By Clifton (Jerry) Noble, Sr.

After living without running water in our $800, remodeled schoolhouse since April 30, 1949, mother Minnie E. Noble (nicknamed “Hester”) and I would light kerosene lamps and candles for two more years before poles brought electricity down Carrington Road in Montgomery. Since October 1947 I have progressed from rodman to chief of my own two or three man party in the Survey section of Massa-chusetts Department of Public Works. The District 2 office is on the top floor of 191 Main Street in Greenfield. My journal gives events as they occur.

March 4, Tuesday. Last Saturday I went to Boston to take

the Junior Civil Engineer Exam with 4 others for the State of California (where I worked 1944-1945). It began at 9:30 a.m. at Girls High School, on West Newton Street. Other exams were for sealer of weights and measures and for the State of New York. There were 150 ques-tions. Snow started on the way home and roads were slippery. We passed a smash-up on Carew Street in Spring-field, but got home without mishap.

This morning I saw a “Huntington Supply” truck by Peckham’s barn east of the brook and stopped to tell Margaret Peckham in Russell about it. She was glad to hear that they were leaving a sawmill to work up logs for her daugh-ter Dorothy’s house. Clarence and Doris Barnes have made down payment on the Duggan place across the road from us. Clarence is night janitor at Westfield High School.

March 6, Thursday. Some birthdays. Bill Clarke turned 20 on February 23. Eugene Joseph Dragon’s is March 11. Gene told me that he and his family are not allowed to vote in elections because the Veterans Hospital grounds where they live is Unit-ed States government land or reservation. His mother cannot conduct business from home, such as giving music lessons, for the same reason. Bob Breen says Washington D.C. is governed by Congress and the rule also applies to city inhabitants.

Erratic weather of rain or snow brought a whang-banger of a thunderstorm. Hester said the closest crash jingled the tele-phone, but the phone is all right.

March 19, Wednesday. The 6 a.m. forecast was for rain

March, 1952

March, 1952

From the top of Mount Tekoa looking SW down past entrance to “YMCA Cave (right) to Westfield River and old Rt. 20 in Woronoco.

and snow ending. I left tire chains hanging in the shed. On the way home I found six inches of slip-pery snow blanketing the road. Wheels spun on the unpaved hill. Backing down, the car slipped sideways toward the bank over-looking railroad and river far be-low. The answer was walk home and get chains. I was glad it was less than a mile.

We told Helen Wolcott we would put on our puppet show for her Story Hour Saturday morning at the Athenaeum.

I have given two ballet books to the library. I have been practicing plies, port de bras and battements tendus, but at nearly age 26 foot turnout is discouragingly difficult.

March 31, Monday. Last Saturday I went to High Street, Southampton, to make a lot survey for my cousin Lester Em-erson. Lillian Beach, his wife’s mother, is giving them land to build a house. It is on the east side of the road across from the 1840 Beach homestead. Lester’s architect brother Whitney has designed an elaborate house about 70 feet long including garage. I was early so went to see Town Clerk Clyde Connors to find out what the town considers layout width for its roads. Usually it is 3 rods (49.5 feet).

Lester arrived shortly after nine. He was all eegah beevah, rush rush because he was supposed to be back to an operetta rehearsal in Simsbury Connecticut by 2 p.m.

Uncle Ralph Emerson and friend Herman Zeker paid a short visit. Lester left at one before we were finished. Neigh-bors came out to kibitz and tell me their troubles. Five-year-old Jeff Frisbie was a fine little man. When I had to work alone he helped by hooking and unhooking my steel measuring tape from nails in stakes. I left about four.

On the way home I got a haircut at Walt’s Barber Shop in Russell for 75 cents.

From 6:30 p.m to midnight I figured my traverses of the Beach property.

Hester had done some washing Wednesday so what I had

to do Sunday morning only took about an hour. Then I went over on the well-house roof for my first sunbath of the year. After 12:30 I washed the Plym-outh.

About 3 p.m. we drove to Worono-co and Hester waited in the car while I climbed Mouth Tekoa. Near the top end of the sheer 100-foot cliff on the-southwest face I found a cave. Names painted and carved on rock had as-sured me that I was on the right trail to something. Sure enough, I turned a corner, and there was the cave sloping steeply into the mountain. It was only a few feet wide and a stone wedged at its entrance made access difficult. I climbed a little way down, but it was so steep and my light so poor that I didn’t dare venture into the black part. I think this must be what Kenneth Allyn calls “YMCA Cave.” “Counterfeiter’s Cave” is supposed to be on the east side of the mountain. I had a swell hike anyway.

