Gardening Tips from ‘The English Lady’ for January, ‘The Month for Dreaming’

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Maureen Haseley-Jones

Maureen Haseley-Jones is ‘The English Lady’

Happy New Year, everyone!

Well, here we go, as you sit in your arm chair and dream about fragrant bloom and delicious vegetables in your garden. However, it is never too early to plan for this season in your garden. My motto has always been to plan, before action and production.

Mother Nature is waiting for us with her gifts of renewal, growth and nourishment as we begin to plan for the coming season. She tells us that in this wonderful pastime called ‘gardening,’ we can escape from the trials and tribulations of our world. Each day we move gradually from the dark into the light to a longer, brighter day to welcome spring.

A few weeks ago, I retrieved my second batch of Narcissi from the brown paper bag in the refrigerator and planted them on pebbles, with just enough pebbles to anchor the bulbs in place, or you may use potting soil. I use tall glass vases, and make sure to keep the pebbles moist with just enough water to cover the bottom of each bulb.

I brought my Rosemary plant indoors in September; Rosemary is not hardy outdoors in Zone 6. I spray the plant twice weekly with warm water and run a cold-water humidifier and two germ guardian air cleaners with UV lights for personal health and the health of my plants.

After planting the paper white Narcissi, I placed them in a dark, cool closet until the foliage was about four inches tall. Today I moved them from the dark closet to a cool room, that has indirect light and where the temperature remains at about 65 degrees.

When the buds are almost ready to open, I will place them in a brighter area to be enjoyed, not only for their bloom but also the heady fragrance which permeates the house. The new bloom draws me out of the winter doldrums and their gentle fragrance lifts my spirits.

As you know the severe negative changes that are occurring with global warming, together with pollution in the air, water and the earth, are severely damaging our planet. Your personal contribution to saving our planet is to tend the soil organically with compost, manure and natural brown mulch, which builds the humus component in your soil. With this organic method, your plants and vegetables will thrive … as will you.

Throughout the year, allow your garden to anchor you, connecting heart, body, mind and spirit to Mother Nature’s life-giving bountiful gifts and spiritual energy.

The cold harsh winds of January and February extract moisture from trees and shrubs, especially the evergreens. These winds are more harmful to plants than cold temperatures, not only causing plant breakage but also soil erosion. To help counteract these effects, it’s useful to have a few bags of topsoil and mulch in the garage. With these items on hand, any roots can be covered after they become exposed by wind or frost heave. Roots exposed to the elements for any length of time can kill the plant, so when you notice exposed roots, quickly cover exposed areas with the soil and mulch. When spring arrives and the earth warms up, the plant can be resettled in place together with composted manure and natural brown mulch to provide protection and nutrition.

On a sunny day this January, take a walk round the garden and breathe in the freshening air—as you walk, make some notes and decide what worked for you last year and what you will never try again.

Later, back indoors, relaxing in your armchair, browse through the catalogues that began arriving a few months ago. You have already begun making lists of plants that you are thinking of buying. However, a word of caution when gazing at the photos, which are meant to tempt you with their lovely but “doctored” pictures of plants. Do not allow your imagination to run amok and be caught up in the fantasy of the high-maintenance garden pictures you see in the catalogues.

Instead, suit your garden to your lifestyle as to what will work within your own time-frame and physical abilities. If you follow that construct, you will have the time to sit, relax and smell the roses, and not being exhausted by too much garden toil and quite often disappointed in the final results.

As you sit and plan for the coming season, it’s important to keep your budget in mind. It’s hard to believe as you look outside at the muted landscape, that in a few months, sunshine and gentle breezes will warm the soil and new growth will appear.

When the soil is dry enough to tread on, winter debris can be carefully be cleared away. Then, cut a clean edge on the borders; this simple task makes such a difference to the look of a garden. Then in mid-April, add that lovely layer of manure and compost (the ratio being three parts manure to one part compost). With that preparation completed, you are ready for the fun stuff—the placing and planting!

For those of you, who are vegetable gardeners and look forward to a bountiful year with fruits and vegetables, spring rain, extra irrigation and sunshine will produce that delicious bounty.

As spring advances so will the appearance of both good and bad insects—moles, voles and other critters—that can be dealt with naturally. I will share my remedies for this problem in an upcoming gardening letter.

Your memory of your garden from last season may be lost in the enthusiasm of a new season, therefore, I am asking you to be kind to yourself. If last year you became overwhelmed with too much work labor and no time to relax and enjoy your garden; the following are some ideas, you can enact to rectify that problem:-

A prairie meadow-type border can still include color. Photo by Calin Oancea on Unsplash.

For example, send some of your borders back to grass, and if you are tired of grass-mowing, spread wildflower seeds in the grass and enjoy the pleasure of a prairie meadow.

Also, make some of the high-maintenance perennial borders into mixed shrub borders. To accomplish this, take out some of those perennials and donate them to a worthy cause. In their place, plant small and medium size evergreen shrubs; some green, blue and some of the lovely gold species of evergreens. With these shrubs, which display all-season beauty, add small flowering deciduous trees and shrubs that begin flowering in April and successively through June.

The Carlesii viburnum, also known as Korean Spice, is a favorite small shrub of mine, with its white buds that open to a pale pink with the most delightful fragrance.

Plant a Ben Franklin tree with its white cup like blooms and gold center that flowers in August through September.

Nestle three Blue Mist shrubs in the mixed border; this plant will delight with purple blooms and fragrant leaves into September.

On a fence or trellis, plant white autumn clematis.

Add a groundcover as an evergreen framework – my favorite is Myrtle with its glossy leaves and miniature blue flowers that bloom in April.

This youngster is looking for fairies in Hartmann Park. Photo by Lisa Niccolai.

For the children or grandchildren in your family, I believe it is never too soon to introduce your children and grandchildren to the wonders of the garden by bringing garden fairies into their lives. Through the years I have asked children to draw a picture of the garden fairy and make a list of questions to ask the fairies, who live in the wild patch in the garden. We all have a wild patch in the garden; and at this point you may be saying, “Maureen, my garden is one large ‘wild patch!’

Children became so excited and enthused about their lists and pictures of the fairies; as what you are showing them is nature’s transformation of science into magic. These days we seem to have forgotten about fairy tales, dreams and magic; it’s way past time to bring those wonderful energies back into our lives and into the lives of our children.

