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

News acorns

Getting to Zero #6:  Green Building and Restoration 

Do you love the look of your home but not the chill? Can any home become energy efficient, or is net zero just for new construction? Can Modern homes keep their uniqueness and while meeting 21st-century efficiency standards? In the sixth presentation of the Getting to Zero series (“The Builder’s Perspective – Green Building and Restoration”) on Thursday, May 18 at 7 p.m., Lincolnite Mark Doughty, president of Thoughtforms Construction Co., and Colin Flavin, founder of Flavin Architects, will discuss their experience with respectful renovation of historic homes, particularly Mid-century Modern homes, and how renovations can meet new energy codes. Click here to register for this Zoom meeting.

See recordings of previous presentations at LincolnGreenEnergy.org. The final presentation will be on May 23, when Paul Gromer from Peregrine Energy Group will talk about electric aggregation and what green energy means.

Film screening: “Le Meraviglie”

Join the Lincoln Library Film Society in the library’s Tarbell Room on Thursday, May 18 at 6 p.m. for “Le Meraviglie” (“The Wonders”), a 2014 film directed by Alice Rohrwacher (in Italian with English subtitles). A family of beekeepers living in stark isolation in the Tuscan countryside are disrupted by the simultaneous arrival of a silently troubled teenaged boy taken in as a farmhand and a reality TV show intent on showcasing the family. Both intrusions are of particular interest to the eldest daughter, Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), who is struggling to find her footing in the world. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

IDEA invites residents to complete diversity survey

The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Anti-racism (IDEA) Committee has working to develop a plan to help Lincoln become a community that more fully embraces diversity, and that commits itself to trying to create the conditions that foster it. IDEA’s new Community Survey, which is open until Friday, June 2, will be key in helping the committee understand the lived experiences of residents and to help prioritize actions to achieve its goals. The survey was developed with the assistance of the Racial Equity Group, the IDEA committee consultants who have done this work for many communities across the country. The completed surveys will be available only to the consultants and the anonymity of all participants will be protected. The survey results will be shared at a later date. Click here to take the survey.

Previous community engagement by IDEA has included a project kickoff public forum, a survey for town board and staff members, and focus groups. The group expects to complete a plan this fall that includes short and long-term actions to help the town achieve its goals.

Town observes Memorial Day

Lincoln’s Memorial Day observances on Monday, May 29 begin with an assembly at the corner of Pierce Park and Weston Road at 9:45 a.m. to march with Lincoln veterans down Weston Road to the ceremony. At 10 a.m., join veterans in the Pierce House tent as they honor and celebrate the lives of those lost in battle, as well as our active and retired service men and women. The ceremony will be led by Capt. Thomas Risser with traditional highlights including an invocation, the playing of “Taps,” and a speech from our keynote speaker, Col. Justin K. Collins. A cookout immediately following the ceremony will be provided by the Lincoln Police and Fire Departments. Events will be held rain or shine.

Lincoln author pens Codman library article, new mystery

Katherine Hall Page

Katherine Hall Page has an article on the books of the Codman estate in the latest issue of Historic New England Magazine titled “Bibliovoyeurism: An Author’s View of the Codman Family Library.” The Lincoln Public Library has copies of the magazine. Hall, an acclaimed mystery writer, has also just issued The Body in the Web. In this 26th book in the award-winning Faith Fairchild Mysteries series, Page’s amateur detective is hunkered down with her family during the pandemic when a Zoom-bombing scandal sends the community into a tailspin… and a dead body is discovered.

Property sales in March 2023

5 Laurel Drive — Fred Tingley to Sivaram Balakrishnan and Vaneeta Singh for $1,220,000 (March 31)

10 Blueberry Lane — Solomon Manson Trust to Charles Harold Ryback Trust for $1,560,000 (March 30)

59 Oxbow Rd. — Shihab Ahmed to Denis and Heather Malkov for $1,228,000 (March 30)

129 Lexington Rd. — RE Investments LLC to Elizabrth Yanez for $1,895,000 (March 29)

42C Indian Camp Lane — Vicki Brathwaite to Diana Brenda Trust and Virginia Leonard Revocable Trust for $379,000 (March 27)

12 Deer Run Rd. — Suvitya Nopakun to Mitchel Westwood and Sherya Dave for $1,515,000 (March 22)

200 Old County Rd. — Gulrez Arshad to Shengjun Ren abd Yu Zhang for $650,000 (March 16)

128 Chestnut Circle #6 — Stephanie Smoot to Philip and Mary Jane Sarocco for $675,000 (March 15)

My Turn: CCBC previews space needs at April 25 forum

By Lynne Smith

The Community Center Building Committee (CCBC), with the help of ICON Architecture, is hitting its stride. I was glad to see a draft of space needs for a new building but disappointed by the size and number of rooms being considered.

