Library book selection and public comment poicies were clarified by school district officials as national debates came close to home on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
School Committee Chair Beth Stafford and Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak sought to “correct a couple of misunderstandings and miscommunications that have been going on” surrounding meeting protocol issues.
Aside from public comment guidelines, Stafford said the other miscommunication problem centers around the policy for selecting books used to augment instruction or to be included in the school libraries.
School book policies have been a hot-button topic nationwide.
Szymaniak addressed the policy on “groups that give us books.”
He said the words “books” and “donations” had been mentioned during a discussion of the crosswalk painting and library partnership Whitman PRIDE had appeared to ask be supported by the committee.
“I got some questions from some parents [and I’m] trying to respond to it,” he said. “We have a set guideline that we use, and not everybody in the world can just send their books here, although I will tell people in the public that we get donations of books from all over the country sometimes.”
WHRSD does have a policy – IJL – on library materials selection and adoption under which the School Committee endorses the School Library Bill of Rights as adopted by the American Library Association [See box].
Initial purchase suggestions for library materials may come from all personnel – teachers, coordinators and administrators. Students will also be encouraged to make selections. The librarian will make recommendations to be included in the school library, but final approval and authority for distribution of funds will rest with the building principal, subject to the approval of the superintendent.
Gifts of books will be accepted for the library in keeping with the policy guidelines and complaints will be handled in line with the committee policy on complaints and instructional materials.
“So, we do actually have a policy on how we accept books,” Szymaniak said. He noted the American Legion donates calendars to the district, which are vetted that, like all other donations, they are age-appropriate and user-friendly for school librarians based on DESE criteria and the professional judgments of the district’s teachers, administrators and professional staff.
“It’s not just anybody in the world can send us a book and put it in the libraries,” he said.
Stafford, who is a retired grade six social studies teacher, agreed that the policy prevents donations that are not reviewed.
“It is with Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidelines, coupled with the research recommendations from the Educational and School Library organizations and the input from our professional staff, including the district librarian, curriculum coordinators and diretors, principals and my central office team that I rely on to make final decisions regarding textbooks and educational materials,” he said. “Suggestions or recommendations from any community member or organization about books or resources are simply that – recommendations.”
The School District goes by a formal review process based on the Massachusetts Students’ Rights Law, [MGL Ch. 76 Section 5] which states that all public-school systems, through their curricula, “encourage respect for the human and civil rights of all individuals, regardless of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.”
School administrators and teachers will evaluate all students with a rubric and specify that the demographics include, but is not limited to those who identify as Black, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, indigenous and multi-racial students, those with disabilities, are English learners, are LGBTQ+, students experiencing homelessness and/or financial insecurity.
The law is intended to help schools implement state laws impacting LGBTQ+, + students – including the state’s anti-bullying law, gender identity law and student anti-discrimination law.
The law is a joint initiative between DESE and the Mass. Commission on LGBTQ+, + Youth.
The committee also voted to have the policy subcommittee review the public comment policy for meetings.
In 2020 the committee unanimously approved a policy permitting a 15-minute window at the beginning of meetings to give members of the public an opportunity to speak about any subject on or off the agenda an within the School Committee’s portfolio, without comment other than a “thank-you” from the committee. Individual speakers are limited to three minutes for their comments.
“There will be some exceptions like during budget times when we need to speak to union reps,” Stafford said. “I want you to understand that, if I call on somebody during a time such as with the union reps when we’re talking about employees, then I would be calling on them.”
Vice Chair Christopher Scriven said the issue of public comment had been brought to his attention by people outside of the committee. and he asked for it to be placed on the agenda because he felt it very worthy of discussion.
“I think a lot of us take very seriously the notion that we represent our constituents, and we should have their best interests in mind,” he said. “If they have something to come up and speak to, specifically, as part of a discussion, as important as some of the ones we’ve had recently, I think we should be open to that.”
Member Fred Small agreed.
Scriven said the committee should, at least, get input from the rest of the board to make decisions on some kind of consensus.
Stafford said she would like to put it to the policy subcommittee, since it is a policy already. Member Dawn Byers agreed and made the motion to send the matter to the policy subcommittee.
“Unfortunately, the last couple of years, the policy was not followed,” Stafford said.
Speaking as a private citizen, Select Board member Shawn Kain commented during the public comment period that the discussion of Pride crosswalks, a proposed partnership with the Whitman Library and an LGBTQ+ scholarship should have permitted citizen’s input, and asked that it be reconsidered.
“Unfortunately, before the vote, you refused to let the public comment on the issue,” he said, noting the room was filled with parents, therapists, former School Committee members and at least one student. “As an active citizen in our community, I believe this is a red flag.”
Kain had expressed that opinion in a letter to the editor published in the Express on July 27.
“When we refuse to allow public comment, we do not benefit from potentially vital information that we otherwise wouldn’t be aware of and we deprive ourselves of the diverse perspectives that are not always available on the board,” Kain said, noting it feels arrogant ant exclusive to him – the opposite of the inclusive project being discussed.
Dan McDonough of Carriage Road in Hanson also commented on partnership of Whitman PRIDE and the Committee, especially in connection with the school wellness program.
Noting the nationwide debate, he said the “issue of gender confusion is very deadly and divisive.
“My main concern as a father is how early these discussions are happening,” he said. “My only concern is the protection of elementary school and how early we’re talking about it, and parents should be included in that conversation when we are talking about it.”
Szymaniak said the wellness program comes directly from the Commonwealth and has no association with Whitman PRIDE at all. That new curriculum was open for public comment through Monday, Aug. 28.

By Linda Ibbitson Hurd
Special to the Express
In the Summer of 1953 I was 6 years old and would start first grade in the fall. I was both excited and scared at the thought. 
I also was covered with poison ivy from head to toe when I landed in it falling out of a small tree. I wasn’t hurt otherwise but hated being covered with calamine lotion every day. My sister Penny was 3 at the time and I felt bad because she didn’t understand why she couldn’t hug me or hold my hand. We also had a new baby brother who had been born the end of August and was little more than a week old and I couldn’t hold him. My parents were hoping the poison ivy would clear up so I could start school in time and I was hoping it wouldn’t. 
Just in the nick of time the last of the poison ivy faded away.
I had new clothes and a lunch box and finally the big day came. I stood with Mom at the end of our sidewalk holding her hand with Penny beside us and Davey in the carriage asleep. As the big yellow bus came down the street and stopped in front of our house opening it’s door, I gripped mom’s hand. She urged me to go ahead as I walked slowly up the steps of the bus.
Much to my surprise I knew the bus driver, he was a distant cousin named Sammy.
My mother and he greeted each another both happy to see each other which calmed me down and I think it also helped my mother. As Sammy drove down the street picking up other children, I realized I had forgotten my lunchbox and everything in it I needed. I was trying very hard not to cry. When Sammy asked me if I was OK, I told him what was wrong. He told me not to worry, he would take care of it. When the bus turned around and came back up the street getting closer to my house, there was mom standing there holding my lunch box. Sammy smiled as he stopped the bus, took the lunch box from mom and gave it to me. It seemed very strange going to an unknown place without my mother. I also worried about leaving her alone with no one to help her. 
The bus finally pulled into the L.Z. Thomas school parking lot. It was a nice old red brick building with a big window in the front with an outside staircase going down either side that made me think of a castle. Teachers met the buses, leading us into the building and to our designated classrooms. I will always love the smell of old buildings and their old wood floors and I did love this building, the wooden desks and chairs, the coat closets and the nice big windows with their spacious panes that looked out onto the grounds. 
I liked my first-grade teacher and was intrigued and interested by the classroom and it’s big chalkboards on the wall. Over the chalkboards hung big squares, each one a different color with a letter on it. A big calendar hung on the wall depicting a colorful Fall scene. On another wall were big colorful squares with numbers on them. There was a flag hanging up in one corner and we all had our very own desk and chair. The first couple of weeks, I mostly worried about my mom and wanted to go home. Some of my classmates seemed to be having the same problem. 
One morning the teacher passed out books. She said we were going to learn how to read. She started pointing to the lettered squares on the wall asking if any of us knew what letter it was and we learned the alphabet quite fast. Before long we were reading some of the words in the books she passed out. By the end of September, we were reading about Dick, Jane, Sally, their Cocker spaniel, Spot, and Puff the kitten; the town they lived in and all their adventures. When October came, we were learning how to cut shapes out of colorful construction paper and taping them on the windows. We decorated for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We loved standing outside on the lawn looking at our decorated windows. There is always at least one kid who has to stick his or her tongue on the flagpole. The first year I was there it was a third grader as we all watched out the window while the Firetruck showed up to rescue him. 
When Spring came that year, we were still decorating windows with our colorful cutouts. We also were taught about the Maypole and every Spring there was a ceremony. I remember the year my class was old enough to be in it and we were so proud. I was actually sad when it was time for Summer vacation at the end of first grade. I had stopped worrying about my mom, she was doing fine and Penny was helping her. Being both homesick and scared, first grade opened up a whole new world to me and as over the hill as I am, I’m still learning! 
 
 
 

WHITMAN – Who can and should care for and clean old headstones at historic site such as Whitman’s Mount Zion Cemetery?
Whitman resident Leslie DiOrio has asked the Select Board on Tuesday, Aug.1 for official permission to do that work at Mount Zion. The Board granted DiOrio’s request for official permission.
She had pointed out Mount Zion qualifies as a National Historic Site, due to the date on the oldest stone there – February 1733.
“As a result, we can, as a town, obtain funding through the state of Massachusetts and Community Preservation funding for the upkeep of the cemetery, the stones and some of the groundwork,” she said.
She shared with the Select Board on Tuesday, Aug. 1 a copy of a letter she had sent to the Department of Public Works in May outlining her request for formal permission to clean the stones at Mount Zion, which is not far from her residence.
She also advocated a Cemetery Committee for Mount Zion, since it is the only cemetery in Whitman that does not have one.
According to the National Park Service’s website, “Soiling and staining of cemetery gravestones, monuments, markers, and statuary can result from soil splashing, pollution, rusting bolts or other metal features, bird deposits, and berries or sap dropping onto the stone. Biological growth, such as algae, lichen, or moss, can cover the surface, cause the stone to decay, and make reading the stone difficult.”
“The reason I feel strongly that a person should ask the town for permission, and I’m coming to you for permission, is that a lot of damage can be done by just walking in and cleaning with any substance and not knowing what you’re doing,” DiOrio said.
She has sought out the specialized training involved, she said, including attending lots of seminars and work cleaning historic stones in every New England state.
“This is something that I care deeply about, and as I clean these stones, I actually keep a family tree, and go on familysearch.org, which is a free website with a universal tree,” she said. “I have created documentation and pulled the official document for all the residents of that cemetery.”
She offered to take interested officials with her on Friday. Aug. 4 for the next work she planned to do.
Select Board member Justin Evans asked whether there is a level of training they should look for if anyone else came forward to seek permission to clean historic gravestones.
“You never want to hear they are planning to use soap or bleach or any kind of metal brush,” she said. Biologically-based cleaners are used on historic gravestones and markers.
DiOrio suggested asking about techniques and materials they planned to use, noting she has been asked those very questions every time she has sought permission to clean stones.
Board Vice Chair Dan Salvucci asked about liability, but DiOrio said that should not be a concern unless stones were being moved or renovated.
She told the Select Board that she has been cleaning the stones for about a year, having first broached the topic with the late Marie Lailer of the Historic Commission.
