site updates

Hello friends and fellow full and part-time artists.

Google has enabled a new function that you can access if you scroll all the way to the bottom. There is now a link to "Older Posts" that brings you to the previous page. I have set the page length to about 20 posts, so if that is too long for your browser to load, let me know and we can shorten up the pages a little bit to accommodate those with slower connections.


Another thing: Cindy and I have been talking about having a small online art show. It would be put up on a separate page or pages linked from here. Two or three sharp, clear photos of your work along with a description and also the size and media would be ideal. The entire page(s) will be marked copyright if that helps, otherwise, watermark your images if you think that will make you feel better. Watermarking is helpful to stock photogs who might have their images used online elsewhere. Fine artists may want to show off their works without intrusive marks and label their ownership adjacent to the image. I can also "right click protect" the pages so you can't just copy and paste them. Go catalinradio.com to see how that works.

Send your submissions to w1xyz at aol.com

I have one kinetic folk sculpture, one mixed media collage, and something else that I haven't picked. Anything transmittable, including animation, music, still images, haiku, photos of 3D works, videos of works that move, etc. can be included.

Bob Crowley

Walter Levenson

The Newton South High School Class of 72's 35th

Roger Cooper!

Paul DeMaio and Cindy Moore

Joe Greene

A rather poor shot of a very good photographer - Here is Mr. Joe Greene. Check his work out here

1972 NSHS graduate Paul DeMaio

Operation Iraqui Freedom 2003-2004. Communications Specialist Sargent Paul DeMaio

Army Sargent Paul DeMaio OIF 2003-2004

pdoif03@comcast.net

PLEASURE ISLAND

A History of Pleasure Island
An eighty-acre multi-million dollar theme park, Pleasure Island operated in Wakefield between the years 1959 and 1969. At its inception, it was the largest man-made tourist attraction in New England, expected to host over 1,200,00 visitors each summer season. The family-entertainment center was the third of the nation’s big family park developments (Disneyland and Pacific Ocean Park, Santa Monica, were the first). More than 5,000 people attended its opening day in 1959.
The entrance to the park (named Pleasure Island Road) travelled one mile through the Reedy Meadow swampland and ended in a parking lot for 3,000 cars.
Construction began in February, 1959. Four feet of frozen ground had to be blasted to lay foundations for the park -- 250 craftsmen and twelve subcontractors worked for four months to complete the park, which included 100,000 yards of paving, one mile of water pipe, ten thousand feet of railroad tracks, seven thousand feet of fence, three thousand trees and one hundred acres of landscape. Prior to construction, several man made ponds existed -- land had been taken from this area to fill Logan Airport runways in the ‘50’s. Engineers removed and relocated 200,000 cubic yards of earth to create village roads and parks -- 1000 cubic yards of white sand created a beach. Two hundred master carpenters erected the buildings using Victorian, Colonial and Western architecture. One actual antique building, the B&M station from Greenwood (80 years old at the time) was carefully lifed from its foundation and shuttled through town to its new location at Pleasure Island. (This station building would ultimately burn down in a disastrous fire.)Begun by William Hawkes of Gloucester, publisher of Child Life magazine, Pleasure Island pioneered a new concept: entertainment blended with education. Among the attractions were a Moby Dick Ride (featuring an authentic Maine-made whaleboat), the Old Smoky Line (featuring a 18-ton narrow gauge steam locomotive), a Pirate Ride (featuring bamboo-thatched pirate boats), Horseless Carriage Rides (featuring four-seater models of the 1911 Cadillac), gold panning, stage coaches, and burro rides. Education attractions included “Breck’s Old Country Store,” the Wayside Grist Mill (featuring Pepperidge Farm products), Friend’s Baked Beanery, Cap’n Snow’s Chowder House, the H.P. Hood & Sons Gay Nineties Ice Cream parlor and the Pepsi-Cola-sponsored Goldspan Gulch soft drink emporium. Ultimately, it was the New England weather that killed the park in 1969. A season of particularly cold summer weather kept tourists away. An attempt to remain open only on weekends was not an economically viable solution. On April Fool's Day, April 1, 1971, one of the final death knells for the park was sounded with a fire alarm received at the Fire Station at 10:14 P.M. 'Two separate fires were in progress. Of the two building destroyed on that day, one was a local landmark -- the old Greenwood railroad depot, which had been moved to park ten years before. (A duplicate of this building was erected in Lomita, California, as part of its railroad museum.)
At present, the site is occupied by the Edgewater Park office complex and Reedy Meadow Conservation Land.
Learn much more about the Park, and the group that is trying to preserve memorabilia and memories from the park and see many more images at the new Pleasure Island Website developed by Kory Hellmer.

