Volume 17, Issue 16
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
First person reports from the rock festival that wasn’t By Trish Dynia Special to the Town Times Former Middlefield Resident State Trooper Bob Cabelus was teaching a class at the State Police Academy in Bethany one afternoon in July 1970 when a secretary knocked on his classroom door. The State Police Commissioner was on the phone and wanted to speak with him PRONTO. Cabelus picked up the phone and was greeted with, “What the hell is going on down there in Middlefield?” Cabelus replied that he had no idea. The Commissioner went on to explain that there were rumors spreading of a huge concert that was coming to the Powder Ridge Ski Area, and he wanted details by 5 p.m. that day. Explained Cabelus in a recent interview, “I was no longer the resident trooper of Middlefield but had spent four years there and I lived in Middlefield, so the Commissioner felt I was the best person to get the scoop. I dismissed my class and headed home to Middlefield.”
Police at Middlefield Fire Company “headquarters.” State Police and National Guard Called In Shortly after early arrivals began camping on Powder Ridge’s ski slope, State Police implemented a plan to divert traffic through town via Routes 147 and 157 and set up
check points where resident passes would be needed to proceed onto side streets. The Connecticut Department of Transportation erected signs along all major highways entering Connecticut announcing that the concert was cancelled, and closer to the center of action, more signs were placed along highways leading into Middlefield in an effort to divert traffic away from town. State Police from barracks around Connecticut were temporarily reassigned to the Middlefield Fire Department building on Jackson Hill Road and the National Guard ensured that all emergency vehicles assigned to Middlefield were gassed up and in good working order. The Best Laid Plans By all accounts, it was a good plan, but the State Police hadn’t counted on three things: 1. Ingenuity - Local youth could sneak into town through the back roads from Middletown and Durham, and over the Appalachian Trail from Meriden; 2. Sympathy – Some local residents and business owners felt sorry for the kids who had traveled so far and gave them rides in cars sporting resident passes, or made photocopies of their own passes for them to use; and 3. Youthful energy – Many concert-goers who had traveled hundreds of miles to see their favorite
Friday, July 30, 2010
Magic happens at Brewster School In three very hot days last weekend, a crew of volunteers, as well as workers from Landscape Structures, turned an empty space next to the school into a state-of-the-art playground. At right, the empty field on Friday morning; below the Saturday crew; and bottom, a view of some of the newly installed equipment includes a preschool “cloud-climber,” foreground.
See Powder Ridge, page 12
In this issue ... Calendar.........................4 Durham Briefs ..15, 24-26 Libraries ......................17 Middlefield Briefs........14 Obituaries ....................29 Spotlight .......................28
Photos this page by Karen Buckley-Bates, Sue VanDerzee and Tori Piscatelli