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I stepped into Salisbury Town Hall last week to the vibe of a busy morning. There, amid the flurry of local civics, stood a familiar face, Lou Papandrea, or “Low Tide Louie,” a voice many in our community recognize from the oldies program “Tales and Co.” he co-hosts on 94.1, and a Vietnam War veteran.…

Originally published May 30th 2024 “My two favorite things in life are libraries, and bicycles. They both move people forward.” – Peter Golkin Three years ago, on a whim, my wife Nina, and I purchased E-bikes. At that time, E-bikes were becoming mainstream. Though they first emerged in the 90s, they were expensive, bulky and…

Curious Traveler C.J. Fitzwater Early this year, James Russell from the Custom House Maritime Museum asked me to put together a lecture on the life of Benjamin Franklin Butler, known around here for the Salisbury Beach toothpick. I obliged, naturally, and brought along my Tom Sawyer-like friend, Larry Bertram, for the ride. Larry is the…

Dinner Date: CJ Fitzwater If you walk across the trestle-board-patterned marble floor of the Custom House in Newburyport designed by Robert Mills, the same architect responsible for the Washington Monument, you’ll encounter the anti-gravity cantilever staircase, a signature of Mills’ architectural style, with support on only one side, while the other side floats. Ascending this…

Dinner Date: A night out in Salem I ran into Jen Roketenetz, the Salisbury Parks and Recreation administrator, at Stop & Shop while buying pizza ingredients, I was looking for a “dinner date.”I was hoping for company that week at Salem Willows Park in Salem. Jen, with her typical wisdom, suggested I invite Salisbury Town…

Ghosted in Ipswich Dinner Date CJ Fitzwater I find the word “jaded” too elegant sounding for the harsh meaning it carries – tired, bored or lacking enthusiasm. Is there a word that could sound less beautiful than jaded to describe something as unattractive as that definition? At some point in our careers, hobbies or marriages,…

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.“ With our usual Tuesday auction canceled due to the timing of the Christmas holiday (my primary job is running an auto auction in Kittery, Maine), I took the opportunity for an impromptu adventure. My wife, Nina, stayed…

Curious Traveler C.J. Fitzwater Stevie Wonder wrote a song called ”Isn’t She Lovely” for his newborn baby girl, Aisha. “Isn’t she lovely, Isn’t she wonderful, isn’t she precious, less than one minute old. I never thought through love we’d be making one as lovely as she, but isn’t she lovely, made from love.” The moment I…

Originally published May 16th 2024 “The purest form of democratic governing is practiced in a Town Meeting. In use for over 300 years and still today, it has proven to be a valuable means for many Massachusetts taxpayers to voice their opinions and directly affect change in their communities. Here in this ancient American assembly,…

Originally published May 23rd 2024 “Persistence is what makes the impossible possible, the possible likely, and the likely definite.” — Robert Half In my column last week, I talked about Salisbury’s Colonial-style form of government and how open Town Meeting plays a pivotal role in governance. Every registered voter has the opportunity to cast a…