ICON project manager Mark McKivitz emphasized that the draft was preliminary and will be fleshed out in the next two weeks, but the 18,000 square feet for the Parks & Recreation Department and the Council on Aging & Human Services plus 5,000 square feet for the LEAP after-school program is a huge starting point — 23,000 square feet of new space! The architects said they think a two-story building will be required and much site development will be needed.

The volunteers and the architects are working hard and I appreciate this effort. However, they all seem convinced that a totally new building is the way to go. I am still not convinced. Given today’s high interest rates, inflation-affected construction costs, and the resulting impact on taxes, I still hope for a more creative solution involving renovation of current spaces and the use of the many acceptable spaces in town. At minimum, we must see a 50% option for a new building, not just a 75% option.

CCBC is truly committed to getting the community involved and has scheduled public forums on May 23 and June 13. Their communications have ramped up on LincolnTalk and those who are on the CCBC mailing list are receiving updates regularly.

The town must do something about the need for improved space for PRD and for COA&HS, and the CCBC wants the community to participate now rather than wait until the vote at the Special Town Meeting in November. I urge everyone in town to sign up on the CCBC mailing list and attend the upcoming forums [editor’s note: the next one is on Tuesday, May 23]. Information is on the CCBC website at LincolnCommunityCenter.com.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Why the community center must be at Hartwell

By Krystal Wood

While the motion approved at the November 2022 Special Town Meeting recognized that the community center would be located at the Hartwell complex, in the recent CCBC survey responses and during the open microphone community center meeting on April 4, some residents expressed their continuing interest in locating the center at Lincoln Station, or in the consideration of other locations around town. There are a number of issues that are worth more explanation.

The Lincoln Station location
  1. The Parks and Recreation (PRD) programs are located at existing space at the Hartwell complex and will continue to be located at Hartwell so Lincoln children can easily walk to their after-school activities.
  2. There is no viable site at Lincoln Station for a Council on Aging & Human Services (COA&HS) center. No private land owner has talked to the town about siting a center on their property. The town owns three properties: the DPW site, the paved commuter parking lot, and the unpaved commuter parking lot. Consultants in a previous study estimated the cost for moving the DPW to the only viable site (transfer station) to be about $25 million. The unpaved commuter lot is too small. The paved commuter lot provides public parking for the commuter rail, and presents challenges complying with MBTA requirements for appropriate parking capacity at train stations. Limited parking correlates with reduced train service. The MBTA and its constituency can be expected to protest a reduction in public parking at any MBTA station. Building on the paved lot would also eliminate the possibility of using the lot for potential commercial activity or a potential housing development. (Additional housing is the top priority for the revitalization efforts.)
  3. Any construction for a center at Lincoln Station will require public funding for site preparation, parking, and a building in addition to public funding for solving PRD’s facility and office space needs in Hartwell complex.
  4. Locating the COA&HS center at Lincoln Station would require duplication of facilities with those used by PRD in the Hartwell complex, adding significantly to the construction costs and also the maintenance and management costs. 
  5. Trying to use other locations at Lincoln Station — above the bank, above Donelan’s, other Rural Land Foundation property etc., if available — would also reduce the options for future housing.
Important considerations for locating the community center at Hartwell:
  1. The PRD and COA&HS can co-locate as they need similar types of facilities and, most importantly, can share the same spaces. Both provide fitness activities, but largely at different times of the day. PRD and COA&HS provide arts-and-crafts activities that can again be located in the same space at different days and times, etc. Use of the same facilities will provide significant reduction in construction costs and provide operational efficiency gains.
  2. There are synergies between the school, PRD, and COA&HS programs, and the Hartwell location will provide readily accessible opportunities for intergenerational activities unhindered by distance and transportation logistics of separate locations.
  3. The campus has been studied extensively to ensure that a community center could be located on Ballfield Road, and it was determined that with proper design, there is sufficient space for parking and circulation.
  4. The campus location is aesthetically more pleasing than the commuter lot at Lincoln Station.
PRD and COA&HS programming beyond the Hartwell complex

