The Gazette welcomes two new members to our editorial board – Laura McCabe and Delphine Plourde Newell. A newcomer to town, Laura will let us know next month how she found us in our series “Coming to Hampton”. And Delphine, who has lived here all her life, has already interviewed residents with the important question: what you would like us to publish in the Gazette? Among their responses – local services, and recipes! Please send us one of your favorites for our “Recipe of the Month”. And please help us provide residents with seasonal assistance by letting us know if you plow or shovel snow so we can include your contact information in an article in the next issue.

The Hampton Gazette

The Board of Selectmen at a January 23 Special Meeting voted to enter into a temporary contract with K&B Ambulance of Killingly to provide emergency services to Hampton residents. The contract will begin on February 1 and end on June 30, providing a “test period” for the Selectmen and our first responders to evaluate the service. Though the actual contract was not presented at the meeting, the terms were discussed and include a cost of $30 per call for the duration of the contract, with the ambulance housed in Killingly for the first 60 days, and in Pomfret for the remaining three months.

The subject of emergency services has caused anxiety ever since September of 2019, when Ben Brocket, Chief of the Hampton-Chaplin Ambulance Corps, informed the Selectmen of the two towns that the organization would cease operations in April 1, 2020, ending six decades of volunteer service. In a statement released in December, First Selectman Allan Cahill announced that he had been researching both municipal and private ambulance services, as well as the possibility of forming regional partnerships with area towns facing the same decline in volunteer services. “In the next months I see a collaborative of four to six towns sharing the benefits and costs of supporting a 24/7 professional Emergency Medical Service with one to two ambulance crews on call,” he reported.

But “state compliance issues”, which Cahill was reluctant to publicly discuss, forced a quicker decision. Immediately after the meeting adjourned, Cahill sent a communication to the Connecticut Department of Public Health Office of Emergency Medical Services stating “it is the intent of the Hampton-Chaplin Ambulance Corps to cease BLS emergency transport service for the town of Hampton in the State of Connecticut as of January 31, 2020 midnight. Hampton will willingly relinquish the PSAR to the state for reassignment. The New Contractor K&B Ambulance will be reassigned to them by the State.”

Fire Department Deputy Chief Rich Schenk, who was in attendance at the meeting and had discussed the decision with Cahill, said that our local EMTs and EMRs will still respond to the calls in town, with an equipped service truck, and a paramedic from Windham Hospital will still be automatically sent for certain calls. “Transport is the only change,” Cahill said.

Board of Finance Vice-Chairman Kathy Donahue, who was also in attendance, provided information on a plan Scotland is in the process of developing which could include Hampton. Cahill said that Scotland’s proposal would also be considered once it is received. A hearing will be held for public review before a permanent arrangement is made, he said.

Though there were only four other citizens in attendance at the January 23 meeting, approximately 80 people attended a town meeting on December 23 to discuss the future of emergency services. Some speakers shared personal health concerns and fears, and most of those who spoke agreed that response time, particularly in light of our significant elderly population, was more important to them than costs.

The town’s current system of financial checks and balances garnered solid support from residents when nearly two-thirds of those who participated in a January 6 referendum voted against rescinding the ordinance that established the Board of Finance. The 172 – 254 vote in favor of retaining the finance board was far greater than the vote in favor of initiating it in June of 2012, when the ordinance that established the board passed narrowly with a vote of 200-192.

In an interview immediately following the vote, First Selectman Al Cahill said he was “comfortable” with the town’s decision. “By providing the opportunity for citizens to make a choice, I have done my job,” he said. “That’s what Selectmen do. We create a menu and voters order a la carte. I hope the people enjoy their meal.”

The Selectmen scheduled the referendum due to concerns they raised after the finance board voted to hire an attorney to assist in crafting policies and procedures to protect the taxpayers’ dollars and their right to approve town purchases in excess of $20,000. The finance board was reacting to the Selectmen’s violation of State law and past practice when they purchased a bucket truck to remove hazardous branches and trees for $173,690 without the approval of the legislative body. Selectmen initially scheduled a town meeting for taxpayers to approve the purchase, but cancelled the meeting and purchased the truck on their own, using $82,000 from the account for trucks and equipment, $70,000 of the appropriations for road paving, and $21,690 from the First Selectman’s salary.

The controversy remained divisive at a December 23 Special Town Meeting prior to the referendum vote. Among the 80 residents in attendance, opinion was fairly split between those who advocated for their statutory right to vote on purchases exceeding the $20,000 threshold, and those who believed that the Selectmen’s decisions should not be challenged.

Resident Lynn Burdick said it was “shameful” for citizens to question the Selectmen, while others pressed them as to whether or not their action was legal. Cahill pointed to his powers in emergency circumstances under Homeland Security, specifying his right to appoint deputies and impose curfews. “I can keep you locked in your houses,” he used as an example.

Though Burdick commended Cahill for contributing a portion of his own salary toward the truck while plunking her own donation on the table and encouraging others to “put your money where your mouth is,” resident Juan Arriola criticized the First Selectman for spending a salary he had yet to earn. In response, Cahill listed his accomplishments, including duties he performed free of charge, and residents John Rodriguez and Stan Crawford vied for the responsibility of replacing the salary if, as Rodriguez put it, Cahill “drops dead.”

Though most arguments centered on the purchase of the truck, the issue of abolishing the Board of Finance also spurred debate. Selectman Grindle said the two boards enjoyed a good relationship for more than seven years, narrowing the period of friction. Since the finance board first convened on June 28, 2012, it appears as though recently seated members Kathy Donahue, Diane Gagnon, and Lisa Sanchez have posed insurmountable challenges to the Selectmen.

Along with the charge of “micromanaging”, Selectmen pointed to the finance board’s decision to reduce the mill rate from the artificially high amount the Selectmen proposed. Leslie Wertam noted that the finance board did not consider the Town Treasurer’s suggestion that a gradual increase would be easier on taxpayers than a probable spike in a subsequent year, and Aaron Tumel said that lowering the mill rate, and consequently taxes, was reason enough to vote against the Board of Finance.

Others disagreed. “It seems a shame to eliminate the mechanism,” Penny Newbury, one of the original finance board members, opined, and current member Kathy Donahue reasoned, “Having broader representation looking at things in town, instead of just three people, is a good thing.”

In the end, residents agreed with her.

Because the members of the Gazette Board in attendance at the town meeting publicly debated one or more of these issues, we have relied on the coverage reported in ‘The Willimantic Chronicle’ for this article.

An old friend once told me that when it comes to national politics, she feels like an ant in an ant hill. We follow the news, speak our opinions, protest sometimes, and we definitely vote, yet we have little overall influence on the national level. Town government, however, is another matter. There have been instances here where one vote really did make the difference. I’ve always felt that my voice was heard, and that my vote counted. Until recently.

Town leaders have disappointed many of us. Of the 254 residents who voted against the Selectmen’s proposal to abolish the Board of Finance, there were voters who were still debating the need for a brand new bucket truck as the only method for removing dangerous trees. There were those who were concerned that their right to vote on the purchase was pre-empted. There were many people who were opposed to the Selectmen’s attempt to abolish an oversight agency for providing oversight. There were those who supported a finance board from the start, and obviously many more who have been convinced of the need since.

My gravest concern was the Selectmen’s efforts to thwart citizen participation. The First Selectman offered – “I’m a pragmatic minimalist” – as the reason why it was necessary to rush the decision on abolishing the board of finance, but I don’t buy it. It was about disenfranchising voters. There’s ample evidence to support this opinion. We’ve always avoided votes during the holidays and inclement weather. The legal notice warning the Town Meeting and referendum were never published on any of the bulletin boards at Town Hall. The referendum was not posted on the Town website – not even on the day of the vote – though the First Selectman’s opinion on the question was accessible on the opening page, along with an enormous “cancellation notice”. The Minutes of the Special Town Meeting held to discuss the issue were never posted for people unable to attend, in violation of the Freedom of Information Act, and the “emergency” special meetings to schedule the town meeting and the referendum were posted precisely five minutes before the legal deadline – should we check at Town Hall every half hour from now on to see if we’re missing something? There was confusion over the fact that the referendum was on a Monday, rather than on the customary Tuesday, and the structure of the question itself was confusing for many voters. Confusion was furthered on the night before, and the day of, the referendum, with false narratives broadcasting “Celebrate Public Safety with a Yes Vote” on social media sites which removed clarification of what the question actually was. Access to absentee ballots was significantly reduced because of Town Hall holiday closings on half of the days they were open, and the absentee ballots themselves contained a whole lot of superfluous information, some of which was interpreted by recipients as an unambiguous attempt to influence the vote. Selectmen marginalized residents of certain religions in the scheduling of meetings and votes with the disturbing response that there weren’t enough of us to matter. The First Selectman called a petition a “threat” in reaction to requests that residents decide the fate of the Board of Finance at a referendum rather than a town meeting, which was the original plan. When it was noted that a referendum is necessary to provide elderly residents who don’t drive at night a voice, another selectman said he was disturbed when only a dozen citizens attend the town meeting and hundreds vote in the referendum, and wondered aloud – where do they get their information? We spend a lot of time with some of the elders in town. We interview them for their wealth of knowledge of town history, run errands for them, invite them to our holiday dinners, shovel their snow. Trust me – they’re informed. They actually discuss intelligently the issues facing the town, the state, and the nation. And they vote. Sixty percent of our voters are senior citizens, and they vote. They might not be able to drive, or even to walk any more, but they exercise their rights.