Lailer learned that the DPW maintains cemetery grounds, but not the headstones.
“I didn’t receive a response to this, but they did cover it in one of their board meetings,” she said.
DiORio also provided the Select Board with a copy of Terra Firma, a state document which informs about best practices in historic cemetery care.
“The reason I didn’t receive a response [from the DPW Commission] was that they felt that while they were not going to ‘get in my way,’ and were willing to allow me to continue the work there, they were not willing to give anyone ‘official permission,’” she said.
DiOrio’s said her understanding about the DPW Commissioners’ meeting was that headstone care should be families that give permission.
“The challenge with that is, it doesn’t follow best practices in cemetery care,” she said, emphasizing that is not meant to be criticism of the DPW. “But, when you talk about cemetery care and who grants permission, it really is the grounds of the cemetery, which is the town of Whitman in this case.”
Mount Zion is owned by the town of Whitman. Previously a family burial site, it was procured by the town in 1851.
“When you talk about families giving permission, it is down to the third generation,” she said. “For example, I can clean my great-grandmother’s stone, but not my great-great-grandmother’s stone.”
Her family is buried in Mount Hope in Boston, where DiOrio said she couldn’t just walk in and clean a stone, because it is a maintained, private cemetery in that case. Since Whitman owns Mount Zion, she needs town permission to care for stones there.
Historic Commission Chair Molly Schnabel said she agreed with everything DiOrio said, except for one thing.
“The state has the money for preservation and she’s right about these cemeteries,” Schnabel said. “We have money already.”
The Commission has $20,000 through the Community Preservation Act (CPA) and is seeking matching grants from the state.
“This cemetery should be on that group we’re looking to do,” she said. Once matching grants are obtained, they can hire state-approved workers come in and, while they don’t do stone preservation work, she said DiOrio’s idea is a good one, adding that the number of GAR stones [Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans’ organization of Union Army veterans after the Civil War] is remarkable, and that even though the town does not have a GAR building, its Civil War era history is remarkably well preserved.
“But it needs to be discussed, I think, with the historic commission,” Schnabel said of the stone project. “If you want to work with us on [the grant] that would be great.”
DiOrio said she is not applying for grant money.
Schnabel added there are three cemeteries in town that need to be watched, including one on Pine Street as well as Colebrook and Mount Zion.
“You can see some of the work [at Mount Zion] that Marie and I started and I’ve been continuing,” DiOrio said.

HANSON – What’s in store for the Hanson Fire Department now that there’s a new chief in the corner office?
More of the same, if you ask Chief Robert O’Brien – who sees himself as something of a conduit between the department’s past and its future. A 27-year fire service veteran, O’Brien took command officially in June, after some five years as a deputy chief and several weeks as acting chief after the retirement of Chief Jerome Thompson Jr.
“Chief Thompson was always very encouraging,” he said of new ideas he had suggested as he climbed the ranks. “Some of them work, some don’t work, and that’s where encouraging people is valuable.”
It is an approach he is continuing as chief of a department that Thompson had already brought a long way from where it was 16 years ago.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff going on, which is good,” he said. “We have a very young department. Their enthusiasm, their way of thinking, is – I’m going to call it non-traditional.
“That’s what I’m really pushing for the direction of the department now, for the firefighters and the officers to think outside the box … basically throw it against the wall, and if it sticks, great, If it doesn’t, then we continue the way we’ve been going.”
There have already been a lot of ideas they are trying, including use of the experience new hires have until they can go to fire academy. One has fire experience and has been put on shift, another has paramedic experience but not firefighting training, so he is assigned to the first ambulance out the door, which leaves three firefighters and a lieutant available to answer fire calls until he can attend the academy.
“Firewise, we don’t want to put him in a precarious position without being trained,” O’Brien said. It also allows the second ambulance to get out the door faster.