Currently, PRD and COA&HS programs occur at many locations around town other than the Hartwell complex, and both organizations will continue to use these locations. For a full listing, please see the Decentralized Programming Matrix on the CCBC web site.

  1. The PRD runs programs at the Lincoln School’s Reed and Smith gyms, Donaldson Auditorium, and Learning Commons, and at Bemis Hall, Pierce House, the library, the First Parish Church, and Codman Community Farms, amongst other locations, as well as at town athletic facilities including Codman Pool, the sport and tennis courts, playgrounds, athletic fields, and parks.
  2. The COA&HS has programs at the First Parish Church, Lincoln Woods, the Hartwell complex, the Pierce House tent, The Commons in Lincoln, the Ryan Estates, Minuteman Technical High School, and on Lincoln’s trail network.

There is a recognized need to revitalize Lincoln Station, but at the 2022 November Special Town Meeting, the democratic process resulted in a clear consensus and support for the amended motion for developing options for design choices and budgets for the community center building at the Hartwell complex.

Thank you for taking the time to read through these clarifications, and for engaging in the process to discern how we address Lincoln’s challenges together.

Krystal Wood is a member of the Community Center Building Committee‘s Communications Subcommittee.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Police log for April 19–30, 2023

April 19

Airport Road (6:55 p.m.) — A caller requested assistance with a fox that looked unwell. They were given the phone number for Animal Control.

Indian Camp Lane (8:17 p.m.) — A well-being check was requested for a party who had not been heard from for a while. Police and fire personnel made contact with the individual; everything was fine.

Sandy Pond Road (11:35 p.m.) — A resident reported a stranger knocking on their door. The stranger was an individual looking for an Airbnb.

Bedford Road (12:00 a.m.) — A caller reported seeing an occupant of a vehicle spray-painting highway signs on Route 2. The vehicle was identified. Medford and the Massachusetts State Police were advised.

April 20

Bedford Road (12:20 p.m.) — A dog attacked a chicken. The caller was able to corral the dog in a room of their home and Animal Control was notified.

Weston Road (3:06 p.m.) — A caller reported work trucks parked along the side of Weston Road. An officer responded and determined the vehicles were subcontractors for Eversource.

Trapelo Road (5:11 p.m.) — Multiple callers reported seeing people fishing at the Cambridge Reservoir. Police responded and moved the parties from the area.

April 21

Lexington Road (12:39 p.m.) — A resident reported possibly being the victim of identity fraud.

Ryan Estate (3:52 p.m.) — A resident reported possibly being the victim of identity fraud.

Indian Camp Lane (6:28 p.m.) — A well-being check was requested for a person not heard from for some time. The police were able to make contact with the individual and they were fine.

Codman Road (8:48 p.m.) — The Fire Department responded for an electrical issue.

April 22

Lincoln Road (5:04 p.m.) — The Fire Department received notification of a possible brush fire. They responded and extinguished a non-permitted brush burn.

DeCordova Museum (7:09 p.m.) — An officer responded to assist in a dispute between a limo driver and passenger.

April 23

Nothing of note.

April 24

Tower Road (12:15 p.m.) — A resident came to the police station to file a report regarding a dispute with a neighbor.

Tower Road (2:01 p.m.) — A resident reported some suspicious activity by their mailbox. An officer responded and took a report.

Old Lexington Road (4:51 p.m.) — A caller reported their dog was missing. Approximately two hours later, the dog was located.

Wells Road (5:15 p.m.) — A resident reported a strong odor of gas coming from their oven. The Fire Department responded and found that the oven was malfunctioning.

Minuteman Technical High School (5:48 p.m.) — An operator observed damage to their vehicle after returning from a sporting event.

April 25

Lewis Street (8:15 a.m.) — An individual came to the police station to report an altercation with a motorist.