And then there was the scheduling of a referendum during the only month the Gazette isn’t published without an alternate plan for disseminating information pertinent to the vote. This decision forced us to publish an unprecedented Special Edition, at a considerable cost of time and money, in order to notice the referendum date, time and question, to summarize the history of the issue, to publish the positions of both the Boards of Finance and Selectmen on the topic, in short: the news. For this, the Selectmen are punishing us by not publishing a monthly column and by removing The Hampton Gazette and its link from the community listings on the Town website. Oh, well.

I left the last few meetings in town feeling more like a minority person than usual. My culture celebrates different holidays, has a different reverence for elders, and definitely holds a different view than those who suggested citizens should never challenge authority! But with the 426 ballots cast with the belief in a participatory government, and 254 favoring the system of checks and balances that holds leaders accountable, I left the referendum feeling not so alone.

Juan Arriola, Chairman

A rare rash of crime seems to have struck our peaceful little town in the Quiet Corner this month. State Police have verified that valuables, ranging from pocket change to tools, have been stolen from seven vehicles parked in private driveways on East Old Route 6 and Cedar Swamp Road. In possibly an unrelated activity, several catalytic converters have also recently been stolen. All thefts are under investigation.

Chaplin Resident State Trooper Manbeck reports that, “Sometime overnight on January 16 and 17, two males went through approximately a half dozen vehicles throughout Hampton. They took a purse from one of the vehicles containing credit cards and a check book. The two male suspects then attempted to use that credit card at the North Windham Walmart to purchase a PS4 gaming system. After the card was declined they left in a dark colored Chevy extended cab pickup.”

Police are advising everyone to lock their cars and to leave outside lights on if possible. They will be patrolling Hampton at various hours, and urge anyone with information to contact them, or to report suspicious activity.

Earlier in January, a resident was arrested in connection with vandalism at the transfer station after he drove through a gate and left behind a piece of his vehicle identifying the make and model. The suspect, who had several outstanding warrants, was apprehended by a K-9 Officer after fleeing his residence where a vehicle, with damage that matched the evidence left at the transfer station, was parked. Weapons, including one that was stolen, were discovered in the vehicle. The man was charged with illegal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of firearms, sixth-degree larceny, possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to sell, resisting and interfering with an officer, and three motor vehicle violations.

In another disturbing incident, a pack of coyotes, killed and skinned for their pelts, was left on the side of Eleventh Section Road and discovered by two residents who were enjoying an otherwise peaceful walk. An unpleasant, to say the least, experience, but one that would have been particularly horrific if small children had stumbled across this scene.

In all instances, let’s hope vigilance prevails.

Juan Arriola

In our series on farms and their histories, we’ve featured barns that housed cows, carriages, horses, sheep, apples, even refugees. But the barn at 237 Main Street is remembered by many for its … parties!!!

The village of the 1950’s is legendary, as the “summer homes” that once lined Main Street started to fill with families. Approximately sixty children at all times lived within what is remembered as “the Magic Mile”, and was colloquially called “the block” and described as “one big playground”. Those who participated in the series “Random Recollections” and shared their memories of growing up in Hampton during that era recall riding horses and bicycles, neighborhood football games and snow ball fights, spending time at one another’s houses where parents treated every child like their own, and eventually, as they grew older, where there were parties — casual affairs, as Jo Freeman recalled her father’s characterization, “they open a bag of chips and some pop and call it a party!” — and dances, at the Little River Grange, the firehouse, and in the barn at Patty and Peggy Jones’ place.

