The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

Council on Aging activities in May

Piano class with Wanda Paik
May 1 and 15 at 10 a.m.
Dust off your piano music books and come to the piano class at the COA led by Wanda Paik. This class is open to all pianophiles, whatever your level, to play, share, and learn more about how to play and practice to help reach your goals. This class will be held on May 1 and 15 from 10–11:15 a.m. at Bemis Hall.

Mindfulness walks in nature
May 1 at 1 p.m.
Spring can be a very special time to connect with nature through walking in a mindful way. Join naturalist John Calabria for a series of walks in some of Lincoln’s most beautiful places on Tuesdays May 1 and June 5 beginning at 1 p.m. Where the walks will take place is to be determined. Unplug, disconnect from the world for a while and let your senses come alive in nature. These are co-sponsored by the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust and the Lincoln Council on Aging. For more information, including locations of the walks, go to lincolnconservation.org.

Surviving and thriving through life’s challenges
May 2 at 9:30 a.m.
No matter what your phase of life or what you have encountered in life, you can learn and apply the scientifically-proven tenants of Positive Psychology to become more resilient and happier. Come to Bemis Hall at 9:30 on Wednesdays, May 2, 16, and 30 and June 13 to learn practical strategies, share practices, build connections and support each other. Facilitated by Alyson Lee, Social Worker, Life Coach, Certified and Licensed Facilitator of Positive Psychology. Funded by the Friends of the COA.

The many faces of loss: a new group
May 2 at 10 a.m.
As we age we confront loss in many forms. It may be the death of loved ones. It may also be dealing with physical health, or cognitive changes in loved ones, friends or in ourselves. It may include regrets about lost opportunities and we may also confront the recognition of our own mortality. Claire Gerstein, LICSW, one of the COA’s social workers with many years of experience helping people navigate the losses of later life, will be facilitating a group that will give people the opportunity to talk about these issues in a supportive environment. The six-week group will run on Wednesdays 10–11:30 on May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 and June 6. Signing up by calling the COA at 781-259-8811 is helpful but not required. [Read more…] about Council on Aging activities in May

Obituaries

Bitsy Donaldson

Family and friends will gather to honor and remember Elizabeth “Bisty” Donaldson on Saturday, May 19 at 2 p.m. at the First Parish Church in Lincoln. Donaldson, who died on March 19 at age 99, was a former member of the Lincoln School Committee, PTA, Lincoln 4-H Club, and First Parish in Lincoln choir.

David Ganley, 84 (March 28) — resident of The Commons.

Pat Seiden

Stefanie “Pat” Guzewicz Seiden, 82 (March 25) — former eucharistic minister at Holy Family Parish in Concord.

News acorns

Talk on Lincoln farming past, present and future

“Lincoln Has Long Been a Farming Town—Where Will This Heritage Take Us?” is the topic of a program presented by the Lincoln Historical Society and the Agricultural Commission on Sunday, May 6 at 2 p.m. in Bemis Hall.

It’s garlic mustard pull time

Fight invasive plants and pull garlic mustard with your neighbors from April 25 through May 31. Free paper leaf bags will be distributed to residents at the transfer station on Wednesday, April 25 and Saturday, April 28 from 9 a.m.–noon. After that, bags will be available at the Conservation office above Lincoln Kitchen in the mall (courtesy of the Lincoln Garden Club).

Drop off full bags behind the DPW Lewis Street near the cell tower Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m. (no wall lettuce or yard clippings). The DPW will also pick up bags through May 31 if you contact them at 781-259-2612 or stacyc@lincolntown.org. Allow a few days for pickup. For more information and a fact sheet on garlic mustard, click here.

First Parish holds May Market

The First Parish in Lincoln will hold its annual May Market “Trash and Treasurers” fair on Saturday, May 5 from 9 a.m.–noon in the parish house auditorium (14 Bedford Rd.). The fair offers antiques, collectibles, jewelry, household goods, furniture, and much more. Shoppers who arrive before 9 a.m. can enjoy a complimentary cup of coffee while they wait for the doors to open. All proceeds go to the First Parish in Lincoln. Past fair proceeds have funded projects such as a kitchen renovation, a sidewalk between the church and Parish House, and the Children’s Chapel. “It takes two years to collect the treasures and it’s recycling at its best. You’ll find things you never knew you needed,” said Tucker Smith, May Market committee chair. Any leftover items are donated to Households Goods, Inc., an Acton-based nonprofit that provides donated furniture and household items to the needy.

Teach a class at L-S Adult Ed

Are you interested in teaching an adult education class in fall or early winter, or a course you’d like to see offered by Lincoln-Sudbury Adult Education? The program is especially looking for classes in technology, literature, writing, foreign languages, and history for students in middle school and older. They’re happy to help you design a course and work with you on the details. For more information, email adult.ed@lsrhs.net by May 31. 

