Waterford Times

Above, Beyond, and Into the Deep

2008-10-14T15:49:20Z

Denise Swiatek Named Educator of the Year by Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration

By Susan Cornell
Special to the Times

Denise Swiatek, a teacher with the Science and Technology Magnet High School in New London, has been named Educator of the Year by Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration. Swiatek was honored during the aquarium’s annual Educators Open House on Oct. 2.
The Educator of the Year is selected from a group of teachers nominated by the aquarium’s education department, explained Kelly Matis, vice president of education and public conservation programs at Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration.
“Nominees are educators who have gone above and beyond working with their students and the aquarium’s education staff, assisting with and participating in various programming at the aquarium,” she said. “We’re the ones working directly with these teachers. We’ve always been unanimous. “Denise has had an incredible involvement with the aquarium. She has been instrumental in the Researcher for the Day program and really in the forefront of our minds—between participating in the teacher focus groups to participating in the professional development workshops,” Matis continued. “She’s really great at sitting down with us and going over what she thinks should possibly change for the program, what she thinks is excellent about the program, and bringing materials she is aware of.”
Swiatek has supported the Mystic Aquarium’s educational programs since the early 1980s when she brought her own children there on a regular basis. Her work with the aquarium as an educator began two years ago when she became involved in the Researcher for the Day programs. Swiatek piloted the program first as a teacher and then took her students to the classes, which has allowed her to provide the instructors with additional feedback.
Swiatek attended the cloning of a beluga whale gene program as well as the hematology program. As a teacher, she provided input into the content of the programs and has attended educator workshops associated with them.
A great educator, says Swiatek, is creative, flexible, and understanding.
“A great educator puts their students’ interests and needs first,” she stated. Working with high school students excites Swiatek most about teaching.
“Each class offers different challenges. Some of the challenges are engaging the students in lessons, making it meaningful, and providing them with the experience and background they need for the future. This is accomplished through scientific inquiry and experiential learning. The students are active participants in their learning experiences here at the Science and Technology Magnet High School of Southeastern Connecticut,” she said.
Swiatek was awarded a monogrammed lab coat, an engraved statue, and autographed book by Dr. Robert Ballard, the deep-sea explorer famous for his discovery of the R.M.S. Titanic and president of the Institute for Exploration.
She plans to attend a course on necropsy this spring with her AP Biology students and looks forward to new programs as they evolve.
Swiatek has taught in the New London public school system for 11 years. She taught at New London High School for eight years before moving to the Science and Technology Magnet High School, where she designed the environmental science program and teaches cell and molecular biology and AP biology. She resides in Quaker Hill with her husband, John, and has three grown children, Benjamin, Lauren, and Jennifer.

Election 2008: Waterford's Voting Profile.

2008-10-10T02:34:36Z

Forgive the slang, but this ain’t Ohio.
We don’t need Sunday morning insights and analysis from talking heads and politicos to tell us that Connecticut is not exactly a battleground state.
According to a Sept. 28 poll from Real Clear Politics, Barack Obama has a 16 percent lead over John McCain in Connecticut.
So, unless something completely unexpected happens, the Nutmeg State will cast its seven electoral votes for Obama, and we’ll be colored blue on the election night map.
The last time the Republicans won Connecticut was in 1988, so if the state appears to be in the Dems’ column, what about the region?
Perhaps no bordering towns in southeastern Connecticut are as drastically different as Waterford and New London. The former is an ex-farming community with suburban malls and cookie-cutter housing developments. The latter is a small New England town that fancies itself a city and has all the challenges of an urban setting, complete with a small tax base and little to no room for expansion. So, it’s not surprising that Waterford and New London don’t exactly vote the same way all the time.
Although both of the towns have voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992, Waterford tends to be more of a bellwether for how the state, and sometimes the nation, leans. New London, on the other hand, has not voted for a Republican for president, the Senate, or the House in at least two generations.
“Waterford votes like a typical New England suburb,” John Sheehan, a member of the Waterford Board of Finance and a regular blogger on Connecticut Local Politics, said. “New London votes like a city.”
Jane Glover, a former New London city councilor and director of the Kente Cultural Center, said the towns have something of a symbiotic relationship, as many families have moved back and forth between the two towns.
New London is the hub of Democratic politics in the region, as the party has held near dynastic control of the city since the end of World War II.
“Just look at the ethnic makeup of the city,” Glover said. “Earlier it was the Irish and the Italians who voted for Democrats, then later the black vote.”
Glover also said New London has a working-class identity, but then again, Sheehan claims the same for Waterford, sort of.
“It’s a blue-collar town, with pockets of high-end residents,” he said. “Most of the people that live here work in the place where most of the region works—the casinos, Millstone.”
But Waterford tends to be more independent minded than its neighbor to the east.
“Waterford is mostly unaffiliated voters,” Sheehan said. “They don’t always go by party.”
True to form, locally, Waterford has a Republican first selectman, Dan Steward, while the Democrats hold one-vote majorities on the Board of Finance and the Board of Education. The Representative Town Meeting, however, has a Democratic majority, 14-8. Out of the 14 electable seats in New London, the GOP controls only three of them.
New London’s leading GOP figure, Councilor Rob Pero, is hardly surprised at Democratic dominance in the city.
“Add to that the colleges, who tend to vote for the Democrats,” he said.
Pero, however, does not rule out GOP victories in New London in the future, though he said it would take an issue voters would rally around.
“Look at what happened after the [Fort Trumbull decision],” he said. “The Democrats were 20 votes away from losing their majority on the City Council.”
Unlike New London, Sheehan said Waterford has a reputation for ticket splitting, or voting for a president of one party, while voting for a senator or representative in another.
Glover thinks New London is becoming more of a haven for independent voters.
“If you look at the number of young, creative people moving here, they don’t usually join political parties,” she said.
Waterford and New London had their greatest separation in which candidate they backed in the 1980s.
In the 1984 election, Ronald Reagan won every electoral vote in the country except Walter Mondale’s home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.
Waterford voters went with Reagan by nearly 1,300 votes, while they voted to send liberal Democrat Sam Gejdenson back to Congress for a third term over the GOP’s Roberta Koontz. And it seems the Waterford Democrats that year, were not exactly sold on Mondale, as Colorado Sen. Gary Hart won the town in the primary.
In 1984, New Londoners were not sold on the Reagan Revolution, as Mondale won by close to 500 votes and Gejdenson lapped Koontz 6,334 to 3,517.
Four years later, the two towns also differed on the presidential ballot, as George H.W. Bush eked by in Waterford by 400 votes, while Michael Dukakis trounced his GOP rival by 2,000 votes in New London.
The year 1988 was also a seminal one in Connecticut politics, as the state’s liberal Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker was denied a fourth term by Joe Lieberman.
Waterford, however, went with the status quo, while New London voted enthusiastically for Lieberman by more than 600 votes.
And both of the towns endorsed Gejdenson by wide margins.
New London has been lockstep with the Democratic candidates, while Waterford went for Edward Munster in 1992, while voting for Bill Clinton for president.
In 1996, Waterford fell to Gejdenson by six votes, setting the stage for Rob Simmons’ capture of the town in 2000. Simmons, in fact, never lost Waterford in his four election bids, though his margin of victory in 2006 was just 84 votes.
This year, Sheehan and Glover think Obama will take each of their towns. Sheehan sees Waterford falling in line with most of New England, save New Hampshire.
Glover sees Obama winning New London, especially since the addition of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.
“That’s helped Obama,” she said.
In 26 days, we’ll know for sure.

