And, Now You Know

The Turnpike Madonna in Warren, Massachusetts

Ever since I was a kid, I remember seeing the statue in the photograph at the left while riding on the Mass Pike, and I wondered why it was there, and who put it there.  Something so Holy in such a secular place.

Now, I know.

A dairy farmer in Warren, Massachusetts, Alfred Brodeur, erected the statue of the Madona in 1964 after his wife, Eldora, successfully recovered from  breast cancer, and a mastectomy and radiation used to treat it.

Eight years previously, Brodeurs farm had been cut in half by the construction of the Mass Pike, and his land went right up to the edge of the Pike between mile markers 68 and 69.  He thought this location would be the ideal location to erect the statue to give thanks for Eldora's recovery, and to encourage prayer, and recitation of the Rosary from others, which Alfred felt had fallen off.  He built a small kneeler and a little bench in front of the statue.

The three Brodeur children contributed to bringing electricity out to the site so that the statue can be viewed at night.  Over the years a timer was installed, and eventually a light sensor.

Diane Fontaine, daughter of Alfred and Eldora Brodeur,
 and her husband, "Bud".  Photo: Lori Stabile / The Republican

In 1979, the Brodeurs celebrated their 50th anniversary.  Eldora passed in 1981, and Alfred joined her in 1998.   According to Masslive.com, "... the statue and the area are maintained by Brodeur’s daughter Diane F. Fontaine, 70, and her husband Elmer “Bud” J. Fontaine, 75."


Many people have stopped along the Pike to visit the site, something not wise to do, and discouraged by the family. Over the years people have left notes, rosaries, and other mementos at the site.  If you want to visit the site you can contact the family.


Presently, there is no one to maintain the site after the Fontaines are unable to do so.






Sources:
'Our Lady of the Turnpike' is a popular stop

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff  |  April 2, 2006

Turnpike Madonna maintained nearly 50 years later by Diane Fontaine of Warren, whose father believed in the power of prayer

By Lori Stabile, The Republican

Published: Saturday, January 08, 2011, 10:00 AM   

Is Life Really Becoming Simpler, Or Just More Jetson Like?

In front of me, sitting on the coffee table, is an iPhone.  On my lap is an iPad given to me by Mary on Christmas so that I can write away from the laptop, which is sitting on the desk just upstairs.

Yes.  I am spoiled.  Actually, beyond spoiled, but more on that some other time.

I guess I am seeking the ultimate in portability beyond everyday, old school portability.  This morning, I am sitting in a tree in my back yard writing this.   


Kidding.  

I could be though, and this spring I just might, but in the meantime I will just wander about the house ( I'm in the kitchen now), and continue digitally applying my essence to my environment. 

I'm a 21st Century kinda guy (standing in the cedar closet now).  I could be at the beach and view the inside of my house, set an alarm, or lock a door from my iPhone if I wanted to.  

In the living  room there is the digital cable TV box.  I can, but haven't as of yet, connect the internet to the TV in order to watch HD movies at a fraction of the cost the cable company charges.  I can also connect to Netflix via the Wii, and actually use the cable companies cable to circumvent their limited selection of movies, and national debt like fees to rent a movie ( back on the couch).

Another part of this digital world at my finger tips is the DVR, the digital video recorder in the cable box.  I never mastered setting the VCR to record a show back in the 80's, I would like to meet anyone that actually did, and I  never mastered setting the clock in the VCR, either.  I don't believe anyone ever did.  The DVR is simple.  Just click with the remote, and program is recorded.  If the is a show I missed, well I just pull it up on the iPad, or the laptop, and watch it there.

So, here I am, sitting on the couch, iPhone ringing on the coffee table, iPad on my lap and I am answering an email while watching the flat screen with the DVR, and I feel like my analog self has slowly been assimilated  into a digital world, and I may not even be real anymore.  I may actually be an avatar that Mary is designing from the laptop.

Scary thought.  I am sure there are parts she would vastly improve on. 

Nothing I have mentioned was available a few years ago.  Technology has accelerated exponentially with each new gadgets appearance in it's inventors head.  By the time it arrives on your coffee table, it is will be replaced at the store within eighteen months of it's initial inception, and that could be only weeks away.  

Electronics are actually designed in advance to use technology that is not yet available today, but will be in eighteen months.  This is called Moore's Law.

Moore's law was perceived by the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, back in the 1960's, and simply stated that the number of transistors needed to make a device would be halved every eighteen months, thus devices would not only become smaller, but potentially smarter as there would be more room for the technology.  In  a silicone computer chip this is not only true, but an accurate prediction as to just where the industry will be in a year and a half.

