INSIDE THIS EDITION:
- NEW LLC COMMUNITY SERVICE INITIATIVE
- SEVEN MILES TO THE EAST END by Suzanne Winnell Hughes
- WEARING OF THE GREEN by Aileen Fisher
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New LLC Community Service Initiative
LLC has a new community-service initiative, launching in April.
Three times a year, members will be invited to participate in a no-cost, volunteer activity in support of a regional nonprofit organization. These will be one-time events for anywhere from five to twenty people. The purpose of the initiative is to make friends while making a difference, strengthening social ties between LLC members while giving back to the greater community.
Sunday, April 19
India Point Park Cleanup
The inaugural service activity is scheduled for Sunday, April 19 from 1 to 3 p.m. Volunteers will participate in a cleanup of India Point Park with Friends of India Point Park and the independent environmental organization Save the Bay.
Situated between the mouths of the Providence and Seekonk Rivers at the head of Narragansett Bay, India Point Park comprises 18 acres of open green space enjoyed by runners, walkers, cyclists, picnickers, fishermen, sports teams, and children of all ages. In honor of its 50th anniversary, the park recently received an upgraded playground and boardwalk.
In order to keep the park attractive and safe for the estimated 75,000 people who enjoy it each year, the cleanup crew will be removing litter from the lawn, along with flotsam and jetsam from the adjacent shoreline.
Volunteers can expect to do a lot of standing and bending as they stroll through the park in search of debris. Trash bags, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and insect repellent will be provided, along with refreshments and bright new team-building LLC tee shirts.
There are 14 slots available for the April 19th cleanup. Anyone wishing to participate should email Leslie Walden at waldenleslie@gmail.com.
Future Projects
In order to accommodate members of varying degrees of ability and mobility who are interested in participating in community-service, coordinators Leslie Walden, Sandy Levis, and Kate McGovern are investigating a wide range of activities for future projects. Plans are already underway for a second service activity over the summer with Dorcas International institute of Rhode Island, which provides comprehensive support for immigrant families.
Join the Team!
When: Sunday, April 19 from 1 to 3 pm
What: Litter Cleanup
Where: India Point Park
Who: Friends of India Point Park, Save the Bay, and LLC
How: Email Leslie Walden at waldenleslie@gmail.com
Seven Miles to the East End
by Suzanne Winnell Hughes
Back in the 50s and early 60s, when my parents went out for the evening, they usually travelled the seven miles from our home in Dagenham, Essex to the East End of London, where my mum’s big, boisterous family lived. They often went to the Red House Pub, a place that buzzed with chatter and laughter, the smell of beer and cigarette smoke curling in the air, and the clink of pint glasses echoing off the walls. Inside, they’d meet up with Mum’s sisters, Grace and Rose, their husbands, my grandparents, and half the extended family tree. My grandmother’s five siblings plus generations of their families all lived nearby, so the place was more like a family reunion than a public house.
Years later, after we’d moved to the United States, I was back in England on one of my visits. As I looked around the Red House Pub, I realized with pleasure that nearly every single person in there was related to me.
When my parents went out, they usually brought my brother John and me along, dropping us at my grandmother’s house. There, we’d spend the evening with our Clark and Davies cousins—plus cousins a few times removed—with Pat and Billy, the eldest cousins, in charge. Pat often began the night by lining us all up by height, a ritual I wish I had a photograph of. But cameras were a luxury back then.
As we got older, we cousins would wait outside the pub until one of the parents came out with treats—each of us getting a lemonade and an arrowroot biscuit. Unless, of course, it was thrifty Uncle Joe’s turn, in which case we had to share one biscuit and one lemonade among all of us!
Sometimes there were family parties, that didn’t need to have a reason. These were usually in Aunt Rose and Uncle Joe’s house. They and their five children lived next door to my grandparents. Lodgers, Andy and Ellen Woodside and baby Maureen also made their home with Aunt Rose’s family. My aunt Gracie, Uncle Al and four cousins lived with my grandparents as well as, earlier on, my mother’s brothers, Henry and Jimmy. With so many people all packed together, there was always something magically interesting going on.
At these family parties, my dad, who didn’t have much tolerance for alcohol, after only one or two beers would sing a song or two, perform a jaunty waltz around the room with Uncle Joe—something we kids always looked forward to—and then promptly fall asleep in a corner chair for the rest of the night.
But he wasn’t the only entertainment. Cousin Billy, the real showman, would amaze us with his hilarious lip-sync performances to Rock Around the Clock and Chantilly Lace, then Uncle Al would belt out My Brother Sylvest. Dad’s favorite songs to sing were The Ring Your Mother Wore or a comic ditty about a buzzing bee. Uncle Joe delivered one of his dramatic monologues with perfect timing, Great Uncle Tom would try to outdo him with some long winded jokes, and Aunt Rose with gusto sang Taxi, Taxi Don’t Be Late. When Uncle Henry was there with his friends, they broke into a loud, cheerful rendition of Toot, Toot Tootsie Goodbye.
While all this was going on, the doorbell would ring, and standing on the doorstep looking up at the person opening the door was no other than Henri Toulouse- Lautrec himself: a very short man wearing a long overcoat, a bowler hat and cane. Actually, it was a kneeling Cousin Billy with his shoes strapped to his knees to give him a comical, diminutive stature. No matter how many times Billy did this, we all fell about laughing until tears rolled down our cheeks.
Meanwhile, my personal favorite: my aunt Gracie would quietly slip out, only to reappear moments later, transformed—draped in lace curtains, feathers in her hair, and performing with dramatic flair an over-the-top dance routine that had us gasping for breath between fits of laughter. My mother would shake her head, smiling, and say, “Our Gracie is even more comical than Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy.”
My mum, who always claimed she’d never learned to play piano properly because her childhood teacher was usually drunk, would nevertheless sit down at the keys to accompany the family singalong. My grandmother’s sisters Rose, Dora and Mag, sitting in a row on chairs along the edge of the room, would begin the singing of old songs everyone knew by heart, and one by one, everyone joined in.
As a child, then a teenager, the singing, the laughter, the chaos, being surrounded by my clan, filled me with pure joy, moments I will never forget. I feel so lucky to have all this as part of my story. Those family gatherings belonged to a world that sadly my own children and grandchildren will never experience—a time and place that still live on in my memory.
Wearing of the Green
by Aileen Fisher
It ought to come in April,
or, better yet in May
when everything is green as green –
I mean St. Patrick’s Day.
With still a week of winter
this wearing of the green
seems rather out of season –
it’s rushing things, I mean.
But maybe March is better
when all is done and said:
St. Patrick brings a promise,
a four-leaf clover promise,
a green-all-over promise
of springtime just ahead!
Photo: unsplash.com/@urdonohue
Poet Aileen Fisher was born in 1906. Fisher’s poems for children are suffused with curiosity and love for the workings of the natural world. Fisher is the author of more than a hundred books for children, including volumes of poetry, biography, natural history, and plays. Fisher died at the age of 96 at her home in Boulder, Colorado.