While the rest of us were out celebrating Bastille Day on Monday, a group of local luminaries was meeting in Edmond Town Hall considering what kind of birthday party to throw for Newtown’s 300th birthday in 2005. There was talk about fireworks and parades, and special logos and banners, and perhaps a gala ball… it sounds like quite a party. It’s going to take quite a bit of planning, but fortunately there’s still a year and a half before all the shouting starts.

I think it would be nice to come up with a town song in time for the big party. Something like this:

 Ahem… me-me-me-me… OK

We salute you Newtown for your fair fields and hills,

And your Fairfield Hills,

And your churches and hills and roads,

And your Church Hill Road,

And your rams and pastures,

And your Ram Pasture…

Well, I could go on about heads and meadows, but you get the picture.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal says he remembers the 250th celebration, quickly adding, “I was very young at the time.” There was a grand parade that year, though Herb remembers it traveled along Main Street in the opposite direction of Newtown’s annual Labor Day parades.

I noticed that the reconstruction of the brick-and-marble terrace on the north side of Edmond Town Hall is well underway. Years of wind and weathering had taken their toll on the structure, causing severe damage to the ornate platform. When the work is complete, the new terrace should be as good as the old terrace was when it was new, more than 70 years ago, I am told. In fact, the new terrace may last even longer because its design includes provisions for suitable drainage, according to Clark Kathan, who supervises the town hall’s operation.

Also on the construction front, work crews are getting ready to break through the wall separating the basement of the Congregational Church on West Street from the new church house addition. It’s expected to be a bit of a mess, so volunteers are moving the donation center temporarily from the church basement to the old church house on Main Street. Rather than haul everything to the temporary location, which wouldn’t hold everything anyway, the volunteers have decided to hold a tag and bag sale at the church undercroft on West Street this weekend. Hours will be 9 am to 2 pm on both Friday and Saturday, July 18–19.  The parishioners also will be holding the semiannual bag sale at their thrift store in Ricky’s Shopping Center on Saturday from 11 to 2. This sale continues through Friday, July 25.

Readers of the August 2003 issue of Food & Wine magazine will find a full-page article about Joan Yarrow and her store, Victoria Yarrow, on page 37. The article discusses how Joan named the store on South Main Street after her daughter, and includes a great photo of Joan in her shop.

Beryl and Jack Harrison booked The Pleasance for a postwedding picnic brunch for their son Trent and his new wife Cindy, and their guests. After a week of heat and humidity, it was a beautiful Saturday morning, cool, clear, and dry. Beryl had just set up the food on tables in the gazebo and was about to spread quilts on the grass when the sprinklers came on. She also discovered that the sprinklers not only water the grass and plantings, but also half of the inside of the gazebo. Beryl moved as far as she could out of range and had just resigned herself to waiting for them to turn off, when Scudder Smith, Bee publisher and chief gardener at The Bee’s Pleasance, drove up, looking chagrined. He turned off the sprinklers and assured her that the grass would dry out in time for the brunch. “It did and we had a wonderful time –– eating, drinking, flying kites, playing croquet and bocce, and blowing bubbles,” Beryl said.

Woodchucks are out in full force this time of year. Some have become partial to the wood furniture outside Dan and Carol Amaral’s house, leaving the chair legs looking like they have been attacked by beavers.

Longtime Newtown resident Mary Pat Carroll Brigham, who lives now in Montpelier, Vt., has offered a few corrections concerning the recent Bee article about the Gaston Lachaise drawing and its connection to her “Aunt Vir” via the artist’s sister, Allys Lachaise. Mary Pat’s aunt’s name was Mary Virginia Houlihan, and she died in 1969, not 1970. “Aunt Vir” and her sister Alice Houlihan Carroll (who was Mary Pat’s mother) were the children of Katharine Hourigan (not Horrigan) Houlihan, who was descended from Martin Hourigan, who came to Newtown around 1850 from the westernmost corner of County Clare, near Loop Head. Mrs Brigham then described the part of Ireland where the Hourigans originated.

“This is that small triangle of West Clare that the town historian [Dan Cruson] wrote about quite elegantly in a recent issue of The Bee. My mother’s entire genealogical lineage comes from this very small area and I have no reason to think the lines from which she descended had been living anywhere else but there for hundreds of years. As for Martin himself, I don’t think I know for certain how soon he bought the farm on The Old Road, but I know the family never budged from that spot until Aunt Vir died in 1969.” (I think I’ll try to sell this paragraph to the Mensa people for use in their qualifying test for prospective members.)

One of the nicest things about having someone work for a company for a long stretch of time is seeing how that person’s life can go through wonderful changes and additions. A few years ago friends and fellow co-workers watched as Alisa (“Weezer”) Maher was romanced by Dennis (“Den-Den”) Lyons, and then cheered for her as she and Dennis were married in November 1999. Late last year Alisa’s friends and family learned that she and Dennis were expecting a child, and last week The Bee welcomed Alisa back to its production department. Alisa and Dennis welcomed a daughter, who they’ve named Rachel MacKenzie Lyons, to the world on March 12. We’re glad Alisa’s back, even with all the baby food that keeps finding its way onto her shirts.

This weekend we’ll be thinking of Ian Dane, a fellow Bee employee, as he and fiancée Stella Martinez make their wedding vows. Ian joined the Bee’s production department just a few months ago and he’s been talking about his wedding from day one. He has been the one doing the majority of the planning, and has also been attending school at night on top of his daytime work at The Bee. It’s a good thing the newlyweds have a honeymoon to look forward to after their wedding ceremony and reception on Saturday because Ian needs a vacation! We wish him well.

I was driving through Sandy Hook the other day, and a bright object caught my eye, right in front of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company firehouse on Riverside Road. While on vacation, Sandy Hook Fire Chief Bill Halstead was out in front of the building spiffing up his Chevrolet. This is no ordinary Chevy, but a 2001 Monte Carlo coupe painted in what seems like the brightest red paint ever for a passenger car. Actually, the paint color is a brilliant red-orange. It was so red the fire engines were jealous.

This column is so read that you will have no choice but to…

Read me again.