia: take a lap. I thought I felt raindrops—yes!!—but it was only sweat. Whose, I’m not sure.

But back to Brenda. My 20-year-old has adopted her friend’s maternal parent as her other mother. I used to feel funny about this because shouldn’t Belle be cooking with me, even though I don’t technically, um, cook? I mean, I like to read cookbooks and drool over the pictures… Brenda has not only born five offspring but still wears skinny jeans, which she sometimes passes on to Belle. The only genes my daughter and I share are the ones I gave her at birth. But Brenda’s impressive wardrobe and workout ethic aside, she’s really quite nice. Plus she got me off my butt and back on (the) track, which is even more remarkable.

Meanwhile, back at boot camp, I was lumbering around the football field for the third time when I heard a youth coach yell “Crunches! 10s-20s-30s! Use your abs, not your hips!” I have no clue what that means but any exercise you can do lying down can’t be all bad. I actually enjoy breaking a good sweat--after the fact. Then I can almost justify splurging on a hot fudge sundae at The Ice Jack or The Sugar Cone.

To prolong my endorphin surge--and since my car was in the shop--I trudged the two miles home after class. You, however, can experience this vicariously and with a lot less effort simply by checking out The Long Walk Home by Will North at your local library.

I also do hot (Bikram) yoga once a week, or more often when my 10-pack of pre-paid discounted classes is due to expire. If struggling to keep your sweaty palms from slipping in 100-degree heat doing downward-facing dog or trying to tune out the guy snoring on the next mat during corpse pose doesn’t do it for you, try yoga at home with one of these DVDs: Biggest Loser: the Workout, Weight Loss Yoga, Yoga to the Rescue: for Back Pain, or Get Moving, to name a few. And if duck walking with a stretchy band around your ankles in public isn’t your bag either, you can look as silly as you please in the privacy of your own abode with Safe and Fit: Total Body Workout.

Luckily we have plenty of books on the subject if you’re more of an armchair exerciser. You know who you are. Yoga for Pain Relief, Yoga for Stuttering, Yoga and the Wisdom of Menopause, Yoga for Computer Users, Yoga for Arthritis: there’s something for everyone. Fear and Yoga in New Jersey, a collection of humorous stories by Debra Galant, is particularly painless, and you don’t even need to live in the Garden State to enjoy it.

A well-meaning 24-year-old gave me this unsolicited bit of advice recently: Frowning at my derriere encased in a modest black bathing suit, she said, “You could, um, lift those up by doing half an hour on the Stairmaster a few times a week, you know, Mom.”

Why, thanks hon. I have a perfectly good set of stairs I could pound if I was serious about minimizing the gluteus maximus. Or I could just check out another classic DVD, Great Buns & Thighs: Step Workout.

I haven’t had the pleasure myself, but a few of the library staff swear by kettlebells. A kettlebell resembles a large grapefruit with a handle and provides a total body aerobic workout, unlike traditional weight lifting which targets specific areas. The Norwood Library, coincidentally, has three such DVDs you can borrow on your way to becoming cut, jacked or ripped. The minute I’m ready to move beyond mountain pose or my personal favorite, child pose, I plan to preview Kettlebell Goddess Workout just to see what happens.

With all these fabulous fitness resources at our fingertips, and with a healthy dose of discipline, we can all look and feel like a million bucks. So swing by the library soon for some serious inspiration.

Facing the Future with Facebook

Charlotte Canelli is the Library Director in Norwood. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin next week.

Excerpt:

Every so often I stumble across my personal “archives.” Translated that means, of course, the cartons of “stuff” that I’ve been moving from home to home over last half century.

Inside one worn cardboard box, under the high school term paper on Jonathan Swift and tucked behind a scrapbook or two, you’ll find a diary. The year was 1965 and I was in the eighth grade.

The first entry was written around the first of January 1965 and I had just seen the Beatles movie “A Hard Day’s Night” (released in 1964.)

“I LOVE Paul!” I was 13 and I had fallen hard for the cutest of the four Beatles.

The Light from Within

Charlotte Canelli is the Library Director in Norwood. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin next week.

