Here’s a story on my son’s first day of Kindergarten … check it out HERE …

Check out this post I wrote for Holiday Golightly – a travel site – Click HERE to read — happy trails!

Here’s a story I wrote for the Boston Globe about a couple of entrepreneurial mavericks who turned their pink slips into green.

Turning Corporate Lemons Into Lemonade

Girls hockey is one of the fastest growing sports – it’s no wonder their moms wanted in on the action.  Here’s a story I wrote for the Globe about a local group of moms who started their own league. Click HERE to read it.

THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Hull park is high point for fun
Fort Revere offers families movies and more
By Amy van Aaram, Globe Correspondent | July 5, 2007

When is the last time you watched a movie with your family — outside, on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, your picnic blanket planted firmly on a patch of American history? Fort Revere Park, in Hull Village, lets you do just that.

Situated atop Telegraph Hill, Fort Revere is one of the highest points on Hull’s peninsula. It is anchored by the water tower, 56 feet from the ground to the observation deck, with a 360 -degree view of the Massachusetts coastline from Cape Ann to Provincetown. Even standing at the base of the tower offers a panoramic view of Boston Harbor, Brewster Islands, Boston Light, and the Boston skyline.

Unlike the Sears Tower in Chicago or New York’s Empire State Building — where one would usually pay a fee and stand in long lines to get good views — a visit to Fort Revere won’t cost the family anything. The park is open from sunrise to sunset 365 days a year, and the tower is open on summer weekend days, starting this Saturday.

The Fort Revere Park and Preservation Society was established in the early ‘ 90 s as a nonprofit organization to support the park. The state Department of Conservation and Recreation and the society work in partnership to preserve the history and maintain the site.

Matt Tobin is the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s site supervisor for the fort. A history buff, he wears many hats: groundskeeper, graffiti exterminator (Tobin notes that the fort has had its share of troublemakers ), and event programmer.

In 2001 Tobin, who had enjoyed watching outdoor movies at the Memorial Hatch Shell in Boston, made arrangements with the DCR to show the same movies at the fort.

“Most movies are second-run box office hits; all are family friendly. The movie truck pulls up in the middle of the field — families spread out their blankets and picnic baskets — and the preservation society sells drinks and snacks,” says Tobin.

“Fabulous Flicks at the Fort” begins Saturday and runs until Sept. 1. The movies begin at sundown and the titles remain a surprise until the film starts rolling. Veteran attendees know to bring blankets, chairs, a flashlight, and bug spray.

In addition to the movies, the fort also hosts concerts. On July 22 at 6 p.m., a local blues band, The Part Time Lovers, will perform in the corner amphitheater. On Sunday, Aug. 12 at 5 p.m., the reggae party band Noddaclu will perform a family show.

The use of the old military fort for family recreation is just the latest twist in Hull’s long history of reinvention.

As early as 1622, the area was inhabited by the Wampanoag tribe and operated as a trading post and fishing village. Puritans settled there in 1630, elbowing out the natives and changing the name from Nantascot to Hull in 1644.

Telegraph Hill evolved into a military outpost (first as Fort Independence and later as Fort Revere) serving the American Revolution and World War I as part of the coastal defense system.

“By 1947, the military started to decommission most of the coastal defense systems,” says Tobin. The fort remained vacant for a long time, until the town decided to formally turn it into a park. “There was a big push in ‘76, in concert with the bicentennial celebrations, for the town to restore the site,” says Tobin. That was when the amphitheaters were installed inside the batteries to accommodate the festivities being held in the park.

Today many of the concerts are held in these amphitheaters.

Hull has always been a destination spot, a summer colony, a respite from the humidity and concrete of Boston. Families have been arriving here — by carriage, steamboat, station wagon, and now hybrid — to take in the views, run their toes through the sand, and swim in the ocean.

Calvin Coolidge had a “summer White House” here, and Honey Fitz (John Francis Fitzgerald — former Boston mayor and the father of Rose Kennedy) had a house here as well, in the shadow of the fort.