Twisted Tree Cafe (2:39 p.m.) — An officer assisted an individual who had lost their keys in the parking lot. After a short search, the keys were located.

Blueberry Lane (3:11 p.m.) — A caller reported a suspicious vehicle slowing down in front of residences for a brief period of time. An officer responded to the area but was unable to locate the vehicle.

Huckleberry Hill (5:19 p.m.) — A caller reported that a Lincoln resident may be the victim of a scam.

Lincoln Road (6:24 p.m.) — Two motorists were reportedly having an argument due to their perceived driving. Both operators were advised.

April 26

South Great Road (8:35 a.m.) — A passing motorist reported seeing another motorist sleeping in their vehicle on the side of the road. An officer spoke to the motorist, who reported they had jet lag. After confirming they were OK to proceed, the motorist continued on their way.

South Great Road (8:51 a.m.) — Multiple callers reported seeing someone sleeping in their vehicle. It was confirmed that the calls were related to the previous incident.

April 27

Sandy Pond Road (3:21 p.m.) — The Police and Fire Departments assisted a resident with a well-being check.

Doherty’s Garage (8:19 p.m.) — While on patrol, an officer discovered a bay door to Doherty’s Garage was open. The officer checked the premises and everything appeared to be fine. The owner of Doherty’s was notified.

Main Street, Concord (9:18 p.m.) — The Fire Department responded for a mutual aid fire response.

April 28

Trapelo Road (7:15 a.m.) — A vehicle was traveling west on Trapelo Road when it was struck by a vehicle traveling north on Old County Road. The operator vehicle #1 was transported to the hospital with minor injuries. The operator of vehicle #2 was cited for failing to stop at a stop sign. Both vehicles were towed from the scene.

Cambridge Turnpike eastbound (4:20 p.m.) — An officer spoke to a delivery driver wishing to file a report.

Birches School (6:01 p.m.) — Officers were dispatched to the area for a report of a dirt bike driving across a soccer field. They checked the area but were unable to locate the dirt bike.

April 29

Concord Road (3:17 p.m.) — A caller reported a small child walking on the sidewalk unattended. An officer checked the area but was unable to locate the child.

Old Concord Road (10:10 p.m.) — A caller reported a gray Honda Odyssey minivan pull partially down a driveway then abruptly leave the area when approached. Officers checked the area but were unable to locate the minivan.

April 30

Concord Road (3:28 p.m.) — Several callers reported a one-car crash near Baker Farm Road on Route 126. A vehicle had crashed and rolled onto the driver’s side. The operator was transported to the hospital. The vehicle was towed and the operator was cited for a marked lanes violation.

Route 2 Gas (4:55 p.m.) — Lincoln police assisted the Massachusetts State Police with an incident on Route 2.

Concord Road (7:41 p.m.) — The state Department of Conservation and Recreation called requesting assistance in locating a dog that ran from the vehicle involved in the prior crash. The dog was ultimately located several hours later.

Bedford Road (9:24 p.m.) —Lincoln police made a notification at the request of an out-of-state police department.

News acorns

Discussion of 1971 Sidetrack program

The First Parish in Lincoln offers an adventuresome and enlightening supper and discussion of Sidetrack, an innovative 1971 experiment in educational integration for Lincoln and Roxbury seventh- and eighth-graders with participants Peter Thomson (Lincoln) and Tracy Steele (Roxbury) on Wednesday, May 10 from 6-8 p.m. in the stone church. Questions they will consider:  What was their experience as Roxbury and Lincoln middle schoolers in the program? How did it affect their lives and help shape the adults they have become? What can we learn today from this experiment in educational integration? To learn more about Sidetrack, see “The radical, forgotten experiment in educational integration that changed my life” (Boston Sunday Globe, January 22, 2023 — click here for a PDF if you aren’t a Globe subscriber). Childcare provided. Requested donation for the meal prepared by FPL cooks is $10 for adults $5 per child ($25 per family maximum).

