INSIDE THIS EDITION:
- IN REMEMBRANCE: MEL SHELLY AND SHIRLEY DIMATTEO — Tribute by Cathy Hurst
- AWAKENINGS by Jessica Siegel
- KENT STATE AND ME by Ruth Mills
- JOIN THE SAKONNET WRITERS GROUP
- BORDERLESS by Cheryl Castonguay of the Sakonnet Writers Group
Click on the links to jump to the article.
In Remembrance: Mel Shelly and Shirley Dimatteo
Tribute by Cathy Hurst
Many LLC members attended a memorial service for Mel Shelly and Shirley DiMatteo which was held on Sunday, April 27 at the First Unitarian Church in Providence. The church choir gave a beautiful rendition of "Danny Boy", and Cathy Hurst led off the remembrances section with the comments below. Other LLC speakers included Tony Allen, Debbie Chorney, Sidney Okashige, and Linda Shamoon.
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My name is Cathy Hurst, and I first met Shirley and Mel shortly after I moved to Providence 14 years ago. I moved here knowing almost no one, but within a year I’d found the Lifelong Learning Collaborative (or LLC) which changed my life in so many ways. Shirley was a regular participant in the Tuesday afternoon Scrabble group there, and our friend Bob Goodwin also organized a Wednesday morning hike in which Shirley and Mel often participated.
One of the things that struck me early about Shirley and Mel was their loving generosity and sense of community that manifested itself in so many ways. They opened their homes in Providence and Narragansett to so many, for so many different occasions. “Come over for supper.” “Let’s carve pumpkins for Halloween.” “Watch the Superbowl with us.” “Fourth of July fireworks at Saltaire, and spend the night.”
I remember a Columbus Day parade on Federal Hill, a St. Patrick’s Day stroll in Wayland Square, a formal tea (ladies only, complete with fancy China and hats), listening to Mike Laureanno play and sing during Covid, with us all sitting, 6 feet apart, on the opposite curb.
I’ve never been very good at those skills, the spontaneous gathering, the community get-together, but Shirley and Mel were seasoned practitioners, and I am so grateful to have been included in so many experiences!
The week after the 2016 election, the Scrabble group had gone out to dinner. We got to talking about what kinds of courses we might offer at LLC that could help counteract some of the sentiments of the far right around immigration and other issues. Shirley and I decided then and there to develop and put on a course on 400 years of immigration to Rhode Island, which we offered in the fall of 2017.
Mel loved to take courses in literature at LLC, and especially courses offered by the late Tim Walsh. In each course, class participants typically do some kind of presentation on a selected topic, and Mel almost always ended his with a song. In 2017, Mel and I were both participants in an Irish literature tour of Ireland with Tim; it was a wonderful experience. (And there was a lot of singing!)
Mel and Shirley also developed a course in iPhonography at LLC which they offered for several sessions; it has since grown into a popular Cell Phone Photo Club. Mel also was the co-coordinator of several film classes in the program.
Shirley and Mel lived such full lives. They appreciated beauty and grace everywhere; they were loving and generous friends and wonderful dog parents to Misty, Cammie, Fiona, and Elliot. They were staunch supporters of the Lifelong Learning Collaborative, participating by Zoom when they were wintering in Florida. They meant so much to our organization, and they will be missed by so many of its members.
They were gone too fast and too soon—we hardly had a chance to say good-bye. So I’d like to share this brief verse in good-bye to them—Irish poetry of course!
"The pub is quiet on this night,
Your chair stands empty now.
But stories of your life live on,
As friends remember how
You'd sing the old songs sweet and true,
And raise a glass in cheer,
Making every stranger friend, and friends feel extra dear.
Though silent now your merry voice, your spirit lingers still,
In laughter shared and tales retold, around the village still."
Awakenings
by Jessica Siegel
Everyone needs a special place to relax and clear one’s mind. It could be an actual place or a memory that you can draw on to give you space to just be. In our gotta-go world, we can refresh our souls and contemplate our navel, if we choose. My place is the sunroom in my home. I enter my sunroom through French doors off the dining room. I step down into my palace of peace. With my coffee in hand, I fall into my cushy easy chair. It leans back and my legs go up, pressing my back into the soft, upholstered surface. The chair fits me perfectly. My back, hips, arms and legs are cradled by the smooth, beige fabric that gently supports me.
I start my day in the sunroom soaking in the ambience of my peaceful retreat. When I first saw the house, I knew that this room would be my favorite space. It would give me a quiet place to read and write. There is no TV. If others are in the house, I can close the French doors to shut out any distractions. I can gaze out of the three large picture windows for a 180-degree view of the front, side and back of my baby blue home with ivory white trim. The magical sunlight of a springtime morning washes over everything in sight. In the front yard tulips and daffodils are blooming with deep red and brilliant yellow heads that dance gently in the morning breeze. Behind me I can see the freshly painted deck with new patio furniture. It calls out to me to come sit outside to drink my coffee and check my email. Sunlight is dappling across the large deck. Birds and bees chase the shadows, resting on the blooming flowering plants and lush green trees in the back yard. In front of me is a red winged blackbird. He lands lightly on a thin branch of the old oak tree and shakes out his wings. A bluebird lands above him. A cardinal drifts by, followed by a robin red breast hunting for worms in the grass. The back yard is teaming with life as the world awakens.
My small, white, Maltipoo pooch, Bravo, barks at a squirrel shimmying up the tree. It briefly interrupts the tranquility of my morning. The squirrel is not too happy either as he skitters away to hide in the leaves higher up on the tree. It’s 6:00 a.m. The bustle of traffic is negligible. The occasional whoosh of a passing car sounds like the ocean waves ebbing and flowing on the sandy beach.
The sunroom has a high ceiling. The walls and ceiling remind me of an A-frame cabin in the woods with pine wood paneling and pine cross beams supporting the roof. The floor is a dark mahogany that blends seamlessly against the walls. Flowering plants boasting a rainbow of colors are placed by the windows to soak in the sunlight to help them thrive. Succulents sunbathe in the light as they overflow out of their pots.
Two lamps sit on the small glass end tables on either side of the blue and white striped sofa. Bravo stretches out on the cushions taking his first nap of the day. Most days he snuggles on my lap to get in his daily noogies before I get busy. On the larger matching coffee table in front of the couch are games crying out to be played. Maybe this evening I can round up friends for a game of Monopoly or Scrabble. I imagine us watching the sunset and laughing as we sip wine and munch on salty and sweet snacks.
Next to my chair is a standing floor lamp with a small round table cluttered with Kleenex, books, old Popsicle sticks, my cell phone and magazines. Such a small space is holding so many objects. It makes the room just that more cozy.
Each day I ease into my activities with the gift of time in this glorious space. Email is read and my daily phone call with my sister happens in the sunroom. When the urge to move hits, Bravo and I will head out for our morning walk in the blissful morning sun.
After a busy day, I’ll retreat to the sunroom to read and write as I reflect on my nonstop day. As I ease into my chair and the dog curls up on my lap, I feel grateful for the gift of my home and this special room. In gratitude I breathe in the beauty of the setting and bask in the joyful peace of knowing that I have a special place to begin and end each day. It’s now dark outside. If the sunroom is my stage, the darkness is the drawn proscenium curtain keeping me safely tucked away from the distractions of a busy world.
May 1, 2025
© Jessica Siegel
Kent State and Me
by Ruth Mills
Ruth Mills creates prompts for the Memoir Class. Her latest offering is “Tell about your personal memories of where you were and how you reacted when a major event affected our world.” Here is her response to the prompt.
A huge poster of President Nixon was burning just a few hundred feet from my bedroom window. Our tiny town of 6,000 residents plus 4,000 students, located on the Canadian border far from Kent State University, had filled with tension once we learned that four unarmed students were killed in Ohio by our National Guard.
Thousands of agitated students from our two local colleges had gathered in the village park across the street. The park was not big enough to contain them all. Quite a few were standing on our lawn and about a dozen stood on our porch. My parents locked the front door, something that we had never done. I wanted to go out, just to observe, but my parents were adamant. I was not to go out.