It’s not difficult to see why the population swells during the summer months. Locals know there’s more to Hull than Nantasket Avenue and the throngs of beachgoers that sprawl across the sand and congest the boardwalk from May to August.

For more information: www.mass.gov/ dcr/parks/metroboston/ftrevere.com or www.ftreverepark.org. The Officers Quarter Museum, operated by the Fort Revere Park & Preservation Society, is open for special events throughout the season and available to groups for educational or family functions. Contact the park office 781-925-1777.

Amy van Aarem is a freelance writer in Hingham

To the office on time, by the row less traveled
Commuter broke own record to Boston; he might have even beaten you
By Amy van Aarem, Globe Correspondent | August 26, 2007

If you were out and about in Boston Harbor Aug. 16, you might have noticed an odd sight in the water — a man rowing to work.

Once each summer for the past seven years, Scituate resident Peter Detwiler has commuted from Hingham in his 1981 Alden Ocean Shell. Why forgo coffee and the morning paper aboard the ferry for a vigorous 11-mile row? “If you’re a climber and you look up at a mountain, you wonder if you can make it to the top,” Detwiler said. “That’s what rowers do with water; you wonder if you can row in it.”

Detwiler, 46, who works in the Back Bay, said he first assessed the water along his commute from his vantage point on the back deck of the ferry. Then, one afternoon he stopped a worker at the dock in front of the Boston Harbor Hotel at Rowes Wharf and said, “Hey, I’m thinking of rowing in from Hingham. Do you think I could dock my shell here for the day?”

“Anybody stupid enough to try that can keep their boat here,” was the reply.

So the annual row, to and from Boston, began in 2000.

“Once I made it, I knew I could do the round-trip every time,” he said.

That’s 22 miles of rowing in one day.

Detwiler said he rows 4 to 6 miles once or twice a week in the spring, summer, and fall, and once a month in the winter if the temperature is above freezing. His mileage goes down if the fishing is good. He said he started rowing boats in Norwell and rowed crew for Williams College from 1979 to 1983. His longest single row without stopping was 20 miles around Monomoy Island off Chatham — ocean on one side and Nantucket Sound on the way home.

John Cotter, head girls’ coach of the Hingham High School Rowing Association and a former rower for the University of Washington, said that 22 miles in one day is a lot.

“I do 44 miles in six days, and this guy is doing half that in one day,” Cotter said. “That’s a lot of mileage.”

The morning of Aug. 16 provided perfect conditions for Detwiler, who, before launching, had completed his standard checklist, which included a call to the Coast Guard for weather and marine conditions. He also made sure he had a secured dock space at the Boston Harbor Hotel.

As commuters boarded the 6 a.m. ferry nearby, Detwiler set his shell in the water off a boat ramp behind South Shore Lobster at the Hingham Shipyard; packed in his dry sack, which contained business clothes and a cellphone; put on gloves; and tossed in a bottle of Gatorade. The commuter ferry pulled away from the dock at 6 sharp; seven minutes later, Detwiler was following in its wake.

At 7:06 a.m., he phoned from Thompson Island: “I’m on a record pace. The water is beautiful and flat, perfect conditions.”

The trip took him about an hour and 40 minutes, the fastest he had ever done it.

He docked in Boston at 7:47 a.m. and, with his first meeting scheduled for 9 a.m., Detwiler had more than enough time for a quick shower, compliments of the hotel.

Then it was a 2-mile walk to his office at the Prudential Center, where Detwiler works as a director of an energy firm.

Carrie Cullen-Hitt, a colleague of Detwiler’s and a fellow Scituate resident, was impressed with the feat. “It takes me an hour-40 to get to our office in Back Bay and Peter rowed there in that time,” she said. “I don’t know many people who could do that.”

Things have not always gone smoothly for the rower over the years.

“I broke down off of Spectacle Island once: The rigger broke and the oarlock fell in the water,” Detwiler said. “I rowed past the sewage treatment plant in Weymouth and flagged down a fisherman who helped me load the rig onto his boat [after sundown] and brought me to the dock in Hingham.”

So, what does his wife think about all of this?

