jwg

I have lived in Cambridge in my house since 1966 + 4 years in Baker House while a student at MIT in 1956-1960. From 1967-1986 I worked in a ~40 person Cambridge office of a computer company working on Multics, a very advanced computer sysem for the times – for the last several years I was the manager.

I have been involved as a volunteer in many organizations – often as a board member, and sometime as treasurer. Most of them are Cambridge oriented and have worked to make the city a better place. It has been interesting and fun as well. Some of them are LGBTQ oriented. As an out-gay person I have had the pleasure of helping make life better for LGBTQ people.

Partly because we are moving out of Cambridge to Brooksby Village, a retirement Community in Peabody Mass, and because I had enough of this I am no longer doing any of this.

Cambridge Political organizations

Cambridge Civic Association – CCA
CCA was formed in 1945 as part of the effort to change the city government to the current strong City Manager, system. It characterized itself as a good-government organization and focused on working with City Councilors, the Mayor, and other parts of the city government, It also endorsed a slate of candidates and helped support the election. I joined in the ‘70s and stayed until it ended in the late ‘80s. I was a board member and the treasurer for most of the time.

Cambridge Lavender Alliance – CLA
CLA was formed in the ‘70s and as a LGBTQ organization and worked to make the public and the government deal with issues faced by LGBTQ people. It endorsed a slate of candidates for school committee and Council. Some of us worked with other people in the city and helped form the LGBTQ+ Commission. I was a board member and treasurer. After the Commission formed it ended.

Cambridge City Government organizations

Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission
I have been part of this organization since it was formed in 2004 and been co-chair most of the time – retired in April 2022. Commissioners are appointed by the City Manager. We work with organizations in the government – particularly police and health care and have worked with housing and healthcare organizations in the city to help them improve policies and practices with respect to LGBTQ people.

Technical Advisory Committee to the Election Commission
This group was formed to help the Election Commission switch from the time consuming hand count of Council and School Committee preferential ballots to electronic. The hand count took about a week and it was fun to hang around and chat with people who were observing, it. We studied other systems and made a recommendation which was accepted and implemented.

Library 21 Committee
This committee was formed when the City Council rejected a bad plan to extend the main library that messed up the park next to the library among other issues. The committee had city government employees, volunteers, and outside library experts to figure out the program of the expanded library. It was very interesting – we did a lot of research – among other things looking at other library expansions - I as well as some others did a lot of this and visited other libraries when I was traveling and went to a library conference. The plan was well received and got the OK.

Library Design Advisory Committee
This was formed to work with the architects on the details of the design. Again an example of city employees, resident volunteers and library experts working together. The resulting library expansion is wonderful and has been well received.

Silver Ribbon Commission
This was formed by the city to investigate various issues of aging in place and produced a good report. Unfortunately little was done about its recommendations. Another example of resident volunteers working with city employees.

Envision Cambridge – Mobility Group
Envison Cambridge was a set of working groups that looked at possible futures for the city. The Mobility subgroup was dealing with transportation and just getting around. I was a member of this. Most of the recommendations were ignored.

Miscellaneous

Cambridge Postal Advisory Committee
We met with the Cambridge Post Office management a few times a year to look at policies and practices and make recommendations for improvement. We got a prize from the US Postal Service one year for our work. It lasted for a few years but after several changes in the local Postmaster it died out.

Today is Martin Luther King day.

A very incredible person who was a constructive activist in the civil rights movement in the
50s and '60s until he was assassinated in 1968.

Wikipedia article

He was in prison a number of times as a result of his work.

This picture was taken shortly after King, Ira Blalock (on the left), Gordon Gibson (on the right), and some others were released from the Salem jail in 1965. As it turns out I knew Ira Blalock because he was the minister in a UU church in Wellesley that I went to for a while with a bunch of friends. And Gordon Gibson was a minister in another Boston area church who performed my first marriage in 1966 (in the MIT chapel). -- and yes, I have posted this before.

My mother was a serious knitter. A significant portion of her clothes were things she knitted - sweaters, blouses, skirts. This picture is of three sweaters she made for me that I still have and wear. The yellow one on the left was made in ~1960 and is still in good shape. The two others are a bit later.

She often knitted while doing something else: watching TV, reading a book,... Once I saw her watching TV and reading a book and knitting all at the same time. When she died I donated all her clothes that were in good shape to a charity shop. I hope some people got to enjoy wearing some of them. She had a large supply of wool, knitting needles, and knitting books. I sent them to one of her friends because I remembered they had been knitting companions and she was pleased to get them.

I tried knitting myself, but was never good at it. I did have my own collection of wool and made an inkle loom and made some sashes and mini scarves on it. I also tried crocheting some granny squares with the intent of making a blanket but never did. I gave away all my wool. Considering all the stuff from ancient days that I still have it is amazing that I actually got rid of that stuff.

