By: Mike Garbuzinski

If you’re a local resident looking for new ways to connect to nature and to the town’s past, then this story is definitely for you. The North Attleboro historic commission has made a proposal to town selectman to turn the historic Codding Farm property into a new cultural center.

The commission gave a presentation in which they envision revamping the farm, widely known around town as the Lestage property, into a multi-purpose agricultural site. The proposal involves using the property as a year-round farm for beginners, teaching classes on nutritional awareness, homesteading and the history of the property and local farming. The farm section would include community garden beds, a mushroom growing project and collaborative workshops with local schools. Officials say that the food produced on the property would be harvested and donated to local pantries or purchased by citizens.

The Codding farm was built in the 1830’s, and has since been established as a local landmark by the town. As of now the property is under the stewardship of the North Attleboro board of selectmen, but the historic commission is looking to take over maintenance of the farm as part of the new proposal. The selectmen are now deliberating on the proposal, but there are several factors to consider. Selectman Chairman Michael Thompson stated, “I think it’s a really good idea, but I think it’s something I want to make sure if we go into it, there’s no opportunity for it to ever fail. We need to be cognizant of what the costs are going to be on it and whether we can sustain this thing going into the future.”

In addition to raising awareness about farming and the town’s history, the commission sees an opportunity to partner with local schools. They would hope to work with Tri-County Regional Technical Vocational School and the Bristol Agricultural School to give students hands-on experience in a farming community.

The final decision has yet to be made, so what are your thoughts on the proposal? Would you like to Codding Farm as a cultural center? Let us know!

By Carly Heideger

Clarence Clemons, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’s beloved soulful saxophonist died Saturday at a hospital in West Palm Beach Florida. He was 69 years old. Mr. Clemons had suffered a stroke earlier last week and the complications continued.

Clarence Anicholas Clemons was born on January 11, 1942 in Norfolk, Virginia to a fisherman father. At age 9, as Christmas gift, he began to play the saxophone, he credits his love for the instrument to King Curtis.

Mr. Clemons was a very gifted athlete. He attended Maryland State College (which is now known as University of Maryland Eastern shore) where he played football on scholarship along with music; a knee injury ended his chances of playing professionally. In the early 1960s and 1970s Clemons began working with music on the Jersey shore, until he met Mr. Springsteen.

Mr. Clemons, come to be known as the Big Man and “the Boss” had a legendary first meeting back in September 1971, in an Asbury Park bar during a lightning storm. Springsteen was playing a gig when the wind blew the door off its hinges and Clarence was towering in the shadows. Mr. Clemons invited himself onto the stage to play with the Boss, and the rest is history. Clemons’ recalls the moment “I swear I will never forget that moment, I felt like I was supposed to be there. It was a magical moment. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love. And that’s still there.”

Being an African American during the end of the civil rights movement was groundbreaking in the music industry for a black and white band to mix together. Mr. Clemons wrote in his memoir “Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales “You had your black bands and you had your white bands, and if you mixed the two you found less places to play.” The colors didn’t matter, only the sound, very quickly Springsteen’s voice and Clemons’s sound became the “focal point of the group’s sound.”

Clemons is also remember for acting in productions such as “New York, New York” and “Diff’rent Strokes”. His most recent work was with Lady Gaga on her “Born This Way” album.

He is survived by fifth wife, Victoria and four sons. Mr. Clemons’ charisma and soulful sound is remember by all, most especially Mr. Springsteen, “With Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory and his love will love on in that story and in our band.” 

            By: Mike Garbuzinski

He was simply known as “The Man”. It was a quiet yet dignified nickname for a reserved yet extraordinary individual, and it was a name he never let down. Baseball Hall of Famer Stan Musial died at age 92 on January 19, 2013 at his St. Louis home. He was under hospice care and surrounded by family and friends at the time of his death. 

                Stan the Man is considered to be the greatest St. Louis Cardinal of all time, and one of the game’s greatest players. Musial was held as royalty in St. Louis, so much so that there are two statues dedicated to him outside of the Cardinal’s Busch Stadium. He spent all of his 22 MLB seasons with the same club. Musial holds virtually every Cardinal’s batting record, including hits, home runs, RBI’s, and batting average. He was a three time World Series champion, three time MVP, seven time batting champion, a 24 time all-star and a first ballot Hall of Famer.

                Stanley Frank Musial was born in Donora, Pa., on Nov. 21, 1920 to Lukasz and Mary Musial. He attended Donora High School, and at age 18 he signed a minor-league deal with the Cardinals despite his father’s preference for him to attend the University of Pittsburgh on scholarship. He married Lillian Labash, his high school sweetheart, in St. Paul’s Church in Dayton Beach, Fla. on May 25, 1940. Their marriage lasted over 70 years until her death in May 2012.

                Musial’s baseball career was briefly interrupted while he served in the United States Navy from January 1945 until March 1946. He was deployed in Maryland, Philadelphia and Hawaii during his time in the service.

                In his post-baseball life, he was a director of Southwest Bank in St. Louis, co-owner of the restaurant “Stan Musial & Biggie’s” and was a charter member of the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.  Fun-loving and good-natured, Musial was known for playing his harmonica to entertain at functions and for his tendency to perform magic tricks for sick children.

                He is survived by his four children, Richard, Gerry, Janet and Jean.  A funeral service was held on January 26 at the Cathedral Basilica in west St. Louis.

                Musial was a man loved locally but never revered nationally, and perhaps ESPN’s senior baseball writer Tim Kurkjian put it best by saying: “His nickname was The Man, and he was in every way. Musial was the greatest Cardinal ever, one of the greatest players ever and perhaps the most underrated player of all time.”

Jazz musician Donald Bryd died at the age of 80. He was a leading trumpeter of the 1950s who worked with many top artists of his time. He was best known for being one of the few bebop jazz musicians who successfully introduced the funk and soul genres while remaining a jazz artist.

He died February 4 in Delaware, according to Haley Funeral Directors in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Mich., which is handling arrangements. It did not have details on his death.

Byrd was a father in jazz education, attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, played in military bands in the Air Force and moved to New York in 1955. He became one of the most in-demand trumpeters in New York and played alongside many famous musicians such as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk.

In 1958, Bryd signed a recording contract with the Blue Note label an formed a band with a fellow Detroit native, Pepper Adams. The band became one of the leading hands of hard-bop style, which evolved from bebop blended with R&B, soul and gospel.

In the 1960s, Byrd received his master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. He studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and became the first person to teach jazz at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and started the jazz studies department at Howard University in Washington D.C.

Byrd began to move from jazz to a more commercial sound with the funk-jazz fusion. He released albums and received many criticisms from the media. “I’m creative; I’m not re-creative,” Byrd told the Detroit Free Press in a 1999 interview. “I don’t follow what everybody else does.”

Bryrd began to attend law school at night and received a law degree in 1976. In 1982, Byrd, received his doctorate from New York Teachers College, Columbia University. He turned his attention from performing to educating. He became a distinguished scholar at William Paterson University and Delaware State University.

In the late ‘80s and ‘90s, he performed for several albums for the Landmark label.

In 2000, the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Byrd as a Jazz Master, the nation’s highest jazz honor.