“She doesn’t like me out in the harbor quite so far away, but, you know, I do a lot of stuff in the shell that she doesn’t necessarily like,” said Detwiler, the father of two teenage boys.

The return trip 10 days ago proved to be in stark contrast to the morning’s row.

At 3 p.m., Detwiler checked the marine forecast.

“It showed 10 to 15 knots [of wind], shifting from south to southwest, trending up to 20 knots,” he said. At that point, Detwiler cut his workday short, and set off for the harbor.

“I expect to beat the 20-knot nonsense, but extra headwind and some tidal resistance suggests an arrival time just after 6 p.m.,” he texted by cellphone.

It was 4:20 p.m. when he began the outbound trip. At 5:47 p.m., Detwiler pulled over to Hangman Island to bail out the shell, something he would do three times on his trip home.

He typed: “45 mins from dock. Windy. Behind schedule.”

At 6:15 p.m., there was no sight of him in Hingham Harbor. Thirty minutes later, Detwiler’s shell came into view. He pulled it onshore at 6:45 p.m. and promptly went for a swim. The return trip took him two hours, 20 minutes.

All told, the day’s events included a 22-mile row, a 4-mile walk, and $12 saved — the round-trip ferry fare to Boston

Etiquette for shopping parties?
The growing trend has no firm rules yet
By Amy van Aarem, Globe Correspondent | September 23, 2007

Shopping parties are an increasingly popular trend on the South Shore. From clothing to jewelry, candles to hair accessories, wine to gourmet food – a veritable smorgasbord of goods can be had in the comfort of your neighbor’s living room.

Unlike the 1960s and ’70s parties held to sell Tupperware or utilitarian cleaning products, today’s shopping parties promise “a fun night out,” a chance to shop with friends and socialize.

Shopping parties follow a similar pattern: Invitations sent through e-mail or regular mail, the parties held at someone’s house, hostess provides food and drinks, merchandise is staged around the house. The presentation/sales pitch is either formal (living room lecture) or informal (shopping, but with wine and cheese), but the end result is the same. Attendees line up with their checkbooks and credit cards ready to purchase.

But what is the protocol for these shopping parties? Is it OK, as in the brick and mortar and online shopping experience, to just browse and not buy? Or is a purchase obligatory to be polite, to make friends?

“I never want people to feel like they have to buy anything,” says Bee Raymond of Hingham, a consultant for a mail order clothing company who helps host about 40 “trunk shows” a year all over the South Shore.

But is that the attitude of all hosts? To navigate the uncertain protocol, one woman, a frequent invitee, takes this approach: “I always leave my purse in the car. If I don’t see anything I like, I make a hasty exit, mumble something about running out to the car to get my checkbook. Then I just take off.”

Suffice it to say there are no set rules – at least not yet – for a trend that is not going away anytime soon.

It helps, says Raymond, that she feels no need to pressure her guests to buy. Her venture, she says, just “landed in my lap” when she found that the Boden online clothing company was looking for a South Shore representative. “The first trunk show I had was crazy; there were over 100 people, and cars were blocking North Street in front of our house. The police showed up to see what was going on,” recalls Raymond.

The work is not “a big money-maker” she says – “maybe it’s an extra vacation for your family” – but the flexibility of the job is great, says Raymond, who worked at Fidelity before having children.

Lisa Migliaccio, owner of Pojke-Flicka – a distributor of Kavat children’s shoes from Sweden – grew up in Sweden and, after moving to the South Shore, outfitted her young boys in shoes similar to those she wore as a child. “People used to compliment me on my children’s shoes. Every time I went to Sweden I would stock up on shoes.” She had trouble finding the Kavat brand in the US, so she looked into importing opportunities.

What started out as a hobby last year quickly grew into a part-time business for Migliaccio, who also works full time in Boston.

“People fell in love with the shoes,” she said. “They’re very durable.” With prices for shoes, clogs, and boots ranging from $36-$75, Pojke-Flicka (which means Boy-Girl in Swedish) found a following fast.