Free tours at Gropius House, Codman Estate

There will be free guided tours on the half-hour of the Gropius House and the Codman Estate on Saturday, May 5 from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. The Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area has invited the 45 towns and cities within its bounds to participate in “Hidden Treasures 2018,” a regional celebration.

Mother’s Day Country Breakfast at Pierce House

The Pierce House will host two Mother’s Day Country Breakfasts on Sunday, May 13 at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. under the tent, complete with lawn games and music. Advance reservations required; see the menu and reserve by May 10 by clicking here. $45 for adults, $40 for seniors and $20 for children 6-12 (free for children under 5). Catered by Tastings Caterers. Private rooms are available at an additional cost of $35; a minimum of eight people is needed to reserve a private room, with a maximum of 18 people.

Cabaret with Crowe and Harris

The Lincoln Public Library presents and evening of cabaret with Mary Crowe and Evelyn Harris on Wednesday, May 16 at 7 p.m. in the Tarbell Room. Cabaret originated in France in the 16th century, expanded to Germany and England in the 1930s and crossed the pond to the U.S. soon afterwards. Many songs were written by classical composers. Crowe and Harris will perform cabaret songs by Poulenc, Britten, Bolcolm, and Weill, as well as contemporary cabaret songwriters Carole Hall, Harriet Goldberg and Crowe herself.

The pair perform as a duo and with the Lincoln Hill Trio at jazz clubs at art centers, retirement communities and libraries throughout the Boston area. Their latest CD of Mary’s original songs, “Rebound,” was well reviewed in Metronome Magazine. Crowe has been on the Voice Faculty of Indian Hill Music School for 20 years and Evelyn Harris teaches Suzuki piano from her studio in Lincoln. For more information and calendar of upcoming performances, click here. The concert is sponsored by the Friends of the Lincoln Public Library.

Marijuana forum could precede town votes in the fall

In advance of Wednesday’s public forum, the Marijuana Study Committee has released this FAQ document explaining the ramifications of the state’s 2016 vote to legalize recreational marijuana, the pros and cons of allowing marijuana businesses in Lincoln, and a town decision timeline. The forum takes place on Wednesday, April 25 from 7–9 p.m. in Town Hall.

After Lincoln residents approved the 2016 ballot question, the town imposed a temporary moratorium on cannabis businesses while it decides what to do about the issue. The moratorium expires in November and most likely cannot be renewed. Any town—including Lincoln—whose residents voted in favor of the measure in 2016 must take certain steps if it decides it doesn’t want to allow commercial medical or recreational cannabis cultivation, processing, or sales within its borders.

To enact a partial or full ban, a Town Meeting vote to adopt a zoning bylaw amendment restricting or banning cannabis businesses must pass by a two-thirds majority, followed by a simple majority at a town election. A partial ban could allow only one type of business use, such as cultivation, testing, manufacturing, or retail businesses to the exclusion of others. The town could also opt to do nothing, in which case the state could begin issuing licenses to qualified Lincoln‐based marijuana establishments of any type permitted by state statute. Lincoln voters cannot prohibit personal use or cultivation of marijuana.

Assuming that the June 9 Special Town Meeting on the school and community center projects is not expanded to include the marijuana question, there would be a second town forum in September, followed by a Special Town Meeting and special election in October, according to the committee’s FAQ document.

South Lincoln sidewalk, other improvements on the way

A new sidewalk will appear in coming weeks between the Cambridge Trust Co. building and St. Joseph’s Church.

Now that the weather is finally improving, a new sidewalk will soon be installed across from the Bank of America in South Lincoln, which pedestrians in the area have been requesting for years.

The sidewalk, which was removed during a road construction project eight years years ago and never replaced, is one of the projects funded by a $400,000 Complete Streets grant the town received last fall in an effort spearheaded by Director of Planning and Land Use Jennifer Burney and the South Lincoln Planning Implementation Committee (SLPIC).

The package of projects, which Burney said should be completed by September 2018, also includes informational kiosks, safety improvements to the intersection of Route 117 and Lincoln Road, wayfinding signs, and repairs to some sidewalks and roadside paths.

The South Lincoln Revitalization Project includes several SLPIC working teams that are looking at wayfinding, planning and zoning, the Department of Public Works site on Lewis Street, the MBTA station, and the green on the east side of the mall between Donelan’s and Lincoln Woods. The goals are outlined in this presentation made at the State of the Town meeting in November 2017.

