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City Voices
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WORCESTERIA
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Worcester Community United forges bonds between grass-roots progressive groups
Victor D. Infante
Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Perhaps it was fitting that the last event held at the Bridge on Southbridge Street was an act of building bridges among several disparate grassroots activist groups, representing disparate parts of the progressive community. That's exactly what happened July 15 at the Worcester Community United event, co-organized by Massachusetts Jobs For Justice's Central Mass. Regional organizer, Nelly Medina. The event drew more than 60 participants.
“The purpose of this gathering is to bring everybody who's doing the work within the grassroots community together,” says Medina, who is also the lead organizer for the Parents Union of Massachusetts and the mother of a 5year-old. “There's a lot of division within the community, we want to change that. We're doing a lot of good work, but we're doing it separately. Some organizations don't get the support or the spotlight that they deserve.”
Medina says that sometimes progressive organiza-
FIRST PERSON
The Library of Disposable Art — Miniature Liquor Bottles
David Macpherson
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Last time I was in Vermont, I went into a junk shop. Here is a question: When did we stop calling stores with an accumulation of stuff, “junk shops”? Now they are antique malls. Or vintage emporiums. When did we stop calling them junk shops? Now, I am not denigrating the things found in such places. I mean, some of my best friends are junk.
Whatever you need to call it, this place was a packed and over-teeming cornucopia of junk, and I loved it. I was wandering about, with no intention to buy anything. My wife really is done with me buying useless things to clutter the house with. She says, I clutter the house well enough just by my very presence. No need to bring anything else into the mix.
But then, near the register, there was a large box that said, “Old bottles. One dollar each.” These were not just old bottles. They were miniature old bottles. They were miniature old liquor bottles.
You know. Nips. Those shrunken vessels found in hotel mini-bars and in the rolling beverage carts of airplanes. Or you might find them stuffed inside a piñata. (This is true. A friend told me that for her partner’s 30th birthday, they had a piñata filled with nips. Though that was not a great idea what with them being hit with a bat and then falling on the ground, they did tend to break all over the place.)
I rummaged through the box and found the three most interesting shaped bottles. The guy at the counter was amused I was buying them. “You know, some of them still have some of their booze in them.” As if this was an enticing selling point.
I just smiled at him and handed over my three bucks. I couldn’t explain to him that these three old bottles were wonderful examples of disposable art. Nothing is more disposable then a nip bottle. They are not meant to hang about. They are to be carried in a pocket and quickly consumed and then tossed away.
Next time you walk through the neighborhood, look down at the gutter and you will see nips tossed here, there and the next place. Conceptual art of the quick buzz. The detritus of thirst shrunk down to its smallest dividend.
I can’t conceive of anyone keeping these bottles. Each one is at least twenty-five years old. Why would anyone keep them? But someone did. Looking on eBay, I found that
Miniature liquor bottles PHOTO COURTESY DAVID MACPHERSON
HARVEY
Long-delayed trip to Washington, D.C., an emotional experience
Janice Harvey
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
The train ride home from Washington, D.C., gave me plenty of time to reflect on what I’d seen during my five-day stay in the nation’s capital. I’d crossed one big item off my todo list finally, after canceling the trip booked for April 2020. COVID-19 was raging unchecked and America was in lockdown when the original vacation plans were trashed. A year later, standing across the street from the Jersey barriers and fences that surrounded the Capitol and the White House, I felt a deep sadness, knowing that the country is experiencing a very different lockdown — one brought on not only by an insidious virus, but by domestic terrorism.
I soon realized that visiting D.C. is not the same as taking a vacation. It’s a field trip, no matter how old you might be, a learning experience no American should wiggle out of. I didn’t know that I would spend a good deal of it fighting back tears. A year ago, I was able to arrange a tour of the Capitol with Congressman Jim McGovern. A year ago, I was able to book a visit to the White House. Neither was possible in June of 2021. Yet, I wanted to come to Washington, while democracy is still a thing.
We took the train out of Providence, since only one train a day connects Worcester to D.C. (That’s a topic for another day.) Along the way, my friend Rick and I saw much graffiti, and bleak scenes of boarded-up shells that were once homes and businesses. I sensed that this sobering glimpse of the cities we traveled through might set the tone for our visit. Through Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark and New York, the scenery created a sad postcard we’d hesitate to send home.
Our first night in D.C. was spent walking in the soupiest air this side of the Everglades. Rick acted as my tour guide, having visited several times before. (I have no problem tagging along like a puppy in a situation like this. I have a poor sense of direction, and without him I would still be standing in front of the Metro route map doing my best Tucker Carlson.) Now, I may be a jaded dame, as many have suggested, but I will freely admit that I was overwhelmed as I stood at the base of Abraham Lincoln’s likeness. This would be the first of many moments during this trip when tears filled my eyes. Would I have felt this way before January 6th? I don’t know. I do know that we never really appreciate anything till it either slips away or is taken from us.
I would weep again while visiting Arlington Cemetery, and yet again as I walked through the American Indian Museum, but it was inside the haunting, heartbreaking Holocaust Museum where I felt the full weight of history. Having taught the literature of war and particularly that of World War II, I fancied myself fairly knowledgeable. Nothing prepares a visitor for the stark, horrible truths on display. No amount of reading, no viewing of “Schindler’s List” can match the emotions evoked as one stands inside a cattle car used to transport Jews to their doom.
The African-American Museum was solidly booked, so we were unable to get in, but different tears would fall when I stood by the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. as a busload of visiting middle-schoolers stood jostling one another while posing for a group photo beneath the slain civil rights
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Bonds
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tions let themselves get segregated by race, class or other factors, and sometimes by separate ideologies: “They all want justice,” says Medina, “but they feel they have to go about it in a certain way, and that division isn't serving any of us. If the Tenant Housing Association of Worcester is having an event, and they're the only ones who show up, then we're not really winning, right? … We have to trust each other and we're going to support each other. I think that's what people are forgetting, that you don't have to be in competition over ideals and ideologies.”