Migliaccio’s friend Helena Nee, another Swedish expatriate and entrepreneur, began making belts and headbands in her Cohasset home. The two women decided to join forces and sell their merchandise together at home shopping parties.

Then they teamed up with Susan Allaire Slane, an art consultant who represents local and regional artists. She refers to herself as a “walking gallery,” bringing art into people’s homes and businesses.

She says home shopping parties are a great way to generate new clients. “To be able to get in front of a large number of people,” she says, “helps when you’re just starting to build your business.”

Correspondent Amy van Aarem can be reached at amyvanaarem@hotmail.com.

Trendy women becoming Bunco artists
By Amy van Aarem, Globe Correspondent | October 21, 2007

You know what they say about trends: By the time you spot one, it’s usually on the way out. But, for the moment, Bunco – a dice game played mostly by women in suburbs across the South Shore and beyond – just may be the most popular game that no one has heard of.

Like most trends, once you stumble upon it, you see it everywhere. I first learned of the dice game through a friend.

“Oh, I can’t do Thursday; that’s my Bunco night,” she said one day.

“Your what?”

I thought it was a new exercise class.

“You’ve never heard of Bunco?” she cackled, rolling her eyes.

I asked her if it was a New England thing.

“It started in the Midwest, you ninny,” she said.

When I got home, I googled Bunco and learned more than I ever needed to know about the game.

In a nutshell, Bunco is played with 12 people – three sets of four to a table, two teams at each, three dice per table. There’s a head table, a Bunco bell (similar to the bell one would use to summon the concierge at a hotel), scorecards, and a kitty.

It’s a cross between Yahtzee and, well, Yahtzee, except people yell “Bunco!,” not “Yahtzee!,” when they roll the correct combination of dice.

It’s been around, apparently, since the 1700s, but the popularity was reignited in the late 1990s when an entrepreneur started marketing the game to women as a social outlet.

Actually playing Bunco is only one component of Bunco night; the accompanying food and fellowship are equally – and sometimes more – important. Hosting duties are rotated throughout the 12 or 16 odd members in a Bunco group, which usually meet to play once a month. The hostess is in charge of determining the kitty (dollar amount that each player contributes – usually $10 to $15 per person), setting the pace of the game, and deciding the criteria for kitty distribution (whoever has the most Buncos, most points, etc).

“It’s spelled B-U-N-C-O? I thought it was B-O-N-K-O,” another friend said.

Although she had heard of it, like me, she had never played. But she reads the paper, and last January, The Wall Street Journal ran a story about Procter & Gamble infiltrating Bunco nights to market its heartburn medication.

Procter & Gamble started sponsoring Bunco nights, targeting the middle-aged social woman, apparently a prime consumer of heartburn medication. Their theory was that groups of women discuss products and pass advice on.

In the process, P&G created such a niche that it now sponsors the World Bunco Championships, held in Las Vegas each March.

Bunco provides an important social element – a good excuse to go out, something most men don’t seem to need.

Truth is, Bunco night is a night out with friends, laughter, food, beverages, and talking, lots of talking. But “Bunco night” has better cachet than a “I’m playing dice, gossiping, and drinking night.”

The friend who read about the phenomenon last year asked if she could tag along to the Bunco night that I had managed to get myself invited to.

“Yes,” I said. “But whatever you do, don’t go near the crab dip. . . . I heard it gives you heartburn.”

Town helps sniff out lost pooch
By Amy van Aarem | July 12, 2007
It was impossible not to know that a dog was missing. You couldn’t travel two blocks without seeing the signs — in color — with the picture of Pookie, dimensions listed: height, weight, color, age, breed, area where she was last seen.
If that wasn’t enough to get your attention, the “$1,000 REWARD!” probably did (in English, and Spanish: Recompensa!)
An open door at the dog-sitter’s had enabled Pookie to escape. Maybe they didn’t serve the right kind of dog food at that house. Maybe the dog bed was lumpy. Maybe the water in her dish wasn’t filtered. You see, Pookie was used to the good life. Well-groomed, well-mannered, wore a designer collar, slept on a special cushion, and rang a bell when she wanted to go out for some exercise. She was a classy pooch.
I wonder how that call to her owners went. “Hi, it’s me, um, the dog walker? Funny story, actually . . . ” Imagine the owners — on vacation, relaxing, miles of sand and ocean before them. “You’re right; we didn’t misplace her; we actually lost her. Yes, I realize that is my job… watching dogs.”
That started the Pookie Alert in motion. Posters were printed and tacked to every utility pole in town, and an expert was contacted. Sherlock Bones (real name, John Keane) is a pet detective in California and, for a fee, he will consult with you over the phone; he found Goldie Hawn’s dog; surely he could find Pookie.
He recommended new posters, 750 of them, with the word REWARD in bold print. They were hung around within two hours. (This is a small town, after all.) It wasn’t long before friends, neighbors, dog enthusiasts, people with free time, kids on bikes, boards, and blades — everyone wanted to find that dog.
Some wanted the money. After all, the sum of $1,000 is a big reward. That’s decent seats at a Sox game. That’s two tickets to see the Police at Fenway. That’s one Botox injection. That’s eight pilates classes. That’s August’s rent. That’s a lot of Purina.
But some just wanted to help. If you have a pet, you understand. We pet owners are like that. We become attached. Sometimes we treat our animals better than our children. Sometimes. (Full disclosure: We have two dogs and three children; the dogs never get put in time out.)
But Pookie was nowhere to be found. A week passed. People began to suspect coyotes, perhaps a fox. The pet detective fingered a “pet thief” as perpetrator. Motive: Resell Pookie, a desirable “labradoodle ” — a cross between a labrador and a poodle — on the black market.
‘Doodles are the latest thing. Hypoallergenic and an animal that doesn’t shed, they have been scooped up left and right by watery-eyed people.
Myriad search parties, working all corners of the town, converged in nearby Bare Cove Park. Pookie reportedly had been spotted on the grounds of the South Shore Country Club, had crossed busy Fort Hill Street, and was seen hiding out in the bus yard.
Pookie’s owner, on mountain bike, was casing the graveyard when she heard the words she thought she’d never hear: Pookie has been found!
As it turns out, it was my neighbor who spotted the fussy animal, hanging out with her rascal dog, Spike, in their back yard.
“I heard this barking,” the neighbor said. “It was a strange sort of bark — so I went to the backyard and Spike had cornered something…. I was expecting to see… a skunk or something . . . but there was Pookie.” She was dirty, disheveled, and dehydrated, but otherwise fine.
Pookie went home that night to hugs all around — and a chicken dinner.
“So, what is Spike going to do with the reward money?” I asked my neighbor (knowing that no money would exchange hands, since Spike and Pookie, and their owners, are friends; in this town, dogs and kids travel in packs, and everyone knows everyone).
Apparently $1,000 buys a lot of popcorn, Spike’s favorite snack. And my neighbor also netted a copy of the movie, “The Shaggy Dog,” compliments of one very grateful dog-sitter.
The end of the story: Pookie’s owner marched in the July Fourth parade with a sign stating, “Thank You, Hingham.” It was, after all, a community sort of effort.

From their barns to your mantel
Local artists open home studios to buyers
By Amy van Aarem, Globe Correspondent | November 11, 2007

The Boston art world has been experiencing a renaissance of late. What with the new Institute of Contemporary Art thrusting out over the harbor, and expansion plans for the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner well underway, there is no shortage of places to view spectacular art. However, opportunities for purchasing art may lie closer to home. The South of Boston art scene has never been bigger, and does not require a trip into the city.

National and international artists have migrated to the South Shore. They often open their studios to the public, offering chances to peek into their creative spaces, inspirations, process, and lives.

Perhaps Gauguin and van Gogh, upon setting up their studio in Arles for those two months in the late fall of 1888, had something in common with these artists: living and working together can create a buzz. French culture has always encouraged interaction with artists, and these artists are creating a similarly inviting atmosphere.

Nancy Colella, of Norwell, has been painting for 15 years. A fine arts major who studied in Greece and Mexico and lived and worked on the Vineyard, Colella spent years in the hospitality industry before gradually drifting back to her first love: oil painting.

