Category Archives: News

Lyme-Old Lyme Schools Enjoy ‘Excellent’ First Day

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Third grader Max Garvin (left) and his friend stride enthusiastically towards their next class in Mile Creek School. Photo by Michelle Tackett.

LYME/OLD LYME — Students were back in school yesterday at Lyme-Old Lyme Schools and at the end of the day, Superintendent Ian Neviaser told LymeLine, “We had an excellent first day of school with lots of excitement and enjoyment as students were welcomed back into classrooms.”

These masked students were hard at work on Opening Day.

He added, “It was a good start to what we expect will be a great year.”

This student clearly, ” … liked his first day of Kindergarten!”

Masks are still mandated by the Governor’s executive orders, but in almost all other respects, and quoting from a recent email sent by the superintendent to the school community, the school experience will be, “… far closer to a normal school year than last year as we return to our cafeterias for lunch, our buses for transportation, and participate fully in after school activities and athletics.”

Friends reunited on the first day of school. Photo by Michelle Tackett.

Neviaser emphasized though, “All students, staff, and visitors, no matter their vaccination status, will be required to wear masks inside school buildings and on school buses. Masks are not required outdoors.”

He noted, however, “If there is no change to the aforementioned executive orders, on Sept. 30, 2021, we will revisit our indoor mask requirement and make any adjustments based on public health measures at that time.”

Masks have become quite a fashion item for students!

Adding, “Some of our more effective mitigation strategies will remain in place including, but not limited to, encouraging students and staff to remain home when they are sick, physical distancing where feasible, quarantining of confirmed cases, mask breaks, and increased ventilation,”

Neviaser also noted, “This school year remote learning will no longer be an option for students.”  

Regarding quarantine, Neviaser said, “Fully vaccinated students and staff who remain asymptomatic are no longer required to quarantine.  For those who are not vaccinated, or are unable to receive a vaccine, we will continue to follow contact tracing protocols and quarantine guidelines from the Connecticut State Department of Education.”

Please can we go and play outside? Photo by Michelle Tackett.

On the topic of sports, Neviaser reported that, “The CIAC plans to offer all sports with the possibility of required masking in both indoor sports and those that are considered “high-intensity” (enhanced respiration) activities (e.g., football, ice hockey, etc.), adding, “We expect to get more clarity on these possible requirements in the near future.”

The Superintendent stressed that flexibility continues to be the key to success, commenting that Lyme-Old Lyme Schools, “will continue, as we have for the last 18 months, to adapt to new information and adjust accordingly.”

On Opening Day, exploring everything is the name of the game in this class.

He concluded his email on a positive note saying to the school community, “We appreciate your support in working toward the goal of providing our students the best in-person learning opportunity possible.”

Editor’s Note: Visit this link to read another story about opening day at Lyme-Old Lyme Schools. Written by Elizabeth Regan, Lyme-Old Lyme has fresh air focus for new school year was published Aug. 26 on TheDay.com.

 

Organization Confronting Racial Injustice with Public Art Announces Partnership to Install Murals in Four Towns, Including Old Lyme

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NEW LONDON, CT —Public Art for Racial Justice Education (PARJE) and CT Murals have today announced a partnership to enable the installation of four murals in each of four towns:- New London, Old Lyme, Norwich, and East Lyme.

This will be part of the Sister Murals Project whereby skilled and unskilled artists from different communities, races, ethnicities, and generations will work together under master Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) artists. The murals they create will bring lesser told stories to life while remembering cherished values in their respective communities.

Since its official launch in March of this year, PARJE has gained support from all around southeastern Connecticut. This includes colleges and museums, municipalities, art galleries, civic organizations, churches, and various businesses throughout the region.

Public Art for Racial Justice Education is a broad-based, interracial, non-partisan, non-sectarian group consisting of volunteers from various communities around the shoreline region. These communities include Old Lyme, Lyme, Old Saybrook, East Lyme, Essex, Deep River, Norwich and New  London. Building partnerships with surrounding communities is an additional focus of the group’s stated mission.

