Yes, No, Maybe

Read Shelby Warner's column in the October 25 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

So, here’s my story.  I am sentimental.  I keep things.  My closets, drawers, and cellar shelves are filled with stuff  I can’t part with.  What kind of stuff you may ask?? 

Well, I have the dresses I wore to the weddings of my four children.  They don’t fit any more, they’re out of style, I will never wear them again, but when I try to put them in the donation bag, I just can’t.  I also have every greeting card ever given me by my children and a few that amused me from friends.  My grandmother kept all her cards, too, but was smart enough to neatly organize them in scrapbooks.  Then there are the four bins of piano music, two bins of fabric which are for the quilts I intend to make someday and have intended for the last 20 years.  Oh, yes there is one bin, about 8 small containers, and 3 scrapbooks of baseball cards I once collected.  Are you getting the picture??  I have the blouse I wore on my first date with my husband which he especially liked and a cummerbund that once fit around my waist and now I might be able to wear around my thigh.

The Secret Garden

Read Marie Lydon's column in the October 18, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I generally like to confine my amateur gardening to the backyard, assuming that no one can see me there to judge the fruits of my labor. I know this isn’t really true because, in spite of a stockade fence, any of the neighbors can look from upstairs windows and see my disorganized way of doing things: smelling the lilacs, taking pictures of the butterflies, pouncing on every dandelion I see to wrestle it out, and smelling the lilies of the valley that don’t quite smell like my favorite colognes of yesteryear.

Breaking New Ground on Television

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the October 11, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Note: Spoiler Alert. If you don't haven't watched the last episode of Breaking Bad, don't read any further.



Last week the Albuquerque Journal published the obituary of Walter White who died “after a long battle with cancer.” And, of course, “a gunshot wound.”

Many of us knew Walter White quite well. In fact, over 10.3 million people knew Walter White so well that they began mourning him months ago, knowing for certain that the AMC television show (Breaking Bad) that made him a household name would not end well. At least not for Walter.

Landscape of Industry: The Blackstone Valley

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the October 4, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Part of the wonder of living in New England is the history that surrounds our everyday life. At times we take it for granted.  Often it becomes a critical a piece of our family lore, but we forget to step back and examine it closely.

My family story was woven with the threads of the history of the Blackstone River Valley. Most of my extensive family members (with surnames of Taft, Bruce, Allen, and Higgins) were born only steps and miles from the actual banks of the Blackstone River that winds from Worcester to Providence and into the Narragansett Bay.

What I Would Say

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read the published version of Nancy Ling's column in the September 27, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

The problem was it happened in a split second, as these things do. I was late and dashing out the door for book club at the Senior Center, when I glanced to my right. A young girl was standing near the Circulation Desk by the announcement of Essay Contest Winners. She was there with a woman I presumed to be her mother. In that split second as I’d rushed past my first thought had been, “I wonder if she’s one of the winners?” Now as I climbed into my car I realized the truth—the young girl had been crying.

Sailing Through Life

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the September 20, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Over 25 years ago, dear friends became intrigued by sailing, and within a few years they acquired their first 34 foot Catalina. In those earliest years of their maritime discoveries, I was lucky enough to sail a few times off the North Shore where they have moored their boat at Hawthorne Cove in Salem, just steps from the House of Seven Gables. I observed them maneuver around the decks working the lines, I bobbed my head when they altered course with the main sail, and loafed on the bow in awe of the sea and wind.

It had been well over a decade since I’d sailed with them on their boat, but Gerry and I were lucky enough to spend a delightful September Saturday on the water. The mild day started out overcast and still. Sometime after lunch in their roomy cockpit, we dodged the clouds by motoring past the Miseries and Cat Island. We reached sunshine and a pleasant wind somewhere off Marblehead Light and turned off the engines, relying only on both sails. Our hosts were gracious enough to give Gerry his first chance at the helm of a ‘real’ sailboat, and we achieved up to 6 knots all the way across Salem Harbor following the breeze that only practiced sailors know how to do.

At Home with the Alcotts

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the September 13, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

One of the things I love to do is tour Massachusetts with my out-of-state friends.  I had this honor in the last weeks of the summer with two of my oldest friends.  By oldest, I do mean my girlfriends who grew up with me bosom buddies in the suburbs of San Francisco.

I was transplanted from the Blackstone River towns of Massachusetts as a very young child.  I only rediscovered my New England roots as an adult, traveling past mills that stand proud (renovated or not), historic homes that held generations of families, and graveyards that tell the stories of amazing lives.

Last week, I was delighted to share part of the Massachusetts legacy of author Louisa May Alcott with friends when we visited the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. Fruitlands is just under an hour’s drive from Norwood.   On a gently rolling hillside overlooking woods and walking trails, one can view (on a clear day) Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, MA and Mt. Monadnock in Jaffrey, NH in the distance.

