On net, a good day: Pickleballers swing back into action at Seaside courts

BY LEIGH BLANDER

Pickleballers were back playing on courts — with their own portable nets — at Seaside Park on March 8, the first day the courts were open since mid-January. The Recreation and Parks Commission agreed to unlock the Seaside courts in good weather after two sometimes-heated meetings in February. All courts in town will reopen with nets on March 17.

“I am so grateful to be able to play pickleball on a beautiful March day,” said James Slavet. “Thank you to Marblehead Pickleball for providing access to such a fun and healthy activity that has been missing from my life lately.”

At a Feb. 28 meeting, Rec and Parks agreed to reopen the Seaside courts immediately (given good weather) to pickleball players who brought their own nets. Rec and Parks had closed all the courts (which were partially funded by the nonprofit Marblehead Pickleball) to protect the courts. They cited concerns that the posts holding up the nets year-round were leaning due to the pressure from the nets.

There are more than 400 pickleball players in town, according to Lisa Spinale with Marblehead Pickleball. The nonprofit has raised about $65,000 to help convert four tennis courts at Vets into six dedicated pickleball courts. There are now another four courts at Seaside.

Also at the Feb. 28 meeting, neighbors of the courts at Veterans Middle School complained about the noise from pickleball.

“Within 100 feet of a court, the sound measures 70 decibels,” said Maura Dartley-Rocco, who lives on Vine Street near the Veterans courts. “That’s comparable to highway traffic.”

She went on to say that the noise can cause flightor-flight responses in people nearby, leading to “diagnosable disorders” like anxiety, and adversely impact the cardiovascular system.

“This is absolutely happening. If this is a science experiment, we are the lab rats,” she said. “We feel, as neighbors, that this is a crisis situation.”

Dartley-Rocco suggested several sound mediation options, including planting arbor vitae trees around the courts or draping so-called sound blankets around the perimeter. Commissioner Linda Rice-Collins said the school superintendent opposed the blankets because they block a clear view of students, which is a safety concern.

Another possibility discussed: attaching a sound blanket to the wall of the school, where pickleball noise reverberates and echoes back to the neighborhood.

Rec and Parks Commissioner Karin Ernst is speaking with an acoustics expert in Easton who works with communities to ameliorate pickleball noise and will invite him out to assess options at Vine Street.

Marblehead Pickleball has agreed to donate $250 toward that cost, according to Joe McKane, co-chair of the group.

Rice-Collins pointed out that there are new pickleballs and paddles that are quieter, and she encouraged the players to switch to those.

“This needs to be a team effort, so we can all exist together,” she said.

Rich Newburg, representing the group Marblehead Pickleball, said 95% of pickleballers don’t have the less-sonorous equipment yet and probably won’t until it’s more readily available.

Newburg added that Marblehead Pickleball is “happy to hear solutions.”

“We’re well-organized, vocal —maybe a little too vocal — and we do have funds,” he said.

He suggested the group would be willing to help fund sound mitigation efforts.

“All we want to do is play pickleball without pissing anybody off,” Newburg said.

Adding to the spirit of goodwill in the room, Dartley-Rocco said, “We’re just looking for some neighborhood harmony.”

Palma Bickford, chair of Sustainable Marblehead's Tree and Urban Forestry Committee, said the town has some catching up to do in order to create a thriving tree canopy.

"We're getting there, but we're way behind if you look at what Somerville and Cambridge have done," Bickford said. "They've invested in new trees over the last 15 years. They're starting to really make a huge difference."

Fobert said his department is responsible for approximately 9,000 shade trees that can be found on the 72 miles of Marblehead public ways as well as public lands. Bickford said she has a corps of devoted volunteers that help Fobert's three-man department plant trees.

"We sort of fan out on streets where the tree warden has determined they need more street trees," said Bickford. "However, we can only plant as many trees as he has money to buy."

To donate to the tree fund, mail or drop off a check made payable to the town of Marblehead: Marblehead Tree Department, Attn: Tree Donation Fund, 3 Tower Way, Marblehead, MA 01945. Fobert uses money from the fund to purchase what are called bareroot trees.

"All of the money goes to buying trees," said Fobert. "It's cheaper to get a bare-root tree, which goes for about $119, than the other kinds, which can cost $300 to $400."

The tree department and Sustainable Marblehead have also teamed up to take a comprehensive inventory of the condition of Marblehead's public trees, including their locations, species, sizes and health.

Fobert said he landed an $8,000 matching grant from the

Department of Conservation and Recreation to purchase three iPads and software.

Sustainable Marblehead uses the devices to upload tree data into a geographic information system.

"Our group has been working with John on the street-tree inventory since last spring," Bickford said, adding that the work includes measuring, photographing and identifying every public-tree species. "We did a good-sized portion of the town last year, but not as much as I would have liked — but we got some decent neighborhoods done."

Their work is restricted to a window of six months.

"We can only do it from May through October when the leaves are out," said Bickford of the work. "We will begin our work again in May."