“It was always there; the art thing never went away,” said Colella, who never goes anywhere without her art supplies, frequently pulling her Volvo wagon to the side of the road, setting up her easel and catching the sunset in a marsh.

Colella converted an old barn on her property into a workspace, naming it Salty Dog Studios after the family’s yellow lab, Salty. She enjoys meeting people in the comforts of her studio. Among the easels and oils there is a kitchenette, comfy chairs, exposed beams, and views of the old horse paddock.

“Who better to sell their own art than the artist themselves,” says Colella, who shows at galleries in Chatham, Hull, Boston, and beyond.

In the art world, especially for new artists, getting gallery representation can be hard and, says Colella, “matching the artist with the right gallery can sometimes be challenging.” When artists submit pieces to galleries, often they don’t have a say in how their work is displayed; with studio sales and open studios, the artists have more control of the presentation and pricing.

Average consumers who purchase art through a gallery or an intermediary, or through a fair sponsored by a particular venue, will pay an additional commission that they may not be aware of. The benefit of buying art direct is that the consumer will probably get a considerable discount.

JoAnne Chittick, of Cohasset, has been painting watercolors for 25 years. A few steps from her main house is a tidy red building, overlooking an expanse of garden and distant marsh, that was recently updated to include heat, something necessary for painting in New England.

“I had a little wood stove and I’d be out here painting and then realize that I’d be freezing,” said Chittick, whose revamped garden shed includes multiple windows salvaged from a surplus store in New Hampshire, a bright, cheery couch, and wall space covered with her watercolors.

People like to know how things work, and seeing art in production can be fascinating. In Hyannis, behind a narrow hallway of plexiglass windows at the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory, you can watch a potato transform into a chip; at Colella’s studio you can glimpse the pair of red Crocs near the door, and notice a painting of the same pair on the easel she is working on. Although you may not get to gorge yourself on free chips at the end of the tour, Colella might offer you an aperitif, and the story of one of her paintings.

Many of the artists like to know who is purchasing their art. “Paintings are like little children,” said Chittick. “They are all very special to me. I like to know who’s interested in them and what their reactions are to the piece.”

When Page Railsback and her husband moved to Hingham three years ago, they purchased Marc Brown’s (of the “Arthur” children’s book fame) property on North Street.

“His offices were in the house where we live now; out back was an empty shell of a building that we transformed into a studio,” said Railsback, whose studio is surrounded by windows and different levels that open up to private terraces, enveloped in lush gardens.

Railsback, who works primarily in acrylics, says she tries to paint every day, except for Saturdays. “That’s when my son teaches guitar up here.”

She hosts three official open studio days in conjunction with town events that bring foot traffic in. “But if I’m up here painting, and the studio is not a pig pen, I’ll hang my sign up,” says Railsback, who encourages people to stop in on those days or call to make an appointment.

Chittick hosts a couple of studio sales each year. “People just come in and buy pieces off the wall, unframed. It’s a lot of fun,” says Chittick of the casual atmosphere.

In addition to open studios, Colella and Railsback offer classes, where they take their students to paint outside, weather permitting, or they’ll paint alongside their students in the studio.

All of the artists say they are happy to make arrangements to meet with the curious. “I get about a call a month, someone wanting to drop by and look at some work,” said Chittick.

“I think most of the general public doesn’t know that it is OK to contact the artists. . . . Most of us love it,” said Colella.

Gary Nisbet, owner of Dot Gallery, on North Street in Hingham, is always encouraging people to stop by. After all, it was Nisbet who happened upon Railsback’s studio two years ago. After dinner one evening, his family noticed the paper lanterns lining her walkway and were curious to check out Marc Brown’s house.

“It was Christmas in the square and Gary introduced himself. . . . He said he was an artist who recently moved to town,” Railsback said.

That was the night they launched the idea of an Arts Walk, which celebrated its second year on Oct. 21 and featured 13 local artists.

Amy van Aarem can be reached at amyvanaarem@hotmail.com.