CT Murals has been dedicated to creating inclusive public art since 2015. The group utilizes grants as well as community support and donations to create all of its public art. Currently, CT Murals is working to install its 39 MLK Murals across the state, one for every year of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.

The Sister Murals will be the second official public art project of PARJE. Their first public art project is a diptych that travels between schools, museums, libraries, and faith communities to teach about the history of the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

The diptych, a two-panel painting, was created by artists Nancy Gladwell and Jasmine Oyola. The first host of the diptych was Norwich Free Academy in early July. Since then, it has been to Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Waterford, New London and Hartford.

Public Art for Racial Justice Education has also been working with one of its earliest partners, Sustainable CT, on a series of videos to document their conversations with everyone from students to elected officials regarding the role public art can play in society.

In addition to these videos PARJE has partnered with the Florence Griswold Museum of Old Lyme and the Lyman Allyn Museum of New London to produce lectures discussing race, society, and art. Jason Deeble, project manager for the East Lyme Sister Mural, hopes to keep the spirit of those lectures going and sees public art as the best chance to do it.

When discussing the Sister Murals Project, Deeble commented “Art and learning, and civic responsibility, are all kinds of major fixtures in my life and a mural project like this makes a beautiful little Venn diagram with me right in the center.”

Public Art for Racial Justice Education, along with their financial sponsor, The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut, will work with CT Murals to involve the community in a variety of ways.

Public Art for Racial Justice Education believes there is an opportunity to involve the community in all aspects of mural installation. Whether it be discussing the mural themes in person or on a virtual call, or students assisting the artist with installation, there are several ways to involve the community.

More important than the installation of the murals themselves, however, are the plans PARJE has made for the time after these four pieces have been completed. The group is planning to host both presentations and performances at the site of the Sister Murals.

Fulton Park, the site of the New London Sister Mural wall, is configured in such a way that the area directly in front of the wall creates a natural stage. PARJE is committed to using the broad appeal of art and education to facilitate easy opportunities for conversation in the community about the difficult subject of racial injustice.

With three full basketball courts and a skate park, Eddie Long, PARJE Co-chair and member of the New London Arts Council, believes Fulton Park could easily accommodate a large crowd or audience. In discussing the need for neglected spaces to be utilized, Long stated, “We don’t like blank spaces in New London. We like spaces to be filled with people, with art, and ideas.”

CT Murals will have a chance to help install an indoor piece as well with Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School agreeing to become the future home of the Old Lyme Sister Mural. Located beside the school’s auditorium there is potential for educational programs or events that tie into the mural’s theme of “Welcoming All.”

There will be a Call for Artists coming from PARJE in the beginning of September.

For the Sister Murals Project, an official fundraising campaign has begun this month with a page on the crowdfunding site, Patronicity. If you would like to learn more about PARJE, or donate to one of the four Sister Murals, visit racialjusticeart.org

To become involved with PARJE, email racialjusticeart@gmail.com

Follow Public Art for Racial Justice Education on social media at these links:

Editor’s Note: This article is based on a press release from PARJE.

Letter to the Editor: Thank You To All The Storm Volunteers

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To the Editor:

An Open Letter to Everyone Who Volunteered to Help in the Aftermath of Hurricane Henri

Thank you, and many of your family members, for your rapid and generous offers to volunteer as needed to support our beautiful town due to Storm Henri.

I am so pleased that we did not have to activate volunteer support in Old Lyme, but I am again acutely aware of why Old Lyme is the best small town in CT, because of our people.

The volunteer effort is what allows Emergency Operations to focus on keeping us all safe.  Mission accomplished.
Sincerely,
Mary Jo Nosal,
Old Lyme.

Editor’s Note: The author is the Old Lyme Selectwoman.

A la Carte: Too Many Tomatoes? Lee Has All Sorts of Solutions for You

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Lee White

A couple of weeks ago I went to a small party at Washington Park in Groton. It was held outside in one of a half dozen “cabins,” each of which have concrete floors, a few dark-stained columns, good sturdy roofs and wooden picnic tables with attached  “chairs.”