To make a boring, long story short, the TV you just got this Christmas for the living room will be surpassed in technology sometime this afternoon.  It was conceived eighteen months ago, design took a little time, then manufacture, and distribution took some more time before it was actually sent to the stores and advertised as the latest in TV's for Christmas, and on December 25th, it was.

Don't try to keep up.  Just be happy your TV is no longer the old tube type, and if it is, then it's time to let go.  Think of the environment.  Think of a better picture.  Think of spending a few hundred dollars for something that would have cost a few thousand five years ago.  Think just how cool that new LCD LED 52 inch will look on your wall.  Sweet.

Technology has always given us so much.  Our everyday lives been made easier by our cell phones, ability to text instead of being trapped on the phone forever with Mom, take photos on the fly and annoy the family in Florida with immediately all day long, view real time videos with cousins in Alaska, or Southbridge, with Skype.  Ever wonder when those video telephones they promised us at the 1964 New York Worlds Fair would appear?  Well, they are here, and have been for some time.

So much of what has been developed, thought up, designed, and put into every day use are useful, practical, and take today's technology to the limit in order to make the world around us easier to manage.

Then, there are the stupid, and the "How-about-this-because-I-can't think-of anything-practical-today" developments.  For instance, some hospitals are actually advertising on the TV, and radio that you can now text the hospital, and receive a text back from them telling of the current waiting time in their Emergency Rooms.

Say what?  Think about this.  If something has happened in your life that causes you to think "ER", then you go to the ER, quickly, otherwise, you wait until your doctors office opens up.  You don't text the hospital to see how long you will have to wait with your emergency.  If you did, your reason for going would not be an emergency, would it?  I guess it's just good marketing, and just using technology in that way.  

So, back to my using technology around the house.  It can get pretty silly.  We have actually texted each other while in different rooms, even while sitting on the same couch. Why?  Dunno.  Maybe just to say we did, but I do have an annoying side to me, too.

I can't wait to see what the next eighteen months will bring, and which of our new appliances, and gadgets ,will become obsolete, and what the new ones will offer.  

I am still waiting for that flying car they said back when I was in grade school, every home would have in the 21st century, or is it already here?  


Damn.  I can't keep up.  I need to go set up a Google Alert on my iPhone to let me know when things are about to change.


I like being in the digital loop.  FB me if you agree.  ;-)

March 23, 1903

A ghastly tragedy in Sturbridge on March 23, 1903.  Life was as real back then, as it is is today.
Click here to view the original New York Times article.

Late December At Old Sturbridge Village

Mary and I walked the Village this past Friday.  The Village is a living, and breathing entity, and like us, reacts, and changes with the seasons.  Walking through the Village on peaceful morning is a prescription for a calm and gentle life. Great way to shed the stress of the week from your shoulders.

Enjoy.

Your Mother Was Right, It Is Not What You Say, It's How You Say It

The comic books from Classics Illustrated
were ideal for those that were unable
to digest the full version of classics.

You wouldn't use the same voice you used to remind the kids to clean up the garage, as you would to lead a meeting at work, or, maybe you would, and I 'm  assuming too much.   For most of us we have different voices, and we use them at different times, for different reasons.

We write the same way.  The words in a short note within a Christmas card are selected for the person that will read it.  A reminder note on the fridge is written with less care.

Know your audience.  It is a piece of advice that will not grow old , and can be passed on forever, and still be of great value.

There are those that speak, and write in a very simple, "grammar be damned" way that for the most part, is effective in all aspects of their life.  It defines them.  Sometimes it is purposeful, other times it is is just the persons baseline.

Then there are those that speak, and write in a verbose, affected, pretentious, grandiose way.  It's just them, just as my writing like a hillbilly hooked on phonics is me.   The issue that bothers an audience is when they feel that they are being "spoken up to", or "spoken down to".  Both are bothersome, but some reason when someone we know speaks to us as if they are a Department Chair at Oxford, and we know dang well they isn't, it bothers us more.  As a result, our concentration is placed on the fact that they are attempting a spoken, or written soliloquy about something as inane as the importance of  rotating ones tires, and we find ourselves only hearing the tone, not listening to the message.

When the audience looses the message, we've lost the audience, and it takes a lot to get them back, otherwise we will alienate them forever.

Keep in mind, that just because one uses ten words to as opposed to anothers use of only one, doesn't make them any less truthful, accurate, or well meaning, it only means we need to take a bit more time to listen, and read than we normally would.  Most newspapers are written for readers with an eighth grade level of reading, and when one writes, or speaks at an eleventh grade level it can confound many of us, myself included.

Now, if you are re-reading this, scratching your head, and grunting , Huh?" over your Sunday morning coffee, then I have not chosen my audience well, but if you are nodding, smiling, and muttering something like, "Whoa, Dude, you are sooo right", then I've chosen well.

Awesome.