Network Amherst: The Lehrer Report
By Phyllis Lehrer
Published on May 09, 2008
May birthdays: Doug Keller, Elizabeth Scott, Robert Pariseau, Linda Michaud, Donna Leaf, Jonathan woodbridge, Sharrie Reydak, Pete Lillya, Maija Lillya, Ellen Holt, Luke Bittel, Helen Szepelak, Stephen Kurtz, Doris Metzger, Ira Sharkey, Marjorie Schiffer, John Cooper, Jacqueline Harvey, Daniel Griswold, Helen Ross, Kerttu Bollinger, Patricia Vinskey, Bruce Klotz, Margaret Gunn, Ernest May, Mary Chudzik, Erich Heinlein, Bertha Cowan, Ronald Anderson, Joan Bechtold, Ken Doubleday, Constance Cetto, William Lovett, Gail Henderson, Frank Wells, Barbara Renault, Brendan Sullivan, Elizabeth Mokrzecki, Anthony Cohn-Haft, Christine O'Connor, Stephan Karch, Mona Croner, Sharon Wells.
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Save the dates: Community Fair, May 8, 9 10; Garden Club Plant Sale, May 17; both on the town common and both about as local as you can get.
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Garden report: The pulmunaria have bloomed, the Solomon seal is up, the lilacs are in bud, and my garden plot was rototilled early so I can put in the lettuce seedlings. The display of white tulips at the Munson Memorial Library was stunning. Sweetser Park was in bloom on a perfect sunny warm spring day for the ceremony honoring Stan Ziomek, who retired as tree warden after 40 years. Former Town Manager Barry Del Castillo and former Select Board member Carl Seppala attended, as did many friends and family. A red oak, Stan's favorite tree, was planted in his honor.
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Trip report: The issue of light in painting is a major topic. The sky in Holland was a pale blue, the color the KLM planes and staff uniforms. The sky in Italy was the brighter blue that of a Madonna's dress. Yet most of the windows in Italy had their shutters drawn. In Holland, the windows are huge, many uncurtained to let the light in, my friends told me. The wisteria was in bloom, the grapes vines were starting to bud, and even small family plots had olive trees in Italy. The fields on the hillside were brown, having just been plowed. The tulips and daffodils were in bloom in Amsterdam and flower stalls are prolific with buckets of tulips, roses, daisies, baby's breath, pale green verbena and lace cap hydrangea. I saw windmills and wind turbines in Holland.
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Lillian Gordon and Fernando Molina are new parents with the birth of David Fernando Molina last week. He is eight pounds, 12 ounces and 21 inches long. Lillian is the daughter of Glen and Nellie Gordon, of West Street in Amherst. The unbiased grandfather reports the baby is beautiful. He has pictures.
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Karen Samonds, the daughter of Ken and Carolyn Samonds, of Dana Street in Amherst, received a Fulbright Scholar's African Regional Research Program Award. She graduated from Amherst Regional High School and UMass. She received her doctorate in anatomical science from SUNY-Stoneybrook in 2006. The award will fund research, accommodations and travel for nine months to Antananarivo, Madagascar, and at her paleontology research site in the northwestern part of the island. She has been to Madagascar before and her photo was in the National Geographic that did a feature on lemurs on the island. She is currently teaching anatomy at McGill University Medical School and is a research associate of the Redpath Museum in Montreal. To see her research visit redpath-staff.mcgill.ca/Samonds/index.html.
The Bulletin invites readers to send brief, true tales of life in Amherst to Network@gazettenet.com, for possible use in Phyllis Lehrer's weekly column. Please include your name.