It was a very casual party, with pizza, already-barbecued chicken wings and coolers of beer, wine, soft drinks and water. Good thing for all of those things, because the humidity was high and the temperature, at 4 p.m. on a Saturday, was spiking in the 90s. 

I had a lovely conversation with Joyce Hedrick, wife of the mayor of Groton City. Even though Groton has fewer than 45,000  inhabitants, unlike Gaul (which, as we learned in Latin II, is in three parts), Groton has five parts: City of Groton, Town of Groton, Noank, Groton Long Point and half of Mystic.

Anyway, Joyce and Keith have a vegetable garden. Keith just canned pouches of green beans that week, but Joyce was going to begin making marinara sauce.

She wondered if it could be frozen, avoiding the steamy job of canning. I said I roast, then freeze tomatoes in late summer, which I thaw for stews, braises and sauces.

As for worry about botulism, tomatoes are so acidic that they can be frozen raw or cooked, whether sliced, chopped or pureed. Of course, the tomatoes can be made into a marinara (chopped and cooked with garlic, onions and seasoning), although I would wait to add fresh basil before serving. 

I often buy half a bushel of Roma tomatoes. In a couple of large sheet pans covered with parchment paper, I cut the tomatoes end to end and place them cut side up on the pans, sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle them  with extra-virgin olive oil. If you roast them in a 250 degree oven for two or three hours, then you can pack them in plastic bags and freeze them.

But I found this recipe that might be even better. I might double or triple the recipe and freeze it.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Photo by Kiriakos Verros on Unsplash.

From The Four Season of Pasta, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins and Sara Jenkins (Penguin, New York, 2015)

Yield: 2 to 3 cups sauce, enough for 4 to 6 servings

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium red onions, sliced not too thin
2 garlic cloves, crushed and coarsely chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Greek or Sicilian oregano (optional)
About 2 pounds ripe-as-you-can-get tomatoes

Set oven at 400 degrees.

Spread 2 tablespoons oil over bottom of roasting dish into which tomatoes will fit.

Combine onion and garlic on the dish. Add salt and pepper to taste and oregano if using. Stir vigorously to mix everything together; spread ingredients out to make a layer across the bottom of the dish.

Cut tomatoes in half. Core the stem ends. Sat halves cut side down, on top of the onion garlic layer. Dribble remaining 6 tablespoons oil over the tops (you may not need all the oil).

Bake 45 minutes to an hour. At the end of that time, remove pan and let tomatoes cool down. Pull off the skins and discard. Combine all roasted ingredients and, if you wish, chop or puree with an immersion blender. Or leave as is—the rustic look can also be lovely.

About the author: Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant. She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and the Shore Publishing and the Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day. She was a resident of Old Lyme for many years but now lives in Groton, Conn. Contact Lee at leeawhite@aol.com.

Death Announced of Marilyn (Gibson) Stitham of South Lyme, Her Ancestors Among Original Founders of Point O’Woods

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OLD LYME — Marilyn (Gibson) Stitham of South Lyme, Conn., departed this world to the Great Grange in the sky on Aug. 20, 2021, after a courageous battle with her illness …

She moved to her ancestral home at Point O’Woods Beach, South Lyme in 2006. Her ancestors were among the original founders of the Point O’Woods community in 1919 that now includes seven generations.

She was a member of the POW Women’s Club, and volunteered on many POW activities. An avid reader of over 100 books a year, that she shared with friends and neighbors, she was the motivation to establish the Point O’Woods Library by her family 18 years ago.

She was a member of Lyme Grange 146 where she was serving as a trustee and is the former secretary of the Lyme Grange. She was also very active with The Hamburg Fair that is sponsored by the Grange.

In Old Lyme, she was a member of the former Old Lyme Grange 162 where she served as Secretary and volunteered for many charitable programs. She was also a member of The Old Lyme Historical Society …

Visit this link to read the full obituary published Aug. 20 in The New Britain Herald.