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THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2021 Page 11 THE SOUNDS OF SAUGUS | FROM PAGE 10 As a reporter working part-time for The Springfield Union out of the Northampton news bureau while a fulltime journalism student at UMass-Amherst, I did get a kick out of writing front-page stories one weekend on the murder of a female student at Smith College – probably just because of the novelty of getting a couple of front-page bylines in a large Massachusetts daily newspaper. But my next murder story, a couple of years later, wasn’t much fun. For starters, I got a call at about 4 a.m. from my managing editor, Al Edmonds, that there was a murder overnight in Williamstown, and I had to drive the 11 miles from Adams to Williamstown to cover it – including a court arraignment of the man charged in the murder that morning. Okay, who likes getting called into work at 4 a.m.? Nobody. But if you’re a reporter, it’s no big deal and goes with the territory. So, I get myself dressed and get ready to hop in my car – except I’m snowed in from the blizzard that hit overnight. My long dirt driveway would have to wait for later in the day to shovel out. I went back inside my trailer house to get my snow boots on, and I trudged through the snow to Route 8 and hailed a taxi to The North Adams Transcript newspaper office. Once there, I was able to connect with the photographer who was headed out to Williamstown that morning to take scene photos and later shoot photos of the suspect at his arraignment. As murder stories go, this one was memorable in that I was able to get to my destination in the middle of a snowstorm despite not having my car available. I still got the job done and filed a story that pleased my editors. North Adams was always a place of enchantment during the winter months when I was there. It was postcard picturesque in the snow – just beautiful scenery – but it was also treacherous and terrifying for those who didn’t respect the territory and its dangers, like the infamous hairpin turn that greeted motorists as they traveled down the steepest part of Route 2 and the Mohawk Trail into downtown North Adams. One wintry Monday, I remember locking my brother and his friend in my trailer house in Adams so they wouldn’t venture out early onto the slippery roads, particularly the hairpin turn. They were mad at me that I was prolonging their weekend visit when they wanted to get home to Southeastern Massachusetts. But I was actually looking out for them. Traveling on the hairpin turn can be a scary thing, even in the best of weather. In wintertime with a coating of ice on the road, it’s downright dangerous. Flashbacks of hazardous duty It was indeed sad and depressing watching the TV news film footage of the devastating tornadoes that leveled entire towns in Kentucky and Indiana over the weekend while killing dozens of people. It was too tragic and terrifying for the average New Englander who never experienced a tornado to relate to. For me, it revived my greatest fears of getting the cops and weather assignment during the tornado season when I was a reporter at The San Angelo Standard Times in West Texas back in the late 1970s. If you were unlucky enough to draw the cops and weather assignment, you hoped and prayed that you wouldn’t get to see any funnel-shaped clouds on your shift. Fortunately, I never did get to experience that during my days in West Texas. But the possibility of actually covering a tornado could strike fear in any reporter’s heart. Some of the grizzled newspaper veterans that I ran into during my time in Texas would often talk about the 1970 Lubbock, Texas, tornado that killed 26 people, injured more than 1,500 and caused more than $1.6 billion worth of damage. The closest I ever came to experiencing a tornado was during the few months I worked as a reporter at The Odessa American. A tornado had been spotted headed toward Odessa – in the western part of the state, 350 miles west of the Dallas/Fort Worth area and 350 east of El Paso. Olin Ashley, the paper’s editor, asked for my camera to get up on the roof of the newspaper’s air-conditioning unit and see if I could snap some photos of the funnel-shaped clouds if the tornado stayed on course. Luckily for me, it didn’t. It went off course and wound up leaving a path of knocked down telephone poles in an area of the county near the outskirts of the city. I did an interview that afternoon with a tornado spotter who worked for the city. He drove me around so I could take photos of the damage. He said the people of Odessa were fortunate that the tornado veered about a half mile off course. That was good news. COVID-19 halts Friday breakfasts Concerns about COVID-19 have led to a temporary shutdown of the Friday morning breakfasts at the Saugus American Legion Cpl Scott J. Procopio Post 210 Legion Hall located at 44 Taylor St. Last week we received the following email from Debra Dion Faust, Building Manager of American Legion Post 210: “Be aware that, due to a loss of one of our members to Covid (He caught it at a family wedding, not at the Legion itself.) we shut down the breakfast the Friday before Thanksgiving, intending to re-open tomorrow, December 3. “However, concerns about the new Omicron variant, the fact that the rather unseasonably warm weather actually works against us, and the fact that the success of the breakfast means that the numbers who come make it difficult to ‘socially distance,’ we took a poll of those breakfast-goers who have given us their email addresses to make notifications possible, and have made the decision to shut down the breakfast for the month of December. “We plan to re-open on Friday, January 7. (We hope by that time to have had a truly hard freeze