We went to church Sunday evening for the first time in 1952. Mr. Sturtevant the minister and his wife have a new baby. I hope it turns out to be less of a tornado than daughter Ruthie.

Bill had found a place in Leverett for $3,900.00, house, brook, hill and 15 acres. I asked if Irene liked the idea. He said, “She’ll like anything I think is a good buy.” Then he told me, “Irene is pregnant. That’s what made her sick a couple weeks ago. I guess we weren’t as careful as we should have been.”

This upset me. Perhaps I had trusted Bill more than he could be trusted.. Another friend lived with a woman in Ko-rea, and another had a “premature” first child. Sex clubs are unearthed in several cities including Northampton. Is animal instinct right, or is Bible teaching right? If the Bible is right, how long can America continue without a major catastrophe?

The schoolhouse, which still stands today and is used by the Noble family for storage.

Olympia Dukakis

I had seen the movie “Moonstruck” with Cher but Cher was pretty much all I remembered. But I do remember Olym-pia’s acceptance speech. Actually it was her parting words, “OK Michael let’s go!” Michael Dukakis was her cousin and Governor of Massachusetts. He was running for president that year. You must remember Michael but do you remember Olympia?

So as you’ve probably already guessed, she was another born-in-Massachusetts celebrity. But as I researched her biog-raphy, I was amazed at all she had accomplished in her life-time. To put it in one very long sentence she was described as “long a vital, respected thespian of the classic and contemporary stage, this grand lady did not become a household name and sought-after film actress until the age 56 when she turned in a glorious, Oscar-winning performance as Cher’s sardonic mother in the romantic comedy

Moonstruck (1987).” With that kind of an ac-colade, it proved there had to be a lot of people who knew her incredible body of work.

Further research revealed that “Movie (and TV) fans then discovered what East coast theater-going audiences had uncovered decades before – “Olympia Dukakis was an acting treasure.” She could play any ethnic character and handled com-edy as well as tragedy like the pro she was. All that experience “kept her in high demand for 30 years as one of Hollywood’s topnotch character players.”

Olympia Dukakis was born in Lowell, Massa-chusetts on June 20, 1931, the daughter of Greek immigrants. She went to Boston University and graduated with a BA in physical therapy. She worked in that field during the polio epidemic. Later Olympia returned to her alma mater to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree. With that educational background no one could have guessed she would go on to have such an incredible acting career. But acting must have been in her mind even at that stage of her life because her work as a physical ther-apist helped her earn enough to train as an actress.

In the meantime, her early success came on stage in

Olympia

Dukakis

summer stock and with “several repertory and Shakespearean companies throughout the country”. It has been reported in her bio that “she has per-formed in over 130 produc-tions off-Broadway and re-gionally at theaters.” Her Broadway debut was as an understudy and that was followed by short runs in many plays. Olympia also did a one-woman play called “Rose” at the Na-tional Theatre in London, later on Broadway and eventually toured around the country. She won an Outer Crit-ics Circle Award and nomination for Drama Desk Award.

Between Olympia’s stage work, films and TV work, I won-dered how she found time to get married and have children. The answer came with her marriage in 1962 to Louis Zorich an actor who obviously was as like-minded as Olympia. They co-founded The Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, New Jer-sey a company they ran for 19 years (1971-1990). It “encouraged the birth of new and untried plays.” Olympia’s many successes came from their company.

She was actress, director, producer and teacher all while raising their three young children. She also became “a master instructor at New York University for fourteen years.” Her love of the City kept Olympia a resident even after the death of her husband in 2018 and until her own death in May 2021.

Olympia Dukakis as Rose Castorini in Moonstruck. The role that would win her an Oscar.

Olympia received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greek America Foundation, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. These important awards are but a very small part of the long list of honors she has received during her impressive career. And I have to mention her best-selling autobiography “Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress”. You just have to goggle her and feel the “wow” of her life yourself.

As to where Olympia Dukakis is now – she is buried be-side her husband Louis Zorich in the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Montclair, New Jersey.

REFERENCES: (1) Olympia Dukakis Biography and (2) Find a Grave

titled Southwick Has Scholarship Foundation, the lead para-graph states “The Incorporation of the Citizen’s Scholarship Foundation of Southwick, an affiliate of the National Citizen’s Scholarship Foundation of America, was effected at a recent organizational meeting.” It continues “The new foundation will be structured as a nonprofit corporation and replaces the now defunct PTA Scholarship committee. With the cooperation and assistance of the national foundation, its purpose will be to establish a vitally needed scholarship fund and program in Southwick designed to help students in the community meet the costs of higher education.”

