“Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours.” ~ Wallace Bruce
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Bee Intelligencer AN INDEPENDENTLY OWNED FREE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
Informing the towns of Middlebury, Southbury, Woodbury, Naugatuck, Oxford and Watertown
www.bee-news.com
Volume XII, No. 7
June 2016
Memorial Day Weekend Events
Memorial Day 2016
Saturday, May 28
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly, Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead; short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe! To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high! If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. - In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
Starting at 7 a.m., Middlebury Lions Club members will place flags on the graves of veterans buried in Middlebury cemeteries.
Sunday, May 29 Veterans’ Memorial Day Ceremony The Middlebury Lions Club will honor our fallen military heroes in a ceremony at noon at the Middlebury Cemetery on Route 64. It will include an honor guard and rifle salute from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Local Boy Scouts will raise the flag at the start of the ceremony and lower it as taps are played. Local clergy will offer prayers of invocation and benediction, Middlebury selectmen will speak, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address will be read. Veterans’ Reception All veterans are welcome to attend a reception at 4 p.m. at the corner of Bronson Drive and Whittemore Road in Middlebury. Middlebury Parade Those with convertibles are welcome to show up on Bronson Drive at 4 p.m. to provide parade transportation for our veterans. The parade will kick off at 5 p.m., traveling from Bronson Drive past the Green to Town Hall for a ceremony of remembrance. The speaker this year will be retired Lt. Col. Michael O’Connor of the Army National Guard. Woodbury Parade Woodbury’s annual Memorial Day Parade will be Sunday afternoon, rain or shine. Marchers will line up at the Woodbury Middle School parking lot at 1 p.m. The parade will begin promptly at 2 p.m. The parade route will follow School Street to Route 6 and then proceed on Route 6 to Cannon Green, where a ceremony will take place.
Monday, May 30 Southbury Parade The Southbury Memorial Day Parade will begin at 11 a.m. at the Pomperaug Office Park and continue down Main Street South to the Memorial Green for services honoring those who served our country. Join the Family Day Picnic afterwards at 12 p.m. at Ballantine Park. Food and drinks will be sold by the Boy Scouts or bring your own. There will be music and fun for the kids.
Middlebury Recreational Area The Middlebury Recreational Area will be open Saturday, Sunday and Monday for the Memorial Day weekend. It will be open Saturday, May 28, and Sunday, May 29, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Monday, May 30, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Spotlight on Middlebury Land Trust properties By JANINE SULLIVAN-WILEY Congratulations to Howard West, the first person to correctly identify the May mystery photo as Fenn Pond. Also correct, and the first to respond to the online edition, was Rob Fenn, who has spent much of his life by this pond. He said the picture was taken from an unusual perspective, one that many don’t see. (That was the plan; the June location may be even harder to guess. You can scout possibilities on the Middlebury Land Trust [MLT] website at middleburylandtrust.org). Here is a little background on Fenn’s Pond. It is part of a roughly triangularshaped 6.3-acre parcel the land trust acquired in1970. Rob Fenn provided a lot of its very interesting history, much of it hockey-related – not a surprise to anyone who knows of his love for the sport. The pond has an illustrious hockey history. Each winter, from about 19351950, the Middlebury Hockey Club set up a fully functioning hockey rink on this pond, complete with boards that were lag screwed right into the ice. The club painted lines on the ice and set up regulation-size hockey nets. Two strings of lights stretched between poles on Charcoal Avenue and Route 64, lighting
