The World According to Gillespie

TINY HOUSES PROVIDE BIG OPPORTUNITIES I consider myself a bit of a minimalist. I don’t necessarily frequent Trader Joe’s or take exuberant pride in having my recycling bin overflowing at time of pick-up, but I do drive an old Toyota Tacoma pick-up with 130,000 miles that I will continue to drive until it stops and I will usually wear certain clothing items until they have sometimes fallen out of style only to become popular again.      It was in this spirit of minimalism that I decided to attend the Tiny House Festival at the Marshfield Fairgrounds this past weekend. I must have looked somewhat precarious carrying around a pad of paper and a pen because the people welcoming me at the gate immediately demanded that I talk to John.   John turned out to be John Kernohan, Chairman of the United Tiny House Association, who has coincidentally been living in a Tiny House in Georgia with his wife for the past seven years. “We have been all over the east coast wit...

CATCHING UP WITH RICH GEDMAN    This column first appeared on NorthEndWaterfront.com And also appeared on Wicked Local Before the final Pawtucket Red Sox game of the 2018 season, I caught up with former Boston Red Sox catcher and current PawSox hitting coach, Rich Gedman, for a brief conversation in the dugout.   Gedman was a local Worcester kid when he eventually came up to the Red Sox on the heels of Carlton Fisk’s departure to the Chicago White Sox in 1981. “I was just a kid from a two-decker in Worcester, a house without a shower. We only had a bathtub,” remembers Gedman. “Since the day I was born I wanted to compete. I wanted to win. In the neighborhood, that could mean hitting more baskets, throwing the football farther, hit, catch, whatever. And you learned early that you wanted to make sure that you competed against kids who were better than you,” said the former Sox backstop. “It was one thing to win, but to get better you had to step it up a leve...

LOOKING BACK ON BOSTON’S CHARLES RIVER PARK   This column originally appeared on NorthEndWaterfront.com and also appeared on Wicked Local. Back in the 1970s, Charles River Park was more than a place where you would be home now if you lived there, as the iconic sign along Storrow Drive has said for years.   During my childhood, Charles River Park was a home away from home due to the fact that my grandmother lived on the twentieth floor at Eight Whittier Place, apartment 20E.   We frequently made family trips to Boston.   Travelling in could be strangely entertaining, listening to Dale Dorman on 68 WRKO before the FM radio boom, hearing songs like Paul Simon’s Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover , Why can’t we be Friends by War, and I Can Help by Billy Swan, all on fabulous AM radio.   The lobby at Eight Whittier Place was ornately decorated with dark woods and gold.   The trip up the elevators was adventurous.   My dad would sometime...

JEFFERSON INN PROVIDES PERFECT MOUNTAIN GETAWAY  This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. Having spent much of the summer conveniently enjoying someone else’s yacht, I decided that a little hiking was in the works, so I traveled off to the tiny town of Jefferson, New Hampshire. I made a reservation at the Jefferson Inn and appropriately reserved the Monticello room. The room has a comfortable queen size bed, a Jacuzzi, a small turreted nook for reading, and a plethora of books about Thomas Jefferson for those who wish to brush up on their history.   Jefferson, New Hampshire is in the northernmost part of the state. In an earlier column (Sailing into a Life with Coffee), I mentioned having my first ever cup of coffee at a bed and breakfast in North Woodstock, New Hampshire. To add a little geographical perspective, Jefferson is significantly farther north than North Woodstock. To get here, you pass the Kancamagus Highway, Franconia Notch State Park, Cannon Mount...

COFFEE CONTROVERSY BREWING IN BOSTON'S NORTH END  This column originally appeared on NorthEndWaterfront.com     The North End of Boston has changed a great deal since I lived there between 1991 and 2003.   When I was a young kid, my family spent many weekends shopping at old Haymarket.   Not crazy about being drowned in crowds of hot, sweaty people and rotting vegetables, it was not my favorite weekend activity.   So when a friend suggested renting in the North End all those years ago, I first reacted with curious surprise thinking a larger apartment on Beacon Hill or Back Bay might be preferable to the small dated apartments, crowded streets, and cramped stairways of Boston’s old Italian neighborhood.   Quickly learning to take the advice of a woman, I rented a two-bedroom street level apartment on Little Prince Street for $625.00 a month.   Interestingly, this apartment at 4A Prince is now a restaurant called Artu’.   As was predic...

SUFFERING FROM A DISRUPTION IN SERVICE   This column originally appeared on Wicked Local.  

MANY HAPPY RETURNS, EXCEPT FOR ONE    This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. A few weeks back I was at a large local book store. I purchased a series of items including a few Mother’s Day cards and, as an afterthought, I bought a magazine. I picked up one of those thick exclusives, Special Time Magazine Edition – Great Scientists, The Geniuses and Visionaries who transformed our World. Hardly a so-called magazine, I paid $14.99 for this publication, a higher price than many of the books at this particular book store.   Not able to use the magazine for the educational purpose that I originally had in mind, my intent was to return it. The magazine, in fact, never left the bag that it came in, had the original receipt tucked between its pages, and sat in my truck until the day came when I had a chance to bring it back and get my refund.    A week ago Sunday morning, I was in the neighborhood of the bookstore from which it was purchased pr...