The article credits the following town leaders for forma-tion of the new group: Herb Pace, SHS Guidance Counselor; Al Spillane; Dr. Robert Pier; Vivian Brown; and Attorney Carlo Ta-gliavini. Mr. Tagliavini had prepared the incorporation papers and bylaws that were adopted at this meeting.

At the Senior Awards ceremony later that spring, Joyce Haire and David Halla received the first Citizens Scholarship Foundation awards.

1967-68. There was never to be another Southwick Farm Fair, and the remaining funds were dwindling. Its last Presi-dent was James Putnam, Sr. (the author’s dad.) In the final dis-banding of the Southwick Fair Association, he arranged for the remaining Southwick Fair funds to be turned over to the Citi-zens Scholarship Foundation. Jim Sr. and Fran Putnam would thereafter be part of the Citizens group, along with many of their friends, until sometime in the 1980s.

The current Southwick Dollars for Scholars group thanks all who came before us who built and sustained this important community initiative. We thank all who have generously do-nated – past, present and future. We enthusiastically invite a new generation to join our group to help “pay it forward” for future Southwick Regional School graduates.

Cherry Blossoms

Luck O’ the Irish:

Trickster Leprechauns and Pots of Gold

By Sean Walsh

change for his freedom. But be careful, if he ever leaves your sight you will never see his gold at the end of the rainbow.

One story from Carol Rose’s “Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins” tells of a young man who managed to get a Lepre-chaun to show him the tree that lay beyond the rainbow where his treasure was hidden. But it was deep underground tangled in the tree’s roots. Having no shovel, the man marked the tree with red ribbon before releasing the Leprechaun. Returning al-most instantly he found that every one of the numerous trees in the field sported the same red ribbon! He had let the Lepre-chaun out of his sight and ended up tricked.

But even if you’ve readied your mind and planned for all sorts of trickery, capturing a leprechaun is far easier said then done.

The only true way to know if a Leprechaun is near is to be silent and listen to the sounds of nature. Every fairy kind is known to make a specific sound and Leprechauns make a ham-mer tapping noise as they work away at a pair of shoes.

A William Allingham poem titled “The Leprechun; Or Fairy Shoemaker” describes the sound, “Lay your ear close to the hill. Do you not catch the tiny clamor, busy click of an elfin hammer. Voice of the Leprechaun singing shrill as he merrily piles his trade.”

Even if you manage to hear the faint tapping you still must remain quiet. If a Leprechaun knows he has been seen he will turn invisible and escape into the forest.

Some legends state that they value their privacy and gold so much as to hold a grudge against anyone whose greed leads them in search and will go far beyond the usual roguish trick-ery, and use their magic maliciously. Spoiling your food, break-ing items in your home, or even tossing your children out of their beds.

If all warnings fail to discourage brave souls from hunting the magical folk, Leprechauns have one final trick. The gold that fills their pots is fairy gold and is said to turn into dust or a useless item like buttons after being exposed to the human world for even a few minutes. Greed will pay no profit when dealing with Leprechauns.

Nowadays, Leprechauns can be found in movies, books, toys, and passing as mascots for colleges and cereal brands. Seemingly leaving behind their humbler cobbler days for the spotlight of Hollywood. But their humble beginnings will re-main in legends and sighting will undoubtably continue from now till end of time.

So I leave with a wee bit of advice: on St. Patrick’s Day every-one is Irish or so the story goes, so grab a four leaf clover and best of luck to those chasing pots of gold at the end rainbows.

Live with

Boldness

on God’s face, go to Him with boldness. Go to Him like you know He’s proud of you, like you know He loves you, like you know He wants to be good to you. Ask Him for your dreams to come true. Pray bold prayers. You’re not inconveniencing Him.

You are a son right now!

Jesus told the story of the Prodi-gal Son. You know the story. The son asked his dad for his inheri-tance, and he left home. And then he blew all the money partying and making poor choices. Once he was broke, he got so desperate he ended up eating pig slop to survive. Pig slop!

Finally, he came to his senses, and he thought, The servants back home live better than I do. They don’t eat pick slop! I’m going to go back to my father’s house, and after all the wrongs I’ve done, after this big mess, I know I can’t live at home, but maybe … maybe my father will hire me as one of his servants.

Do you see what’s happening? Because of his mistakes, he has stopped seeing himself as a son and he has started seeing himself as a servant. He