Waterford Votes: 1980-2004

2008-10-10T02:33:19Z

The Local Vote Since 1980
Winners shown in bold.
1980
Connecticut President
Ronald Reagan
Jimmy Carter

Waterford President
Jimmy Carter, D - 3,210
Ronald Reagan, R - 4,436
John Anderson, I - 1,337
Senate
Christopher Dodd, D – 5,650
James Buckley, R - 3,186

2nd Congressional District
Sam Gejdenson, D - 4,606
Tony Gugliemo, R - 4,090
New London
Results not available.

1984
Connecticut President
Ronald Reagan
Walter Mondale

Waterford President
Walter Mondale, D - 3,488
Ronald Reagan, R - 4,759

2nd Congressional District
Sam Gejdenson, D - 4,748
Roberta Koontz, R - 4,357

New London President
Walter Mondale, D - 5,380
Ronald Reagan, R - 4,813

2nd Congressional District
Sam Gejdenson, D - 6,334
Roberta Koontz, R - 3,517

1988
Connecticut President
George H.W. Bush
Michael Dukakis

Waterford President
Michael Dukakis, D - 4,465
George H.W. Bush, R - 4,874

Senate
Joe Lieberman, D - 4,204
Lowell Weicker, R - 4,838

2nd Congressional District
Sam Gejdenson, D - 5,198
Glenn Carberry, R - 3,743

New London President

Michael Dukakis, D - 5,539
George H.W. Bush, R - 3,577

Senate
Joe Lieberman, D - 4,534
Lowell Weicker, R - 3,969

2nd Congressional District
Sam Gejdenson, D - 5,198
Glenn Carberry, R - 2,266

1992
Connecticut President
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
H.Ross Perot

Waterford President
George H.W. Bush, R - 2,784
Bill Clinton, D - 4,484
H.Ross Perot, Ref. - 2,630

Senate
*Christopher Dodd, D - 5,881
Brook Johnson, R - 3,741

2nd Congressional District
*Sam Gejdenson, D - 4,607
Edward Munster, R - 5,184

*Also endorsed by A Connecticut Party

New London President
George H.W. Bush, R - 2,368
Bill Clinton, D - 5,520
H.Ross Perot, Ref. - 1,796

Senate
*Christopher Dodd, D - 6,314
Brook Johnson, R - 2,385

2nd Congressional District
*Sam Gejdenson, D - 5,238
Edward Munster, R - 3,442

*Also endorsed by A Connecticut Party

1996
Connecticut President
Bill Clinton
Robert Dole
H Ross Perot

Waterford President
Bill Clinton, D - 4,802
Robert Dole, R - 3,068
H.Ross Perot, Ref. - 1,096

2nd Congressional District
*Sam Gejdenson, D - 4,290
Edward Munster, R - 4,282
*Also endorsed by A Connecticut Party

New London President
Robert Dole, R - 1,726
Bill Clinton, D - 5,177
H.Ross Perot, Ref. - 542

2nd Congressional District
*Sam Gejdenson, D - 4,598
Edward Munster, R - 2,298
*Also endorsed by A Connecticut Party

2000
Connecticut President
George W. Bush
Al Gore

Waterford President
George W Bush, R - 3,577
Al Gore, D - 5,426
Ralph Nader, G - 560

Senate
Joe Lieberman, D - 5,630
Phillip Giordano, R - 2,994

2nd Congressional District
Rob Simmons, R - 4,969
Sam Gejdenson, D - 4,094

New London
President
George W. Bush, R - 1,738
Al Gore, D - 4,924
Ralph Nader, G - 496

Senate
Joe Lieberman, D - 4,793
Phillip Giordano, R - 1,546

2nd Congressional District
Rob Simmons, R - 2,599
Sam Gejdenson, D 4,267

2004
Connecticut President
George Bush
John Kerry

Waterford President
George W. Bush, R - 4,406
John Kerry, D - 5,803

Senate
Christopher Dodd, D - 6,749
Jack Orchulli, R - 2,808

2nd Congressional District
Rob Simmons, R - 5,698
Jim Sullivan, D - 4,084

New London President

George W. Bush, R - 2,381
John Kerry, D - 5,984

Senate
Christopher Dodd, D - 5,698
Jack Orchulli, R - 1,381

2nd Congressional District
Rob Simmons, R - 3,210
Jim Sullivan, D - 4,220

Citizen Lancer

2008-10-03T20:28:41Z

Editor’s Note: As a way of kicking off the Times’ coverage of the November elections, we talked to students in New London and Waterford high school civics classes about the role of the citizenry in a democracy.

May we share some early advice to future graduation speakers at New London and Waterford high schools?
You were probably planning on offering a farrago of platitudes about how high school graduates are the future of the nation, and we want them to become productive citizens.
Here’s the thing: They don’t need to be told that. They already know, and we maybe shouldn’t weep so much for the future of the republic.
Both New London and Waterford high schools offer classes in American government and civics, but the courses teach much more than how a bill becomes a law and the separation of powers.
They are more often forums where students learn about their relationship to the government and their community—in essence, citizenship.
But for high school students in the neighboring towns, citizenship is not a monolithic concept; it manifests itself in different ways and different contexts.
This being an election year, for the most part both WHS and NLHS students had concerns about similar issues: Iraq, the economy, education, and the environment.
In speaking to the civics students in New London and Waterford, the conversations revealed one slight difference: The New Londoners seemed more focused on domestic issues than their counterparts in Waterford.
Kinde Queenan, a NLHS senior, said more than once that the government “should focus more on our country.”
“We’ve got to worry about affordable energy, education,” she said. “We’ve got lots of important things to do here.”
The Waterford students also ticked off similar domestic issues they hope to see the government grapple with, but they were more quick to mention Iraq and the United Nations.
Although both the NLHS and WHS students were passionate about the election, citizenship, to them, was something more universal.
For Queenan, a good citizen has all the qualities of a good friend.
“It’s someone who does the right thing,” she said. “It’s someone who will watch your back.”
Anusha Perulalla, a WHS junior, thinks good citizenship means always trying to make “your community a better place.”
Mike Gross, her classmate, said good citizens try to do “whatever they can in their own area.”
Connor Nee, a NLHS senior, said that it is important to pay attention to “what’s going on around you,” but also “what’s going on in the world.”
Both schools have a community service requirement that students must complete before they graduate.
“We promote what we call ‘active citizenship,’” WHS civics teacher Brett Arnold said. “It’s about giving back to the community as much as it is following the issues.”
Perhaps because of the civics classes and the historic nature of the presidential race, students in both schools are engaged with the November election. Although the majority of them are not eligible to vote, students at both schools are following it mostly on television and, not surprisingly, on the Internet.
Gross said he gets a dose of news when he signs onto his e-mail accounts, eliciting nods from around the classroom.
But many of the students, while they are engaged with the McCain-Obama race, take a jaundiced view of the coverage of the campaign in the media.
“It’s been really catty and nasty,” said Rachel Miller, a NLHS student.
Miller said she has been unimpressed with some of the commentary on Republican vice-presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
“She gives a speech, trying to make eloquent points,” Miller said, “and the media is concerned if she picked her nose.”
Queenan said the coverage is too focused on “all the drama” that surrounds the race instead of on the issues.
“It’s really negative,” she said.
But many of the students can rattle off and offer opinions on several of the key issues facing the country, including those that have not been hot topics.
Miller addressed poverty, expressing shock that there are some parts of the country, like near her grandmother’s home in New Mexico, where there is no running water.
“[The candidates] have to pay attention to that,” she said.
Solly Ross, a WHS student, hoped the government could better fund scientific research.
Gross was concerned about the current state of the economy and the government bailout of several investment banks.
“Seven hundred billion?” he said. “They need to get their act together.”
Joe Steady, a WHS student, said the next president has to focus on energy policies.
Kasey Mortimer, also a WHS student, mentioned Social Security and the need for “cleaner cars that do not suck up gas.”
Still, most of the students in the civics classes at both schools are under 18, and many of them are looking forward to 2012, the first presidential election in which they will be able to cast a vote.
“If you don’t vote,” Queenan said, “you can’t complain.”