Excerpt:

Each day diffuse and perfect light enters these gracious rooms through those amazing windows. They are reminders to us that public institutions such as libraries begin as testaments to the strength and character of the community that builds them. Germaine Greer wrote that “libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit; reminders of order, calm and continuity.” Norwood’s strength and character can be found in its gorgeous and uplifting public library with its architectural splendors of both grace, order and continuity.

Read more of the Handbook of the new Boston Public Library compiled by Herbert Small, Curtis and Company, Boston, MA, 1895.


Find out more about the Arts and Crafts Movement at Wikipedia.

Read more about printers' marks in the booklet
Printers' Marks: A Chapter in the History of Typography by William Robert, George Bell and Sons, 1893.

Read a brief description of the Morrill Memorial Library on the library website.

2001: A Calligraphic Odyssey

Cindy Rudolph is a circulation assistant at Morrill Memorial Library. She also does graphic design and hand-lettered signage for the library. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week.

Excerpt:

When I became interested in calligraphy around 1980, the first place I went to find out about it was the Norwood library. I found a few books on the subject and began practicing the Italic, Uncial, and Gothic alphabets. I learned about broad-tipped pens, pen angles and permanent inks. I soon realized I could add calligraphy to my offerings as a freelance artist, so I started addressing envelopes for brides, lettering personal poems, retirement citations and whatever else I was commissioned to do. I began teaching calligraphy and exhibiting my work with Masscribes, a calligraphers’guild, and with the Norwood Art Association. I’ve made friends with many other calligraphers, who inspire me and share so much of their knowledge. The art of calligraphy still intrigues me and there’s always something new going on in the field.

You can also read a great article about Steve Rudolph, Cindy's husband.

Fun of Two Wheelin'

Charlotte Canelli is the Library Director in Norwood. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week.

Excerpt:

We vacationed on Cape Cod for a week in late June and early July. We had incredible weather and every lovely morning the fragrant breezes rustled our gauzy curtains in the two-story ocean-side home we rented.

Sunshine poured through them each morning at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. I’ve written before about my morning personality. When I’m on vacation I love to get up even earlier than normal to enjoy every minute of a beautiful place. I never want to miss a sunrise or a sunset.

Fortunately, we had rented bicycles for our entire week at the Cape. Everyone in the USA knows that this sandy, sunny strip of New England is a perfect place to take a bike ride.

My enthusiasm for early morning bike rides won over a few of my companions. Each day we were out riding shortly after the sun had risen a foot off the horizon.

We caught the biking bug on vacation and after we arrived home, we did some minimal research and decided to purchase simple, new road bikes.

A Summer of Summer Reading

Marie Lydon is head of Reference at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read her entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week.

Excerpt:

I spent most of my younger summers sprawled on our screened-in porch reading Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew books. Then my mother promoted me to Gene Stratton-Porter’s “Girl of the Limberlost” and “The Five Little Peppers” series, not to mention “Maida” books which no one seems to remember reading but me, although I just Googled it and there is a website devoted to it. I don’t remember much after that until I was selecting my own books and reading things like “Marjorie Morningstar” and “Advise and Consent.”

Once I switched majors I had to read from a summer reading list, which most English majors had been doing since the summer after freshman year, containing such titles as “War and Peace,” “Crime and Punishment,” “My Antonia,” “Vanity Fair” and “David Copperfield,” to name a few.

The Not-So-Lost Art of Conversation

Margot Sullivan is a retired Adult Services Librarian who still works part-time as a Reference Librarian and leads two popular book discussion groups.

Read Margot Sullivan's entire column this week in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Excerpt:

As you can tell I am a people person. I must say it bothers me when I see people come to the library for hours and surf the net some with very valid reasons and others???? Who knows? But when one is sitting at a computer or on their phone or “friending” someone in Facebook there is no real “conversation” as we used to know it. At a recent event with many young teenagers I was sad to see how often the young people would interrupt the dancing to run back to their tables to check their cell phones! Why I ask! On our return boat ride from a brief vacation on a sunny day to savor a gentleman in front of me was on his cell phone for ten or fifteen minutes! Once I saw two couples hiking on a wooded trail one member of each couple was on their cell phone – for all I know they were talking to each other!