Scary pirates

Pleasure island western town Remember Gabby Hayes? He frightened me.

Pleasure island mall

Pleasure Island Wakefiled Massachusetts

http://friendsofpleasureisland.org/

A website to check out for those who remember

Here is a youtube clip from Mercenary Audio having fun with one of our mics.
Link

It's kind of an inside joke - "How can you handle the pressure?" The idea that this mic is made of Roswellite so it can't break when used in loud applications. The Glockenspiel is a nice touch. Sean Eldon put the whole thing together in a few minutes. This is what I do now that I am retired! BC

I'm having a flashback...

An interview at the studio of...

Hello! - I dug around and couldn't find the photos I thought I had but I came across this page from the NSHS newspaper (I also found some images of Seaver's paintings if anyone is interested).

--Roy Pardi

Sittin' on the porch

Lunar Eclipse

We had a lunar eclipse here in Japan tonight. It was cloudy all evening, but around 9 the moon showed. I saw a few ghosts in rural Rhode Island during a lunar eclipse in '72. What was I on? P.

Martha & Michelle... Sisters?

--Joe

On The boat to Wood Island

The Fallow's House

Classy shirt

Landing at Wood Island

Stroll

PK

Photo Opportunities

These last 3 from Joe

Ahh, Maine

Maine, '07: Kastners Walking

After the lighthouse on Wood Island

Valle's Steak house and The Somerset Hotel

All I know the time it is gettin dread
BBob

Gian, Stephen, Tracey at Nancie's

NYC #3

NYC, part 2

Enter, vamping: Mr. Roy Pardi.

NYC Museum tour

Hello! This picture and the two following were taken in front of the Museum of Modern Art in the spring of '72 (I think) during the Art Department's museum tour. Seen here, from left to right: Deborah Santucci (note pretzel), Mr. Seaver Leslie, Karen Warschauer, and Paul Kastner.

Jon Oshima

Hiking near Mt. Fuji

Paul hiking near Mt. Fuji. Spectacular view.

Michelle and Martha
Space Girl in the News

Martha (Shepherd) Pessaro: daughter Michelle's wedding, Dec. 2006

Martha, Michelle, Michelle and Jason (Collins), Cindy, Joe

Martha and Cindy, BPool, ME 1987

John Cate Concert - Iron Horse April 7 !

John Cate will be playing at The Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St., Northampton MA on April 7th. Here is the link to buy tickets.

I am told you should get there by six pm. The Iron Horse is a great venue and this will be an outstanding concert. Contact Iron Horse at 413 584 0610 or go here.

Atticus, Gian and Stephen at Nancie's

Newton Highlands bloggers - update

FYI after fighting with google and their new interface, I gave up and registered on the New Blogger. They win. We switch. What this means: I don't really know...it all seems the same...or is it?..

Present users. This is going to be easy.

When you sign in, go to the new blogger.

Your sign in name is similar (not exactly the same) as before

newtoncenter@gmail.com

is it.

The password is the same as before!

email me if you have trouble

bc

By the way, the newtoncenter@gmail.com is a working email account. You can send and recieve email there, if necessary.

Google Blogger

Well google is getting more and more persistent and insistent on switching this blog over to New google blogs. I have already done it, out of necessity, at the other blogs I maintain. It is a little easier to format but is the same, except you have to have a gmail account. The downside is that the old name to login will be gone, and maybe the password will have to be changed too. As far as I know we have four people who post to the blog: Joe, Paul, Nancie, me, anyone else?

If you have tried to post and have trouble getting in, just sign in as usual, then you get to the nag screen where they try to sell you on New Blog, and there seems to be no way out, but there is!

Just type or copy in

http://www.blogger.com in the subject line, and you will see newtonhighlands in blue, which you then click on and proceed as if nothing happened. This works, at least for now, to delay what looks like an inevitable change. bc

Dennis somewhere in Bermuda

A more recent shot of Dennis Sullivan. Looks like he just walked off the golf course.

Dennis Sullivan

Remember Dennis? He had David Bowie albums in the late 60's and an impressive collection of what would later be called New Wave. Dennis taught me how to jump a fence at Weeks - a valuable skill. Here he is in the NSHS yearbook picture. bc

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO WILL .

Steve, ellen and ?

another very talented guy