The town plans to apply for a second $400,000 Complete Streets grant next fall to fund the following projects, according to Burney:

ProjectLocationFunding request
Complete Streets gap analysis and strategy for trails, sidewalks, biking, school bus routes, and places of interestTown-wide$108,000
Intersection improvements study and constructionIntersection of Lincoln Road and Codman Road$25,000
Bicycle improvementsTown-wide$50,000
Repaits to culvert, wooden pedestrian bridge, and sidewalkLincoln Road$20,000
Intersection improvements study and constructionFive Corners near library$40,000
Intersection improvements study and constructionIntersection of Route 117 and Tower Road$25,000
Parking lot study and improvements including pay kiosk and lightingLincoln Station commuter lot$132,000

New York Times art critic to lecture at deCordova

Holland Cotter

Award-winning New York Times art critic Holland Cotter will give the 2018 Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lecture at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum on Wednesday, May 2 at 6:30 p.m. 

One of today’s foremost art critics, Cotter is known for his wide-ranging reviews of art that are marked by “acute observation, luminous writing, and dramatic storytelling,” as described by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Cotter plans to speak on the vital role of art in our current social and political moment and will also address the importance of growing up in the Boston area.

“When I was a kid in the late 1950s and early 1960s, deCordova was where I first saw modern art—Abstract Expressionism. I loved it enough to try my pre-teen hand at it. For a short while I took drawing lessons in an upstairs gallery in the museum’s main building. As it turned out, the hands-on part didn’t last, but the love did,” Cotter said.

Cotter, a Weston native, is a co-chief art critic for the New York Times, where he has been on staff since 1998. In 2009, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Cotter earned an A.B. from Harvard College, where he studied poetry with Robert Lowell. He later received an M.A. from the City University of New York in American modernism and an M.Phil. in early Indian Buddhist art from Columbia University, where he studied Sanskrit and taught Indian and Islamic art.

The Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lecture series was established in 1981 to consider topics broadly focused on changing attitudes towards 20th- and 21st-century art. The Cronin Lecture series is made possible by a generous grant to deCordova from the Grover J. Cronin Memorial Foundation.

Lecture attendees are welcome to arrive early for a casual reception with Holland Cotter at 6 p.m. Wine, beer, and nonalcoholic beverages will be served. Tickets (available online here) are $5 for deCordova members and students with ID, $10 for nonmembers. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Fee fife fo fum? (Lincoln Through the Lens)

Before the annual Patriots Day “Lincoln Salute: A Festival of Fife & Drum Music” featuring some of the best fife and drum groups from New England, the United States, and abroad, the groups are invited to the Pierce House for a luncheon hosted by the 4-H Fifes & Drums and the Lincoln Minute Men. But it wasn’t the British Invasion.

Because fifers and drummers stood alongside officers and played a vital role in communication in 18th-century armies, it was important for officers to be able to identify musicians readily—so if the coat colors of the unit, for instance, were blue coats with red facings, then the musicians would wear red coats with blue facings, explained Don Hafner, a Belmont resident and professor of political science at Boston College.

Thus, the redcoats who appear to be invading the Pierce House are in fact “friendlies”—American fifers and drummers. And the young man in the blue coat with red facings (below right) from the William Diamond Junior Fife & Drum Corps is wearing what the regular soldiers would have worn (though as a musician, he really should have been in red as well, Hafner noted).

(Photos courtesy Nancy Beach)

The musicians gathered at the Brooks School Auditorium in Lincoln later in the afternoon (rather than Pierce Park in a concession to the weather) for a fife and drum concert. Other guests at this year’s event included the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife & Drum Corps, the Colonial Williamsburg Fife & Drum Corps, the 1st Michigan Colonial Fife & Drum Corps, the Bluff Point Quahog Diggers, the Musick of Prescott’s Battalion, the Sudbury Ancients, and the Aleppo Pipe Band.

Hospice house in Lincoln welcomes first patients

Care Dimensions President and CEO Patricia Ahern (center), surrounded by board members and senior management staff, officially opens the new hospice house in Lincoln.

(Full disclosure: Lincoln Squirrel editor Alice Waugh is a volunteer at the Lincoln hospice house.)

Patients are starting to fill the newly opened Care Dimensions Hospice House in Lincoln after it opened its doors at 125 Winter St. last week.

The project was approved in fall 2014 and broke ground two years later. Last month before the arrival of patients, the company hosted an open house for staff and volunteers to tour the 18-bed facility, which serves terminally ill individuals needing hospital-level care for pain and symptom management. Although the building is in Lincoln, vehicles use a driveway located just over the town line in Waltham.