Certainly, the event drew representatives from numerous organizations, including Movimiento Cosecha, the Socialist Alternative, Worcester Democratic Socialists of America, Defund WPD, Tenant and Housing Alliance of Worcester, The People's Party, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts' youth outreach program, OurStory Edutainment and the Village Worcester. There was a general agreement that it was the first time that representatives from so many grassroots organizations had met together.
The use of holding the event outside the Bridge — the home to several arts and at-risk youth nonprofit programs which was recently sold to a developer — was definitely not a coincidence, according to coorganizer Joshua Alba, the workers' rights organizer for Massachusetts Jobs for Justice.
“We thought about using this space,” said Alba, speaking on a microphone as a the group formed a circle around him, “because there's a lot of beautiful work being done in Worcester.” He also made it clear that, while they all had serious causes, the event was about, “just chilling and sharing information.” That was important to Parlee Jones, who was representing OurStory Edutainment and the Village Worcester.
“It's a call for activism,” said Jones, “for people doing that work in the community. It's a chance to see what's happening in our city, who's working on what, so we can join forces, make sure that we're not duplicating work, because that's the most frustrating thing. There's so many things that we need to work on, and many hands make light work. We've got to put all our little differences to the side and come together for the cause.”
But make no mistake, the issues that each participant championed were serious. Amparo Volpe of Movimiento Cosecha spoke of getting driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, a cause that can lead to families being torn apart when an immigrant is subjected to a routine traffic stop. Andy Jonathan of the Tenant and Housing Alliance of Worcester spoke about the eviction crisis, which looms even larger as pandemic protections erode and expire. Leah Hall, a youth organizer for Planned Parenthood, is looking for high school students for a team to help educate teens about issues of sexuality and gender identification, disease prevention, and relationships and consent. Ariel Banks of the local chapter of the Worcester DSA spoke about increasing turnout for local elections. The causes were numerous, and the need readily apparent, almost overwhelming.
But Medina isn't daunted by the task of bringing together so many disparate goals and agendas under one umbrella. Indeed, the event's organizers facilitated the event by making sure childcare was available, as well as translation services. There was also food provided by R&R Jerk Chicken. Medina says that access to these things are often the biggest impediments to civic involvement.
“It went amazingly well,” says Medina, There was a lot of positive feedback. My vision for community unity is to draw city and state attention to the premeditated gentrification and institutional racism in Worcester … we're in the middle of a class struggle."
Planning is underway for future meetings, as well as a rally and march to support the St. Vincent's nurses strike from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. July 31, beginning at Worcester City Hall and continuing on to the main strike site near the hospital's Summer Street entrance.
Medina says she's “inspired by the community coming together under one umbrella, understanding that we're in a war, and the only way we can overcome it is by walking together in love.”
Nelly Medina was a co-organizer of the Worcester Community
United event. PHOTO COURTESY SAM BISHOP
Bottles
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some of these bottles are for sale for over ten dollars. No one is saying that the seller will get such a fortune, but they are trying.
They are dirty things, this trio. In the bottle of Guest House Port Wine there is a dark purple crust on the bottom from the dried wine. The Sabra Chocolate Orange Liquor bottle (a fine Israeli product, that is now no longer made in Israel) also has the dried remnants of its elixir caked on the inside of the bottle. Someone didn’t drink every drop.
It is impossible to clean them. If you wash them out, you will ruin the paper label. So you are stuck with a dusty old bottle with a few drops of bad port wine. (That friend who had the Nip Piñata was shocked that I was not going to taste the few remaining drops of port wine. She felt I was a poor columnist for not tasting what I am writing about. Well, anyone who has ever read this column knows what a poor columnist I am, so why ruin my taste buds?)
I bought the last ancient nip bottle for its name. Camus Cognac. I do love a bottle of booze named after 20th-century French Existentialists. If you need to understand the Myth of Sissyphus, just have a few sips of this, and it will all make sense.
We are pack rats. We keep everything. We even keep the glass that held the booze we drank too quickly the night before. Hangovers are transitory. The glass that gave us that pain can stay with us as long as we have shelf space.
I picked the bottles because they were a nice shape. According to my research, the Sabra bottle is based on an ancient Phoenician decanter. See. Fancy. The Guest House Port Wine is three sided. Two of the sides have indentations, probably to aide in tipping that bad boy back and having the drink slide right down the throat.
My wife saw them and mused that they looked like perfume bottles. I am sure there were many people given scent from these bottles.
Looking at them on shelf, what joy of art will you find? What absence will you feel?
Harvey
Continued from Page 11
leader’s marble image. If MLK himself had chosen representation of his dream, he couldn’t do better: African-American and Asian students stood giggling and embracing their white and Muslim classmates, all behaving like kids — just kids. Carved into the wall that wraps around the exhibit were quotes from MLK’s speeches. One tugged at me more than others with its powerful simplicity:
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”
I listened to the laughter of children as I read it. Could anyone argue with those words?
In five days I’d felt a flood of emotions from awe to outrage, from pride to sadness and everything in between. On the train ride home, the graffiti suddenly seemed joyous and impressive to me, and the old men sitting in lawn chairs on sagging porches made me smile behind my mask. I promised myself to return to this place, now that D.C.’s fences are slowly coming down. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re losing pieces of America’s soul with every passing day. I considered as we sped past city skylines that I still have much more to learn about history and about my country, the one I so fiercely love. I’m working on it — now, while democracy is still a thing.