Earlier that day my mother had watched in horror as a mock funeral procession with four caskets and hundreds of students made their way up Main Street. She held her breath as a convoy of National Guardsmen from nearby Camp Drum made their way up the street at the same time. Both sides stared straight ahead, never looking at each other.
I was finishing the end of my junior year in high school. For the past several years, it had seemed as if the world was coming apart—the Watts Riots in 1965, the Detroit and Newark riots in 1967, and the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, to name just a few. I remember my father commenting on a newscast of the Detroit riots, saying it sounded like a war zone. It felt threatening and unnerving to my adolescent self.
My parents were law and order Republicans. My father was also a fundamentalist Baptist minister. No question where they stood. Instead of protesting, people with grievances should pray and trust the Lord. I did not consciously question their beliefs. In fact, in my sophomore year I had to write a term paper about a social issue. I chose to write about protests. My conclusion was simplistic and parent-approved. Jesus was the answer to all earthly problems.
My initial reaction to the Kent State Massacre was similar. If those students had focused on their studies and doing what they were supposed to do, this would not have happened. I dismissed the fact that they were upset about the expansion of the war into Cambodia, where some of them might be sent to die.
Like me, many of my classmates believed that the students got what they deserved. Then Mr. Franklin, our eleventh grade Social Studies teacher, pointed out a fact that none of us had considered. We are a nation of laws. We have the right to protest our government. Everyone is entitled to a trial by jury. We are considered innocent until proven guilty. And the punishment should be appropriate for the crime. Did these students get a trial? Were they proven guilty? Did the act of protesting deserve the death penalty?
I began to look more closely at the facts.
Jeff Miller appeared to be the most “guilty.” He had thrown a tear gas canister back at the Guardsmen, waved his middle finger, and called them pigs. He felt strongly about making his voice heard. He got the death penalty, without the benefit of a trial.
Allison Krause also participated in the protests. She was photographed placing a flower in the barrel of one of the guns held by a National Guardsman. She told him “flowers are better than bullets.” She actually agreed with the Guard presence after the ROTC building was burned. She got the death penalty, without the benefit of a trial.
Sandy Scheuer was changing classes. She had not participated in any protests. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. She got the death penalty, without the benefit of a trial.
Bill Schroeder had not participated in any protests and was a member of the ROTC. He was changing classes when he heard shots being fired. As he tried to run away, he was shot in the back. He got the death penalty, without the benefit of a trial.
Nine other students were injured, including one who was permanently paralyzed. None of them had the benefit of a trial.
The protests in my town ended quietly. My spiritual and political journey, however, was just beginning.
And so I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true.
“Kathy’s Song” by Simon and Garfunkel
Photo by Sarah Coates on Unsplash
May 4 was the 55th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre.
Sakonnet Writers
The Sakonnet Writers Group meets at the Tiverton Public Library on Roosevelt Avenue on the second Saturday of the month. This is a drop-in writing group that supports writers of all levels. Membership is free, open to the public, and is appropriate for writers aged 18 and older.
Our definition of writer: If you can put words to paper or keyboard, then you are a writer. Your experience of your first day of kindergarten, work, or coaching your nephew's tee ball team is yours to tell. We all have stories, opinions, and unique points of view. Writers share them by crafting stories, poems, comics, memoirs, and more.
The group is primarily prompt-driven. We’ll introduce a prompt and write to it on the spot. At times, we may offer a writing exercise or “assign” a prompt to be written on one’s own time and brought back to share the following month.
We look forward to sharing stories with you!
Borderless
by Cheryl Castonguay of the Sakonnet Writers Group
Inspired by the poem “Cross That Line” by Naomi Shahib Nye
Animals don’t see borders
Because they are not real
They are constructs,
Man-made from fear;
Skewed survival instincts.
Birds do not know countries
They soar high above,
And everything down below
Looks the same
From one mile to the next.
We materialized a concept,
Adopted it globally
The premise that these borders
Drawn to divide and control
Are as solid and sacrosanct as the Great Wall.
Our once-intrinsic deference
To nature in all its glory
Is now reserved for paper and coin
Parts of nature themselves
As warped as we have become.
Will we ever allow ourselves the freedom
To view the world
As seen from space
One circle, all-encompassing
No lines?