In spring and through summer, I would find my children or their friends impatiently checking the garden wanting to see their own planting efforts come into bloom. In the vegetable garden they gathered to check what was ready to eat from the produce they had planted. I have found that this introduction to the garden has inspired the children and when they become adults, they enthusiastically plant and tend gardens of their own.

My son Ian is a great example of this as he has partnered with me through the years in the garden and is living proof of the old adage, ‘The student is better than the teacher.’ Ian is a designer par excellence and I invite you to check his website at LandscapesbyIan.com and his Facebook page for lovely examples of his work.

In my March gardening tips, I’ll offer you some suggestions of ornamental trees, shrubs and long blooming perennials. With that list in hand, I suggest that you buy your plants from local garden centers as these centers carry tried and true plants that will flourish in Zone 6.

Mixed shrub borders are often a good solution for low-maintenance gardens.

On the other hand, if you feel that over the years, you have been throwing good money after bad and you are becoming desperate as you feel that your garden, no matter what you do, never looks right. Then, get in touch with a landscape company, who will keep your budget in mind whether you want to do your own work, or wish for a design to install yourself.

On the other hand, when you are planning your garden for this coming season, there are important facts to keep in mind:

What are the requirements for sun, shade, soil, and water of the plants?

Will they survive in this zone, Zone 6?

What are the growth patterns of the plants? Do they grow fast or slow?

You do not want a 50 ft.tree up against the house with tremendous roots that will play havoc with the foundation of your home. Or do you want that lovely but very large, Catawbiense Rhododendron, all 10 ft. of it, climbing through your dining room window in five years?

To find those facts, either check the plants in a book, on the Internet or read the labels attached to the plants in the nursery.

Check every aspect of the plant before you buy. The red or green Lace-Leaf Japanese Maple looks lovely in spring but is it something you can enjoy, without its leaves in the winter? Personally, I not only enjoy the foliage of plants and trees, but also the shape and bark of trees without foliage in winter.

For those of you just beginning to garden, I must be honest and dispense with the myth that gardening is always a relaxing hobby. At the end of that first day of digging, lugging soil, manure and fertilizer, and planting everything at the proper depth; you will feel somewhat exhausted.

At that juncture, you remember that you still need to water the newly-installed plants as you drag your tired body to switch on the hose. Thank goodness, the mulching can wait until tomorrow or next weekend.

Watering the garden can be truly meditative to some. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

Watering can be meditative to some of us, myself included. Imagine that the hose is your umbilical cord so that as you nourish the earth and the plants, the earth can nourish you.

By now the sun has gone down, and you trudge indoors muttering to yourself, “What the heck did I get myself into?” To this comment I say, “You did not have to tackle all of the garden in one day”.

In gardening, there is always tomorrow, or next week, and even though the label says to plant it by the end of May or June, believe me folks, a few weeks later does not matter, the garden will wait for you.

You may be saying to yourself at this point, “Maureen, are you trying to put us off gardening”? No folks, but I would remiss, as someone who has gardening in my blood (as well as manure!) for over 400 years to tell you, however reluctantly, not only the pleasures, but some of what can cause aches and pains.

The idea is not to bite off more than you can chew. For first-time gardeners, don’t scatter your energies all over the garden, rather tackle and complete one area at a time. That area should be priority one until it is complete.

If you have a new home with no landscaping, some hardscape may be required. Hardscape is walls, walkways, patios, ponds, decks and so on. The sound and look of a water feature in the garden is delightful and need not be elaborate—a fountain is fine—the reflection of water is Mother Nature’s mirror. If you are not able to do this construction yourself, get in touch with a landscape contractor now, so that a plan can be done now, installed and ready by spring. I say to connect now as Ian tells me that many landscape products are short on supply this year.

These endeavors mean you getting yourself in shape physically, so get off that couch, put away the catalogues and your plant lists, stretch, then wrap yourself up in warm gear and take that walk.

As you walk, look at the trees in winter, the elegant shape of them, the lichen on the stonewalls, and the moss tucked in cracks and crevices. Clear your mind and allow nature’s spirit to surround you. As you walk, look at a few gardens in your neighborhood; gardens that you have admired when they were in bloom, and see what they look like in winter.

I remember one of my professors saying to me when I studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, “In winter, you can tell a really good landscape by its bones, without the flesh of flora and foliage.” In spring, get in touch with those neighbors whose gardens you admired and ask them some of the secrets of their garden. They will be happy to talk with you, not only of their successes but their failures—true gardeners are realists when they speak about their gardens and love to share.

Well folks, I’ve given you plenty to think about right now so enjoy your daydreaming of the season to come and I’ll see you next month in your garden.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at MaureenHaseleyJones@gmail.com

About the author: Maureen Haseley-Jones is a member of a family of renowned horticultural artisans, whose landscaping heritage dates back to the 17th century. She is one of the founders, together with her son Ian, of, The English Lady Landscape and Home Company. Maureen and Ian are landscape designers and garden experts, who believe that everyone deserves to live in an eco-conscious environment and enjoy the pleasure that it brings. Maureen learned her design skills from both her mother and grandmother, and honed her horticultural and construction skills while working in the family nursery and landscape business in the U.K. Her formal horticultural training was undertaken at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in Surrey.

Letter From Paris: Three Major Exhibits Dominate Parisian Art Scene This Winter

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Nicole Prévost Logan

Tragic link between the featured artists is that they all committed suicide

PARIS, FRANCE — The art scene in Paris during the last month of 2023 was quite intense. Three major exhibits of artists—coming respectively from France, the US and the Netherlands—attracted a sophisticated, international public. These artists have nothing in common, except that all three of them committed suicide.

Nicolas de Staël (1914-1956)

Photo of Nicolas de Staël from his application to be naturalized as a French citizen. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Nicolas de Staël is all the rage today in Paris. The retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris is the first since 2003 when the Pompidou Center showed the artist’s early work. De Stael is considered as one of the most famous artists in France today and also the most expensive.

The large exhibit includes works coming almost entirely from private collections rather than from museums, indicating his success on the art market. This may explain the sometimes acerbic comments from art circles. Except for Braque, who became his longtime friend, de Staël was closer to writers and poets than to other artists. In contrast, the reaction of the public was gushing and unanimous enthusiasm.

