Walpole Living Notes by Chuck Bingaman

Wow! Has there ever been a more beautiful week of fall colors and crisp October weather?   How lucky we are to live here!

A few accumulated notes on life in our town…

• Did you notice that they again restructured the intersection of Old North Main, North Road and Old Drewsville Road?   Actually it’s been restructured for a couple of weeks, and I think it’s a bit of an improvement over the initial restructuring.  But it still doesn’t deal with the speeding on Old North Road and North Road as they continue north and around past the cemetery.  Comments, anybody?

• I had an interesting visit Friday with Patti Abbott, Kim Tomlinson and Amanda Kinson, the three kindergarten teachers at Walpole School about the full-day kindergarten and how it’s going.  The full story will probably appear in tomorrow’s Eagle Times.  Summary: things are going very well!

• The Walpole Leadership Academy, sponsored by the Walpole Grange, the Walpole Foundation, the Bridge Wilson American Legion Post #77 and the Women of Walpole, opened yesterday with a full class of 15 participants.  In the first session, Vicki Gohl, Alan Johnson and Dave Westover gave thoughtfully prepared, stimulating, and, at times, sobering, views of the business economy of Walpole and the surrounding area.   While celebrating the pleasures and beauty of life here, they also pointed out the real problems we face with a very difficult dairy farming economy, our need for planned commercial growth and housing development, and our shortage of housing for moderate income and elderly residents.   The next Academy session October 25 features top school administrators in our district, followed in early November by a session with our three selectmen.  (Full disclosure requires that I note that Sue and I have been involved in getting the Academy going.)

• In another key community organized and managed activity, the Walpole Village School held a successful open house yesterday in its new facility at the foot of Westminster Street in the old Long River Gardens property.  The parents and teachers have done a beautiful job of transforming the building into a GREAT facility for the school, and they have matched it with an ambitious expansion of the school’s programs for town and area youngsters.  If you haven’t seen the new facility, you really should take a look!

• If you haven’t tried the ice cream from the new Walpole Creamery on Rt. 12 north of the North Meadow Plaza, you’re missing a real treat!  It’s really good, and I understand that—-in addition to the scoop shop on the premises that is open from 1:00 to 7:00 p.m.—-it is now available at 13 stores, inns and restaurants in the area.