The culled information will be utilized by the tree department to budget and plan for the maintenance of existing trees and help prioritize future tree plantings, according to Fobert.

"Obviously, the more time and effort we spend collecting data, the better prepared we are to manage our tree population effectively," the town's website reads. "We may be on a small peninsula, but there are many streets in Marblehead."

Bickford spoke about the benefits of shade trees.

"We have a lot of wind in Marblehead, and without having greenery, you'll have a lot more wind events," said Bickford, pointing to the microbursts over the past couple of years. "Now our trees are getting older. Some of them have blown down, and that's primarily because the wind changes direction so quickly."

Having a robust shade tree canopy also regulates temperature, according to Bickford.

"Having to shade trees allows you to maintain heat in the winter and maintain coolness in the summer and reduce the amount of utility usage," she said. by Black veterans at the time. Those actions had generational consequences.”

Fobert said he is developing a strategic plan for tree replacements and maintenance. Meanwhile, the 2023 town warrant includes two treerelated articles.

Article 41 seeks to formally place the Tree Department under the Marblehead Department of Public Works. Article 42 would permit the town to plant trees on private property "within 20 feet of the public right of way, provided that written permission from the adjoining property owner is obtained first."

"We are not forcing trees on people," Fobert stressed. "This would be a totally volunteer program."

The article comes as Marblehead invests millions of dollars into creating and improving sidewalks around town. Officials do not want treeroot growth to damage them.

Decades later, the impact is dramatic. In Boston, the median net worth for White families is $247,500. For Black families, it is $8.

“We all know the GI Bill lifted up a generation of World War II veterans and built the American century,” Moulton said. “It’s been called the most successful piece of legislation ever. But most Americans don’t know that many Black veterans were left out — denied benefits, denied homes, denied the generational wealth that comes from going to college.”

Moulton added, “We can never fully repay those American heroes. But we can fix this going forward for their families. While our generation didn’t commit this wrong, we should be committed to making it right.”

Moulton co-sponsored the bill with South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn. If passed, it will: talented.”

» Extend access to the VA Loan Guaranty Program to the surviving spouse and certain direct descendants of Black World War II veterans who were alive at the time of the bill’s enactment.

The trip to the semifinals will be a first for Rash, who participated in the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild’s festival as a Rockport High School student but never advanced out of prelims.

In one sense, the METG drama festival is like any other competition. There are rules — productions cannot exceed 40 minutes, and sets must be constructed and broken down in five minutes or less — and at the end, “winners” are declared. But in another sense, the drama festival is quite atypical. When casts and crew return to the auditorium after performing, they typically receive rousing ovations from their rivals.

Festival is surprisingly grueling, said Aylin de Jong, the costume designer for “Beowulf.” In Beverly, the first show of the day was performed at 9 a.m., the last at 5:30 p.m. The students then eat dinner and socialize while the judges deliberate.

De Jong said that, right up until the moment the individual honors are bestowed and the schools moving on are announced, you tend to forget that there is actually a competition going on.

Sophomore Benji Boyd, who plays Unferth in “Beowulf,” agreed, noting how freely compliments are exchanged when passing in the hallways, casts and crews easily identifiable by the T-shirts most have made in conjunction with their shows.

Even after the winners are declared, it is not uncommon for the victors to say to another school’s cast “your show should have won” — and mean it, said Boyd.

This is the second festival and second trip to the semifinals for de Jong, a junior at MHS. Last year, she was very nervous, de Jong acknowledged.

“But once you are there, all of the nervousness leaves,” she said.

One of the best parts of the experience is seeing what her peers have been working on in other parts of the state, an opportunity that would not exist outside the festival, de Jong said. New take on a classic The title “Beowulf” may

» Extend access to the Post-911 GI Bill education assistance benefits to the surviving spouse and certain direct descendants of Black World War II veterans alive at the time of enactment.

» Require a Government Accountability Office report outlining the number of individuals who received the educational and housing benefits.

» Establish a “blue-ribbon panel” of independent experts to study inequities in the distribution of benefits and assistance administered to female and minority members of the armed forces and provide recommendations on additional assistance to repair those inequities.

Honoring the legacy of Black GIs

Marblehead attorney Kurt James is an affordable housing advocate and serves on the town’s Housing Production Plan Implementation Committee. He calls Moulton’s legislation “really interesting news.”

“This is something that is discrete, fair, reasonable and measurable,” James said. Bixby agrees and is hoping for its passage.

“This honors the legacy of all the Black GIs who fought so bravely for our country and are owed a lot more than they received,” he said.

Moulton’s bill is officially called the Sgt. Issac Woodard Jr. and Sgt. Joseph H. Maddox GI Bill Restoration Act. It is named after two Black veterans. Woodard, a decorated vet, was traveling home on a Greyhound bus in 1946 to Winnsboro, South Carolina, when a local police chief forcibly removed him from the bus and blinded him with his nightstick. Still in his uniform after being honorably discharged, Woodard was thrown in jail rather than given medical treatment. The police chief was ultimately charged but acquitted of the crime by an allwhite jury.