De Staël was born into to the Russian military nobility in St Petersburg. In 1917, at the age of three, he left Russia with his family. After a few difficult years in exile, he found himself as an orphan at the age of eight. Wealthy friends, who welcomed Russian immigrants, helped him attend an upscale school in Brussels.

At the age of 23, he folded up his more than six foot five frame into the tiniest of all French cars—a deux chevaux ( a two-horsepower) Citroën—and drove to Spain on the first of his incessant travels, always searching for the perfect light. What he discovered in Morocco made him throw out everything he learned during his three years of study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. He painted eight hours a day and destroyed everything he painted.

His life story reads like a Russian novel, full of passion, despair and drama. His flamboyant and vibrant personality was like a magnet, attracting relatives, lovers and friends and contributed a great deal to his fame as an artist. Disregarding morality conventions, he fell passionately in love with married women. The first one was a young painter, Jeanine Guillou, an adventurer, touring the Sahara desert on the back of a donkey with her husband, also a painter.

After her death in 1946 and the difficult years of the Occupation of Paris by the Nazis, he married Francoise Chapiton, 21, who was teaching English to his stepson Antek and had three children with her. A few years later without qualms, he would leave her and his three children and engaged in another passionate liaison with a married woman, Jeanne Polge.

A visitor to the exhibition is struck by the unusual journey of the artist’s creation which broke the traditional path from figurative to abstract and therefore did not fit into the accepted categories. During his earlier period, de Stael had produced a majority of black and white drawings, graphic work and then one witnesses an explosion of spectacular colors and a return to figurative work.

Actually it is deceptive:since, from a distance, landscapes, architecture, scenes with people or with activities—like a port, or a football game—may seem like figurative representations created “after the motif” but, on looking more closely, the scenes are, in fact, made up of geometrical shapes, which are close to abstraction. One of the earliest paintings where he used color was done in 1933—in the “Arbre Rouge ” (the red tree), red paint drips and makes the tree look as if shedding red tears.

His way of painting was unique. He worked on several paintings at the same time, borrowing from one to modify another. A buyer would be surprised to discover that the work he purchased from the artist was different from the one he saw at first.

Even his studio was out of the ordinary. Located on Rue Gauguet in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, close to Rue des Artists and Parc Montsouris, it had an incredibly high ceiling of eight meters. An art historian compared it to a well, a barn or a chapel.

In 1953, de Staël presented his works in New York and was celebrated by an enthusiastic public and rave reviews in the New York Times. But de Staël’s temperament clashed with art merchants. He disliked the way they speculated on his paintings even before seeing them. There was a great deal of tension at the time of hanging the paintings, which de Stael was used to insist on doing himself. Nevertheless the exhibition of 36 paintings was both a triumph and a financial success.

In 1954 he bought Le Castelet, Menerbes, a fortified manor perched on a rock in the Luberon region of southeast France. The family still owns it today.

In 1955, he continued his frenzy of travels and painting. He rented a studio in the ramparts of Antibes, overlooking the Mediterranean. Ten years earlier, Picasso had created his art studio in the Grimaldi castle also in the ramparts. Antibes was founded by the Greeks in the 5th century BC, under the name of Antipolis.

On the 16th of March, 1955, de Staël commited suicide by jumping onto the rocks.

The de Staël exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art is unusually large. It includes 11 rooms and covers his entire life. One is literally overwhelmed by the masterful works created during his last few years, painted in a wide spectrum of dazzling colors. Here are but a few of them.

“Agrigente”, 1954, 60x81cm .This Sicilian landscape, is simplified to the maximum. the colors are imaginary (purple sky, pink road, yellow hillside). An historian describes the choice of colors of de Stael as a “crashing wave of emotions.”

“Temple Sicilien”, 1954, 73x100cm. The colors are golden, softer, the architecture reduced to simple lines.

“Le Fort Carré d’Antibes”, 1955, 114x195cm. A symphony in blues and whites. The paint is light and fluid. Not much figurative work in this one, mostly geometric shapes floating between sky and sea.

“Ciel à Honfleur”, 1952, 100x73cm. The softer. shades of blues in horizontal bands under the pale sky of Normandy.

“Marseille”, 1954. 80.5x60cm bright primary colors, houses are just cubes, the Mediterranean sea is a flat deep blue

“Parc des Princes”, 1952, 200x350cm. France-Sweden soccer match. One of the master pieces of de Staël. The match takes place at night under spotlights. A ton of muscles fly around the green grass of the stadium. After many sketches, the final painting is an abstract composition of colored energy. At the 86th minute of the game France lost to Sweden.

Mark Rothko (I903-1969)

The Rothko exhibition is the blockbuster of this winter in Paris. Parisians have become accustomed to these spectacular events taking place in the museum of the Vuitton Fondation. Since its opening in 2014, it has held other breathtaking exhibits such as the collections of the two most important Russian art collectors of the Tsarist era: Morozov and Shchukin.

Photo of Mark Rothko, Yorktown Heights, ca. 1949 by Consuelo Kanaga (American, 1894-1978). Gelatin silver photograph, 10 x 8in. (25.4 x 20.3cm). Brooklyn Museum, *This image was uploaded by the **Brooklyn Museum** as a content partnership, and is considered to have **no known copyright restrictions** by the institutions of the Brooklyn Museum.*

An aerial picture of the Bois de Boulogne reveals that the spinnaker-shaped museum created by Frank Gehry is the only building peeping out of the green expanse of the forest. How did they ever obtain permission to build there? The fact that Bernard Arnault, the owner of LVMH—which stands for Louis Vuitton Moët and Chandon—was the richest man in the world until April 2023 perhaps helps explain why.

Twenty four years ago, the Museee d’Art Moderne in Paris had presented a full retrospective of the artist’s works. So, why a repeat in 2023? The long lines of visitors attest to the fascination of the Parisians for the American artist.

Christopher Rothko, son of Mark and co-curator of the exhibition, is playing an essential role in the present exhibition since he contributes the inside story about his father’s personality and the struggles in his artistic career. “It is a miracle”, he explained in an interview, that we were able to obtain 60 percent of the works we wanted as well as several never seen before in Paris. Besides, he added, the Fondation Vuitton helped negotiate loans, which usually have an exorbitant cost.

The Frank Gehry structure is perfect for an exhibition of this size. It allows for an easy flow of the visitors who can access painlessly the five levels of the display, thanks to the all-glass elevators located at strategic places. Personally I wish the confusing layout of the Orsay museum, with its cramped rooms, was more like this.

