The HEADLESS HORSEMAN, of course!
The statue was placed on Shirley’s common in 1891. (John Love/Nashobna Publishing)
"Shirley residents up in arms after vandals steal statue’s head" by Stefanie Geisler, Globe Correspondent | March 27, 2010
Vandals have chopped off the head of a granite statue of a Union soldier that has stood guard in Shirley’s town common for more than a century, officials said.
Have they checked "Al-CIA-Duh's" movements lately?
Community members have not taken the theft lightly, said Don Reed, chairman of the Shirley Historical Commission.
“My observation is that the town is quite upset,’’ Reed said. Residents “would like to make this good again.’’
Police received a report of property damage on March 12.
When officers responded, the head was missing, and there were no clues left behind.
No horseshoe tracks?
Shirley police are conducting the investigation.
Kyle Keady, the town administrator, said the community has a right to be angry over what he called a thoughtless act.
“It’s something that there’s no rhyme or reason for,’’ he said. “It’s a senseless act that ruined a monument that’s over 100 years old.’’
The statue, which serves as a backdrop for one of the town’s Memorial Day services, was placed on the common in 1891.
The names of area soldiers who fought in the Civil War are inscribed on its base.
So what would inspire someone to steal the statue’s head?
“It’s hard to speculate, but my bet is that it’s kid mischief,’’ Reed said. “My hunch is that it’s probably under somebody’s bed.’’
“We just hope the head is returned safely, so we can repair the statue as best as we possibly can,’’ Keady said.--more--"
Prayers answered.
Kids must have had a late-night visitor on horseback, 'eh?
"Missing head of Civil War statue in Shirley returned" by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | March 29, 2010
Vandals who beheaded a statue of a Union soldier in Shirley apparently have had a change of heart.
Over the weekend the perpetrators left the granite head on a stone cemetery wall near the town common, where the memorial statue has stood for nearly 120 years.
The head went missing two weeks ago, enraging the community. But authorities said they were more interested in recovering the severed head than prosecuting the offenders, and called upon those responsible to make amends. To the relief of town officials, their appeal was answered.
“We must have convinced them it was the right thing to do,’’ said Gregory Massak, police chief in Shirley, a small town northwest of Boston. “Just to have it back is the most important thing. Now we can make it whole again.’’
That is all he ever wanted.
A resident driving by the cemetery Saturday night spotted the 15-pound granite head and called police, who quickly retrieved it. The head was undamaged, other than a chip left by a line drive during a ball game on the common in the 1950s.
“We’re glad they had a conscience,’’ Massak said. “Hopefully, they learned a lesson.’’
******************
The perpetrators could have faced charges of wanton destruction of property, a felony. Massak said they were probably teenagers playing a misguided prank....
Yesterday, as news spread of the return of the head, some saw a silver lining in the theft. As it turned out, a piece of granite the town had always taken for granted became a treasure.
“Nobody paid it any mind, until it lost its head,’’ quipped Don Reed, chairman of the Shirley Historical Commission. “Now we cherish that thing. We’ve got to have someone knock something else over.’’
--more--"The real Sleepy Hollow of Massachusetts:
"NO-HORSE RACES; In bucolic Berkshires hamlet, it seems all are too busy to run" by Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | March 23, 2010
HAWLEY — This tiny community’s single ballot box, an old oaken contraption kept in a former one-room schoolhouse, will next perform its civic duty when Hawley votes for eight officials ranging from selectman to tree warden.
But there’s one glaring problem: No one from this Berkshires hill town is running in the May 3 election.
Actually, there are TWO GLARING PROBLEMS, Globe!
See: Hawley is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts
I OUGHT TO KNOW! I LIVE HERE!!
Also see: The Boston Globe is Way Out in the Woods
Well, your front-page feature didn't win you any votes, either.
They DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING OUTSIDE BOSTON, readers!!!
Related: The Berkshires Are Not Part of Western Massachusetts
Yeah, the locals are not much better sometimes.
The ballot, literally, is a blank slate in the state’s fifth-smallest community, a hamlet of 336 residents with no post office, no gas station, no convenience store, and a single stop sign that some people good-naturedly call an infringement on their liberties....
And what would a newspaper have to talk about if there were no politics, 'eh?
Sort of the old "what if they gave a war and nobody came" question.
Let's hope the dams hold.
This is no antigovernment protest, no Tea Party-like tempest, no grand political narrative. Try to find anyone who is worried here, and the result is a shrug, a smile, and an easy confidence that life will go on just fine amid Hawley’s dancing rivers, sap buckets, and snow-dappled pastures....
To residents of Hawley, settled in 1760 and later named for a Revolutionary War hero, the end of the republic is not approaching simply because the town’s ballot is empty....
Charlie Stetson, a retired postal worker and school bus entrepreneur, embodies the peculiarities of running bucolic little Hawley.
Green Acres is the place for me!
Just substitute Boston for New York.
Many people here wear two, three, or even four hats and know nearly everyone in town.
Oh, like the founding fathers envisioned?
After accepting one or more appointments to municipal committees, many residents apparently do not have the time or energy to run for elective office....
And then the Globe has nothing to report.
Write-in winners who agree to serve will be sworn in immediately. But if vacancies remain, there are always newspaper notices, the townwide e-mail list, and a friendly phone call to apply some neighborly pressure....
Only one person in Hawley, Auditor Kirby Thwing, took out nomination papers. But the logistics of canvassing this hilly, 31-square-mile town, whose east and west sides are separated by a formidable state forest, proved daunting even for this incumbent.
“It’s not so much that I’m choosing not to run. I didn’t get around to getting the signatures on paperwork,’’ Thwing said. “It’s a very small community that’s spread out over the terrain, so it’s not very easy to get the paperwork.’’
Often, Thwing said, a candidate will ask a retiree or someone who is making the rounds of the town anyway, to bring nomination papers along and rustle up 25 signatures.
“This year,’’ Thwing lamented, “everybody’s busy, so nobody did it.’’
Virginia Gabert, the town’s part-time administrative assistant, echoed Thwing’s reasoning that prospective candidates simply had too much to do in a town where nothing much seems to happen. Commuting to Pittsfield or Greenfield, for example, takes time.
It's closer and in the correct county, Glob.
“I think a few people were interested, but they had too much going on, and the date just kind of snuck up on them,’’ said Gabert, who sat with her dog, Jake, in the converted schoolhouse that serves as town hall.
Joyce Charland, the registrar, chimed in that the cost of driving around Hawley to obtain signatures was “cost prohibitive.’’
Up the road, outside a house amid beautiful hills, Planning Board member Trina Sears Sternstein gave her neighbors a pass. Hawley is a caring town, Sternstein said, and apathy is not the reason for the nameless ballot.
“It takes some time, and I can sympathize,’’ Sternstein, 67, said of the obligations of municipal service.
Still, she added, anyone who shirks an opportunity to serve should not complain when town policies do not suit them.
“If you refuse to have anything to do with making decisions,’’ Sternstein said, “then you don’t really have anyone else to blame if things don’t go the way you like.’’
What if you DO INVOLVE YOURSELF and IGNORED anyway?
What do you suggest then and WHERE does the BLAME LIE?
Her husband, Jerry, joined the conversation to say he had not heard the news about the ballot. After a quick update, he was not fazed in the least.
“This is a slow, quiet, unimportant town,’’ said Jerry Sternstein, a transplanted New Yorker. “And that’s why we like it.’’
Yes, and because it is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the SELF-APPOINTED IMPORTANCE of Boston and New England's largest daily newspaper -- that CAN'T EVEN FIND the RIGHT COUNTY the place is located!
--more--"
If they can't get that right, readers, what hope do they have?
