The World According to Gillespie

FARM, FAMILY, AND HOSPITALITY IN VERMONT          This column originally appeared on Wicked Local   and Vermont's Rochester Herald . My wife and I traveled up to Vermont from Boston for our second stay at the Liberty Hill Farm, a working dairy farm that is also an inn.   The farm is owned by Bob and Beth Kennett and has been operating in Rochester for more than a century.   Liberty Hill celebrates “farm, family, and hospitality” with a minimal number of employees contributing a maximum amount of work, although everything that takes place at the Liberty Hill Farm seems to be slow moving and relaxed.   According to a bumper sticker central to the area, “What happens in Vermont Stays in Vermont.   But nothing really happens here.”   That is, except for the flat tire that we suffered on the ride up.   I had little concern.   I figured we were going to the right place.   If a farm co...

CHANNELING IN ON TELEVISION  This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. Like millions of couples in the United States, my wife and I settle down on the couch several times each week and think about what we are going to watch on television.   Once upon a time, there was a much simpler solution.   There were essentially three channels to choose from and a regimented system of shows on either NBC, ABC, or CBS.   On any given night you could watch a show that aired once a week like Happy Days , M*A*S*H , or All in the Family .   You might catch a variety show like Real People , or have the (debatable) great fortune of seeing the original Battle of the Network Stars , significantly more entertaining than the revamped version that recently aired due to the fact that there were actual networks.   On weekends, you had the opportunity to watch Fantasy Island , Wide World of Sports , or be forced to watch 60 Minutes every Sunday ni...

TWO OLD FRIENDS ON THE BACK 9   This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . I have done something this summer that I never thought I would do.  I have taken up golf. Both approaching the age of 50, my old friend Pete and I decided that we should spend some quality time golfing, if for no other reason than it seems to be age-appropriate and Pete said he wanted to do something that would require him to wear a funny hat.    He had recently golfed in Florida and encountered alligators on the course, aptly setting forth the challenge that golf is “the only sport where you are in danger of being eaten.”   I suggested that he stop practicing so that we could begin golfing on equal terms.    Pete reassured me, “There is no danger of me getting good,” claiming the majority of his golf experience consisted of watching Caddyshack . My own experience golfing has been minimal.   Aside from occasional outings to Buncey’s Par 3 in West Br...

VW BUS WAS PART OF THE FAMILY  This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . Sometimes cars become members of the family.   After two ‘63 Ramblers, a 1965 Chevy Bel-Air station wagon, a gas guzzling 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire Wagon, an old Dodge Pick-up, a Dodge Coronet wagon, a white Rambler American, and even a Triumph TR-4, my father finally brought home the car that would eventually serve as the Gillespie family vehicle:   a butterscotch colored 1973 Volkswagen Bus.   He had passed on the chance of getting a VW Bus once before, instead choosing a Dodge Pick-up truck purchased from Forge Motors on Route 18 in East Bridgewater.   “That truck had a crack in the engine and always overheated.   I tried to take it back, but Forge Motors would have no part of it.   The guy was a crook,” according to my father.   Roughly two years and three serviceable cars later, he finally took the proverbial bait and purc...

A DIFFERENCE IN HEROES This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . When I was 11 years old, I lived for the Red Sox.   I spent much of the summer of 1979 studying the 1 st and 2 nd Edition Red Sox Yearbooks as well as my prized 1978 yearbook from the summer before, and went through my baseball cards – both front and back – over and over again, rearranging them in every possible way.   I was acclimated into the reality of Red Sox lore by Bucky Dent’s home run the October before, and was crushed a year later when Haywood Sullivan let Carlton Fisk slip away to the White Sox and unloaded Fred Lynn, Rick Burleson, and Butch Hobson to the (then) California Angels.   My parents were happy to have me studying statistics and constantly reading about baseball.   There was nothing about it that could be considered harmful.   In fact, it was pure goodness.   Things are different in 2017.   My stepson is 11 years old, and al...

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GILLESPIE - GOODBYE TO GATES A retrospective farewell to Scituate's Gates Intermediate School. GOODBYE TO GATES The time has come to say goodbye to Scituate’s Gates Intermediate School.   As they say, all good things must come to an end.   In this case, that process has taken 100 years.   It’s kind of depressing to think that I have been alive for half of them.   On the other hand, it gives me solace to think that Scituate historian and daily volunteer at Gates, Bob Corbin, has been around for almost all of them.   I first walked into Gates during the late summer of 2002, having been granted an interview by former history department head, Norm Shacochis.   At the time I had reservations about returning to teaching, having independently financed and paid off degrees from Northeastern and Boston College only to find jobs in schools with teachers who referred to their careers as prison sentences.   When I showed up f...

A PASSWORD IS REQUIRED TO READ THIS COLUMN.   This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . For a society that is becoming far more inclusive and socially open (apparently), it is ironic that we now rely on so many passwords to maintain our privacy.   When we were kids passwords were simple.   There were essentially two passwords that you had to know:   Ollie Ollie Oxen Free and something to do with Ali Baba and Open Sesame.   Now the amount of things that require passwords is bordering on ridiculous.   A short list of the places and/or sites that I currently need passwords for include my ATM account, my CD Baby Account, Amazon, E-bay, Yahoo, Google, Aspen, Baseline Edge, Blogger, Naviance, Facebook, JetBlue, ITunes, PayPal, Banjo Hangout, VistaPrint, Aesop (now known as Frontline), not to mention needing various PIN numbers necessary for places like the doctor’s office (don’t get me started), Bank of America, TD Bank, ...

GATES OFFICIALLY PART OF SCITUATE HISTORY This column originally appeared exclusively in the Scituate Mariner on  Wicked Local . Scituate’s Gates Intermediate School closed down last week as the town awaits the opening of its innovative replacement on the same grounds as the high school. One hundred years ago when the Gates Intermediate School opened its doors for the first time, following an initial delay due to a shortage of teachers caused by America’s entry into World War I, it was acknowledged as historically significant.   “The whole town turned out that day,” says historian and former Gates teacher Bob Corbin.   “The opening of Gates was a big event,” says Corbin.     In fact, one of the pillars at the entrance to Gates contains a lined box, a time capsule that houses the following:   records of the meetings of the Scituate building committee, brand new coins from 1918, an edition of the Boston Globe, the signatures o...

Carrying on as usual      This column originally appeared on Wicked Local . When I leave for work in the morning, I always take the same four things from the top of my bureau.   I grab my car keys, my flash drive, my contact lens solution, and my IPhone and they all get stuffed conveniently into the left front pocket of my pants. Just for the record, I owned a flip phone until last summer when my wife convinced me to get a phone upgrade after tranquilizing me with a blow dart similar to one that Marlin Perkins used on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and whisking me away to Best Buy to take advantage of a buy one get one free deal that largely benefited her.   I keep my wallet in my right front pocket, a security habit I developed while living in the city.   If I kept my wallet in the left front pocket with the rest of those things, I would have had to wear a second pair of pants in order to fit it in.   I leave the hous...