Learning about Rothko is to attend a course in the history of American art in the 20th century. Marcus Rotkovich Rothko was a scholar, a rebel, and a pioneer fighting for his deep philosophical and social convictions. In 1913 his family emigrated from Latvia, which was then part of Russia, to Portland, Oregon. A brilliant student, he attended Yale for three years. Until 1950 he taught children in the Brooklyn Jewish Center Association.

The exhibit starts with a huge room where his early works are exposed . For 20 years, he was a figurative artist, painting portraits, urban scenes (such as his subway scenes) and landscapes . He also liked to draw archaic figures and monsters inspired by his readings of Nietzsche and Aeschylus . He was most impressed by European artists like Matisse, Miro or Marx Ernst, the Surrealists, and later by the generation of artists—mostly Jewish—who left Europe in World War II.

In 1946 he began his “multiform” series and his definitive evolution toward total abstraction, which art historians call his “classic period” This is the period we are most familiar with, characterized by his “fields of color” .

There was a love-hate relationship between Rothko and New York. He found his inspiration in the town but was highly critical of New Yorkers for their mercantilism, calling them “shopkeepers.”. He hated the frenzy of his life as an artist. But American art was enriched by the stands he was taking.

In 1950, the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized an exhibit entitled: American Painting today” and did not even mention abstract art. Rothko joins the group of 19 “angry artists” , including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Koonig, rebelling against the conservatism of the Met. And today, what does the visitor to the Met or MoMA see? The works of Rothko seem to form the core of those museums’ collections.

The monumental sizes of Rothko’s paintings tend to overpower the viewer. One does not look at Rothko’s painting, wrote an art critic, but enters them. In the small “Philips room”, a simple bench invites the viewer to sit in front of a Roth’s painting and meditate .

The range of colors, from the luminous orange, to the maroon to the grey and black , has a strong impact on the feelings of the spectator. The canvasses are totally covered with paint The demarcation line between different strata of colors seem out focus and a zone with a fluffy texture. In the room at the upper level of the exhibition, his paintings are the most severe. We see a black sky and a grey earth transporting us into wnat one could describe as lunar scenery. The Giacometti statue of “man walking” add sto the somber feeling

Probably the most spectacular event in his career was the commission he received in 1958, to create murals for the elegant Four Seasons restaurant of the Seagram building on Park Avenue, between 51st and 52nd streets. Mies van der Hohe was the chief architect of the 37-floor skyscraper and Philip Johnson was his associate . Van der Hohe was German and the last director of the Bauhaus school in Berlin before it was forced to close by the Nazis in 1933. The innovative design of the Seagram was a steel structure on pillars with a reinforced concrete inner core. Rothko worked for months on the project in an oversize studio he had rented for that purpose. Then he abandoned the project. Later he donated nine maroon murals to the Tate Modern in London. The nine maroon murals are part o the Rothko exhibition on loan from the Tate.

His very last project, was “The Rothko chapel” in the Saint Thomas University in Houston commissioned by sthe extremely rich art collectors John and Dominique Menil (she was the heir to Schlumberger) .

At age of 66, in 1969, he committed suicide in his studio by overdosing on barbiturates and slashing an artery in his right arm.

Gallery talks, offered by art specialists or “mediators”at every level of the exhibit, provide some helpful guidance to the general public on how to analyze one’s emotions when trying to comprehend Rothko’s “Abstract Expressionism”

Vincent Van Gogh’s at Auvers-sur-Oise ( May 20—July 29 1890)

At the Orsay museum, the exhibit of the last three months of Vincent Van Gogh at Auvers-sur-Oise leaves the visitors dumbfounded at how the artist, whom we all know so well, could still impress us with paintings never seen before.

After a one-year, self-imposed stay in St Remy-de-Provence psychiatric hospital, the prospect of living in the small village of Auvers-sur-Oise around 30 miles to the northwest of Paris, and being totally free to go and plant his easel to paint wherever he pleased, was most enticing. His brother, Theo, could visit him often since Auvers was easily accessible by suburban train from Paris.

In Auvers, Dr. Gachet, who was to treat Van Gogh, became his close friend. They shared a mutual interest in Impressionist painting and even their neurasthenic (neurasthenia is a condition characterized especially by physical and mental exhaustion) tendency. Theo, who had made all the arrangements for Vincent’s stay, was optimistic as to the improvement of his brother’s condition. in such a setting.

One must go through a one small room called, “La Palette” before seeing the main exhibit for two reasons: first, saving hours of waiting in line and second, the short, three-dimensional, virtual experience conditions the visitor to plunge into Von Gogh’s haunted world.

You live through intense, almost scary, moments, with the heavy head-set on. You open an elegant, white door with a digital hand and enter a parlor furnished with a piano, a desk and a few chairs. Next, you are transplanted into the wilderness. A palette appears on your left and moves toward you, it becomes huge and threatening, with heavy blobs of paint on it. You are being attacked by it. You find yourself in a forest, surrounded by trees. Slowly you are going down, going through a layer of roots, menacing like a bunch of wiggling giant worms.

Or to use the words of Guillaume Morel’s, a regular contributor to the magazine “Connaissance des Arts,” “gnarled roots, charred trunks, twisted branches.” You are pulled down lower and lower into a bottomless pit, a wreath of trees above your head closes up the view of the sky. Still shaking, you return to the parlor. Now you are emotionally ready to affront the mob scene of the Von Gogh’s exhibit .

The theme of the small format paintings is the village, with its streets, houses and walled gardens, and the fields nearby. One of the streets is animated by two black figures of old women, followed by two young pony-tailed girls dressed in fluffy, white dresses. The 13th century church seems to be aggressively pulsating with life. On the outskirts of the small town, sleepy thatched roof farmhouses and cultivated fields seem peaceful at first.

‘Wheatfield with crows’ by Vincent van Gogh. July 1890. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. This work is in the **public domain** in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

But the agitated brush strokes of Van Gogh turn the few trees into flames, the cottages about to collapse under the weight of their roof, the skies are torn with bizarre and tormented hieroglyphs. The use of aplats or flat areas of paint by the artist to picture the calm fields and sheaves of wheat left by the farmers are soon replaced by a stormy wheat field swept into a storm—a splash of yellow dotted with the black dots of the flying crows.