Courtney Votes Against Second Rescue Package

2008-10-03T17:53:56Z

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Joe Courtney voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Oct. 3 in the House of Representatives. The measure passed the House by a 263-171 vote.

The Congressman believes the bill, while improved from the House version he voted against on Monday, still did not address the underlying factors that have triggered the current financial crisis.

Congressman Courtney released the following statement:

“When I was elected to Congress, I pledged to act in the best interest of my constituents and the nation, and I cast my vote with the families of eastern Connecticut first and foremost in my mind.”

“While the legislation was improved over the first version considered by the House, I could not in good conscience support this package that demands more than $800 billion in taxpayer funds while the fundamental problems of the housing market damaging our economy remain unaddressed. I voted no because I do not believe this proposal will sufficiently address our economic crisis and because the package was not fair enough for the middle class.

“Let me stress that my vote against this package was not a signal that I am complacent about the state of our economy and the anxiety my constituents are feeling. As someone who represents one of the hardest hit sections of Connecticut, our economic challenges have been apparent to me for the last 20 months I have been in office. Home foreclosures have been accelerating in my district at the highest rate in the state, and the toxic loans sold by large lenders have spread like a virus through our economy.

“Over the past week, I have heard from constituents who vehemently oppose the bailout package, retirees worried about their 401Ks, and small business owners concerned about the freeze in our credit markets. I take this economic crisis very seriously. However, especially in a time of crisis, the people of Connecticut deserve a real solution to the grave problems in our economy.

“Failing to address the increasing pace of mortgage defaults and the slide in real estate values diminishes the chance of success for the rescue package and reduces the prospects of taxpayers recovering a reasonable amount of their nearly $800 billion dollar line of credit.”

“Moreover, the proposal still falls short on the test of fairness. The proposal fails to limit outrageous compensation and bonuses paid to Wall Street CEOs and executives who caused this crisis. It also neglects enacting tough oversight of how the Bush Administration would use taxpayer funds.

“The package was improved after Senate action this week. Raising the cap on FDIC insurance and attaching R&D and energy tax credits were a step in the right direction. By slowing down this process earlier this week, we were able to improve a bill that at least was able to gain majority support in the House, even if it ultimately fell short of something I could support.”

“While I stand on the other side of my colleagues who voted for the legislation, I stand with them and all Americans in hoping the proposal works. If it does not, I stand ready to work with members of both political parties to forge a financial rescue plan that gets it right.”

Craig Powers on his new job

2008-09-25T23:28:41Z

Growing up, Craig Powers was never the roving type.
While other suburban kids dreamed of busting out of southeastern Connecticut, Powers remained in Waterford.
“My family is here,” he said. “I wanted that regular contact.”
Powers not only stayed in town but prospered, and this year he began his tenure as the assistant superintendent of schools.
“It’s a new challenge,” he said from his tidy office in Town Hall last week. In his early 40s, tall and exceedingly polite, Powers gives the impression of always being prepared.
“I didn’t know what my morning would be like,” he said. “So last night around 11 p.m., I typed this up.”
He handed over notes on his biography, lucid in Times New Roman font.
Born in Staten Island, N.Y., Powers grew up near the Montville line in Quaker Hill, and attended the neighborhood school, then moved on to Clark Lane Junior High School.
Leaving the school district for four years, he graduated in 1986 from St. Bernard High School, where he is now on the board of trustees.
It was in junior and senior high school that Powers, who initially wanted to be an engineer, began to think about a career in education; like many in the field, he was inspired by teachers.
“I admired the teachers that cared about you as an individual,” he said. “For them it was more than about the content, it was about the personal connections that kept you focused on the work.”
Powers graduated with a degree in biology and education from Eastern Connecticut State University in 1990, and later got his master’s in education from Southern Connecticut State University.
Powers began his teaching career in Norwich, where he worked in the elementary schools, while working on his certification in school administration.
In 1998, he took a job as an assistant principal in Lebanon, before coming home as principal of Great Neck School in 1999.
Eight years later, Superintendent Randall Collins hired him as the director of curriculum, before that position was merged with Powers’ current job as assistant superintendent.
“It’s much more than a 9-to-5 job,” he said. “There’s many night functions, boards, and commissions.”
It’s from his office that Powers feels that he can do his best work for Waterford’s students.
“I’m here to try to increase the students’ capacity to learn,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re turning out productive citizens.”
Powers reflected a bit about how much education in Waterford has changed since he attended Quaker Hill School, which is now renovated with all the latest learning technology.
“Well, in the 1970s the metric system was the new thing,” he joked.
Powers said the main aspect of teaching that’s changed since the Day-Glo days of the ’70s is the expectations for students.
“They really have increased,” he said. “What we used to expect out of a sixth-grade student, we now want from our fourth-graders.”
Also, much of what used to be grade school boilerplate, such as pop quizzes and reading along with textbooks, is now passé.
Powers said the Internet has changed the way teachers instruct students, but in a way that goes beyond slick presentation on computers or electronic chalkboards.
“It’s not as important that students know when the Battle of Gettysburg is,” Powers said. “They can look that up rather easily; we want them to know why it took place and the consequences.”
Despite the technological advances, Powers said the school system is dedicated to “increased rigor” across the district.
Powers said the town has responded to the national concern about American students falling behind other countries in math and science.
“Our math programs are in a good place right now,” he said.
Powers said he thinks of Waterford as a professional learning community, but one that hasn’t rested on its laurels.
“The teachers here are always thinking of ways to make it better,” he said.
In his spare time, Powers walks his dogs and, fittingly, rebuilds stone walls, something that has been the fabric of the town for 300 years.
And like old stone walls, Powers thinks that Waterford’s “sense of community” will also endure.
“It will last throughout time,” he said.