Music in Modern Houses event on May 13

Friends of Modern Architecture/Lincoln will sponsor the third concert in its Music in Modern Houses series on Saturday, May 13 from 1–4 p.m. at the 1937 Murphy house. The program will feature Ralf Gawlick’s Berlin Suite, op. 16 and Mozart’s String Quartet No. 23 performed by the Sheffield Chamber Players. The musical program will be preceded by an architectural discussion and introductions by FoMA, the homeowners, and composer Ralf Gawlick. Light refreshments will be served. Reserve your seat while space remains, although a virtual option will also be available. Click here for detailed information and a donation link.

1908 tea time at library

The Lincoln Public Library will host a “Tea in Time” event on Friday, May 19 at 1 p.m. with Rita Parisi in the role of Mrs. Michael Gordon, a woman from 1908 who will regale you with humorous, eye-opening stories about shopping in Boston and the latest trends in fashion, entertainment, opinions, transportation, and more. Hats, gloves, Victorian garb, and audience participation encouraged. Tea and light refreshments. Call 781-259-8811 to sign up for this free event.

Asian American & Pacific Islander festival

All are invited to celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander cultures on Friday, May 19 from 4:30–6:30 p.m. in the Lincoln School Learning Commons. Enjoy food, performances, art, karaoke, and fashion. Food ($14) must be ordered in advance; click here to order and pay using Venmo. Sponsored by the Lincoln PTO, the METCO Coordinating Committee, and the Lincoln METCO Parent Board. 

Rocking out at Club Codman.

Gear up for Club Codman

Dust off your wigs, platform shoes, and polyester because Club Codman is coming on Saturday, May 20 at 8 p.m. Club Codman? The annual tradition and fundraiser for Codman Community Farms is like Halloween for grown-ups (minus the kids), plus great music and great drinks. Peacock about, maybe embarrass yourself a little bit, put on that thing you swore you’d never be seen in public wearing, and dance like you own the dance floor. See photos from 2019 and buy tickets here.

Celebrate farming at season’s kickoff event

Join Hannan Healthy Foods in celebrating Lincoln’s farming heritage with its community-wide kickoff event to the 2023 growing season on Sunday, May 21 from 1–3 p.m. (rain date: Saturday, May 27 at the same time) at Umbrello Field (270 South Great Rd.). This free event is open to all ages and will feature live music, farmland tours, food and drink (including South Asian specialties), raffles, CSA opportunities, farm photo ops, and more.

Hiring event for Hanscom AFB

Hanscom Air Force Base is looking to fill more than 400 civilian positions in a variety of career fields during an Air Force civilian service hiring event on Tuesday, May 23 from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Boston Marriott Burlington (1 Burlington Mall Rd., Burlington). The event is open to anyone interested in working for the federal government, including college students and recent graduates, active-duty military personnel transitioning out of service, military spouses, and veterans. Officials will be on hand to discuss positions ranging from entry level to executive in engineering, program management, computer sciences, contracting, logistics, financial management, intelligence, security, human resources, skilled trades, childcare, and many others. Register here to send in your resume and receive updates on the event. For more information, contact Patty Welsh (patricia.welsh@us.af.mil, 781-225-1687) or Mark Wyatt (Mark.Wyatt.1@us.af.mil, 781-225-1685).

The latest issue of the Lincoln Chipmunk is here

The latest issue of the Lincoln Chipmunk (chipmunk.lincolnsquirrel.com), the quarterly arts companion to the Lincoln Squirrel, has just been published. See what your friends and neighbors have created, and start working on your own submissions — the next deadline is August 1, 2023. Questions? Call editor Alice Waugh at 617-710-5542 or email lincolnsquirelnews@gmail.com. 

Library introduces Tranquility Tuesdays

Drop by the Lincoln Public Library’s Reference Room on Tuesday afternoons between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. (stay as long or as little as you like) and shed some stress. Color a picture, work on a puzzle, learn about relaxation techniques, or simply take a few minutes to sit and breathe. Open to library patrons ages 16+. Email Robin at rrapoport@minlib.net with any questions.

Hospice volunteer training offered

Care Dimensions, which runs the Lincoln hospice house and is the region’s largest provider of hospice care, will hold online training classes for those interested in becoming volunteers for the nonprofit organization. You can make a difference in a patient’s life by:

  • Engaging in a shared interest or hobby
  • Helping with letter-writing or life review
  • Visiting with your approved dog
  • Reading to the patient
  • Listening and by providing a supportive, comforting presence

Volunteers are resuming in-person visits with patients in their homes, in facilities, and at our hospice houses. Volunteers are provided all necessary personal protective equipment. If patient visits are not the right fit, you can volunteer in other ways, such as providing administrative office support or making check-in phone calls to current patients or bereaved family members.

Training will be held via Zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays, May 30 – June 22, from 6–8 p.m. (register by May 23). Online training also will be offered Mondays and Wednesdays, June 5–29, from 9–11 a.m. (register by May 29). For more information or to register, click here or email volunteerinfo@caredimensions.org.

Drumlin Farm awarded grant for hunger relief efforts

Drumlin Farm has received $2,500 from the Sudbury Foundation as part of its $133,295 in first-round grant funding for 2023.The foundation makes grants four times a year in several program categories including its Farm and Local Food Initiative.

Field Notes: Support local farms this summer with a CSA

By Rachel Neurath

Field Notes is an occasional feature highlighting climate and environment work in town and spotlighting Lincoln residents and staff. Rachel Neurath is a soil microbial ecologist, co-leader of Lincoln Common Ground, and a member of Lincoln’s Climate Action Plan Working Group. 

There’s nothing quite like a fresh tomato, bursting in an explosion of flavor, or the sweet crispness of a sugar snap pea, just picked off the vine. Lincoln has an incredible abundance and diversity of small farms. This summer, consider supporting one with a CSA share. Buying local food is good for our community, good for the planet, and delicious!

CSAs are community-supported agriculture shares. Each farm operates a little differently, but with all of them, you sign up in advance for regular shares of seasonal produce. This helps farmers plan ahead. Picking up produce lets you get to know where your food comes from and is a great way to interact with our incredible local farmers. Not only are the farms in Lincoln taking impressive steps to operate sustainably, but many Lincoln farmers are working toward food justice.

Below is information on how to sign up for CSAs. Lincoln also has the Codman Community Farm store which offers local produce for sale 24 hours a day.

Hannan Healthy Foods

Hannan Healthy Foods is a family farm centered on the core value that healthy food is not a privilege, but a right. Originally from Bangladesh, Mohammed Hannan and his team grow wide varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers, including many unique and delicious varieties from Southeast Asia. Mohammed looks forward to sharing a diversity of certified organic, sustainable, and affordable produce with the Lincoln community. This summer, Hannan Healthy Foods is offering a variety of CSA shares and is also piloting an innovative project to improve soil health with a focus on compost, which should help draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the soil while at the same time increasing ecosystem biodiversity and resilience.

Drumlin Farm

The CSA at Drumlin Farm is offering ten half or full shares. For an additional cost, you can have pick-your-own and fruit share add-ons. SNAP (the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) users can buy shares. People can also work in exchange for CSA work shares. Drumlin Farm continues to expand its sustainable agricultural activities.

The Food Project

The Food Project is not offering summer CSA shares this year, but they are planning a 2023 fall harvest CSA. The Food Project is deeply rooted in youth development and food access work. Supporting their farm helps to advance their work towards equity in our local food system. Farm manager Rob Page says, “What I love about farming in Lincoln is the community interactions I get to have with residents and other farmers — there’s a gratitude and humility for farming held by the people who live and work here, which is really special.”

Lindentree Farm

Lindentree Farm was one of the first farms in eastern Massachusetts to offer CSA shares. Ari Kurtz and Moira Donnell have been pioneers in organic agriculture and many crew members at Lindentree have gone on to start their own farms all over New England. After 29 years, Lindentree Farm discontinued their CSA program in 2021. They still offer periodic “popup” shares throughout the spring, summer, and fall. If you are interested in being on the mailing list, please email lindentreecsa@gmail.com.

Codman Farm Store

The Codman Community Farms store is open every day and they exclusively carry local food products.  Their market garden is expanding with a wide variety of popular veggies like greens and tomatoes. They also carry a wide variety of local protein raised sustainably and ethically on Lincoln land, including eggs, pork, beef, chicken, and turkey.