“Our mother was president of the Catholic Club,” Patty Jones explains. “One year she volunteered our barn for a fund-raising dance. We cleaned the main floor of the barn, removing the two cars and the tractor, and the loft so the band could set up their equipment and preform above the dance floor. We also relocated the bull calf we were raising in a pen under the barn and brought him next door to Mrs. Webster’s barn for the night.”

The dance was an enormous success. “There must have been a hundred people – of all ages! And the country western band they hired had everyone in attendance dancing the night away,” Patty reminisces. “The lead singer was Florette, the daughter of Flo and Zack. She fulfilled every young girl’s dream of being a lead singer in a country band – dressed in a turquoise western outfit with white fringe, western boots and hat.”

‘Flo and Zacks’ was a store and restaurant located where the log cabin on Providence Turnpike now houses Judy Kaufman’s ‘Fallen Log Homestead Bakery’. “Flo was a fabulous cook,” Patty recalls. “On Sunday mornings, we went there for newspapers and donuts.”

Louie Chatey’s recollections of Florette were also fond. He remembered riding his bike by the dances in the Jones’ barn, when he was still too young for an invitation, and falling in love for the first time in his life with Florette. A musician, Louie wondered retrospectively if “I learned to play guitar so I could hang out with her.”

Scott Johnson also spoke of those parties during his interview for Random Recollections. “Mrs. Jones had dances with soft drinks in the barn that still had a 1937 tractor in it!” he recalled.

“It was the perfect place for a party,” Patty said. After that initial success, there were many dances in the barn, but it was also used for animals.

Along with families, the village housed a lot of horses. Interviews for Random Recollections revealed that most families owned at least one horse, and at one time there were thirty of them on Main Street. “Children rode horses with names like Jingo and Cheyenne to the General Store,” Scott recollected, “which looked like a scene from the wild west with horses tied in front.”

The Jones’ barn was home to two mares, Lady Bess and Blanca, and Jingo, the colt. “We didn’t have to tie him,” Patty said. Their neighbor, Mary Lou Trowbridge, brought Jingo all the way to Colorado with her, where he lived for 30 years.

“We raised two bull calves under the barn,” Peggy recalls. “There was a cellar and we built a pen there. It was a 4-H project. We raised them for meat”.

As with any barn, there were other, unwanted, critters. Patty remembers once when her mother was parking the car back in the barn, she stepped out of the vehicle while her mother was still in the driver’s seat and screamed because a snake slithered under the car near her feet. “My mother screamed to get back in the car. I jumped in the back seat window, half in and half out, while my mother rolled the car back and forth to kill the snake. With me screaming, my mother shouting, the car rolling back and forth in the barn, Mrs. Webster came running over, shouting for my father to come quick. She thought I was being run over in the barn! The snake, by the time everyone came running in, was long gone – terrified to be sure!”

The house was built by Jonathan Clark, who was responsible for building many fine homes in Hampton, between 1801 and 1803. It was originally called the “Captain John Tweedy House”.  The barn was built at the same time, or shortly afterwards. It’s an English barn, as the entrance is on the eave side and usually had a drive-through back door. English barns were built through the 1850’s, but rarely after 1830 when the New England barn, with the entrance on the gable side, gained favor. Captain Tweedy owned the parcel of land where the Hansen’s home is now which was called “Tweedy’s Mowing”, evidencing the need to store, and use, hay.

Though the original barn remains, there were more structures than there are now. “There was another barn in back and to the side,” Patty describes the barn, then a stall, then a porch, then another stall, and then another barn. The buildings were in a row and the porch was open to the back corral.

“An open attached shed was made into two horse stalls with a porch to the rear of the stalls which led to a corral and open fields,” Peggy explains. “The horses were allowed to graze in Mrs. Webster’s field. There was a hay loft upstairs with an attached smaller barn for hay. The tack room smelled of grain and had two saddles set up on stands so you could pretend to ride. The blacksmith would come and tie up the horses ropes on both sides to do the shoeing,” she recalls. She also remembers the items left from past owners: an egg basket and pile of old slate for roof repair. “There was a gas pump and an underground gas tank right before you entered the barn. Cedar trees were planted in front and the arched trellis led to the underbelly of barn. A three-seater outhouse was attached, and there were two well houses, though one became contaminated as it was near the manure. In the back yard there was a clay tennis court with a three-walled shingled open pavilion.”

“We loved playing in the barn when we were young as there were rooms set up by the previous owner to house the chauffeur,” Patty remembers. “A bell in the main house rang in the barn when Mr. Street wanted to contact his driver! There was a pot-bellied stove for warmth and sink with a hand pump for water.”