up the rink for as many as 1,000 people who would come to watch the matches. A hat was passed to cover the costs. That kind of crowd for a rural venue is almost unimaginable now, but this was before TV was a major competitor for the night’s entertainment. The rink’s location moved in 1950, when a bulldozer cleared a space to the west side of the pond, where the boards could be permanently attached to cedar posts. Each winter, a channel dug from the small brook that runs into the pond allowed water to fill the rink. Each spring, the rink was drained. That practice lasted into the early ‘60s. The pond itself was created around the turn of the 20th century from a swamp that was fed by two brooks. Route 64 did not yet bisect the area, which was simply lowland between farms. The Middlebury Land Improvement Group bought the property and turned it into a pond. But it was not the pond we see today: it was fairly shallow – Rob Fenn says it was about 3 feet deep – and fields bordered it except for the trees along Charcoal Avenue. Now those driving on Route 64 or walking on the greenway get a good view of the pond. These days, the pond is deeper due to dredging (which has happened three times so far), and its residents have
Inside this Issue It Happened in Middlebury... 5 Senior News Line.........3 Obituaries...................5 Sports.................. 3 & 6 Pet of the Month.........4 To Your Good Health....7 Puzzles.......................7 Veterans Post..............5
Editorial Office: Email: mbisubmit@gmail.com Phone: 203-577-6800 Mail: P.O. Box 10, Middlebury, CT 06762 Advertising Sales: Email: mbiadvertising@gmail.com
Upcoming Events
Classifieds...................7 Senior Center Events....2
wednesday
June 8
saturday
June 18
changed. It used to have fish called suckers, which had an odd-shaped mouth that made them nearly impossible to catch with a hook. The bullheads were bigger, catchable, and quite enough for a good meal. At one point, decades ago, someone apparently dumped goldfish into the pond, and people could see them in the winter, glimmering brightly beneath the ice. They are now gone. The pond has long been a great place for turtles, many of which can still be seen there, the snapping turtles swimming in wait for an unwary duckling, the painted turtles sunning on the rocks. Shiners, crawfish and even freshwater clams find homes there. The pond attracts a nice variety of birds, some of which find the frogs, small turtles and fish good to eat. If you visit, you might see a red-winged blackbird, great blue heron, cranes, geese, ducks and the usual small songbirds. Few mammals make their homes there. Decades ago there were many muskrats, but these haven’t been seen in some time. Very rarely, an otter has been seen in the small brook that feeds the pond. That brook has shrunk dramatically over the past decades to about a third of its original size; it once was big enough to host brook trout but now
Send in your guess identifying the June “Can You Guess The Location?” mystery Middlebury Land Trust property. (Janine Sullivan-Wiley photo) has only the tiniest of fish. The frog population has shifted as well, with the once-plentiful bullfrogs now quite rare. The spring peepers remain, making their joyful din in the spring and early summer evenings. The June mystery location may be the hardest yet to recognize. Hint: there is no pond but there is water in this par-
Middlebury Congregational Church Annual Strawberry Festival What: When: Where: Info:
Games, musical entertainment and food, including homemade strawberry shortcake. 5 to 7:30 p.m. On the Green (Route 188) in Middlebury. Eat in, take out or call ahead for a to-go order: 203-758-2671.
MVFD Ladies Auxiliary Annual Lobster Bake What: When: Where: Info:
$20 for a take-out order of cooked 1-1/2 pound lobster and ear of corn on the cob. Pre-order for pickup between 3 and 5 p.m. Middlebury Fire House at 65 Tucker Hill Road. Call in your PREPAID order to Linda at 203-263-8240.
St. John of the Cross First Chicken Dinner
saturday
June 25
cel. As before, email your best guess to mbisubmit@gmail.com, and please put “Guess the location” in the subject line. If you missed any of the previous “Spotlight” articles, you can find them on the Bee’s website or its Facebook page. In July, we will name the correct email respondents; the first respondent is the winner.
What: When: Where: Info:
$10 for a take-out order of barbecued half chicken, baked potato, cole slaw, baked beans and roll. Pick up orders between 4 and 6 p.m. Parish House at 1321 Whittemore Road in Middlebury. Purchase tickets before June 12 at Quality Consignment, Sullivan’s Jewelers, Middlebury Parks and Recreation, and the Parish House.
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