I had moved into what is now our house - but then just the 2nd and 3rd floor apartment and wanted a piano, but there wasn't really room so I decided to build my own harpsichord from a Zuckermann kit. It was pretty easy to build - it had a plain case unlike some of the pictures on the web site. So now I had a keyboard.

A few times a friend came over to play recorder with me playing the harpsichord. Which reminds me of a trip to Phoenix with my boss on a plane that had a piano in the back - we had brought music so we we played a few duets while flying. Some time ago after not playing it for a while I gave it away.

I got interested in playing the recorder so I bought one and went to a Boston Adult Education class. The instructor suggested that we go to the American Recorder Society - Boston chapter meeting in Cambridge. So I did. At those we all met in a big room and there was usually a mini-concert and then we divided up into little groups, consorts, to play the recorder. For several time the leader of the group I was in was Buffy Berg. Once the once the mini-concert was by a group called the Quadrivium, an early music group - Buffy was a member of it. Buffy then suggested to me that the leader of the Quadrivium, Marleen Montgovery, had classes in her house and I should go there - we did singing, recorder playing, and bowing stringed instruments and once in a while had an infornal concert. It was lots of fun.

And then Marleen suggested to me that I should join the Quadrivium. So I did and thus began a period of fascinating times. We had rehearsals every Wednesday night and gave concerts in December and May at local churches and the Gardner Museum - and occasionally trips to other places. And twice we were in the Revels. I remember one December when between our rehearsals, Revels rehearsals (both the Cambridge and Hanover shows), and the performances there was a 3-4 week period where I had something just about every night.

In 1973 I missed a couple of rehearsals early in the season because I took a trip to the Greek islands. I took my music with me and I remember once finding a spot on the Acropolis where there weren't other people and practiced.

Quadrivium did a range of early music: medieval, rennaissance, and early American plus Morris and sword dancing and other such things such as little humorous playlets. Marleen was an incredible person - very creative, somewhat disorganized, but a great leader. We were often surprised with annoucements about new music we were doing for a concert shortly before it or that there was to be another concert date. My role was mostly singing but played the recorder a bit and once a krumhorn. I remember doing Bean Setting, a Morris dance and a sword dance too. I bought a better recorder and some rennaissance recorders as well.

We made a record. Marleen suggested we meet at midnight in the Lexington church where we rehearsed so there would be minimal traffic noise. On the chosen night it turned out there was broken pipe and the DPW was there making much noise and said they would be there a while so we had to reschedule. Note the cover is a photo taken in the Gardner Museum courtyard (where you aren't allowed to go).



One of the members had constructed a harp at a workshop but wanted to sell it. I bought it and got to play it occasionally - O'Carolan pieces - for solos in concerts. I still have it, but don't play it - should try again.



At some point Marleen moved away - we tried to continue with several other directors who had been in the group but it wasn't the same so it ended. Sadly she died a few years later - we did have a very nice memorial event.

I went to a great private school - Dalton School in NYC - 1st through 8th grades. There were lots of music activities there - singing and dancing mostly but some playing too. I got to try out a violin a few times. I remember there were Rhythms classes where we moved to music. In about 6th grade they hired a very dynamic choral director, Harold Aks, and that was lots of fun - I still remember singing It's a me o Lord - very loudly. And we did square dancing. I remember in 3rd and 4th grade going on week long trips to a farm/camp in Otis, Massachusetts and we did square dancing there. Among other things I got to milk a cow there. By a strange coincidence that camp is where Robert rsc went during summers - it is no longer operational. At Dalton we had what was called Assembly every week in the auditorium and someone got to play the piano while people were entering the hall. I got to do it a few times.

My parents weren't very interested in classical music but wanted to support me. We had a record changer that played albums of '78s - strange having breaks in the middle of a symphony movement. They took me to occasional concerts. And I remember once when I was quite young going on my own to Carnegie Hall to hear Walter Gieseking, a well-known pianist of the times. And he played about 10 encores at the end! When LPs started becoing popular I had a record player/changer in my room. I remember going to Sam Goody's, a discount record store with huge collections, many times to buy records.

I got interested in playing the piano and started in about 3rd grade at Dalton. And soon after I took some piano lessons - I remember the teacher's name: Mrs. Stretch. And my parents bought a piano - a Sohmer spinet. Sixty Progressive Piano Pieces You Like to Play was the book I used in early days - and I still have my copy! The picture above is a couple of pages with my artwork.

Later I had a new teacher, Richard Willens. He was really good - he had aspired to be a concert pianist but found it too much pressure to perform in front of audiences. I still have some of the music books - Schumann, Haydn (paper in the Haydn too dried out to actually use), and others. I don't remember when I started but stayed with him through high school. Once when he thought I was losing interest in music we worked on Carmen - playing some of the parts and then he took me to the Met (the Old Met) to see it). And he took me back stage to meet Zinka Milanov, who was Carmen. Carmen remains my favorite Opera - paetly because I worked on learning so much of it. We've seen it 4 times in the past year in the MetOpera nightly shows. I still have my ancient recording of Carmen with Rise Stevens at the Met - she sung the role there many times for many years.