WHS Field Hockey Rebuilds

2008-09-19T12:46:06Z

Amid the rows of conference and state championship signs, there is a blank banner in the Waterford High School gymnasium that Brianna Strecker has been looking at since she was a freshman.
“I want to hang something on that banner,” she said.
Strecker, 17, wants to make an impression on the school not just for her own sake, but for her little-noticed sport, field hockey.
Waterford has hosted a field hockey team since the 1970s, but unlike nearly every other sport at the school, accolades and championships have been nonexistent.
“Sports are a big deal at Waterford,” Strecker said. “We’ve had phenomenal teams.”
This season the field hockey team is using its underdog status as a motivating factor.
“Field hockey is a sport that does not get a lot of respect,” head coach Traci Susi said. “But once you play it, you fall in love with it.”
Susi is a case study. Despite being something of a jock at Waterford, she never played field hockey.
“A friend of mine was coaching the team, and she asked me to help,” she said. “I told her, ‘I’ve never played this before.’”
That’s not surprising, as field hockey is something of a niche sport like lacrosse. In the United States and Canada, the sport is one primarily played by women, though the sport is also popular with men in such places as the Netherlands and the Indian subcontinent.
Field hockey’s rules were codified in the early 19th century in England, as the sport was a winter replacement at universities for the summer game of cricket. And much like cricket, the game spread throughout the British Empire in the late 1800s and early 1900s, becoming most popular in the future nations of India and Pakistan.
Although its name invites comparisons to ice hockey, field hockey more closely resembles soccer.
Each team is 11 per side, with 10 attacking players and one goaltender.
The field, or pitch, is 60 yards wide and 100 yards long, with goals 7 feet high and 12 feet long. In front of each goal there is a 16-yard half-moon, known as the shooting circle; players must be within the circle to shoot on goal.
Although most Connecticut high school pitches are natural grass, artificial surfaces such as FieldTurf are becoming commonplace.
The ball, about the size of a baseball, but much lighter, is made of hard plastic, and the sticks, which look like inverted canes, are usually 3 feet long and made of composite materials.
And, like soccer, goals come at a premium.
“A lot of the games come down to one goal,” co-captain Julia Yue said. “Many of the games go into overtime.”
The ECC also mandates that players wear eye protection, though it is not common in the college game. For Susi though, all the equipment in the world isn’t a comparison for fitness.
“OK, let’s do a soccer lap,” she told the Waterford team at a practice last week.
The team took off on a mile-long trek around the high school.
“I’m convinced these girls are the best conditioned team at Waterford,” Susi said.
Unlike other sports in town, such as soccer or basketball, field hockey does not have feeder programs at the middle school level.
“Most of the freshmen have never played before,” Susi said.
Strecker said that the team makes an effort in the off-season to recruit players for the fall. In recent years, the number of students who came out for field hockey dwindled because Waterford added volleyball as a varsity sport.
“We used to get 50 kids to come out for field hockey,” Susi said. “It’s down to 31 this year, but that is still a healthy number.”
Several members of the team attend camps and clinics in the summertime to improve their games.
Although Strecker is looking to stitch her sport’s name into Waterford sports history, she said the team has been “rebuilding.”
“But we’re going to go out there and play hard,” she said.
Waterford Lancers
Field Hockey Home Games

Sept. 20: Old Saybrook at 11 a.m.
Sept. 26: Stonington at 3:45 p.m.
Oct. 2: NFA at 3:45 p.m.
Oct. 10: Killingly at 3:45 p.m.
Oct. 15: Hall at 4 p.m.
Oct. 17: Windham at 3:45 p.m.
Oct. 25: S. Windsor at 12:15 p.m.
Oct. 29: East Lyme at 3:45 p.m.

Quaker Hill School Opens

2008-09-11T20:22:12Z

It’s shiny and state of the art, but a week after its opening, Quaker Hill Elementary School teachers haven’t lost sight that the $26 million building, is, above all, a school.
“What do you know about electricity?” Martha Shoemaker asks her class of fourth-graders. Hands shot up around the classroom.
“It’s three times hotter than the sun,” said Anthony, who was paying close attention.
Shoemaker, looking impressed, nodded.
“Very good,” she said and called on another student as she must have done many times over in the old Quaker Hill School.
Although teachers are taking a business as usual approach to the new school, Denise Lewis’s first graders gave Quaker Hill School the kid seal of approval.
“It’s pretty,” Audrey Booth said.
Nicole Karns is impressed with the new playground, whereas Sabrina Chhorn approves of the school’s new stock of hula hoops. Ana Rivera pointed out the brand-new jump ropes.
Gabby Davidson warned of the “slippery hallways”—the faux Italian stone-style floors near the entrance.
Jenna Milukas, who, like many of the Quaker Hill students, was at the now-shuttered Cohanzie School, took note of the stairs at the new school.
She even suggested a literary strategy for kids going up and down the flights.
“There are lots of stairs and we have to be light as a feather,” Milukas said. “Just like in Horton Hears A Who.”
Isaiah Tomtania pointed out one of the school’s energy-saving mechanisms.
“Motion turns on the lights,” he said.
“We don’t want to waste electricity,” Joey Lathrop noted.
Indeed, Quaker Hill School, which was erected on the site of the original 1915 school, was built with both environmental and cost-saving measures in mind.
The school is heated and cooled through geothermal technology, some that was instantly noticed by veterans of the old school.
“It was always too hot or too cold,” Lewis said. “We used to send notes home to parents to tell kids to dress in layers; now it’s comfortable in here.”
Also there is plenty of natural light.
Although the approaches to teaching haven’t changed, the staff at Quaker Hill has all the advantages of a modern school. Nearly all of the classrooms are equipped with Prometheans, Internet-ready electronic chalkboards that might remind Gen-Xers of Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages TV show.
“The school is interactive,” Lewis said.
And the Promethean boards aren’t just for ABCs and doing your sums; the music teacher Patti Bakes used it in her spacious music room during a lesson on “When The Saints Go Marching In.”
In between each of the classrooms there are “breakout rooms”—vestibules with computers for extra instruction.
Lewis said the greatest advantage of the new school is the increased space in the classrooms.
Lewis’s classroom features a sink, an “under construction” small library, and several cupboards for storage.
Also, the classrooms feature the envy of many—walk-in closets, where students stow their jackets and lunch boxes.
“There is plenty of space for supplies,” Lewis said.
The classrooms at Quaker Hill are also organized according to modern teaching methods.
Gone are the rows of desks with textbooks pouring out of them. Students now sit in a U-shaped configuration that allows the teacher to interact with them all, face to face.
There are also several “project rooms” that teachers can book to hold science lessons or host other demonstrations.
Quaker Hill also has updated security measures common to newer schools. Most of the doors are keyless, and open only when a fob is waved in front of a sensor pad.
Also, the front door to the school features an apartment-building-like intercom which allows visitors to be buzzed in.
Although the school has ironed out the logistics of bus arrivals and end-of-the-day dismissals, there is still some brick-and-mortar work to be done. The gymnasium is not yet complete, and the library-***-media center is about a week away from being finished.
An overflow parking lot still needs to be paved, and there is still some playground equipment to install. To avoid disturbing the school day, work on the building begins after classes end.
Principal Glenda Dexler said the school should be totally complete by the end of the month. But no matter the whistles and bells, for teachers school is about classrooms and instruction.
“The building is nice,” Lewis said, “but it is still about the quality of the teaching.”

