A city* initiative has taken a different approach to homelessness by paying unhoused individuals to clean streets and public spaces. (*Portland, Oregon)
Rather than focusing solely on emergency aid, the program offers structured work, income, and daily purpose, addressing both material and psychological needs.
Participants report increased self-worth and stability, while communities benefit from cleaner neighborhoods and stronger social connection.
Remarkably, around 70 percent of participants later transitioned into permanent housing, suggesting that opportunity can be as powerful as assistance.
This model reframes homelessness as a solvable human condition rather than a permanent label, showing how dignity, trust, and inclusion can restore momentum where survival alone once dominated. #fblifestyle
Note from AI: During the Great Depression, WPA* workers built massive amounts of public infrastructure, including roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, parks, airports, post offices, and recreational facilities like swimming pools and playgrounds, while also employing artists, writers, and musicians on cultural projects. These labor-intensive projects created millions of jobs, constructing everything from city halls and dams to community centers and trails, leaving a lasting physical legacy still used today
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Also from AI: *WPA most commonly stands for Works Progress Administration, a US New Deal agency during the Great Depression that employed millions of people in public works.
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Relief in 4 Minutes for Chronic Hip Pain
*Snake Hips Tucker (1920s-30s dancer)
Worth a Try: Exercise for Easing Hip & Leg Pain
If you're of a certain age and have spent much of your working life at a desk, chances are you'll eventually experience tight hips, with symptoms of tightness or pain, a change in your gait (the way you walk) or both. And frustration because you don't know know how this happened or how to fix it.
Resolution for hip & leg pain may be less complicated than you think. My recent discovery and practice of targeted exercise videos on youtube (Silver Sneakers & others) has resulted in an apparent complete recovery from what seemed on its way to debilitating pain in legs and hips. I also have an inclination to spread the good word of something that might help.**
About Tight Hips(from Healthline.com) What does it mean to have tight hips? A feeling of tightness across the hips comes from tension around the hip flexors. The hip flexors are a group of muscles around the top of the thighs that connect the upper leg to the hip. These muscles allow you to bend at the waist and raise your leg. (Some of the main hip flexors are the Iliopsoas, rectus femoris, tensor fasciae latae, sartorius.)
Many people have tight hips, including both people who spend several hours a day sitting as well as regular gym-goers and professional athletes. Some people are more prone to tightness in that area of their body, too. Tight hips may put you at increased risk for injury due to the increased demands on tissues that aren’t moving properly. Before going to a physical therapist or doctor for treatment, try some of these exercises and see how you respond. Practice slowly and carefully at first, and see your doctor if you feel a need for reassurance.
*If you've found relief with these moves, look to youtube.com for additional Silver Sneakers' exercise routines for hips, back, legs, etc. If your insurance plan offers Silver Sneakers, take a look & see if you can log in to get started at silversneakers.com.
In a global race to get solid-state batteries on the road, few would bet on two tiny companies in Estonia, known for their innovative hubless, in-wheel electric motors and motorcycles. Yet these upstarts have apparently done what Tesla, BYD and other EV-and-battery titans have been unable to do.
To be fair, building a relative handful of batteries for a low-volume motorcycle is a whole different ballgame from, say, Toyota having to validate and stand behind thousands or millions of car batteries under warranty. Nevertheless, Verge Motorcycles and its tech spin-off, Donut Lab, are claiming a checkered flag at CES 2026 in Las Vegas: The Verge TS Pro motorcycle will begin shipping with Donut Lab’s solid-state batteries in the first quarter of this year, founders of the two companies told IEEE Spectrum. All other Verge bikes will follow with their own solid-state packs, to be built in Finland, just across the Gulf of Finland from Estonia.
Short riding range and frequent, lengthy . . . (continued)
*From Wikipedia, link below:
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) charitable professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and related disciplines. Today, it is a global network of more than 486,000 engineering and STEM professionals . . .
John Grenham, straight from Dublin, will
tell us about using his website johngrenham.com for Mapping Ireland's
Records.If you've never heard John speak
or visited his website, you're in for a treat.
John has extensive background in Irish genealogy, having
worked for and with the Irish Times and the Dublin City
Library among other prestigious organizations. With the help of his son Eoin,
he now runs his own website which acts as an excellent jumping off point for
Irish genealogical research. He also wrote THE book on Irish genealogy, Tracing
Your Irish Ancestors. He has that lovely Irish lilt and a wonderfully wry
sense of humor. You’ll enjoy his
presentation. We're thrilled that he'll be joining us.