“My mantra to them is, ‘Let’s give it a try,’” he said. “Having a young department, the experience level is different from what I have.”
While maintaining a lot of the department’s traditions and respect for its history, O’Brien said technology is making a lot of changes as it adheres to the department’s tradition of aggressively seeking grant funding for equipment, projects and programs. Emergency management has provided a weather TV system – which, no doubt, came in handy during Saturday’s tornado warnings – and ROCC 911 funding pays for the department’s security and dispatch systems. Those are just two areas where grant funding has been secured for the department.
A lot of information on what to do to prepare for weather extremes, and what resources in town are available, for example, are posted to residents via social media on the department’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“We’re really fortunate here that Rob Heffernan is a big technology guru,” he said. “All these TVs and monitors that you see, especially the big one [in the main room which is used for virtual classes and webinars], the townspeople didn’t pay for any of it.”
As he spoke, one of those video screens, which displays a map most of the time, alarms went off as Whitman Fire was dealing with a heat emergency involving a person collapsed on South Avenue. A line of white LED lights was illuminated along the ceiling as well as a shorter line of red LED lights. Had it been at night the red lights would be more prominent at first, so it would be less jarring to the 24/7 crews being awakened by alarms until firefighters’ eyes adjust to the light.
“That’s why I’m encouraging people to come on in,” he said. “Come see your fire station. You paid for it, but what’s interesting is what they don’t have to pay for.”
While most technology equipment is funded by grant money, a majority of that in the apparatus bay is a combination of grant money and the ambulance account. The ladder truck replacement, for example, is being looked at as a 50-percent grant-sourced project.
“I’ve been very fortunate my whole career,” he said. “Other chiefs outside [of town], because of my involvement with technical rescue … I’ve gotten very involved with MEMA.”
It’s been a boon to networking, he said.
Hanson Fire and Mass. Maritime Academy plan to run a big tabletop exercise in April, that the school’s seniors are working.
“It’s going to be a little different for the town,” O’Brien said. “Chief Thompson allowed me to handle all the emergency management stuff, but I’m starting to go through things now of a continuity of operations plan for the town.”
Hanson does not currently have a robust emergency operation plan. A comprehensive plan was developed just about the time Thompson retired.
O’Brien has also presented a training course at Mass. Maritime for the helicopter aquatic rescue team, for which he is a program coordinator. The team specializes in flood and swift water rescues, from a concept developed in North Carolina.
“We’ve been working on it for five years and now it’s up and running,” he said.
O’Brien is also pushing for firefighters to be better educated in their craft and learning from what other departments have done or what they’ve experienced outside of Hanson Fire, to be more valuable members of the department.
Shifts are excited about new training techniques they can learn as a unit, as well.
“Firefighting is changing constantly and what it was 30 or 40 years ago is much different than what it is today,” he said, adding that department leadership is also sitting down with firefighters to discuss their short-term and long-term career goals.
While ambulance receipts also fund equipment like the new amulance being sought at the October Town Meeting, O’Brien said most ambulance costs to patients are handled through insurance.
“We don’t go to collections for it,” he said. “We don’t want people not to call the ambulance because of the cost.”
He also stressed the importance of calling 911 when help is needed, instead of the business line, because there might not be someone available to answer the business line if they are out on a call, prevention or training.
In fact, if O’Brien had an unlimited budget, staffing would be his top priority.
“Right now, we are looking at a SAFER grant,” he said. “It will pay 100-percent [of costs involved with] firefighter hiring – physicals, equipment, training, health care and retirement for three years, which is a great deal … But at the end of three years, the municipalities take ownership of that.”
He’s working with the Select Board and Finance Committee to determine how the department can afford that level of staffing.
More people on ambulances get them out the door quicker and more people on the fire line are important because fires burn hotter and faster than they used to because of chemicals used in buildings.
The May 2022 Town Meeting also approved funds for a feasibility study for the station, which should be going out to bid shortly, but O’Brien is aware a new Highway facility is a more pressing priority in town right now, and rightfully so, but the fire station is approaching 50 years old – and originally shared space with the library and senior center.
“The building was not designed for 24-hour occupancy,” he said. “Our bunkrooms are make-shift and are in the attic.”
It was also not designed for a co-ed fire crew, and the department now has two female firefighters.
“We’re the best-looking building in town, and a lot of that is due to the [maintenance and upkeep] done by the firefighters,” O’Brien said, noting he does not see any reason to move the Fire Department to a different location – which leaves a decision on how to improve the building where it is.
“We’re doing the groundwork,” he said.

How do you get to know a new town?
If you are Beth Sobiloff and Marcia Rothwell, you post your intention to visit on Facebook, and ask for suggestions as to where to eat and what to do when you arrive. That’s how the two of them ended up starting the day with a veggie omelet and French toast at Cowbells Café on Thursday, July
Sobiloff and Rothwell, known for their Facebook mission to visit every town in Massachusetts, record their adventures on a webcast travelogue called Two Grannies on the Road.
Something of a modern-day, high-tech combination of the late Scripps-Howard newspaper columnist Ernie Pyle’s Depression-era travels across America to introduce his countrymen to each other, revived on television by CBS’ Charles Kuralt in the 1970s. The Massachusetts mission is the latest Sobiloff has undertaken, with Rothwell as her third partner.
Whitman is the 56th Bay State community the vlog has visited and as they rattled of some of those towns, this writer couldn’t help but replay the vintage country tune, “I’ve Been Everywhere” in the back of my mind.
“We’ve been all over the state,” Sobiloff said as she began listing some of the towns. “Marion, Mattapoisett, Fairhaven, Dartmouth, New Bedford and then we’ve done a couple places on the Cape … we’ve been up in Newburyport, Newbury and West Newbury … we’ve also been out to North Adams and Adams and Williamstown and a five-day trip to the Berkshires.”
Quite a few towns in the greater Worcester area have also been destinations.
After breakfast, they had plans to head over to the Historical Society to chat about Whitman’s history and how they might add historical site drive-bys to the itinerary. They had an appointment to interview Josh Phippen, of the South Shore Boxing Gym on South Avenue and were going to fit in lunch at another Whitman eatery before stopping for an ice cream at Peaceful Meadows on the way out of town.
“We end our day with ice cream.” Sobiloff said.
They took photos of their breakfast entrees and video recorded their reactions to the menu items for their Facebook page before eating.
“I’ve got French toast made with French bread, which you don’t see all the time,” Sobiloff reported. “I’ve got real maple syrup, which is a must for me… Very good. I like the French toast, nice and thick..”
From the Plymouth area, Sobiloff said her son lives in Hanson and her daughter works in Whitman, so she is a bit familiar with it, but as always they let the community give suggestions for their specific destinations.
“We try to do something unusual,” Rothwell said, mentioning the boxing gym visit. “I hate boxing,” she laughed. She told gym owner Phippen the same thing in an often-funny interview posted the Grannies Facebook page: facebook.com/twogranniesontheroad.
That visit also included the ladies climbing into the ring to test their fighting stance as well as a round or two with the speedbag and heavy bag.
“We often will do drive-arounds to view historic buildings that aren’t necessarily open, monuments, parks, things of that nature,” Sobiloff said.
“This town seems to have a lot of things,” Rothwell said.
This writer interviewed them – and they interviewed me – it was a mutual meeting of the media mavens of the South Shore.
A native of Wethersfield, Conn., Rothwell is a retired nurse who worked at Hartford Hospital for 46 years, but Sobiloff, an Ohio native, still works as a web designer. Each of the women is a bona fide grandmother – with six grandchildren each. They also love to joke around that Rothwell is the third “second granny.”
“I actually started [her travels] in 2010,” Sobiloff said. “I’d had my business for about eight years and I was single at the time, my youngest son was getting ready to graduate from college … and I just started thinking about how I hadn’t had a vacation in eight years.”
Taking her kids cross county in an RV had always been a dream of hers, but she never had the chance to do it. Then she realized she had a job she could do anywhere.
“I thought maybe I could figure out a way to travel and work across the country,” she said. Not wanting to travel alone, Sobiloff asked friend Ginny Just, who, as a graphic designer, was also not tied to an office.
“That made me think of the name: ‘Two Grannies on the Road,’” she said. “I got together with her and told her my idea and she said, ‘I’m in.’”
Sobiloff’s first partner in travel vlogging created the logo and Sobiloff created the website: twogranniesontheroad.com.
“The deal was to get sponsorships from big companies like Winnebago,” she said. “We did some networking about it, we did some proposals to big companies for sponsorships, but we were coming out of absolutely nowhere – nobody knew who we were.”
RV life may be more of a thing now, but 12 years ago it was a strange notion to some of the recreational vehicle companies.
“We just evolved over the years,” Sobiloff said. The next idea was to interview Baby Boomers being forced out of jobs at a time of economic downturn and what they were doing to reinvent themselves, to inspire other Baby Boomers to go for their dreams.
She made that cable access program in East Bridgewater for a couple of years, before Sobiloff and her then-partner each met a new husband and boyfriend, respectively.
Sobiloff and her husband moved to Plymouth and her first partner retired.
“I had guest grannies a lot of times,” she said.
“She tells me these stories,” Rothwell laughed. “I’m worried about her freezer.”
Guest Grannie Debbie Phalen, a retired optician who had started candy business in her basement, agreed to come on board for the mission to visit every city and town in Massachusetts after she and Sobiloff had worked together on a few shows. Phalen moved to Florida to be near her daughter about a year ago.
Enter Rothwell, who met at a social luncheon when a mutual acquaintance introduced them.
“Here I am,” Rothwell said.
Once Rothwell writes down the responses to her Facebook inquiries about a town, she makes some calls to confirm schedules and it’s time to hit the road. She also calls each town’s historical society for an after-breakfast trip.
“Maybe there are sights that we need to see,” she said. “This town, it was interesting how much different things, historically have taken place. … It’s always exciting what we find.”
Then there’s the editing to do before an episode goes up on their web site.
Next week the Two Grannies follow their road back to Western Massachusetts to Shelburne and Buckland. Follow along on Facebook.
They also speak at senior centers. Libraries and over-55 communities on their travels. Contact them at beth@twogranniesontheroad.com, their websites and Facebook page.

Hanson native uncorks a thriller
ByHANSON – Is Tim Wirzburger clairvoyant, or just an apt history student with the patience to see the value in a story idea that was worth countless rewrites?
About 15 years ago, the Hanson native began work on the idea for what became his first novel “In Plain Sight” [Palisade Media, 2022, 368 pages, trade paperback. ISBN#2370000893932] about a summer camp in western Pennsylvania with a sinister mission: hand-pick the teens to be indoctrinated into a group mentality toward a specific goal – for which some would be later selected for clandestine roles.
“Camp Bohr was supposed to be a normal summer camp: cabins in the woods, a beautiful lake, and dozens of teenagers just like Chris. However, strange things begin happening almost immediately – and Chris seems to be the only one who’s noticing,” Wirzburger writes on his website timwirburger.com.
Social media, the use of technology in such plots and other modern tools of politics and social movements also come into play, but any similarities to coup attempts, real or imagined, is purely coincidental, as the movie disclaimers read. But the novel’s fictional anti-government plot hinged to a date of Oct. 6 was not an attempt to reflect real events.
“I think we all know these kids,” Wirzburger said. “It’s supposed to be universal. … It’s not any political commentary. It’s a story, and I think it’s just coincidental that events in the last couple of years [mean] you might see some of that in there.”
The backstories of some characters and an ambiguous time period lend themselves to helping the imagination to wander into all kinds of scenarios.
“People have always said that something like this could happen,” Wirzburger said of the plot central to his story. “At the time I was first writing it, I was a teenager and I wasn’t plugged into anything political. I think the best books are ones that don’t have to live in a specific time, they can meet the reader whatever’s going on in their lives or in the world around them.”
He started it when he was about 17 and is now a 32-year-old digital marketing, living in Charlotte, N.C.
“It’s been about 15 years [in the writing],” he said during an interview with the Express during a visit home to see family.
What it definitely is, is a page-turner of a suspense yarn – and don’t ask, there will be no sequels to this story. Despite a suspenseful ending, he’s not planning to revisit Camp Bohr, the deep woods surrounding the fictional location in Pennsylvania, or the girls’ camp nearby.
When he began writing “In Plain Sight,” the TV show “Lost” and the film “The DaVinci Code” were both popular, and the plot twists and multiple storylines at work in both, appealed to Wirzburger.
“I never went to summer camp, believe it or not,” Wirzburger said. “But I like that idea and, looking back, I think it’s very similar to ‘Lost,’ in that the camp is like an island where it’s a controlled environment.”
If writers are told the best advice for writing is to write what you know, perhaps there are exceptions to that rule. While not having that summer camp experience for himself did present a challenge Wirzburger said creating those social interactions was fun.
“The suspense – I loved that, and I remember thinking I wanted to write something like that,” he recalls. “I kind of started outlining a story and would show a couple of friends, and it evolved a lot over the years.”
At times, he set the project aside for as much as a couple of years at a time while he was in college, studying history and communications at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H, working or just living his life in other ways. He wrote for the college paper and alumni magazine while at St. Anselm.
“Writing and history have always been two of my biggest loves, so there’s a lot ot both in there, “Wirzburger said. Each time he came back to it, the story still had its pull, even though he admits, whatever he had already written “wasn’t that good.”
“It sounded like a 17-year-old had written it, but the story was still good and I wanted to tell it, so I would start over,” Wirzburger said. Each draft still had its own technical problems, but the story itself kept getting better.
About a half-dozen years ago he took an online Masterclass.com course taught by novelist James Patterson. A commercially successful writer, Patterson taught a method of outlining that Wirzburger found the answer to what he needed.
“He talked about having everything in your outline – the plot, character arcs, if you think of bits of dialog, throw it in – and each chapter [would be outlined by] a full, meaty paragraph about what happens in that chapter,” Wirzburger said. “Then you can see all the pieces fit together.”
His outline for the 368-page book was 30 pages all by itself.
He also enjoyed writing the plot twists that keep the reader off guard.
Interweaving chapters about key characters’ origin storylines of service in Vietnam and the difficult return home, family dynamics and a police officer’s crises as all they stories merge together make for a real page-turner.
“I don’t know what it was about Vietnam specifically, or that timeline-wise it worked out,” he said. “I also like shows and stories that teach a little bit.”
Getting published was almost a story in itself, but after looking into the jungle of processes in the publishing world, he sent out 20 or 30 queries – “not that many,” he said – before deciding to self-publish.
“Lucklily, with my career, I have a background in marketing and digital marketing and I built my own website, I can do social media stuff and a little bit of graphic design, copywriting,” he said.
As for marketing the book, he has already begun plans to reach out to libraries, his college alumni and local bookstores. He has left a copy of “In Plain Sight” with the Hanson Public Library.
A book club in Hanover has also read the book and hosted Wirzburger for a Zoom-based discussion of it.
“They had such good questions, and I love talking about the character and the writing choices,” he said.
Wirzburger is currently working on the outline of his next book, a suspense story he will only say has a more adult story line as teenagers try to save the world from Russians and monsters.
“If this book is Netflix, the next one will be HBO,” he said.
Stay tuned.