A Q&A with Lincoln’s Elizabeth Graver on her new novel, “Kantika”

Elizabeth Graver

Lincoln author Elizabeth Graver and Judy Bolton-Fasman (author of Asylum: A Memoir of Family Secrets) will discuss Graver’s latest novel, Kantika, on Wednesday, May 17 from 7–8:30 p.m. in the Lincoln Public Library’s Tarbell Room. Kantika is a Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home, inspired by the story of Graver’s grandmother, Rebecca née Cohen Baruch Levy. Copies of the book will be sold at the event by the Concord Bookshop.

Graver’s fourth novel, The End of the Point, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award in Fiction and selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her other novels are Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Following is a Lincoln Squirrel Q&A with Graver.

Let me start by asking about your previous historical novels, The End of the Point and Unravelling. They have very different settings and time periods. What inspired them?

With Unravelling, I was in graduate school studying American studies and cultural history and read a book that made a big impression on me about the Lowell textile mills and ended up actually having a dream in which I, or some version of myself, was a mill worker. And woke up and had this voice in my head. The End of the Point was loosely inspired by a spit of land into Buzzards Bay where my husband’s family had, across some generations, a summer house. That one took me into the kind of things that Kantika is also interested in, which have to do with the 20th century and the intersections of big history with individual lives.

The End of the Point had a very tight lens. It covered a lot of time, but the place was really small. I was interested in what happens when a family owns property and can come back over and over and again across generations to the same small place. The place is almost like a crucible where a lot happens and it’s very distilled. I think I needed to write The End of the Point to have the confidence to write Kantika, which involved even more research — this time about lives, languages, and countries that are farther away from me, even though it’s my family’s story. I grew up in New England, but my mother was a first-generation American who grew up in Queens and my dad was second-generation American who grew up in the Bronx. This was an odd book in that I use real photos from my family and real names, and there’s a little girl towards the end called Suzanne, and that’s my mother.

What percentage of Kantika is factual versus fiction?

The central characters in the family are all inspired by real people with the proper birth orders, the main geographical events all happened, you know, the moves from Turkey to Spain to Cuba to New York. But all the interiority I had to make up — it’s fiction, right? There are the stories my grandmother narrated blow by blow on tapes that I have, and there are some things she told me that didn’t make it in, but it’s an incredible melange. There were so many different ways I was grabbing material. I interviewed people at the Sephardic Home for the Aged in Istanbul, and I read articles and I corresponded with scholars and I wandered the streets.

One of the characters I loved writing about, but who really surprised me in terms of my urge to take on his point of view, is Alberto, which was the real name of my great-grandfather, but I never met him, my mother never met him. He died a terrible death in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. I knew about four facts about him: I knew that he was a terrible businessman and loved to garden and was an intellectual and was much older than his wife. That’s about it. But that was kind of enough. In some ways, it’s almost easier to imagine a character when you don’t have too much because people are incredibly complicated. I initially thought of writing this book as nonfiction, but I didn’t have enough material. And I love writing fiction — I love emotion and psychology and inner life.

Writing can be so solitary, but the research for this book connected me to my own past and my own family. I did a lot of interviewing of not just my grandmother decades ago, and my uncles and my mother, but also lots of people who were preserving and making art out of this world, which has been really fun.

Did you learn any Ladino growing up?

Teeny little things at the beginning of a meal, but no, not really. My grandparents would speak it over my head. They were of that immigrant generation when assimilation was very much what needed to happen, maybe even especially for Sephardic Jews who were so different from the majority of other Jews in this country. My mother actually has memories of her father saying to her at one point, “You can’t call me Papa any more. You have to call me Dad.” And they wouldn’t let her pierce her ears because that seemed too foreign. My grandmother just didn’t care. She was so singular — she just was never trying to blend in exactly. But they were working very hard as first-generation immigrants to help their kids make it in American society.

From your standpoint, how did the Sephardic experience differ from the Ashkenazi experience in America?

My father’s family actually didn’t know what to make of my mother at first. They ended up adoring her, but she didn’t eat the same food as they did. She didn’t know Yiddish. Growing up, I was very struck by the differences. My father had a harder childhood as an only child whose father died when he was very young. My mother’s family didn’t have a lot of money [in America]; they had plenty of struggles, but it was a very, abundant family, filled with food and music and joy and very Mediterranean. The Sephardic culture has a lot more flow, from what I’ve seen. There weren’t the same sorts of ghettos. It’s not that it was easy — the Sephardim were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire after the Spanish Inquisition but they didn’t have full rights. So none of it is a totally rosy picture, but they also traveled a huge amount, which led to a quite expansive culture. Some of this was forced crossings around diasporic expulsion, but some of it wasn’t. Some of it was trade.