A MAINE MODEL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION This column originally appeared on Wicked Local When one thinks of Maine, the image of a lobster and perhaps a moose come to mind. With the work being done at the King Middle School, however, the city of Portland may very well deserve equal attention for its progressive, inclusive efforts with regard to public education. In a city growing exponentially, the King Middle School continues to make the grade. “34% of the school is limited English proficiency,” says King Teaching Strategist, Peter Hill. Through its program of Expeditionary Learning with strong components of fieldwork and community service, King Middle requires high quality work displayed from every student and kids must also be able to engage in a meaningful conversation with an adult by the time the finish the 8 th grade. Says Hill, “They must be able to defend their work to a stranger.”   King Middle School has followed a program of Expeditionary Learning since 1992 wi...

SMALL TOWN CENTER STILL MATTERS This column originally appeared on Wicked Local I was coming back from a successful dentist appointment traveling north on Route 18 on the Whitman-East Bridgewater line when I noticed a line of rush hour traffic going south that was reminiscent of the parade of cars heading to Ray Kinsella’s farm in the movie Field of Dreams .   I found it hard to believe that all of those cars could really be headed for East Bridgewater, a small agricultural town where an exciting day forty years ago meant Johnny the Farmer drove past you on his tractor.   Because East Bridgewater is my hometown and a place that I have been back to only infrequently over the past few decades, I felt that I owed it to myself to take a closer look.   Driving in past the majestic, once ivy-covered library, the buildings in East Bridgewater center were familiar, but the names of the businesses were unidentifiable for the most part.   In some cases businesses w...

BIG TOBACCO STILL CAPITALIZING ON KIDS This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. Smoking is no longer considered to be cool, only an annoying nuisance, meaning the long war on tobacco finally appears to be coming to an end. Gone are the days of high school kids running off to the bathrooms to grab a quick rebellious cigarette. In my own experience, I was thankfully never able to inhale (truthfully taking a line from Bill Clinton) and also first attempted to smoke Virginia Slims which conveniently led to reactions that did not encourage me to keep trying.   Big Tobacco has struck back with a marketing vengeance directing their attention, again, at kids. The successful movement to effectively curtail smoking has caused them to reinvigorate their efforts with e-cigarettes, an activity that is becoming increasingly popular with teenagers commonly known as vaping.   Using a tiny device that can be easily mistaken for a USB drive, vaping devices with brand names ...

CHANGED PLANS TURN WORTHWHILE This column originally appeared on Wicked Local My wife and I had planned to make a trip to Waitsfield, Vermont to stay at the Inn at the Round Barn Farm, but the predicted weekend weather didn’t call for it. I suggested that we travel up to Gloucester instead and maybe visit the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem along the way. My wife answered surprisingly, “That would be fun!”   To be clear, I do not know a lot about Georgia O’Keeffe, other than a somewhat regular familiarity with her southwestern style of art, and I certainly do not consider myself an art junkie. The Peabody Essex Museum seemed like a more culturally interesting way to spend the day rather than trekking up to Vermont’s Mad River Valley in what still promised to be the dreary dead of winter and peruse the local general store (again).   We traveled north of Boston strategically planning to stop by the O’Keeffe exhibit before heading ...

THE PATH UP THE MOUNTAIN IS THE BEST PART This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. Sometimes it is the journey that is most rewarding.   In 1983, my high school’s guidance department got their hands on a computer that resembled the robot from Lost in Space. Every kid in my grade was called down to choose a career that would be put into the computer which would then spit out a conclusive report detailing why or why not this career choice was appropriate. At the time, I had realistically veered away from my dreams of playing for the Red Sox and although inspired to shoot for the Navy’s Officer Candidate School in Newport I had yet to achieve required success in any math class that required fractions. I showed up prepared and offered a completely practical response: mailman. I had seriously considered the idea. I had already worked as a paperboy so I felt like I had experience, liked the idea of having a government job (already contemplating retirement at the a...

THE SUPERMARKET ACCORDING TO GILLESPIE     This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. The supermarket has become a curious place.   A simple trip to the grocery store that once meant picking up bread, milk, eggs, and in my case usually something impossible to find like a tiny can of black olives has become riddled with choices, some of which could leave even the most decisive person in a state of total confusion.   Upon entering the modern grocery store the first decision to be made is whether to use a cart, a half-cart, or just carry a basket.   It is widely believed that using the full-size cart automatically means that you will buy more groceries.   Therefore, toting a basket to simplify is a great idea unless milk is on your list which means you will be carrying an item that weighs the equivalent of a barbell while you shop.     This past week, my wife sent me out on a mission to buy some specific groceries: ...

THE PAPERBOY - A THING OF THE PAST    This column originally appeared on Wicked Local.    On the third day of the power outage last week, I knew that there was one thing I could look forward to that did not require electricity – the Sunday paper.   The paper never came.   I tried to blame it on the storm.   It was possible that my delivery person’s car had been crushed by a large elm.   Maybe their home had lost power and subsequently forced them to relocate to a motel in Malden for a few days.   Although I tried to take on an attitude of empathy, I couldn’t quite think of a logical reason why my newspaper could not have been delivered.   When I was a kid (back in the Paleozoic Era), it served as a rite of passage to take over somebody’s paper route.   Taking on a paper route was an opportunity through which you could establish a working relationship in the community.   And if you were a bad paperboy, everyo...