Simon’s Says
As I was going through my late Aunt’s estate several months ago, I came across a number of newspaper columns she had saved. I had largely forgotten about the fact I wrote a weekly column for the Meriden Record-Journal as a high school correspondent – she had clipped and saved nearly every one for the year I wrote. When I was young, I aspired to be a mild mannered reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, but my career as a journalist was short-lived: while I wrote and worked as an editor for my college paper, that was about the end of it.
I thought of this last weekend when I attended a forum on local journalism sponsored by the Chester Historical Society. It featured four local journalists – Peter Zanardi, Joe Cohen, Cary Hull and Skip Hubbard – who spoke about their experience with local and regional news coverage. It was very informative for a relative newcomer like myself, who never realized Chester had its own local weekly paper. The conversation was both thoughtful and lively, and broadened my understanding of, and appreciation for, our town and its history.
Speaking of newspapers, just this morning I read the obituary of Mark Podwal, the artist whose work I wrote about last week – his are the works on display at Congregation Beth Shalom that interpret history’s treatment of the Jews. He enjoyed a rich career, and I never knew about his collaboration with writer Elie Wiesel, although I had read a book the two produced together many many years ago, titled The Golem. You may read about him here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/arts/mark-podwal-dead.html
Sunday is the beginning of Banned Books Week, and I’ll be speaking about the moral and religious themes of a certain Connecticut author whose books most of us have read, banned or not. Links to Sunday’s bulletin and service are here: