Monday, July 9, 2012
Here I Celebrate Two Easton Guys Who Do
This is a column in which I complain and in which I celebrate – in which I express my discontent and in which I commend the effort and conduct which makes me smile and makes me feel good about people. Let's get going here – on something that mildly infuriates me – and that is people who won’t pick up the phone and make a call, or write a letter of recommendation, or, in our electronic age, send along an email, in support of someone and to help that someone out. Really – sometimes it can send me skyward – and other times it can merely irk me. The funny thing about some of these people who won’t make the individual and the one-on-one effort is that they might often be very public and visible and give a lot of themselves to broad-ranging …
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Some Reflections on Cooking Over Flame, Wood, Charcoal, Electric Coils; and also a Call Out to Cookouts
Yesterday was July 4th — which is first and foremost the day on which America celebrates its independence. Of course, the celebration and merriment are attended with all sorts of, well, celebration and merriment. That is appropriate. That works. A lot of cookouts on July 4th. An ingrained and strongly fortified institution, these cookouts. Grilling is done at cookouts, which is a separate animal from barbecue — which is both a noun and a verb. The Muscato clan was never big into cooking over flame. I mean, back on Andrews Street the only time we had flame cooked food is when my father fired up a small hibachi on our patio, in which he stoked a gentle inferno of those charcoal briquets (yes, the bad boys made of compressed wood …
Thursday, June 28, 2012
And The Ames Free Library Continues To Transition To An Exciting And Wonderful Future
It is often proclaimed in this space the benefits – and for deists, the blessings – that are available in Easton. We have a nice place to live here – and the reason it is so nice is because of hard-working, caring, smart, wise, and focused people who built, preserved, and maintained. I was thinking this yesterday early evening when I stopped by a thank-you reception at the Ames Free Library for Madeline Holt, who is stepping down from her role as executive director of the library, a post she has held since 2008. In Madeline’s tenure as top administrator of the library, the organization has grown, added several valuable programs, expanded its physical footprint – and last year achieved national recognition in being named by Library …
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Ames Free Library
53 Main St, North Easton, MA
/articles/madeline-holt-transitions-to-a-new-role
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Monday, June 18, 2012
Here I Share with You Some of Mine
We all have our favorite lines from movies. Here I share with you some of mine. This is just a short list – and I will do another “favorite movie lines” column a little way down the road. In this column, for some of the quotes, I have provided links to pages on YouTube where you can play clips of the movie scenes in which the quotes were spoken. Viewer discretion is advised, for included in the scenes are those in which salty language is used. I hope you enjoy this column. Please feel free to provide your own favorite movie quotes in the comments section below. Here we go. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Jaws (1972). One of the greatest movie lines in history. BRODY (Roy Scheider) has a run in with the great white sharks …
Thursday, May 31, 2012
This Is For All You Oliver Ames High School Grads – And Easton Young People Graduating From College
Yes, here we are in the midst of graduation season. Members of the Oliver Ames High School Class of 2012 receive their diplomas on Sunday at Frothingham Park. Frothingham Park is one of the nicest settings for commencement ceremonies anywhere. OA grads are fortunate. As I have done in the past, here I submit a column of recommendations and reflections for the grads. What I emphasize, and the tack I take here, is different from that I have emphasized and taken in the past. (Yet anything I have recommended in the past, I am still good with and supporting today.) And, please, I’m not saying I understood any of this when I was your age – nor am I saying I practiced all of what I’m preaching here; although I have practiced some of…
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Some of My Thoughts on My Early Running Days, and a Look Back To the "Old Oliver Ames High School Cross Country Course"
I’m about to get back on the road, and the paths, and the fields, and all other surfaces. Yep, get back to running. For about two years now, I have been restricting my aerobic activity to hard indoor biking – sort of like spinning. I like it a lot, and go full bore on the bike. But I am getting back to running – today. I hope my left knee can hold out. I wonder though if I have finally done it in. There is only so much pounding and ligament damage a joint can take. Anyway... I started to get serious about running when I was a sophomore in high school. When I was a freshman, I played football – and I would see the cross country runners striding past and I thought that must be something very tiring, running all those miles. …
Monday, May 7, 2012
Facebook Conversation and Stories Add to the Narrrative
It was nice and heartening that the column I wrote – the one titled, Remembering The "Family" Markets In Easton that was published on Easton Patch last Thursday – stirred a happy foment of nostalgia and commentary about those days gone by. And, here, let me explain a bit. When one of my “Muscato’s Musings” columns posts on Patch, usually within 24 hours of the column being published, I post a link to the column on my Facebook page. Now, you know, among my Facebook friends there is a coterie of hard core Eastonians. Some of the Tribe of Easton still live here in town, others live outside of Easton, but close by – and there are others who live far away in the U.S., as far away as California. Then again, one of my Facebook friends …
Monday, April 16, 2012
Please Permit Me Here to Complain, Just for Today
So I’m at the convenience store, and I have to wait and wait in line because some guy is buying his lottery tickets. And, you know, now, that there are about as many types of the scratch form of lottery tickets as there are choices of cheese in the supermarket. I have someplace to be, buddy. Well I really don’t – but I’m being irked. Another thing – when I am in traffic and I stop to let a car into the flow, I want the wave from the driver I have just accommodated and given some love and help. How many people don’t give me the wave is beyond me. Really, it boggles the mind. Now I’m at Starbucks. There are two people in front of me at the station where is parked the nonfat milk, whole milk, and half-and-half, sugar and other …
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Part 2 of 2 of a Story that is Part Truth and Part Fiction
Below continues the story that started on Monday, April 2, the day after April Fools' Day, in this space. This is a fiction story rooted in fact, considerable fact. If you haven't read the first part of the story, I recommend you do before reading part 2 which follows. Things will make more sense that way. I was compelled and inspired to write a part 2 after the kind responses, the number of responses, I received on the first installment. Again, what is truth and what is fiction in this story will be surprising even to those who thought they knew my dad well (for example, not only did my father and West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer meet, but Chancellor Adenauer personally congratulated my father after a race my dad won). I have …
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Not Pretty, Even Disgusting, It Is Embedded In Oliver Ames High School History
Chris England walked out from the storage closet that was in front of our classroom and behind a teaching station – the biology teaching station, which was a bank of dark stone with some sort of protective veneer that had a deep basin of a sink over which suspended was a gooseneck of metal faucet. Chris “Crispy” England was our biology teacher – one of those “cool” teachers who “got it” – who understood kids, and who had the ability to actually engage his students in learning. Now this was 1979 or 1980, for that was my sophomore year in high school – yes, I was Oliver Ames High School Class of 1981. So, anyway, let’s get a hold of this here. Chris England – Mr. England to us, the teacher – walks out from the closet, and he turns and…
Janet Sroczynski
11:36 am on Thursday, July 12, 2012
Fresh Salsa - recipe: 2 Medium to Large Tomatoes 1 Medium Vidalia Onion 1 Fresh Pineapple Fresh Cilantro * Optional: Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice * Optional: Mango, Peaches * Optional: Green, Red or Yellow Pepper * Optional: Avocado Tortilla Chips - white or yellow Wash, mince and dice the fresh tomatoes, onion, pineapple and fresh cilantro. Add more/less to taste. Enjoy with tortilla chips. In the … more ›