Kayaking The Niantic

2008-09-05T16:30:47Z

Not long ago, the LaFleur family of Waterford would pile into a canoe and set out around the region’s waterways.
That hasn’t happened for some time.
“We hardly get the canoe out anymore,” Dave LaFleur said.
These days, it’s all about kayaks.
“Kayaking has become a family thing,” he added.
The LaFleurs—Dave, his wife, Rose, and daughter, Danielle—were all at the Save the River-Save the Hills Niantic River Appreciation Day Kayak Regatta, now in its fifth year.
While the Niantic River plays host to boaters, fishermen, and wildlife lovers, kayakers will tell you the best way to appreciate the river, or any body of water, is in a kayak.
“You can get real close to things,” said Mike Hills, an avid kayaker. “You can see birds and plants that you can’t really see from a boat.”
Hills and the LaFleurs were among the 134 people who participated in the kayak regatta and the parade, a testament to the growing popularity of the sport.
“You definitely see more paddlers out there,” Rose LaFleur said. “It is great exercise and is great for reducing stress.”
Norm Cavallaro, the co-owner of North Cove Outfitters in Old Saybrook, said the store began to notice an uptick in kayak sales “in the early to mid-1990s.”
“The economy then was booming,” he said, “and people were looking for new things to do.”
Hills said the sport is social, as there are several local “paddler’s clubs” kayakers can join.
Plus, the boats are not that expensive, as the low end for starter kayaks starts around $600, though the top of the line can cost as much as $2,000.
Cavallaro noted that unlike sports such as golf or skiing, after the initial investment, it is, for the most part, free.
Kayaks, which usually range between 11 and 14 feet, can come equipped with storage space for safety equipment, and some, such as Hills’ 13½-foot craft, come with rudders to help steer the boats on windy days.
Though, kayakers say that one of the great appeals of the sport is that the rower is low to the water and there is not as much wind resistance as in a canoe.
Kayaks also come in several varieties, most of which were on display on the Niantic River, that call on different skills.
Most of the kayaks were traditional, meaning the paddler crawls inside the boat and covers the opening with a skirt, to prevent water from entering.
These, however, are more susceptible to flipping over in rough waters, or when the rower loses his sense of balance.
“You have to keep your weight evenly distributed while in the kayak,” Hills said.
A lack of balance, or an errant wave, can cause the kayak to capsize rather easily.
Otherwise, one would have to perform the “Eskimo Roll,” where the rower flips the kayak over with the oar, while inverted and holding his breath.
The other common variety is the “sit-upon” kayak, where the hole in the middle of the boat is replaced by a seat; these are generally considered safer vessels.
Cavallaro said that newcomers to the sport should ask retailers questions about what is the right kayak for them.
Dave LaFleur said the region has plenty of locations for kayakers of all levels. In addition to the Niantic River, paddlers are a common sight off Bluff Point in Groton, Barn Island in Stonington, Napatree Point in Westerly, and in the Thames River.
“We’ve got some amazing spots here in Connecticut,” Cavallaro said. “The Connecticut River empties out into a major body of water and there is not any industry.
“You name a spot, and there will be people out paddling,” he added.
While kayak racing is popular in Europe, the competitive aspect of the sport has not really translated in the United States, according to Dave LaFleur.
But winning races, like in the case of Rose LaFleur who won the women’s long kayak event, is not really the point.
For most local kayakers, recreation takes precedence over results.
“If I have free time,” Cavallaro said, “it’s what I like to do.”
Rose LaFleur casts her enjoyment of kayaking in nearly spiritual terms. “You really feel one with the water,” she said.
Fast Facts
• The oldest intact kayaks are close to 4,000 years old and are on display in the Bavarian State Museum for Ethnology in Munich.

• The Royal Marines employed kayaks in an assault on occupied Bordeaux in 1942.

• At last month’s Olympics in Beijing, Germany was the top medal winner in canoe and kayaking flatwater competition, taking home seven medals that include two golds.

Niantic River Appreciation Day Regatta Results
Long kayak winners: women - Rose LaFleur; men - Jay Sullivan.
Short kayak race winners: women – Judy Nelson; men – Paul Vincenti.
Kids race winner: Casey O’Dea.

Back to School, 2008

2008-08-28T18:40:37Z

By Stephen Chupaska
Senior Staff Writer
The first day of school. The words seem to land on the page with a thud.
“The summer went by much too fast,” Don Macrino, Waterford High School’s principal, said.
Although students came back on Tuesday, the town’s six schools were busy last week preparing the buildings for returning students.
Below is a quick tour around the district.
Note: The Waterford Times will feature stories about the new Quaker Hill School in our Sept. 11 edition.

Waterford High School
The 51-year-old building began its face-lift this summer as construction crews performed an asbestos removal at the school.
“It’s been buffed up and looking ship-shape,” Macrino said.
The high school will also be welcoming 12 new staffers this year.
“We’re very excited about them,” Macrino said. “We spent the spring and summer going after the best and the brightest.”
WHS will also see more students in the hallways this year, as the school population has inched over 1,000.
Macrino said that the school will be offering an 11th-grade American Studies program, an interdisciplinary class that will be taught by both an English teacher and a history instructor.
“By combining literature and history we’ll be able to give students a full, intensive study of a time in American history,” Macrino said.
Also, WHS has changed its grading software from MyGradebook to PowerSchool.
“We’re excited about that,” Macrino said. “It will allow us to better communicate with parents.”

Clark Lane Middle School
A new program at Clark Lane hopes to ensure that sixth grade is not a tangled web.
Instead, WEB, or Where Everybody Belongs, is a program where 48 eighth-graders served as mentors for the incoming students at Clark Lane.
“The eighth-graders did a tremendous job,” Principal Michael Lovetere said.
WEB is a collaboration between Clark Lane and Waterford Youth Services.
The incoming eighth-graders underwent training over the summer and oversaw a day-long orientation last week.
Lovetere said the school population will be down this year.
“The bubble that we had for three years has moved on to the high school,” he said.
Hence, Clark Lane will share teachers with the high school in core subjects such as English.
The building, which underwent an extensive renovation in the past two years, is finally complete.
“We had to fix the boiler and a few odds and ends,” Lovetere said. “It looks great.”

Oswegatchie
Elementary School
The first day of school was the last one for Oswegatchie in its current building.
Principal Nancy Macione said the school staff and students are looking forward to moving into the new facility set to open in August 2009.
“They are finishing the parking lot as we speak,” Macione said.
Macione said that most of the “underground work”—the water pipes and electricity—has already been completed.
But the old school isn’t out of
commission yet.
Macione said Oswegatchie will welcome 10 new staffers to the school this year.
The school population is down to 275.
“That’s less than in recent years,” Macione said.
Macione said that the school will be expanding its student newspaper started last spring and hopes to publish once a month.
Southwest
Elementary School
Southwest and Great Neck are schools, not Fortune 500 companies, but it looks like they have pulled off a merger that should pay dividends for students and teachers alike.
“We’ve doubled the school population,” Principal Patricia Fedor said.
This will be the penultimate year for Southwest, which will remain open until the new Great Neck School opens in August 2010.
Fedor said the town has added a portable classroom to its Daniels Avenue site to accommodate the new students.
Even though the students from the two schools will have many new classmates, administrators from Great Neck and Southwest started a pen pal program for the children. “They wrote back and forth last year,” Fedor said. “That way they won’t be strangers this year.”
Although the school has ballooned to 500 students, the district has hired more staff to keep class sizes small.
“We’re ready to go,” Fedor said.

The Friendship School
Principal Kathy Suprin said the first day of classes at The Friendship School is a little different than at the town’s other schools.
“Our kids are between 3 and 5 years old,” she said. “So, they’ll have name-tags with the names of their teachers available.”
For many of the students it is their first time away from home, so Suprin said they want to make the process go as smoothly as they can.
The Friendship School, a landmark urban-suburban magnet school that includes children from New London, is now in its fourth year of existence.
Suprin said the school reaches out to parents and had them attend a “practice session” to help kids get on and off the buses.
Also this year, Friendship School will expand its student gardens, so that the pre-k and kindergarten students will be able to plant flowers and vegetables.