Current owner Peter Witkowski reports that the only things, besides the barn, remaining when he purchased the property in 2007 were the outhouse and one well house. “The very level upper lawn must be where the tennis court existed. I’ve worked around the barn’s entrance and there are no remains of a gas pump or underground tank,” he says, adding “ Inside the barn there is a bell in the lower level northwest room, but the potbelly stove is gone, just the chimney remains.”

Also remaining are the names “Peggy, Patty, and Robbie”, and their surname, painted on the wall. Their time in a barn that provided them with unlimited childhood play, a home for their horses, a dance hall for their friends, remains on one of its timbers, and, clearly, in their memories.

Sometimes it seems as though it’s simply a nostalgic illusion – so empty are our streets of the bicycles that once occupied them, our fields of baseball games, our snowy slopes of sleds. If so, it’s a collective figment of the imagination. We all remember rushing outside in the morning, coming in only when called for lunch, dinner, and bedtime. Technology has taken a chunk out of that way of life, and caution. Parents are less apt to let their children wander in the woods on their own or toboggan down Hammond Hill. Though their wariness is warranted, the decreasing time children spend outside raises other concerns.

In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv, whose research informed the No Child Left Inside Act, coined the phrase “nature deprivation” to describe “the human costs of alienation from nature”. These include physical effects, like increased obesity and vitamin D deficiencies, academic consequences such as attention difficulties and diminished use of the senses and the imagination, and emotional repercussions seen in the rising rate of myopia, depression, and fear. Many young people understand more about global warming and its negative effects on the planet, Louv writes, than of their own back yards. Author David Sobel was one of the first to recognize a phenomenon he describes as “ecophobia: a debilitating fear for the future of the planet… Children learn about rainforests,” he writes, “but usually not about…the meadow outside the classroom door.” Emphasizing “gloom and doom” too early in life, he claims, “ends up distancing children from, rather than connecting them with, the natural world.” As naturalist Robert Michael Pyle writes, “What is the extinction of a condor to a child who has never seen a wren?”

Parents and grandparents can do a lot to curtail this malady of childhood if we simply model the fondness for nature with which we were raised. Granted, adult supervision during outdoor adventures does not further the independence honed while building a raft to embark on the Little River. We can, however, inspire a respect for the environment, foster curiosity, and a consequent thirst for learning. The good news is: children are drawn to the out-of-doors. We witness this whenever snow flies or leaves pile. It’s up to us to kindle a spark that’s already there.

Spring is the quintessential season to appreciate nature simply by observing it, strengthening the ability to focus and the five senses. Our favorite ritual is searching for signs of spring – sturdy stubs of daffodils pushing through the earth, ruffles of leaves beneath fall’s debris, buds on branches — and the nightly ritual of listening for the peep frogs’ chorus. Take a “listening walk” to appreciate the music of returning song birds and the rush of water as the earth thaws and the streams swell. Collect water samples from a vernal pool to examine under a microscope. Learn of constellations and their mythology and locate them with a telescope on clear nights.

Provide opportunities for inspection and deductive reasoning. Freshly fallen snow allows children to play detective while discovering wildlife tracks and using the clues they left to identify them. Take a “wildflower hike” in the summer; examine different flowers to determine their methods of attracting pollinators and dissect them to locate their reproductive parts. In the fall, collect and classify leaves; maples and oaks are particularly useful for this with the recognizable characteristics of their several varieties. Encourage collections — of pinecones, rocks, seashells, seeds. Categorizing is a crucial skill, and children learn the vocabulary of attributes while inspecting objects for color, size, shape, transparency, luster, flexibility, weight.

Problem solving skills are developed whenever children build things, and though a tree house might be too ambitious, bird houses aren’t difficult. Bird feeders are also simple, and few tasks are as satisfying to children as permission to make a suet and sunflower seed mess and to reap the rewards of their efforts watching birds appreciate them. In spring, make pinwheels for a windy day and boats with paper sails and sponges to float on puddles after the rain. Construct a fairy house from a hollowed log to attract the wee folk and furnish it with natural materials.

Nature inspires creativity. The botanical illustrations our daughter drew daily as a child necessitated the painstaking attention to detail that influences her art today. Frame worthy masterpieces include: paintings with brushes constructed of sticks and pine needles; collages using twigs, leaves and petals to replicate trees; prints of an assortment of ferns. In autumn, collect colorful leaves for ironing within wax paper to decorate windows. In summer, collect seashells to construct wind chimes, feathers to make dream catchers. In winter, gather princess pine and moss for a winter garden, pinecones to create a wreath, winter berries to freeze in an ice ring.