My Ashkenazi and Sephardic grandparents would spend some time together, and they became friends. And my grandmother, Rebecca, in my novel and in real life, was part of a Jewish community in Queens that was mostly comprised of Ashkenazi Jews. She became good friends with people at her temple, but I think she always felt a bit foreign. I have a scene in my book right at the end, where she’s doing a concert at her little synagogue, and one of the people who’s organizing it asks her to sing a song in Ladino because she thinks it’ll be exotic. In real life, my grandmother was kind of happy to take on that role —she was colorful, she liked attention, but at the same time I think there was a real sorrow and sense of not fully belonging.

It was complicated because there were significant Ottoman Sephardic communities in New York, but they were not of her social class. She started out rich and my grandfather, who was her second marriage, grew up very poor. He had quite a bit of family in the United States, but they didn’t much like her, and she didn’t much like them. I started to tease some of this out and turn it into fiction about the different ways in which people were connected or divided. And social class was one of them, which also really interested me in The End of the Point.

Rebecca wanted to own a house, she wanted to have a garden. They didn’t have a lot of money, so they ended up in the far reaches of Queens because that’s where they could do that. And she had a good friend across the street who was Cuban and Catholic, because she could speak Spanish with him. My grandmother in her old age in Florida became friends with a reverend. In Istanbul, she went to Catholic school. It’s funny because I teach at a Jesuit university. So she was really pluralistic in all these ways. And at the same time, she was deeply Jewish. She had her Star of David earrings and she always went to synagogue. And I was raised culturally very Jewish but totally secular.

How does Kantika track with your work as a professor of creative writing and literature at Boston College?

I’ve been teaching a paired course with a colleague and close friend of mine called “Roots and Routes: Reading Identity Migration and Culture.” That course is intended for advanced English language learners, so many of the students have their own really interesting migration stories. I’ve had them do things like interview an immigrant and often it’s a parent or a grandparent. I feel like everybody has a story and so I encourage my students to gather them, too.

I think I wrote Kantika partly in response to the worldwide refugee crisis and the fact that I was reading so much incredibly powerful literature and teaching by immigrants, so having this story intertwine or sit alongside some of those other stories feels important to me. I had a feeling that this is a story that’s rich and beautiful and painful and has many different pieces and has not been told as much as it might.

News acorns

Guest speaker on climate change and equity

Rev. Mariama White-Hammond

On Tuesday, May 2 at 7 p.m. at the First Parish Church in Weston (349 Boston Post Rd., Weston) join MetroWest Climate Solutions and special guest Rev. Mariama White-Hammond for “City and Suburbs: Addressing Climate Change and Equity Together,” a discussion on the intersection of climate change and questions of equity. A lifelong resident, pastor, and activist in Boston, Rev. Mariama will explore the question of how residents of the suburbs can most effectively take action to promote greater climate equity. If you prefer to join us online, click here to register.

Rev. White-Hammond was appointed as the City of Boston’s Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space in April 2021. She has supported the amendment of the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) to set carbon targets for existing large buildings and convened a city-led green jobs program. This event is supported by the First Parish in Lincoln, the First Parish in Wayland’s Lydia Maria Child Fund, and the First Parish Church in Weston.

Talk on Operation Desert Storm

Learn more about Operation Desert Storm from U.S. Army veteran Robert Lewis on Friday, May 12 at 3 p.m. in Bemis Hall. He’ll examine how deception played a key role and show actual leaflets used during one of the shortest and least costly of America’s military victories. Sponsored by the Lincoln Council on Aging & Human Services.

Ag Commission seeks new members

The Lincoln Agricultural Commission is seeking new members. The commission provides leadership, technical guidance, vision, planning, and coordination to support new and ongoing agricultural opportunities in town and foster strong community and regional support that will work to create a sustainable agricultural community in Lincoln. For more information, email louisebergeron@earthlink.net.