Here is his description of his presentation:
The talk explores ways in which visualising the locations of
households of particular surnames in Catholic records, valuations, census
records and records of births, marriages and deaths can help with genealogy and
local history, providing vivid examples of just how local some names are and
how impossibly widespread others can be. All the records covered are free
online and form part the basis of almost all nineteenth-century Irish research.
In addition, some of the focus will be on maps of the
geographic areas used to collect the records. The talk will give some of the
technical background involved in creating the maps, but will mostly focus on
their use and on how they shed light on Irish surnames and Irish families.
A 33% discount on a year's subscription to
www.johngrenham.com will be available for three days after the
talk.
Please register by
4:00 PM Friday, January 23. The invite will be sent out on that Friday.
Godfrey Premium members can register for free at the
following email: zoomregistration@godfrey.org
If you are not a Godfrey Premium member and want to attend the
presentation, you can pay $10 via PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/us/home) with
the payment sent to Godfrey Memorial Library. Then register using the above email.
“Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus” By Francis Pharcellus Church.
Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlan wrote to The New York Sun newspaper asking if Santa Claus exists. New York Sun Editor Francis Pharcellus Church responded to her letter and it was published on September 21,1897. It has become an iconic, memorable and beloved editorial that was ever written. Please read below the famous and cherished editorial.
“Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon 115 W. 95th Street
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”
Bob Gotta's Fundraiser on Friday (12.12.2025) at The Buttonwood Tree (TBT) Performing Arts Center 605 Main St., in Middletown, CT
________________________ Middletown's Got Talent
Bob Gotta at Work.Come listen to Bob & support the Buttonwood Tree on Friday.
.
Join us tomorrow for a night of acoustic music with local musician Bob Gotta, who is donating all proceeds to support programming at the Buttonwood Tree.
Bob has been a pillar of Middletown's musical community for decades and has hosts his weekly open mic at the Buttonwood -- it's one of the Connecticut's longest running open mics. His energetic, soulful, and lucid songs appeal to audiences of all kinds.
Take time to decompress tomorrow night. Relax and listen to some great music. If you can’t attend Bob's performance, but wish to support Buttonwood programs, please consider making a donation on the Buttonwood Tree home page. Click on https://www.buttonwood.org/ and scroll down to DONATE.
For Thanksgiving (next year) & Christmas Holiday Goodies
Whether you're new to the Middletown area--or not, you might wish you had a little extra help in the kitchen as holidays approach.
If so, you can hardly do better for special dishes, desserts, and fruit than Lyman's Orchard Store and Gotta's Store, which, in addition to our many local grocery stories and supermarkets, help many families fill in gaps on their menu during the holidays.
Check them out. Every little bit helps.
Lyman Orchard Store is surrounded by its vast fields of apple trees, at
32 Reeds Gap Rd, Middlefield, CT 06455
Gotta's Store is across the River, on Route 17 in Portland.
That's the new holiday EP "Hartford Unwrapped," funded by the City of Hartford, featuring local stars like Grammy winner Zaccai Curtis, gospel singer Doobie Powell, West End Blend's Erica Tracy Sullivan, BROCKHAMPTON's Dom McLennon, and even Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam on guitar, showcasing Hartford's diverse music scene with R&B, Jazz, Pop, and Hip-Hop. The EP was released in early December 2025, with a live listening party planned for December 19th at Infinity Music Hall.
Middletown's Got Talent, too! Maybe next year! ...
Do We have the Courage to Try to do Something about "Zombie" Trash?
Here's how one neighborhood faced an impossible situation with mountains of trash: They found sociable way to deal with it. . . . . . Will Middletown citizens come together to give it a try?
by Edward Humes The Saturday Evening Post December 2024 -- February 2025
What started as a father-&-son weekend project grew to become Ridwell, a profit-making local business that aims to keep hard-to-recycle items out of landfills.
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The innocent question that changed Ryan Metzger’s life came the summer his son turned six. That’s when Owen asked about the ever-expanding bag of old batteries in the junk drawer.
“What’s going to happen to them, Dad?” he asked. “What are we supposed to do with them? We’re learning about recycling in school. Where do these get recycled?”
“Um,” Metzger said. “I don’t know.”
He knew where to get batteries, of course. And there were always instructions on correctly using them. But instructions on what to do when they died? Not so much. That’s why he fell into the habit of stuffing dead batteries into a drawer filled with all the other small, disused stuff that the family wasn’t sure what to do with.