Skate Waterford

2008-08-21T20:08:12Z

Zach Perry, a skateboarder of some local distinction, gave a mostly positive review to the newly opened Waterford Skate Park.
“It’s a good park,” said the 15-year-old, clad in a T-shirt heralding the ’80s punk band The Misfits. “It’s a little small, but that makes it easier to skate.”
The Waterford Skate Park officially opened its ramps and rails to the public last week, capping a process that took nearly 10 years to complete.
“It had to go through plenty of approvals, and there were a lot of concerns,” said First Selectman Dan Steward, who was on-hand to witness the opening.
Steward said the park, located behind the Waterford Youth Services Bureau in what was originally to be an overflow parking lot, was funded by a combination of public money and donations.
WYSB coordinated the planning and construction of the $29,382 skate park, with design ideas from local skaters such as Perry.
The town hired Jeff Paprocki, a Mystic native who has either designed or collaborated on skate parks in Westerly, Groton, and Norwich, as well as on Martha’s Vineyard.
“It’s a basic, small skate park,” he said.
The park, in its present configuration, features two quarter-pipe ramps, a ziggurat-looking ramp with both metal and concrete rails for grinding, and a Hubba Ledge—a concrete slope.
Paprocki said the apparatuses in skate parks are meant to mimic objects traditionally used by skateboarders, such as stair railings, usually to the consternation of property owners.
Also, the quarter pipe is an outgrowth of Southern California skateboarding origins, when skaters would use empty in-ground swimming pools as venues.
Skate parks were first built to try to prevent skaters from using public buildings and private property as places to perform tricks. But, according to an article written by skateboarding virtuoso Tony Hawk in skatepark.org, early public skate parks were often ill-conceived by city planners.
“I’ve watched some cities pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into skate park projects, only to be misled by inexperienced ‘low-bid’ contractors,” he wrote. “In short: a city designs a park to fulfill the demand of local skaters, then hires a company to build it; that company has no experience with skate parks, employs no skaters who understand the nuances of skate park features, and yet completes the project on time, under budget, and with self-congratulatory press.”
Many of the early skate parks, due to the lack of insight from skaters, became unpopular.
The modern skate park, with smooth concrete, rather than plywood ramps, became the norm in the early 1990s.
Mike Gallie, 16, said the town had previously set up a wooden ramp in the WYSB parking lot.
“It wasn’t very good,” he noted. “It had holes in it.”
Fortunately, Paprocki, 32, has been a skateboarder since his teens, and focused on the skate-ability of the park, noting his design centered on being, to use some jargon, “transition oriented,” meaning an emphasis on ramp skating.
“It’s small, but it’s unique,” he said. “It’s sort of like golf, you don’t want to play the same course over and over again.”
Paprocki said that many area skateboarders travel to each of the local skate parks.
According to Sue Radway, the director of WYSB, there was a local demand for a skate park.
“There are a lot of middle school [students] and teenagers who were skating in the street and in the sidewalks,” she said.
Radway said the site is readily accessible by the public and in a good spot safety-wise.
“It’s next to the police station and youth services,” she said. “That way, if anyone needs help it’s not far away.”
Radway hopes to involve some of the town’s older skaters to teach clinics on skateboard techniques and safety.
Also, Steward said the town is hoping skaters develop a sense of investment and pride in the park.
“They need to keep it clean and follow the rules,” he said. “Otherwise we’re shutting the gate.”
Radway said the park is a work in progress, and given the small space, she hopes there will be room to expand, albeit with private money.
“We are looking for between $20,000 and $30,000 in donations,” she said. “We’ll be talking about different ways to fund-raise in the coming months.”
Skateboarding Quick Facts

A 2002 report by American Sports Data reported that there are 18.5 million skateboarders in the world.

The International Olympic Committee is considering adding skateboarding as a sport for the 2012 Summer Games in London.

Male and female skateboarders competed in three different events in ESPN’s X Games 14 in Los Angeles in July.

Skateboarding’s signature trick, the “ollie,” was invented by Alan Gelfand in 1976. In 2001, Gelfand opened up a skateboard park in Hollywood, Fla., called Olliewood.

Walk Across SECT; RTM Notes

2008-08-21T20:06:48Z

By Stephen Chupaska
Senior Staff Writer
The Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation is looking for volunteers to help out with its annual marathon-length Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut.
According to marketing director Shawna Constantine, organizers are hoping to have people distribute water to the participants and help register runners and walkers.
The Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut, which will take place on Oct. 4, will see some changes this year.
Constantine said the walk will allow relay teams to enter the walk, so that one person does not have to walk, or run, the entire marathon route.
“It is a way to get more sneakers on the ground,” she said.
Those interested can either sign up as a two- or five-person team.
The route has remained the same. It will start in Monument Park in Old Saybrook, then it will take walkers across the Baldwin Bridge to Route 156 in Old Lyme through East Lyme before finishing at Harkness Memorial State Park.
Constantine said the TBBCF decided to discontinue its fund-raising post-race concert at Stash’s in New London.
Instead, the foundation, named for the Waterford native who died of breast cancer in 2005, has been hosting smaller fund-raisers such as golf tournaments and a “bra art” auction.
For more information on the walk, visit www.tbbcf.org.

RTM Notes
The Representative Town Meeting voted unanimously to appoint Lauris J. Schwietzer to fill a vacancy on the Senior Citizens Commission. The term will expire April 6, 2010.
Also, the RTM appointed Kristen Pfefferkorn to the Ethics Commission, a term that will expire on Feb. 1, 2010.
The RTM also extended the collective bargaining agreement with the Waterford Police Union through June 30, 2011.
A total of $29,530 is RTM-approved for improvements to Spithead Road. The RTM also appropriated $472,000 from the Capital Improvement budget for the continuing renovation of Waterford High School.

