Here are some brief thoughts on recent happenings in Franklin County and the North Quabbin region.
For readers of this paper, it was a familiar story immortalized by Photo Editor Paul Franz’s pictures of rehabilitated raptors taking tentative steps out of their cages, testing their wings, circling the clearing, perhaps alighting in a tree and soon lost to sight of Tom Ricardi, 81, who had nursed them back to health. For 20 years, Ricardi and Dr. Robert Schmitt of the South Deerfield Veterinary Clinic have answered a calling to give injured eagles, owls, hawks and vultures a second chance at life.
Who knows the recompense of the unpaid labor of running the Massachusetts Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Facility at his Conway home? Or why Dr. Schmitt aids and abets his friend’s avocation? No puppy dog eyes or grateful owners acknowledge their skills. Indeed, Ricardi takes care not to make pets of his charges. Yet Ricardi told Franz, “I love it. I’m gonna keep going.”
Thanks to the three of them — Ricardi, Schmitt and Franz, who chronicles their releases — the mission continues. High above our heads, generations of raptors soar and breed and never look back at the humans who restored them to fulfill their role in the ecosystem.
Movie-going readers were no doubt thrilled by the headline, “Garden Cinemas to reopen March 26.” So much rides on our historic theater: pedestrian traffic frequenting downtown coffee shops and restaurants, spilling out onto Main Street still half-engrossed in the world of fantasy, adventure or pathos on the silver screen.
Owners Isaac and Angela Mass number among those unfortunate casualties of the pandemic — entrepreneurs whose success depends on crowds flocking to their venues. Cruelly, they were ineligible for grants meant to help them and have yet to receive any aid at all.
Mass said they have poured “a ton of our personal savings to save their theater.” They are, however, rich in hope.
“More and more people are getting vaccinated,” Angela Mass said, “and we think they will feel more comfortable coming back at the end of March.”
Here are three reasons to buy your tickets and popcorn: Universal’s action thriller “Nobody,” starring Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”), Warner Brothers’ “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and the world premiere of the science fiction film “First Signal,” which was partially filmed at the Orange Municipal Airport.
“We can’t wait to announce the details of our grand reopening,” Angela Mass aid.
Lots of readers will be all ears.
Outdoor basketball courts are a popular draw and it’s a welcome sight to see them teeming with young people. One such court, in Orange’s Butterfield Park, bears witness to that popularity by its very state of dilapidation.
“Don’t let the wear and tear fool you,” Mahar Senior Abigail Henne told the Orange Selectboard last week. “The condition of the court is a clear reflection of the love so many of our community members have for the game of basketball.”
Henne and fellow seniors Siobhan Davis, Hannah Dupont, Christopher Vezina Jr., and Jaden Softic are mobilizing their skills toward obtaining a state grant to upgrade the court, working with Alec Wade, Orange’s community development director, to apply for a PARC grant.
“The state is going to love to see this level of engagement that’s coming from these students,” Wade said.
Selectboard member Tom Smith said, “Take it from an old guy, this was an absolutely amazing presentation.”
The students think the payoff will come in the form of repaving and repainting the court, installing new hoops as well as some picnic tables, a mural and planting grass. But the real payoff for these future leaders is the experience of identifying a need and following through by funding it. They may be off on their own adventures by the time Butterfield Park’s double-rimmed basketball court gets its revamp, if their grant application is successful. But for the rest of their lives, they will understand the mechanism of grant funding and their power to harness it for the good of their community.