“It’s heavy, Dad.” Owen waved the bag of batteries around.
It was pretty full, Metzger had to admit. Detritus from flashlights and old toys, smoke alarms and remote controls, with a crusty one that came out of an old toothbrush, these batteries were one of many types of problematic garbage. They had no obvious final resting place, much like garden chemicals, old phones, light bulbs, car parts, cooking grease … a ton of stuff, really, now that Metzger thought about it. You weren’t supposed to put any of that in the recycling bin. But you couldn’t put it with the landfill-bound trash, either, although that’s what many people ended up doing out of desperation or not caring or habit — or assuming (incorrectly) it would all somehow get properly sorted out by this impenetrable, mysterious entity called the waste management system.
“There’s got to be a place for old batteries,” Metzger assured his son. “Let’s find out.”
It took three phone calls to find a business near their Seattle home that would take their old batteries and ensure that they were actually recycled instead of just dumped somewhere.
Father and son decided to drive to this battery recycler so that Owen could make the delivery. On impulse, they asked a few neighbors if they had stashes of old batteries, too. Several did, so Ryan and Owen took those as well.
Special collection: Ryan Metzger with the Ridwell bin and marked bags that are picked up biweekly from customers’ doorsteps. (Courtesy Ridwell)
Owen was so delighted by this accomplishment that he and his father decided to make a regular project out of hauling one different type of problem trash every weekend to the right recycler, offering to do the same for neighbors in their Queen Anne section of Seattle. So they started gathering bent clothes hangers one weekend, burned-out light bulbs the next, and then plastic bags, wraps, pouches, bubble wrap, and Styrofoam, none of which plays well with community recycling programs. Demand kept expanding block by block as word got around about his little father-and-son project. Soon he had to create a subscriber email group to track it all, with a message going out each week on what sort of trash would be picked up next and when to leave it outside for pickup. They dubbed this “Owen’s List.”
Around this time, grateful subscribers to Owen’s List who had long felt guilty about their secret trashiness started offering the duo money. A few suggested they charge for the service. “I’d gladly give up a couple lattes a month in exchange for you taking care of this,” one neighbor said. “I bet a lot of people would.”
Could that be true? Could their father-and-son hobby become a business that would let him leave his tech job behind and do something to help save the world? Seattle residents took pride in living in one of America’s greenest cities, but would they really pay extra every month to change their trashy habits and help Owen’s List patch a gaping hole in the waste and recycling system?
Metzger renamed the service Ridwell, to better explain its mission at a glance, and then set out to find out.
To walk through the Ridwell warehouse in Seattle’s south-of-downtown district is to take a grand tour of the plastic industry’s unintended legacy: a disposable, single-use economy made of zombie trash that will not die.
The big room with the high ceiling and crammed aisles jars the senses with its piles, boxes, pallets, and bags of waste. It looks as if a landfill has been excavated, then its contents sorted, bundled, and neatly organized. That’s not far from reality, except this material has been rescued before its more typical destiny as landfill fodder, litter, or waterway pollution. And there is a lot of it: This “stock” changes day-to-day, the tide that never stops, with most of the warehouse contents turning over every two or three days.
The account above is part of an excerpt from an article in (believe it or not) The Saturday Evening Post, a magazine that some of us might remember from ... 'way back when. The article, however, leads me to think, in the here and now, "Why aren't we doing more of this?" Brainstorming! Imagining new ways of doing thing? Could we be thinking about what could do with a little neighborhood get-together and elbow grease by us, that is, We the People who care? And I know there are a lot of us who care in Middletown. How about talking with neighbors over the holidays, and talking about organizing Saturday morning walks for fun, just to pick up Friday night's "donations" of cans & bottles along the roadside? And get a little fresh air? We don't exactly need to "Love our Neighbor" to talk about taking a group walk, do we? We could just respect our neighborhood and want to pick up a bit of trash in a group to make it more memorable. Couldn't we? Build community, pick up trash, go have coffee at a neighbor's kitchen or back yard? Why not?
I mean, if you look at it in a certain way, it would take a neighborhood to do on a Saturday morning with lots of neighborly interaction & good will and getting to know each other, what grantwriters and committees accomplish with a lot more time, sweat and anguish of writing the grant proposal to find the money and wait for someone else to do the dirty work. . . . And at the same time, perhaps, as in Owen's neighborhood, our local neighborhood might eventually grow a volunteer effort into a successful business, a local employer, that could help to help "clean up" the notoriously unclean business of waste management.
. . . read more at the link below about how Owen's effort grew.