Quiet

Bonnie Wyler is a Literacy/Outreach Librarian at the library.  Read Bonnie's column in the September 6, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain is a book that I recently enjoyed immensely.  I was drawn to this title because I’ve always seen myself as an introvert, but didn’t know much about what that meant, and I thought of it as a failing.  I belong to a book group with only three people because I know from experience that I don’t talk in a larger group.  I feel awkward introducing myself in a group, even if I know most of the people there.  Like many introverts, I tend to feel bad about myself when I react this way.  In reading Quiet, I came to realize that these traits are a normal part of an introverted temperament, and that, in fact, there are distinct advantages to this undervalued personality type.  Interesting chapter headings in Quiet give the reader an idea of what lies ahead:

            “The Extrovert Ideal,”

            “Your Biology, Your Self? – Is Temperament Destiny?”

            “The Communication Gap: How to Talk to Members of the Opposite Type.”  

From the first page, I was drawn in by this beautifully written book, filled with interesting individual profiles and the latest research.

Sharks and Other Fish in the Sea

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 30, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Every year sometime in August, most of become aware of Shark Week.  The Discovery Channel started this sensation over 25 years ago. They started it a way to raise awareness about sharks, the fish that terrified at least one generation of swimmers who viewed the 1975 thriller movie, Jaws.  It’s no surprise that in 1987 marine biologists and the Discovery Channel concluded that the shark needed a more wholesome biography!

Shark Week resumes each year as a television spectacle complete with charming marine biologists, plenty of gimmicks, and loads of awesomeness of close-in shots of the fish we love to hate. Some viewers around the world obsess about the weeklong adventure like tennis fans tune in to Wimbledon. About twice as many as those who watch Wimbledon, to be exact.

Now Read This!

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 23, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

If you are anything like me, as soon as you enter another person’s home or office, your eyes are drawn to their bookshelves. I mentally take note of the books that we have in common – or those titles that I have admired but that I don’t own.  I nearly always notice how they are arranged.  Are they are haphazardly stacked between framed photographs or trophies or are they neatly organized by author?

That is why I loved thumbing through “My Ideal Bookshelf” edited by Thessaly La Force (2012). One hundred writers are featured in the book. James Patterson, Dave Eggers, Stephenie Meyer and Chuck Klosterman are among them. Each two-page spread includes spine art created by Jane Mount; they could be frame able art in itself.

Little Free Library

Read Kelly Unsworth's column in the August 16, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Kelly is a children's librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. 

This summer in the library, the Jr. Friends have been working on one of my favorite volunteer projects of the season, the Morrill Memorial Library’s version of “little free libraries”; those gnome-like creations that have been springing up for years across the country, and more recently in the Boston area.  As far as I know, and I would love to be proven wrong about this, there are none in Norwood.  Or shall I say, none “yet”.

Books: They're for the Birds

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 9, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Time was that I did not know the difference between a grackle and a crow.  Or a crow and a raven, for that matter. However, these days I can spot that crow on a telephone wire or treetop or that grackle underneath our bird feeder.  I don’t profess to ever having seen a raven, yet I know that they are the biggest of the three.

When I married my husband, Gerry, I was annoyed that he would interrupt my conversation in the car, or at the breakfast table, to point out a hawk high above the highway or a bluebird flitting about its house in the backyard.  I thought it quite rude that he was not paying the proper attention to my conversation that it deserved.

Classics: The Whole Story

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the August 2, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

I’m always sad when I find that one of my favorite children’s books has gone out of print.  Several of some lesser-known children’s authors have published amazing picture books and they've never have published a second. The first edition isn’t reprinted; when supplies dwindle (or when remainder piles are snapped up in discount book stores) the book becomes impossible to find.

Sadly, one of my favorite series of books for children and teens is out of print.  It is the Whole Story series of extraordinary unabridged classics. There are fifteen in the set and they were published by Viking Press between 1994 and 2002.

Creating and Remembering Secure Passwords

Read Brian Samek's column in the July 26, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Officially, I’m the Technology and Information Resources Librarian. Unofficially, to both staff and patrons, I’m “the computer guy.” One patron brought in his broken VCR and asked me if I knew what was wrong with it.

One of the most common questions I get is about computer security. A staff member received a phone call at home from a scammer who claimed that her computer would break irrevocably if she did not immediately follow his instructions. A patron was being stalked on Facebook. Patrons whose email or social media accounts have been hacked ask about how to make a password strong enough so that it can’t be guessed. And our website has been subject to a variety of attacks

Musicals on the Silver Screen

Read the published version of Library Director Charlotte Canelli's column in the July 19, 2013 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. 

Saturdays spent at double and triple-features were not, unfortunately, part of my happy childhood.  My family didn’t go to movies very often, if at all.  By the time my mother deemed me old enough to go alone with friends I’d moved to the suburbs and the downtown theaters were no longer close by.

I actually can’t recall one memory of going to the theater as a young child although I must have seen some movies on the big screen such as101 Dalmatians or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.