to help short-circuit transmission fears.) Thanks for your support. Have a good holiday season and a Happy New Year.” We will keep you posted on any developments affecting the Friday breakfasts at Legion Hall. Compost/Recycling Drop-Off Site closing The Town of Saugus Compost/Recycling Drop-Off Site closed for the winter season on Dec. 11. However, the site will reopen from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the third Saturday of the month in January, February and March, weather permitting. Please contact Solid Waste/Recycling Coordinator Lorna Cerbone at 781-231-4036 with any questions. Please remember Saugus’s fallen heroes Honor those who serve and teach our children the value of freedom. On Dec. 18 at noon, the Parson Roby Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR, MA0136P), will be sponsoring their first “Wreaths Across America Project”: helping Riverside Cemetery to remember and honor our veterans by laying remembrance wreaths on the graves of our country’s fallen heroes. Please help us honor and remember as many fallen heroes as possible in several ways: sponsoring remembrance wreaths, volunteering on Wreaths Day or inviting your family and friends to attend with you. All are welcome! Please forward this article to friends that may be willing to also join us in honoring our servicemen and women. To learn more about the “Wreaths Across America Project,”’ go to http://www.wearthsacrossameria.org/MA0136P. Thank you for supporting our newly formed Parson Roby Chapter, NSDAR, Saugus, MA. For further information contact Regent Charlotte Line at linejj@comcast.net. Want to be a Knight? The Knights of Columbus is looking for new members to join. If interested in becoming a member of this local organization, please call 781-233-9858. Healthy Students-Healthy Saugus program (Editor’s Note: The following info is from an announcement submitted by Julie Cicolini, a member of the Board of Directors of Healthy Students-Healthy Saugus, providing information about the program.) Who we are: Healthy Students-Healthy Saugus (HS2) is a nonprofit group of volunteers who are helping to offset food insecurity in households. HS2 provides students/families that enroll in the program a supply of nutritious food for when school lunches and breakfasts are unavailable to them on weekends. How HS2 can help you: HS2 bags are distributed at school on Fridays to take home. Bags include such items as peanut butter, jelly, a loaf of bread, canned meals/ soups/tuna/vegetables, pasta/sauce, fruit cups, cereal, oatmeal, goldfish, pretzels and granola bars. To sign up, go here to complete an online form: https://forms.gle/gmMGguycSHBdziuE9. Want to partner with us: HS2 relies on donations to create take-home bags for a weekend full of meals. All food is provided to children free of charge. It is our hope these resources will support the health, behavior and achievement of every student who participates. We would love to partner with organizations, youth groups, PTOs, businesses and individuals to assist in feeding students of Saugus. To learn more about how you can partner with us, visit the Healthy Students-Healthy Saugus Facebook page or email us at HS2Saugus@gmail.com. Checks can also be sent directly to: Salem Five c/o Healthy Students-Healthy Saugus, 855-5 Broadway, Saugus, MA 01906. Online donations can also be made at https://givebutter.com/HealthySaugus. Let’s hear it! Got an idea, passing thought or gripe you would like to share with The Saugus Advocate? I’m always interested in your feedback. It’s been over five and a half years since I began work at The Saugus Advocate. I’m always interested in hearing readers’ suggestions for possible stories or good candidates for “The Advocate Asks” interview of the week. Feel free to email me at mvoge@comcast.net. Do you have some interesting views on an issue that you want to express to the community? Submit your idea. If I like it, we can meet for a 15- to 20-minute interview over a hot drink at a local coffee shop. And I’ll buy the coffee or tea. Or, if you prefer to continue practicing social distancing and be interviewed from the safety of your home on the phone or via email, I will provide that option to you as the nation recovers from the Coronavirus crisis. If it’s a nice day, my preferred site for a coffee and interview would be the picnic area of the Saugus Iron Works. Ex-Saugus postal worker gets probation for stealing mail containing gift cards and cash A former U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who worked in Saugus for nearly two decades has received a year of probation after admitting to stealing mail from town residents containing gift cards and cash. U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf also ordered Brian Thibodeau, 49, of Danvers, to pay a fine of $7,500 and restitution in the amount of $175. Back in August, Thibodeau pleaded guilty to one count of theft of mail by an employee of the U.S. Postal Service. Beginning in 2001, Thibodeau worked as a letter carrier in the Saugus Post Office. In 2020, Thibodeau stole customers’ gift cards sent in the mail and spent them for his personal use. Thibodeau admitted to stealing about $2,000 worth of gift cards from postal customers on his route last year. Thibodeau could have received a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater; and restitution. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell and the Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, Northeast Area Office, Matthew Modafferi, made the announcement last week. The Deputy Chief of Mendell’s Public Corruption & Special Prosecutions Unit, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia M. Carris, prosecuted the case.

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