And coincidentally we usually have classical music radio on and the thing being played while typing part of this was Schumann's Arabeske - one of the pieces I used to play.

Cocktail hour in our household is at 6. Just about every night - not when we are going out to a dance.

We have cheese (usually two types) and crackers (two types). Occasionally also smoked mussels, paté or something else such as octopus.

For drinks there is huge variety: single malt scotch, rusty nails, sherry, dubonnet, bloody mary's, martini's, pisco sours. Just one small deink. Robert is the usual preparer - I occasionally do simple things like sherry or scotch and I make the pisco sours.

Pisco sours: 1 oz simple syrup, 2 oz limejuice, 4 oz pisco, 1 egg white; shake in cocktail shaker with ice, pour into glasses and top with a few drops of Angostura bitters. Learned about this drink in our several trips to Peru. Pisco is kind of a Peruvian brandy.

When we go shopping we get some kind of seafood and some kind of meat. In each case enough for 2 meals.

On the shopping day we cook the seafood and save the rest for day 3; on the next day we cook the meat, saving the rest for day 4. Seafood is usually one of: (not in exact order) salmon, shrimp, scallops, swordfish, monkfish, tuna, bluefish (rare to find these days). No exact order depends on what looks good at the fish counter. The fish is usually grilled, but sometimes roasted. The meat is usually one of chicken thighs with bones, steak, lamb chops or shanks, pork loin or chops, sausages - grilled or in pasta sauce, brisket, or lamb or beef stew. For vegetables we choose what looks good. Potatoes with the meat dish and rice with the seafood.

For the cooking days we have fresh salad of mixed lettuce types usually including tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. Dressing is olive oil and vinegar - balsamic sometines - almost always with me, occsionally mustard vinaigrette; + ground pepper and herbs (fresh from the garden in the summer)

Beverage is water or occasionally wine.

Shopper cooks on day 1, warms up on day 3, other person on days 2 &4. non-cook washes dshes; on days 2 we save the dish washing until breakfast uless there are too many. Wine glasses get washed on the day of use. Occasionally a day of distruption of we are going dancing - not these days of course. And we always have some frozen pizza or other frozen foods - called emergency food - if for some reason we didn't go shopping or there is a schedule conflict.

We don't have dessert.

We have very regular system for meals: planning, shopping, preparation, eating.

Our shopping system is to usually go every four days - triggered by needing food for dinner. it is usually me (before the plague I often went shopping after I went to the gym) and these days often when Robert is practicing singing. We keep a list right by the dining table in the kitchen and add things when we notice them. We have a nice shopping cart/bag with wheels so it easy to bring the groceries home by foot for the few blocks from the store.

One problem with the list is that I have trouble writing bananananananananananas....and fitting it on the page. And today I put Maypole Spyrits on the list when I saw we are getting low on maple syrup. And I always have to decide if it yogurt or yoghurt.

For certain items like bottles of olive oil we have a spare bottle in the closet and when the current one is emptied and the spare is brought into the kitchen we add olive oil to the list so we never run out of important stuff.

We keep what we call emergency food in the freezer - such as pizza - for times when we don't have suitable food to cook or the schedule is bad - such as today with the SuperBowl starting at 6:30.

And there always canned soup and tuna fish in the closet plus a few other things.

Breakfast is when we get up - usually a bit after 8 - our people companions who are in bed try to persuade us to not get up so that causes a bit of delay. Normal lunch hour is 1pm. Cocktails at 6 and dinner at 7+ a few minutes.

Our dishwashing habit is to always wash the dishes after breakfast, not after lunch, and after dinner when cooking is done. The person who doesn't cook or prepare is the dishwasher. Washing in the sink, drying in the rack - never had a dishwasher. Occasionally if too many dishes are piled up in the sink an extra round of dishwashing is done at some point.

---not my car, but an inspiration: 1932 Chevy wagon ---

In 1967 it was time to get a more practical vehicle with room to carry things in it (like lumber from the lumberyard since we were doing lots of home renovations) so I bought a 1967 Volvo 122S wagon - silver/grey, not red. At some time we replaced it with a yellow Toyota Corona wagon. Robert also had a car - first something from his parents, then a Chevy Nova, and then a Saturn.

Since then we have had a series of Subaru wagons: a Loyale, a Legacy, an Outback (dont remember the years), and now a 2017 Outback - our current car. (All have been silver.)

It is very convenient having a wagon with lots of room to carry stuff back and forth between our two houses, sound equipment to dance camp, and brush to the brush dump (8 loads this year). And with the back seat down you can lie down on the floor - foam cushion of course - good for non-driver on long trips.