“The Hospice House is not a hospital, nursing home or rehabilitation facility, but a home-like setting where hospice physicians, nurses and support staff provide 24-hour care and where visiting family members can spend quality time, including overnight stays, with their loved one,” explained Patricia Ahern, CEO and president of Care Dimensions. The nursing staff includes four hospice nurses who recently graduated from Care Dimensions’ hospice nurse residency program, which provides intensive training to nurses who are new to hospice and palliative care.

In addition to services from medical personnel, social workers and chaplains, Care Dimensions offers complementary therapies including massage, music and art therapy, Reiki, compassionate touch and pet therapy, as well as bereavement counseling for up to 13 months after the death of any hospice patient—even if that person was not a Care Dimensions patient.

The new facility includes sleeping couches in every patient room, two visitor kitchens and cafe areas, a fish tank, children’s play areas, fireplaces, patios off some patient rooms, a contemplation chapel, and a solarium. There are also personal touches such as afghans and prayer squares knitted by volunteers that patients and families may keep.

For the wider community, the hospice house has a conference room with new multimedia equipment that’s open for use to any nonprofit organization. The building also features artwork loaned by the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. This page has more information and a video tour of the Lincoln facility. Click here to learn about volunteering there, or with hospice patients in their homes or other facilities.

Photos of the Lincoln hospice house (click an image to enlarge):

hospice-room-1
hospice-solarium
hospice-play
hospice-pedi
hospice-art

News acorns

Hearing on tree removal

There will be a public hearing on Wednesday, April 18 at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln DPW Office, 30 Lewis St., held by the tree warden, deputy tree warden and/or their designees to consider the removal of the below trees in the public right-of-way. This meeting is consistent with the requirements of the Shade Tree Act (MGL,c.87) and the Scenic Road Act. The trees have been marked with hearing notices and are being considered for removal because they are dead, in decline, or otherwise posing a safety or operational hazard. The trees are marked as to size and type along the following roads:

  • 81 Weston Rd., south side of road, 32″ ash
  • 81 Weston Rd., north side of road, 36″ ash
  • Sandy Pond Rd. at Lincoln Road intersection island, 14″ tree
  • 56 Sandy Pond Rd., 16″ tree
  • 196 Sandy Pond Rd., 18″ and 20″ oaks

Anyone with questions may call the Department of Public Works at 781-259-8999.

Codman Community Farms cleanup kicks off season

Some of the volunteers who helped out at a past Codman Community Farms spring cleanup.

Codman Community Farms (CCF) is getting ready for the spring and summer activities starting with spring cleanup on Saturday and Sunday, April 21 and 22 from 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Grab your gloves and lend a hand for an hour or an afternoon, learn more about 2018 farm plans and upcoming events, and bring a picnic or enjoy our potluck of snacks. Click here to sign up. If you’re interested in other volunteer opportunities such as building projects, egg collecting, egg washing, events and educational programs, general farm chores, the PYO flower garden, haying, mowing, etc., click here and CCF will contact you as the tasks unfold.

CCF also has a new CSA card to help support sustainable food production. Those who purchase a card for a lump sum payment get free money added to their card based on the purchase level. The card can be used anytime in the CCF Farm Store and the card never expires.  All products in the store can be purchased with the card on our self-checkout iPad terminal. Offer ends on May 31.

Also on the event horizon: Club Codman on May 19 at 8:30 p.m. and the Codman BBQ and campout on June 9-10.

Film on Israel/Palestinian media coverage

The GRALTA Foundation will host a screening of “The Occupation of the American Mind,” a 2016 documentary narrated by Pink Floyd founder and human rights activist Roger Waters, on Sunday, April 22 at 2 p.m. at the Lincoln Public Library and Wednesday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Bemis Hall. The film focuses how Israel-Palestine media coverage has both restricted and distorted our knowledge of the region. The film is especially timely in light of recent deaths in the Gaza Strip including that of 30-year-old photojournalist Yasser Murtaja, which was the subject of this New York Times editorial.

St. Anne’s screens “What Lies Upstream”

On Tuesday, April 24 at 6:30 p.m., the Climate Justice Film Series at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church continues with the documentary film “What Lies Upstream.” Investigative filmmaker Cullen Hoback travels to West Virginia to uncover the truth behind a massive chemical spill that left 300,000 people without drinking water for months. But when Hoback discovers a collusion between chemical corporations and the highest levels of government, the investigation spirals in a terrifying direction, and we learn the truth about what lies upstream of us all.

Newcomers’ dinner at First Parish

Whether you’re new to the First Parish in Lincoln community or have been coming for years, come to a festive, informal and informative Newcomers Dinner on Tuesday, April 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the Donaldson Room of the Parish House (14 Bedford Rd.). Please RSVP to Joan Kimball at selenejck@gmail.com.