Maddox, after facing injury and receiving a medical discharge, was accepted to a master’s degree program at Harvard University. He was denied tuition assistance that he was rightfully due under the GI Bill by his local Veterans Affairs office to “avoid setting a precedent.”

After seeking assistance from the NAACP, the VA in Washington, D.C. ultimately promised to get Sgt. Maddox the educational benefits he deserved.

Next steps

This is the third time Mouluton has introduced this bill, and he is hoping it passes this time.

“We didn’t create this legislation because it would be politically easy to get passed; we did it because it was the right thing to do,” he said. “When we reintroduced the bill in the last Congress, we were able to get even more support for the bill than we got the first time. We are confident we can build on this and expand the coalition of support even further with the help of my colleagues in the Congressional Veterans Caucus. We will be having conversations with colleagues and exploring other possibilities to make an impact.”

CAST, CREW OF ‘BEOWULF’

CAST

» Gwyneth Anderson, Hanneke Molly Grant, Sophie CJ English, Beowulf

Tyler Earp, Hrothgar

» Charlotte Howells, Scyld Scefing

» Benji Boyd, Unferth

» The Bards: Ila Bumagin, Jacob Piascik, Anya Kane

The Monks: Brady Weed, Ella Benedetto, Ryan Kindle, Dante Genovesi, Olivia Niles

CREW

Mr. Tom Rash, director

Ila Bumagin, assistant director Brady Weed, assistant director

» Phineas Bennett, stage manager Dylan McDonald, assistant stage manager

Mr. Gregory Dana, technical director

» Mimi Fallon, technical director » Elizabeth Erskine, prop designer

Aylin de Jong, costume designer » Monica Pechhold, wardrobe manager

» Mimi Fallon, lighting designer Aiofe Sullivan, sound designer Carrie Linde, set designer William Johnston, fight consult conjure memories — perhaps unpleasant — of the daunting text of the Old English epic poem. But this is not your high school teacher’s “Beowulf.”

Skeffington first learned of this particular adaptation of “Beowulf,” written by Toby Hulse, about five years ago when Boston Latin performed it. The Boston Latin director, in turn, had discovered it through the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Despite Skeffington’s endorsement, Rash said that the decision of whether to perform “Beowulf” was ultimately made by the students.

“They had a chance to change our mind,” Rash said.

In Hulse’s “Beowulf,” the story is framed by an Old English professor, Hanneke, who is battling cancer, and her 9-yearold daughter, Sophie, who is trying to wrap her head around her mother’s diagnosis through the stories her mother has shared with her.

In Marblehead’s production, Hanneke and Molly are played by Gywneth Anderson and Molly Grant, respectively, while CJ

English is in the title role of Beowulf.

Hard work pays off

In the preliminary round at Beverly, Anderson and English received individual acting awards for their performances, while Erskine was recognized for her prop work.

Rash said it was particularly gratifying to see Erskine’s hard work rewarded.

“I’ve asked a lot of all the designers, but Elizabeth especially has taken the brunt of it,” Rash said, noting that she gave up time over the February break to finish building the cardboard dragon head brought on stage during the play’s climactic scene.

As for creating the costumes, de Jong said the process began with her and wardrobe manager Monica Pechhold rooting around in the closet in the basement of the Veterans Middle School for costumes that would at once be medieval but also a bit whimsical.

Aside from some general “blocking” — telling the actors where to stand — Rand said that “pretty much everything about the production came from the kids.”

He said that reusing sets and costumes and pulling things together at the last minute mirrors how equity stages operate in the wider theatrical world.

“These things stay with you,” Rash said.

Aside from the costumes and Erskine’s props, de Jong said one of her favorite parts of the production is the fighting scenes.

“A lot of hard work went into choreographing and rehearsing them, and you can see it,” she said.

Marblehead High’s “Beowulf” also features original music by Jacob Piascik, an “organic” addition to the production that arose when Piascik jumped behind the keyboard at an early rehearsal and expressed an interest in supplying musical accompaniment, according to Rash.

“We now have him playing almost through the entirety of the piece,” he said.t

» Benji Boyd, fight captain

» Run crew: Aeryn Vizy, Ava Genovesi, Lucas Rosen, Martha Heffernan

Sneak preview planned “Beowulf” will be the second show performed in Norwood on Saturday, starting at approximately 10:30 a.m. Aside from some mild disappointment that they will not get to see the first show of the day, Leominster’s “James and the Giant Peach,” both Boyd and de Jong said that the time slot does not matter. For those who would like to see “Beowulf” without driving to Norwood, you do have a “one night only” opportunity. An open dress rehearsal will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, March 17 at the Performing Arts Center at Veterans Middle School. Admission will be a suggested $5 donation to the Friends of the Performing Arts.

“It will be great for the kids to show it to an audience and break the nerves” of the following day’s competition, Rash said.