Incorporate reading into your adventures — there’s a picture book for every conceivable activity. For older children there are survival stories like The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and those that celebrate nature such as The Secret Garden. How fortunate, as well, that we live near Goodwin Forest where we can read Frost’s “two roads diverged in the yellow wood” as we walk them, or stop by “on a snowy evening”. Read Teale’s daily passage from his Walk through the Year whenever you visit Trail Wood, and encourage children to keep their own nature journal. Hike with a pencil and paper; you never know what will motivate you to stop and pen something.

In one study, high school students who wrote essays on nature prior to a period of exposure recorded only fear; afterwards, only awe. The ordinary is a source of so much wonder. Take a “green walk” in winter to discover the surprising variety of plants that remain verdant. In summer, toss a ring on the lawn and collect the surprising assortment of “grass” within it. Plant seeds in the spring, especially vegetables which are so rewarding when they develop into edible food. Find a chrysalis in the fall – a child will never forget the experience of watching a butterfly emerge from it.

What’s most important is to provide plenty of time for out-door play. Research shows that while the over-regulation of children’s lives significantly reduces self-regulation, the unstructured, imaginative play that nature facilitates strengthens this executive function. And we have all the ingredients: dirt, puddles, sand, snow, rocks, forest, field. Notwithstanding unnatural forces, children naturally gravitate to the “nearby nature” that is everywhere, and their curiosity, and reverence, is innate.

As for the criticism concerning the entitlement of youth, “there is something about nature, that when you are in it, it makes you realize that there are far larger things at work than yourself.”

– Last Child in the Woods

There were two things that drew us to a Western Canadian vacation. I had friends that I had not seen in many years in Calgary and Vancouver, and we wanted to take in the spectacular scenery of the Canadian Rockies. A brochure from my alma mater, Syracuse University, landed in our mail box with all the right places and time of year– we were sold! It was during August and we knew temps would be moderate and cool. We signed up for the guided tour that would take us from Calgary to Lake Louise, Banff and on to Jasper with final destination Vancouver.

The highlight of the trip was boarding the Rocky Mountaineer train in Banff. We were treated to an amazing experience of untamed wilderness of vast forests, snow covered peaks and rugged terrain. We hoped to see a lot of wildlife, more on that later. We opted for the Gold service—you only live once! — and we were not sorry. White tablecloth dining with three meals a day with snacks, unlimited drinks, and the camaraderie of fellow passengers awaited us in a domed car with unbelievable views. The food was amazing, especially the salmon. The service was impeccable and our rail car had its own chef.

From Banff we went on to Vancouver with an overnight stay in Kamloops and resumed the trip the next day. The train route cut through mountainsides, rolled along high cliffs and charged across verdant valleys on routes carved in the late 19^th century. Now onto those wildlife sightings: over the course of 14 days we saw Dahl Sheep, Bighorn sheep, Mule deer, Black bears, many Bald Eagles, and numerous Elk. We hoped for a Sasquatch sighting but, alas, that evaded us.

Good food, good company, fabulous accommodations, spectacular scenery and the Rocky Mountaineer made this a unique and memorable adventure.

Andrea Kaye & Bruce Spaman

It was a poignant moment at the polls when a voter, a neighbor of his, walked in and announced – I’m lost without Mike Chapel — to which we could only reply – many of us are. It’s been a year now, and not a week has passed without someone mentioning the loss. It seems it’s another thing we have in common – the missing. Yet with it comes the message of the legacy clearly left us – to look after one another – in sweeping ways as public servants of the town, in altruistic community volunteerism, and in kindnesses – neighbor to neighbor.

Happy Holidays Hampton

The Hampton Gazette

The Gazette begins every New Year by recognizing a resident who personifies the spirit of volunteerism, through involvement with local organizations, service to the town on its several boards, committees or commissions, or simply through kindnesses over the course of the year, or a lifetime. The February issue, the first of 2020, will feature our “Citizen of the Year”, selected from the recommendations we receive from residents. Please contact any member of the Gazette with your nominations, email hamptongazette@yahoo.com, or mail to: The Hampton Gazette; P. O. Box 101; Hampton, CT; 06247. We look forward to hearing from you, and of our good neighbors.