This most famous painting of all was long believed to be Vincent Van Gogh’s last one. No more. On July 27, 1890, the artist painted “Roots” (the painting the visitor suffered through during the virtual experience of La Palette). Later on that day Van Gogh shot himself in the chest. The painting was found on the easel after his death. He died two days later .

And let me leave you with this extraordinary fact—in the 70 days he spent at Auvers, Van Gogh created 74 paintings … more than one a day.

Editor’s Note:This is the opinion of Nicole Prévost Logan.

Nicole Prévost Logan

About the author: Nicole Prévost Logan divides her time between Essex and Paris, spending summers in the former and winters in the latter. She writes an occasional column for us from her Paris home where her topics will include politics, economy, social unrest — mostly in France — but also in other European countries. She also covers a variety of art exhibits and the performing arts in Europe. Logan is the author of ‘Forever on the Road: A Franco-American Family’s Thirty Years in the Foreign Service,’ an autobiography of her life as the wife of an overseas diplomat, who lived in 10 foreign countries on three continents. Her experiences during her foreign service life included being in Lebanon when civil war erupted, excavating a medieval city in Moscow and spending a week under house arrest in Guinea.

A View From My Porch: My Father’s January 6th—in 1941

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Thomas D Gotowka

Tom Gotowka

We are three divisive years after the shameful and violent January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol that transpired on live TV.

As the title indicates, this essay considers a very important historic event that occurred 80 years earlier on the Sixth of January in 1941; and is presented here as something that better reflects America’s values and world view than the anathema that occurred in 2021. I decided to tackle this subject because I am very troubled about recent campaign rhetoric and challenges to America’s principles of democracy. These are the issues that keep me up at night.

One candidate has toyed with the idea of becoming “dictator for a day,” and he has also spoken of vengeance and retribution. That same individual has been removed from the ballots in some states because his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bans those who “engage in insurrection” from holding office.

Further, in December, 2022, while continuing to push the utterly false claim that he lost the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud, he proposed that “termination of all rules, even those found in the Constitution” was merited.”

I believe the assault on the Capitol was instigated by the same losing candidate to interfere with the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

Four people died that day: a female rioter who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer; two of heart conditions; and another from amphetamine intoxication. More than 100 members of law enforcement were injured. The next day, Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died after suffering two strokes, having been physically attacked and pepper-sprayed during the riot.

Incredibly, Congressman Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) later referred to the Jan. 6 attack as a “normal tourist visit;” conveniently ignoring the violence, loss of life, and that the Capitol had been ransacked and vandalized by a mob who wanted to hang Mike Pence to “Stop the Steal” on behalf of an unworthy politician.

Note that for the first time in its history, the United States of America did not have a peaceful transition of power.

Former President Donald Trump defended the rioters’ chants of “Hang Mike Pence,” saying it was understandable because they were angry the election hadn’t been overturned.

Extraordinarily, the Republican National Committee said Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat and the deadly attack on the US Capitol were “legitimate political discourse.”

However, actions do have consequences. By December 2022, at least 964 people had been arrested and charged with crimes, making it the U.S. Justice Department’s largest criminal investigation in history. The Department of Justice’s Washington D.C. office said in its latest update that 623 people had received sentences, though not all had been handed periods of incarceration; while around 657 individuals had pleaded guilty to federal charges, “Many of whom faced or will face incarceration at sentencing.”

According to NBC News, one candidate promised at a town hall hosted by CNN at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire that if he is elected, he will pardon a “large portion” of the people convicted of federal offenses for their participation in the attack on the Capitol. I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.” A candidate has used “Hitleresque” and neo-Nazi descriptions of undocumented immigrants.

In addition, there has been evidence of gerrymandering in several states, i.e., redrawing Congressional, state legislative, or other political boundaries to favor a political party or candidate for elected office. For example, the Republicans, who control the state legislature in North Carolina, have crafted a map that could help them flip at least three seats.

In Michigan, a three-judge panel ruled that the boundaries of 13 Detroit-area seats for the Michigan legislature must be redrawn, after determining that the map was illegally influenced by race. Nearly 80 percent of Detroit residents are Black, but the Black voting-age population in the Detroit-area districts ranges from 35 to 45 percent; one is 19%. The Michigan legislature is currently controlled by the Democratic Party.

Last January, the “Republican-crafted” redistricting plan in Alabama was found to be in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by a Federal court. The court ruled that the plan disadvantaged Black voters by diluting their voting power. The state’s Republican-lead legislature refused to follow a Federal Court order to re-draw the electoral map.

Note that by law, states with more than one representative must redistrict after each decennial census to account for population shifts within the state, or shifts among the states (i.e. to add or remove congressional districts.) In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Federal courts have no power to police partisan gerrymandering and it is up to Congress and state legislative bodies to find ways to restrict excessive partisanship.

Even beyond the above, the GOP-led House of Representatives has been in chaos and virtually dysfunctional. As a result, Congress in 2023 passed the fewest laws in decades; and as it heads into its second session, is on track to be one of the least productive in modern history.

On the flip side, the Senate passed a provision in the annual defense bill on July 19, 2023 that would make it more difficult for a U.S. President to withdraw from NATO—clearly a precautionary measure against Donald Trump’s conceivable return to the White House.

And now let’s turn to my Father’s January Sixth back in 1941. But we will begin by going back even further.

The Political Climate After World War I (WW1)

The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, which marked the end of WW1, against the recommendation of President Woodrow Wilson; because it required the United States to join the League of Nations. The United States then returned to its former non-interventionist and isolationist policies, ending its war-related European commitments. Foreign affairs and international relations became much less important than economic survival as the United States struggled through the Great Depression.

Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 in response to the growing threats of war in Europe and the Pacific; and they sought to ensure that the United States would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts.

After Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1,1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) avoided the Neutrality restrictions by convincing Congress to permit the Government to sell military supplies to France and Britain on a “cash-and-carry basis,” i.e., they would pay cash for American-made supplies and then transport them on their own ships.

However, by 1940, much of Europe had fallen to the Nazis and the Battle of Britain air war was underway. Britain was fighting Germany on land, at sea, and in the air.

The “Four Freedoms”:

In his January 6,1941 State of the Union Address to Congress, FDR presented his reasons for American involvement in the war in Europe and outlined the country’s war aims. He made the case for continued aid to Great Britain and greater production from war industries at home to produce armaments for the democracies of Europe.