A Doggie Delight

2008-08-14T21:36:58Z

By Michelle Royce Williams
Special to the Times

Kerry Sullivan used to see a lot of Waterford residents at Groton’s dog park.
And so in January 2007 when a few of them began approaching her about trying to open one in town, she wasn’t too surprised.
But because a dog park is something that would only benefit a select group of Waterford residents, Sullivan, program coordinator for Waterford Recreation and Parks, wanted to make sure she investigated the idea properly.
Later that year, an ad hoc committee was formed to see if there was a need for the park. And when approximately 75 people showed for a public hearing on the matter, overwhelmingly in favor of a park, Sullivan and about a dozen other residents formed a committee to further advance the project.
More than a year later, on May 17, Waterford’s dog park at Stenger Farm has opened.
About an acre of the property, adjacent to Clark Lane, is fenced in with areas for both smaller and larger dogs. In total, the property spans nearly 100 acres and includes a number of dog- and people-friendly trails. Maps of the property are available at the Recreation and Parks office and are also posted on signage around the site.
While the park was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission as well as the Board of Selectmen, it was funded entirely by donations. To date, the committee has raised $16,000, which has funded among other things, trash receptacles, two grass seedings per year, and a two-year supply of doggie waste bags.
Other donations to the park have included picnic tables, fencing, and memory bricks. The Waterford Rotary donated funding for the park’s
signage.
The committee is currently raising funds to plant more trees on the
property.
As the property was already mowed and maintained by the town prior to the park’s opening, the town will continue basic maintenance.
Rabbi Aaron Rosenberg, a member of the steering committee that helped to open the park, said that before the dog park, the Stenger Farm property was a hidden gem that went unnoticed by most residents.
“Now I’m glad to see that it’s actually being utilized more,” he said.
He’s been one of the residents to start enjoying the park. He and his yellow Lab, Caleb, have visited the park a handful of times since its opening.
“It’s big enough that [the dogs] get good exercise,” he said, adding that it’s “a great place to take [the dogs] to meet other dogs.”
MJ Marcks and her boxer, Fender, and shepherd mix, Zildjian, agree.
“It’s been just an unbelievably great experience,” Marcks said. She and her dogs had been traveling to dog parks in Groton and Norwich prior to the Waterford park’s
opening.
Not only do her dogs enjoy it (she says one of them knows as soon as they drive onto Clark Lane and gets excited), but dog owners and other residents have reaped many of the same social benefits as the dogs.
“It’s a great social thing for the people as well as the dogs, which we hadn’t thought about when we opened the park,” she said. “People have met their neighbors.”
Marcks also sits on the committee and said that she hopes the park will grow in popularity as more amenities such as additional trees, seating, and a pavilion are
added.
The park seems to be taking off on its own in the meantime.
“There are people there all the time,”
Sullivan said.
She, Marcks, and Rosenberg have noticed steady traffic of about five to 10 visitors at any given time of day. Rosenberg also said that nearly 100 people and about 50 dogs turned out for the park’s grand opening on May 17.
But Waterford’s dog owners and their pooches are not the only ones enjoying the park.
Adjacent to Fountainview Care Center, many of the clients there can see the dog park from their windows, and can visit with the canines and their owners.
Across the street, Clark Lane Middle School students have also been able to enjoy the park while doing writing exercises for class.
For Sullivan, perhaps the most rewarding part of opening the park hasn’t been the rave reviews from those enjoying it, but the lack of criticism against the park.
Since its opening, “we haven’t received one complaint yet,” she said.
For more information on the dog park, for maps of the property, or to purchase a memory brick, visit the Recreation and Parks Department at 24 Rope Ferry Road, or 860-444-5881.

50 Years of I-95

2008-08-06T17:39:01Z

I-95 in the summer.
Normally, that’s something that a meteorologist would mention when describing say, the average temperature of Phoenix.
Here, though, “95 in the summer” is usually accompanied by a grumble and one’s go-to profanity.
Every summer in Connecticut, Friday afternoons from Greenwich to Clarks Falls, exits 3 to 93, are a procession of hiccupping cars, trucks, and SUVs with New York and New Jersey plates all slouching toward Rhode Island.
Then, on Sunday, the same hodgepodge of hybrids and gas hogs go back from whence they came, like a school of steel-plated salmon.
There has got to be a better way, you think, sitting in your car, wondering what the kids in the back seat of the Escalade to your left are watching on their airplane-style flip-down TV screens.
“There must be a better way,” you say out loud, after wondering what possesses people to get vanity license plates.
Nope. As it turns out, when confronted with our nutmeg-flavored stretch of I-95, there isn’t a better way, just a longer way.

From Turnpike to Interstate
I-95, or, as it was once called, the Connecticut Turnpike, has been part of life on the shoreline for 50 years.
The turnpike, with tollbooths erected to help pay down the bond on the highway, opened on Jan. 2, 1958 with Gov. John Davis Lodge doing the honors.
In fact, after the state removed the tolls in 1985 two years after a lethal tractor trailer pile-up at a booth in Stamford, the legislature renamed the turnpike after the governor.
Actually, Lodge faced a revolt among Fairfield County Republicans over the construction of the road, and it eventually led to his ouster from
office.
The turnpike stretched from the New York line in Greenwich to the state’s town with the best name—the near-adverb Killingly.
Why Killingly? Because originally, the Connecticut Turnpike was meant to link up with U.S. 6, the route that connects Hartford with Providence. Long-term plans called for a highway between the two state capitals, but that was only partially constructed. You can see the vestige of the interchange, as I-395 north veers off toward the Massachusetts line, Route 6 then heads east.
Similarly, the entrance to I-395 at Exit 76 near the East Lyme-Waterford border is where the turnpike took its northward bend toward Montville and Norwich. That’s also why the exit numbers jump from 76 to 80 when continuing on I-95 toward New London.
The prodigal Route 11 was also supposed to spill out near there, but let’s all breathe regular on that one.
The Connecticut Turnpike was, as most people over age 35 will recall, a toll road, with booths all along the route.
It was 15 cents to pass through each booth, or you could purchase tokens with the rather spiffy looking CT Turnpike logo. My parents kept a stash of them in a little drawer in their old brown Oldsmobile station wagon.
And tolls are perhaps the reason for the little compartments near steering wheels that are now de rigueur in cars.
The fact that drivers had to pay to use the turnpike ran headlong into a classic Yankee trait—our, shall we say, parsimonious nature.
That’s right, we’re cheap.
The tolls led to the practice of shunpiking, that is, finding free roads in order to avoid shelling out the 15 cents.
Now, bringing the tolls back has been a political shuttlecock in Hartford; just last month former Speaker James Amman, who has his eye on Jodi Rell’s job, criticized any plan to charge for use of I-95 in the state, using the accident nearly 25 years ago as the linchpin in his argument.
He did not, however, mention there have been significant improvements in toll collecting since then, such as E-Z Pass express lanes.
State Sen. Andrea Stillman, who represents New London, Waterford, and Montville, has discussed reintroducing tolls at the Connecticut borders. For the sake of argument, let’s say the legislature brings back the tolls on I-95; what would the new shunpiking look like?
I decided to take a road trip to Greenwich from my home in New London without using 95, on a Friday.

