Here are some brief thoughts on some of the events making news from around Franklin County and the North Quabbin area:
A “Green Monster” in Greenfield. How great is that — at least for those minor league baseball devotees who will be playing at Lunt Field this spring.
The Greenfield Minor League is constructing a set of walls to create a “mini-Fenway.” Soon, area youngsters will have a chance to hit a wall-ball double off a “Green Monster” of their own like the famous wall at Fenway Park in Boston.
The construction of scaled-down features similar to the home of the Boston Red Sox started Wednesday at the field near the Franklin Recovery Center and former Lunt Silversmith factory off Norwood Street.
According to Aaron Campbell, a member of the Greenfield Minor League board of directors, the replica field could be completed in time for the league’s opening day in May.
The field is one of three that were part of the former Lunt Silversmith factory property. The city purchased the fields in July 2014 and eventually leased the property to the Minor League, which has used the fields for decades.
The field’s most notable feature will be a modified version of the Green Monster, which will stand 12 feet tall in left field. The wall, made by North Carolina-based Sports Edge, will have space for advertisers, as well as a nonworking replica of the scoreboard in the wall at Fenway, according to Campbell.
According to Alex Siano, treasurer for the Minor League, the project is expected to cost about $110,000 to complete. Area businesses have promised about $85,000 of that total, Siano said. He expects the remaining amount to come from funding sources including the city, though donations are still being accepted.
Play ball.
Where else would you expect to find an international foods market but at someplace like The Tibetan Plaza in Deerfield?
Sonam Rinchen and his wife, Tenzin Rinchen, who own the Greenfield Road plaza, are planning the new market. They are originally from Tibet, but are actually hoping to capitalize on the substantial number of Russian and Moldovan immigrants in the area, according to Sonam Rinchen.
Transition Northfield is doing its best to get us into sustainable habits — like fixing rather than tossing broken furniture or torn clothing.
The Transition group planned a “Fix-It Fair,” in the town’s Dickinson Memorial Library as part of its ongoing effort to make the town more sustainable and to strengthen its sense of community.
Fix-it fairs feature stations for repairing things like jewelry clasps, clothes, toys, bicycles, furniture, tools and lamps, and attendees are encouraged to learn and practice their own repair skills.
Transition Northfield’s organizers describe their group as a response to the major challenges of our time: economic instability, rising energy costs and global climate change. The group was established in 2010, but was inspired by the larger, international movement of “transition initiatives.”
Transition Northfield’s most prominent community project has been the Tool Lending Library at the Northfield transfer station, which has about 200 members who have access to power tools and hand tools for tasks such as light construction, car repairs and garden work.
Transition’s moves are small but positive steps away from our throw-away society.
It may have been an unrealistic hope that the state bureaucracy could process Thomas Aquinas College’s application for a campus in Northfield in time to open this fall.
Thomas Aquinas submitted its application to the Board of Higher Education a year ago, but the state agency on average takes about 400 days to process such applications.
“It has become clear, however, that the project requires a more generous timeline,” Thomas Aquinas President Michael F. McLean noted with a touch of understatement.
So, here’s looking at the fall of 2019.
This seems to be the season for high school students to shadow local professionals to get a sense of what certain jobs are like. Dr. Jeffrey Hayer recently was shadowed by a pair of Mohawk Trail Regional High School students, for example. And it may have made a difference.
“It really solidified my idea that, yes, I really want to be in the medical field,” Mohawk Trail Regional School student Brianne Cousineau, 18, said afterward.