He asserted that the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people deserved. He called for Congressional approval of the “Lend-Lease” program that he had proposed a month earlier at a press conference. Under “Lend-Lease,” the United States would continue to supply the British and their allies in the fight against Nazi Germany with ammunition, airplanes, tanks, food, and raw materials under an agreement that eliminated the requirements of the “cash-and-carry” exchange.

“Lend-Lease” was enacted by Congress on March 11, 1941, and it allowed the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation free of charge, and on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States.

FDR articulated his ideological aims for the war, and appealed to Americans’ most profound beliefs about freedom. He presented the post-war social and political goals he hoped to foster both for Americans and for the people of the world. He described four essential human freedoms upon which he believed the post-war world should be founded. These were freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. He called for a worldwide reduction of armaments to ensure that no nation will be able to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world.

On Jan. 26, 1942, the first elements of the United States Army arrived in Belfast and by year’s end, more than 300,000 American service personnel had passed through as the first contingent of the nearly two million who served in Europe.

The Battle of the Bulge:

My father was part of the first 300,00 and remained in Europe to fight in the Battle of the Bulge in the brutal winter that stretched from mid-December,1944 through late-January,1945. which was the last major German offensive on the Western Front; and the largest and bloodiest battle of WW2. The Battle lasted nearly six weeks amid heavy snow, blizzards, and freezing rain, and record-breaking low temperatures.

The Allies suffered some 75,000 casualties and Germany lost 120,000 men and stores of matériel. The German losses were catastrophic and, as a result, they forfeited any chance of maintaining a prolonged resistance to a resumed Allied offensive.

Author’s Comments: My father never really spoke of his experiences. However, he wholeheartedly embraced Tom Brokaw’s book, “The Greatest Generation,” in which the author described those Americans, who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in WW2, or whose labor on the Homefront helped win it. He used the term in recognition of what he called “a generation of towering achievement and modest demeanor.” In closing, “May God bless America and may God protect our troops.”

Editor’s Note: This is the opinion of Thomas D. Gotowka.

About the Author: Tom Gotowka is a resident of Old Lyme, whose entire adult career has been in healthcare. He will sit on the Navy side at the Army/Navy football game. He always sit on the crimson side at any Harvard/Yale contest. He enjoys reading historic speeches and considers himself a scholar of the period from FDR through JFK. A child of AM Radio, he probably knows the lyrics of every rock and roll or folk song published since 1960. He hopes these experiences give readers a sense of what he believes “qualify” him to write this column.

Sources — A View: My Father’s January Sixth
Christenson, J. “Congress passed fewest laws in decades in 2023: report.” NY Post. 12/19/2023.
deVogue, A. “Supreme Court orders voting maps redrawn in Alabama to accommodate Black voters in surprise ruling.” CNN. 06/08/2023.
Editors. “Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks of Four Freedoms.” History. 11/16/2009
Goldman, A. “One Man, One Vote: Decades of Court Decisions.” NYTimes. 11/21/1986.
Harris, B. “With eyes on Trump, Senate votes to make NATO withdrawal harder.” Defense News. 07/19/2023.
Heller, J. “Editorial Cartoon: House Passed Fewest Laws in Decades.” Washington Post. 12/30/2023.
Kreuz, R. “How We Talk When We Talk About January 6.” Psychology Today. 03/01/2023.
“Longley, R. “The Evolution of American Isolationism.” ThoughtCo. 04/16/2022.
Norton, T. “Fact Check: Did Donald Trump Call to Suspend the Constitution?” Newsweek. 10/24/2023.
Pengelly, M. “Republican party calls January 6 attack ‘legitimate political discourse.’” The Guardian. 02/04/2022.
Petras, G., and others. “How the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6.” USA Today. 02/09/2021.
Phillips, A. “Full List of Capitol Rioters Jailed So Far and the Sentences They Are Serving.” Newsweek. 09/12/2023.
Schouten, F. “Redistricting fights in these 10 states could determine which party controls the US House.” CNN. 11/08/2023.
Schwartz, R. “The ‘states’ of statewide gerrymandering in 2023.” The Week. 09/21/2023Terkel, A. “Trump says he would pardon a ‘large portion’ of Jan. 6 rioters.” NBC News. 05/10/2023.

Gardening Tips from ‘The English Lady’ for December—a ‘Time to Make Amends and Tie Up Loose Ends’

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Maureen Haseley-Jones

Hello everyone; so much to do and so little time in this holiday season …

Remember, to breathe, stretch and take time out for yourself each day. On a pleasant December day, go out into the garden. There is still time to plant your spring bulb; the earth is still workable so enjoy the fresh air and the gentle exercise.

Plant the bulbs three times as deep as they measure in their upright position. For example, Daffodils should be planted nine inches down below the frost line, spread composted manure, which hopefully you stored in the shed or garage, on the soil where the bulbs are planted.

Don’t worry if you do not have the manure now, as when the bulbs peak up from the soil in spring, you can obtain the composted manure then and spread it around the emerging bulbs at that time.

Right now, it is a sunny afternoon, and I am sitting in my armchair with a delicious cup of Earl Grey tea, inhaling the air wafting from the kitchen, bringing with it the fragrance of cloves. Clove fragrance is an old family tradition that I follow each December, when I fill my great-grandmother’s brass saucepan with water, then add whole cloves, bring the water to the boil, then turn it down to simmer gently.

The fragrance is a special memory of Christmas in the kitchen of Gran’s thatched roof cottage on the grounds of our plant nursery in England.

On this side of ‘The Pond’, in early winter before snow falls or even on a sunny day with snow on the ground, there are construction projects that can be accomplished with patios, decks, ponds, and dry stonewalls to repair and build. By accomplishing these tasks in winter, you will be ready to plant in spring.

If you are not into heavy work, I suggest you call a landscape company that you trust to give you an estimate for your project. In fact, if you would like to get in touch with my son Ian, at LandscapesByIan.com for an estimate or a consult on stonework work or a design for the spring. Ian has been telling me that there is a scarcity of building supplies right now, which might hinder your projects for your garden, unless you act early, like right now.

‘The English Lady’ is sure that snow will soon be with us. This view looking up Maywood in Old Lyme was taken a few years ago by Beth Sullivan.

I am sure that snow will be with us before long, so I hope you have the snow shovel handy or perhaps you decide you need a new one? If so, buy a lightweight wood- handle and plastic shovel instead of heavy metal.