The Road to Greenwich
Despite the fact I’m an ardent believer in mass transit who thinks it is shameful there is no commuter rail in southeastern Connecticut, I am a sucker for the road trip.
In the same way I get weak-kneed for all the saccharine romanticism of baseball, the same American-boy humor over-secretes at the thought of getting on the road.
I’ve done the cross-country trip on both I-40 and I-10.
I went up the California and Oregon coasts and have driven around the Mojave.
I spent two weeks a few summers ago driving around Ohio and Pennsylvania checking out Major League ballparks.
A week after my 30th birthday in 2006, I flew to Las Vegas, rented a Mustang, and drove at unmentionable speeds to San Francisco, a sort of preemptive strike on a midlife crisis.
And despite some guilt over the price of gas, I’m writing this after driving two days to a townhouse near Tampa where my girlfriend and I are spending a week.
But this would, in fact, be my first road trip in my native state.
Instead of ticking the “avoid highways” box on Google Maps, I decided to wing it and count on my sense of direction.
I started out on Broad Street in New London, or Route 85, headed toward Route 82.
Why not just follow Route 1, the Boston Post Road, and the colonial-era path that the Connecticut Turnpike replaced? Well, Route 1 and 95 are the same road in certain places, such as over the Baldwin Bridge.
I took 85 to Salem Four Corners, and then went west on 82 until it splits off to a lane that ends at the Hadlyme ferry landing.
It is $3 for a ride across the Connecticut River. How is it shunpiking if there is a fee to cross the river, you might ask.
Well, I decided not to be so pedantic and enjoy the excellent view of Gillette Castle and the even better one of the British racing green Maserati in front of me on the ferry.
I asked the Maserati guy how he would get to Greenwich without using 95. “Take Route 80 into New Haven, then take the Wilbur Cross,” he said.
Why argue with a guy with such a gorgeous automobile?
After disembarking the ferry, you get a quick peek into Chester, which recalls the fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow from The Gilmore Girls. (Nine out of every 10 boyfriends have seen at least one episode of The Gilmore Girls, and I’m not ashamed to admit I have a crush on that jittery Paris chick.)
I then headed west on Route 148, thought about going south on 145, but kept on until the intersection with 80 in Killingworth, a close second in the best-Connecticut-town-name sweepstakes.
I know the state has taken the trouble to note “Scenic Roads,” but Route 80 doesn’t get enough credit.
From Killingworth to East Haven, the road is an abstract expressionist painting of yellow blotches of sunlight along the asphalt. There are all sorts of deciduous trees to see in full summer glory.
The scene changes when you get to East Haven, as strip malls and intimidating intersections return.
But even then you get a splendid view of New Haven, which looks so much more inviting as a distant cluster of buildings viewed from a stoplight, rather than zooming by after surviving the Q Bridge.
I picked up Route 1 in the Elm City, and then promptly lost it.
I found myself on Church Street, with its wonderful collection of 19th-century homes, going toward
Hamden.
Once in Hamden, the hometown of Scott Burrell, the UConn basketball star who passed the ball to Tate George in the greatest moment in the history of Nutmeg State sports, I found, through sheer luck, the Wilbur Cross Parkway.
The Wilbur Cross is the warm-up act for the Merritt Parkway. Though they are both Route 15, the Wilbur Cross does not have the same cool-looking road signs, but does feature some of the same lovely overpasses that mark the state’s most famous road.
I exited back onto Route 1 through Milford, Stratford, and into Bridgeport, where I drove for a while on Route 113.
This was the first time I’ve driven through Bridgeport on surface streets. I never had any reason to go to Bridgeport before.
Like all of the state’s cities, it looks like it could really be something one day. Like New London, it has potential on one corner and crushing poverty on another.
I thought about stopping in South Norwalk, or, ahem, SoNo, but decided to keep on trucking through Stamford, where there seem to be condos going up at every street corner and commuters coming in from New York.
I stayed on the Post Road until it dumped me off in Greenwich.
The journey took me about three and a half hours.
I wanted to go shopping for Ferraris while in Greenwich.
“Do you have one in metallic gray?” I would ask. “How’s the resale?”
But I needed to get back to New London to run some errands.
So, my challenge over, I hopped onto 95.
There was a delay getting onto the entrance ramp to the northbound lanes.
Once on the highway, the electronic signs said there was traffic from exits 7 through 17.
I began to scan my fellow motorists to commiserate.
They looked like they had already said their favorite swear word.
Nearly four hours later, I limped into New London, after avoiding traffic near the old Turnpike-95 fork in East Lyme, by hopping onto Route 1, like maybe a disgruntled motorist would have 50 years ago. I stayed on Route 1 until it morphs into Bank Street, where there are signs reminding you
“To 95.”
The Connecticut Turnpike, or 95, is like the state itself. It was once the future, paving the way for what became representative government, and with the mills a jump-start to American industry.
But now the highway, with its quaint and congested two lanes each way, is a relic.
The future, as it happened, changed.
Now 95 is a problem, not a solution.
It must be strange for those who remember the gung-ho optimism that greeted this most modern way of moving people and goods, to see the highway as a stumbling block, a political minefield.
As the state plans on investing more into rail infrastructure and gas stays at a permanent high, I-95 looks like a road taken and an idea forsaken.

Art 'n Image Studio and Gallery Expands its Niche in Niantic

2008-08-01T18:04:00Z

It’s not just another art gallery and studio in Niantic. Maribeth Stone plans to make the Art ‘n Image Gallery and Studio, at the corner of Hope Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, a supportive place for aspiring and accomplished artists in the area, as well as a place to buy local art.

The studio, which opened in May, brings together all of Stone’s passions, including her business savvy. The 800-square-foot space is home for art classes taught by Stone, display and retail space for a growing little local artist’s cooperative, and an inspirational haven for creative types in general.

Stone had an art studio in Massachusetts and taught students for about 22 years, including in Canada, England and France. She and her husband John used to summer in Niantic and moved here fulltime about four years ago. After refinishing their beach community house, they both decided retirement wasn’t exactly for them.

“I found I missed teaching terribly, and when John founded Black Point Ventures Consulting, LLC, I decided to start over as well,” she said. “I love to paint and have had the opportunity to teach many students in the U.S. and overseas – it is my true love.”

Stone started out at Once Upon a Cottage in Niantic and quickly outgrew the available space. She selected the corner location, a former pottery studio, for its natural lighting, ample space for classes, sitting room, library, retail space and nooks for displaying artworks.

In addition to her art classes, Stone rents the space by the hour to other creative people to teach courses. This can be anything from arts to languages, computers, photography and beading to yoga, she said. The space can seat 30 to 40 people.

“Short of the library or community center, there really isn’t any space available for people to do this sort of gathering. Just come in and do your thing in a safe, quiet environment,” she said. “You can come in and have a cup of tea before class, enjoy the comfortable, friendly community spirit of the room, the cozy chairs, the relaxing atmosphere in the library/research room.”

Stone believes she has found a niche of artistic instruction that complements and differs from the courses offered by established art associations along the shoreline by helping students with specialized learning.

“Basically, I think a lot of the success of my teaching is because I interview my students so thoroughly. I find out what they want, and I gear all of my classes toward what my students want to learn, not what I necessarily think they should learn from a traditional standpoint of learning,” she said. “I don’t want them to feel like they have to keep learning the same stuff over and over, but from a different teacher.”

She admits it can be pretty scary to open an art studio in the shadow of an esteemed art college.

“I don’t want to keep painting circles, cylinders and triangles over and over again,” interjected Cricket Murphy, Niantic, looking up from her oil painting. She signed up for Stone’s classes to perfect her painting of trees after taking a semester at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme.

“There’s an integrity Maribeth brings,” Murphy said. “This is her passion, and her passion ignites her students.”

“My father wouldn’t pay for me to go to art school,” Stone said. “So I majored in business and minored in art. And I drew plenty of circles over the years.”

Stone offers daytime and evening classes in watercolor and oil painting for adults with all levels of experience, starting with beginner watercolor. She also is available for private instruction of adults and youth.

“I have mixed levels of students in each class because I think they learn from each other that way,” said Stone. “They really do want to help each other, and they can offer good, constructive criticism to each other.”

Stone also wants to help other local artists gain visibility and promote their works through an artists’ cooperative. She has already lined up at least seven artists, most local to the area, and is looking for about that many more. Works currently on display and for sale include beading by Christine Watson, stained glass by Karen Thissell, painting on glass by Margit Hartil, jewelry by Mary Vetel, photography, turned pens and bottle stoppers by Giselle Styron, as well as Stone’s watercolor and oil paintings.

“I’d like it to be Connecticut artists,” she said. “I’d love it if they were all from East Lyme.”

Stone has developed a side specialty of designing and painting stylized watercolor maps of the coastal shoreline and scenes of local beach community signs. Prints of her originals are popular as vacation mementos for visitors and guests, as well as framed art.

Another example of her business sense, Stone has teamed up with the Inn at Harbor Hill Marina to offer artist’s weekend packages. The stay includes an art class and one of Stone’s prints.

She also offers small, private cubicles, as well as non-instructional ‘do-it-yourself’ space for someone who wants to draw or paint.

“The best part is when you’re done, you can leave your supplies and personal items in the locked storage area,” she said.

For more information, call the studio at 739-5500. After taking a break in August, fall classes will start in mid-September.