When the storm has passed and you are ready for clearing the paths and driveways, don’t load the shovel heavily, scoop lighter loads. You will get done faster and with less aches and pains, or chance of injury.

If you are not able to clear the snow yourself from driveways, walkways and steps; I’m sure there are some teenagers in your neighborhood who would be willing to help you out.

We need the moisture from the snow for the soil and plants and I hope that we also get a good amount of rain to carry us through to spring.

If you have not already done so, mulch around the trunks of roses, mounding at least six to nine inches up the stems. As I mentioned earlier, buy a few extra bags of mulch and topsoil, and store them in the garage or shed.

Tie down the long whip-like rose canes of climbers to supporting structures so they are not broken off by strong winds. If the shrub roses are planted in an exposed area, cover them with a rose cone or if they are larger, cover them lightly with burlap until April.

I just walked into my living room to check on my Amaryllis bulbs, which have striped blooms. Amaryllis can be enjoyed for a long time with little effort.

Amaryllis in bloom by ‘I Do Nothing But Love’ on Unsplash.

As the flower buds begin to open, remove the pollen bearing anthers with tweezers, before they begin to shed—this will add days to the flowering period and remember to water.

Once the bloom is finished, deadhead it, remove the bulb from the soil and let it dry off. Store in a cool dark basement or some other cool dry place at about 55 degrees for10 weeks without watering. When you want to start it again, pot up the bulb tightly in fresh potting soil and begin to water again.

By the way, Amaryllis is poisonous so do not let children or animals eat the flowers.

Outside my kitchen window I can see the holly bush with lovely red berries, some of which I cut to decorate the house. Holly is a good weather predictor; few berries mean a mild winter, whilst many berries denote a harsh one. My red and black friends, the ladybugs, have begun to come indoors, earning their keep by consuming white fly and aphids, which often gather on houseplants.

This week, in the house, I am planting up my first group of paper white narcissus to get a head start on bloom in about a month. I store two dozen bulbs in the vegetable keeper of the refrigerator, away from the food. I plant half of them now and store the rest in a paper bag in the refrigerator, which I will plant later. With this method I will have continuous bloom and fragrance through the winter months. By keeping the bulbs in the refrigerator, they stay dormant, until planted.

I plant my bulbs in pebbles, with just enough pebbles to anchor the bulbs and enough depth for the roots to grow. Cram a lot of bulbs in the pot so they are touching – the more bulbs, the more vibrant the display. Make sure the bulb pots do not have drainage holes; if they do, cover the holes with shards of broken pottery.

I place the planted bulbs in a dark cool room or cupboard, always keeping the pebbles moist. In a few weeks, when the shoots of the narcissus are about six inches tall, I take the vases into a cool room on the south side of the house and place them about six feet away from the window in indirect light where they remain, keeping the pebbles moist until the buds appear.

When the buds appear and the stems are about 12 inches tall, bring them into the area of the house to be enjoyed. Always place them about six- foot from a sunny window and away from draughts and heat. Keep the soil or pebbles moist throughout the life of the plants.

I know that the stems of paper whites get leggy and often topple over. My tall glass vases do not allow this to occur but if you don’t have tall containers, here is a suggestion to keep the plant upright.

An English gardening colleague of mine gave me his ‘gin tip’. He pours a dessertspoon of gin (not the expensive stuff) on the soil or pebbles around the plants every couple of weeks after he has watered them. This limits the height of the stems, so they do not collapse, and the gin does not affect the bloom.

Regarding alcohol, another tip my grandmother whispered is to add a few drops of brandy or port to invigorate potpourri that has gone stale. Personally, I pour a few drops of either lemon oil or lavender oil on the potpourri.

I know that many of you spread salt on walkways, and driveways to thaw ice. However, the salt ruins plants, when it seeps into borders. Use an alternative like unscented kitty litter or sand that works well. In spring, just hose off steps and paths; the sand and kitty litter are good additions to your soil.

There is still time to prune dead or diseased branches from established deciduous trees and shrubs; it is an easier task to do at this time of year, as you are able to see what needs to be done without foliage obstructing your view. If you would like to have a fall pruning, call a reputable arborist to give you a quote and a team will come and use their practiced eyes to give you a great result.

Last winter, squirrels, raccoons or whomever, got into the birdseed in the milk shed. I bought out the supermarket’s supply of cayenne pepper that week and sprinkled it on my birdseed to keep the marauders at bay. This trick will also keep those critters out of your garbage. I also sprinkle cayenne pepper in the bird seeders for the feeders and on the suet blocks – the heat of the pepper does not affect the birds – they do not feel the heat.

To keep moths and bugs away from cupboards and in clothes; collect some remaining herbs, which may be still available, perhaps sage and lavender. Tie them into bunches with string and slip over a hangar in your closet or in a drawer. This week, I put bunches of dried sage in my closets and drawers—insects do not like fragrance and so the sage or lavender keeps insects away.

A few bags of soil and mulch that you may have stored in the garage or shed will be useful after frost. Often the frost heaves plants above the soil and exposes the roots. The plants roots can be covered and protected with the soil and mulch, until they can be resettled again when spring arrives.

When a plant is knocked askew by wind, ice or snow, do not be in a hurry to straighten it since, quite often, the plant will bounce back on its own. However, uprooted trees or shrubs should be straightened immediately then staked, their roots covered with soil and mulched, then resettle the plant in the spring. When snow is heavy on the branches of the evergreens, gently brush the snow off with a broom — with ‘gently’ being the operative word.

When you receive or buy cut flowers during the holiday, of course you want them to last. To accomplish this, your vases need to be squeaky clean. If there is a build up of dirty residue that regular soap and water won’t budge, try adding a little coarse sand to dislodge the mucky residue, then use soap and rinse well. For a narrow or globe-shaped vase ,use a bottlebrush.

Poinsettias:

I receive many questions about how to keep Poinsettias alive. I have a friend who has kept the same poinsettia alive for eight years. After blooming, she places the plant in a cool room, watering when the top of the soil feels dry, then in late May puts it, still in its container in the garden. In September, she brings it into her porch and begins gently watering. A combination I enjoy is poinsettias in a container with ivy and forced spring bulbs.

I was always curious as to how Poinsettias got their name. Last year I heard an old story on that very subject.

‘In a tiny village in Mexico, the tradition on Christmas Eve was to put gifts before the Crèche at the Church. A poor young boy, who had nothing to offer, went outside and knelt in the snow praying for a gift to give the newborn king. Where he knelt, a beautiful plant with vivid scarlet leaves appeared beside him and the boy joyfully presented his gift to the Christ Child. Thus, Mexicans call the plant Flor de la Noche Buena (Flower of the Holy Night), many believe the plant resembles the Star of Bethlehem.

Dr Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first minister to Mexico, brought the plant to the United States in the 1830’s, and it is for him that the plant is now named’.

On a delicious note to end my tips this year – I present my recipe for English trifle – a scrumptious dessert at Christmas.

ENGLISH TRIFLE

This dessert is made of layers, made over a three-day period; it requires this length of time for each layer to set. I use a nine-inch-tall glass bowl, as the appearance of this dessert is as mouth-watering as the taste.

Ingredients:
2 pints of strawberries or raspberries (you can use frozen strawberries or raspberries, and omit the sugar)
2 tablespoons of sugar on fresh fruit
1-package ladyfingers or sponge cake or pound cake
1-cup Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry (omit the sherry if you do not want the alcohol) instead use water to make the Jell-O
1 small package strawberry or raspberry-flavored Jell-O
1 small package of vanilla custard mix or Birds English custard (see note)
1 -pint whipped cream

Combine washed and drained fresh strawberries/raspberries and sugar in a bowl and set aside at room temperature for about an hour.

In a 9-inch glass bowl, cover the bottom of the bowl with ladyfingers or sponge cake or pound cake, cut into 2-inch slices. Drain the strawberries and reserve the juice. Cover the cake with the fruit.

Add sherry to the reserved fruit juice to make one cup. Prepare Jell-O using the fruit juice-sherry mixture as the cold-water part of the Jell-O mix, and hot water for the other part. Pour the Jell-O over the fruit and cake layer, then refrigerate until it sets (usually about two hours or overnight).

When the Jell-O is set, prepare the custard and spread over the cake/fruit/Jell-O layer. Refrigerate until custard is set.

The day you serve the trifle spread a thick layer of unsweetened whipped cream over the top.

If you are serving more people, repeat the cake, fruit, and Jell-O layers and top with the whipped cream.

The nine-inch bowl serves 6 to 8.

Note: I use Birds English Custard mix, which can be found in specialty food stores and most supermarkets.

Have a wonderful Holiday and I’ll see you in your garden in January. Be safe, well and enjoy!

A View From My Porch: Reflections on the Election

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Thomas D Gotowka

Tom Gotowka

At long last, I am devoting this “View” to a few thoughts and observations on Old Lyme’s November 7th municipal election, which included a recount; aka “recanvass,” for positions whose margins were less than 20 votes; — required in CT unless the losing candidate waives the recount. The recount, which was held on Monday, Nov. 13th, did not change any elected positions, though one was reduced to a margin of a single vote.

It is noteworthy that in a state where only 34 percent of eligible voters turned out on the 7th, there was remarkable interest amongst Old Lyme’s electorate; where 58.6 percent of eligibles voted.

In contrast, Lyme had 33.9%; East Lyme, 40.3 %; Waterford, 33.7%; Groton, 25.2%; and to the west, Old Saybrook had 40.3%; and Westbrook, 33.8%.

Participation in municipal elections is usually lower than for statewide or national elections, when turnout in Connecticut can exceed 75 percent.

The results of the election demonstrated the community’s support for the Democrats’ “Small Town-Bright Future” vision; and the new leadership team on the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen (BOS), with Democrats Martha Shoemaker as first selectwoman and Jim Lampos, selectman. The Democrats were also successful in contests for positions on important boards and commissions.

Republican Judith Danenhower Read, fills the third position on the BOS, receiving 1,715 votes vs. her running mate, John Mesham’s 1697. In Old Lyme, the losing candidate in the first selectman’s race automatically becomes a candidate for the board of selectmen.

Old Lyme’s Town Clerk, Vicki Urbowicz, swore in the newly elected on Sunday, Nov. 19th.

The earliest draft of this “View” included a lengthy assessment of the factors and events that I believe had an influence on the election. These included the Old Lyme Republican Town Committee’s list of priorities that was sent to all residents in the spring, which included a “pledge” to exercise greater “parental rights” over the shaping of school curricula and the holdings of school and public libraries; the ‘book-banning’ issue and subsequent “petition” against it; and the demand made in a public comment at a Region 18 Board of Education (BOE) meeting that BOE members, who had signed the “petition” mentioned above should resign because they were really supporting pornography and obscene books in our Library’s ‘Teens & Tweens’ section.

My editor, who sometimes uses her red pen in the same way that Darth Vader wielded his light saber, strongly suggested, — i.e., told me, that now was not the time to be looking backward but rather forward. Of course, I submitted to her decision, but after a little bobbing and weaving, and a reminder that “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it;” did negotiate an abridged version of my original effort.

All that said, there is an apparently orphaned project that deserves attention.

Last year, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts proposed an “Arts Overlay District” on Lyme Street, which would amend Old Lyme’s zoning regulations and create “a more flexible arts and social district.” Michael Duffy, Chairman of the Academy’s Board of Trustees, stated that they seek “a predictable set of guidelines so they can plan, knowing that their activities are “in conformance with the regulations.” Their site at 84 Lyme Street is zoned “residential”, although the Academy, with its extensive studios and classrooms, has operated on that site as an educational institution for decades.

The Town’s Planning Commission had already determined by unanimous vote in October 2022 that the proposed overlay district was consistent with the Town’s “Plan of Conservation and Development.” They referred the proposal to the Zoning Commission, and it was on that Commission’s November 14, 2022 agenda; continuing through December and into 2023. As I recall there was some concern raised by the Historic District Commission that the Academy might use the new zoning regulations to open a Starbucks. Unfortunately, and now a year later; Zoning has not taken any action on the Academy’s proposal, although Democratic Commission member, Mary Jo Nosal, has emphasized the importance of writing new regulations without delay.

Author’s Notes: I want to pass on the words of Winston Churchill, who frequently used the phrase, “We must go forward together,” in speeches to Parliament and the British people as advice for First Selectwoman Shoemaker and the BOS.

I also want to acknowledge Tim Griswold’s many years of service to Old Lyme; and as a fellow Navy veteran, wish him “fair winds and following seas,” the traditional United States Navy farewell tribute.