When hatred and bigotry rule the day.

Simone Biles was fed up with Riley Gaines' bullshit, and let her know it.

Where to begin, where to begin ... 

These are indeed troubling times in our nation. As highlighted in my last post here, our country is overrun with deputized groups of masked thugs, masquerading as law enforcement agents and carrying out the hate-filled and bigoted vision of America as possessed by President Donald J. Trump and his self-loathing shadow second-in-command, Stephen Miller. With cracks in their armor showing in their recent push to conduct immigration raids in Democrat-voting California, the would-be dictator has weaponized the California National Guard to supposedly protect the ICE agents, with the added twist of mobilizing a reported 700 U.S. Marines to stand by for duty on the streets of Los Angeles -- an action unprecedented in recent American history.

Our glorious Führer also ordered a massive parade of U.S. military might to take place this weekend in Washington, D.C. -- ostensively to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army, but more to mark his own 79th birthday. It's the sort of thing that was all the rage on the streets of Moscow before the fall of Communism, and is still performed annually in North Korea to celebrate its own detached-from-reality dictator.

Amid all this, a social-media debate arose this past week that pitted perhaps the greatest American gymnast of all time, Olympian legend Simone Biles, against one of the foremost purveyors of bigotry and hatred in the MAGA sphere, former collegiate swimmer and devoted transphobe Riley Gaines. 

Biles, fed up with the constant spewing of hatred toward transgender athletes from Gaines -- who never represented the United States in any international competition and whose last competitive effort was to finish in a fifth-place tie with a transgender athlete at the NCAA championships -- let it all out in a post targeted against the former University of Kentucky athlete's frequent attacks upon transgender athletes.

Riley Gaines, notorious transphobe.

It all started when Gaines attacked a high school athlete from Minnesota that was a member of a state championship-winning softball team. "To be expected when your star player is a boy,” Gaines wrote in the post on X, referring to Marissa Rothenberger, a transgender athlete who is a pitcher for the team. Rothenberger helped the team secure the win with a shutout.

Biles quoted the post and wrote directly to Gaines, "You're truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You bully them… One thing’s for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!”

Gaines, of course, became a MAGA activist after she finished behind four female-at-birth athletes and tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the NCAA championships. She has yet to stop complaining about having a transgender athlete take a solo fifth-place finish away from her.

This all went viral as both athletes engaged in a war of Twitterwords which included some bodyshaming and a huge dose of vitriol by the less successful of the two, including an embarrassing attempt by Gaines to liken the sexual abuse suffered by many gymnasts by Dr. Larry Nassar as the equivalent of having a transgender athlete on a girls' team. Eventually, Biles held out an olive branch and apologized for engaging Gaines -- although from the tone of the social media response over the length of the spat, Biles was the clear winner for calling out Gaines' bigotry.

As I read successive skirmishes in the Biles-Gaines war of words, I was frequently reminded of what may have been the most painful and disheartening two years of my career in sports journalism, either print or electronic.

It's no secret to most local followers of high school sports that there has been a transgender athlete playing for a local varsity team since her sophomore year. She has since graduated -- and yes, I will always refer to her with female pronouns because there is nothing I have witnessed over the past three sports seasons to think of her as anything but a talented, hard-working and personable young woman that earned the utmost respect from her coaches and fellow athletes.

And no, I will not use her name here, although it has been dragged through the mud in despicable fashion by those just as bigoted and angry as Ms. Gaines. If you don't know by now, perhaps it's best you don't know. Like many transgender athletes from across the country, her name was blasted all over a website called "hecheated.org," which exists solely to make the lives of transgender athletes living hells under the fraudulent guise of supporting the equal-rights legislation from the Education Amendments of 1972, popularly known as Title IX.

Before the right-wingers among you try to get all holier-than-thou with me and try to lecture me about the intent of Title IX, don't waste your effort. I won't pay attention to you. I've been writing professionally about the meaning and impact of Title IX for almost a half-century. Title IX was meant to promote equal opportunity for all students and student-athletes, and not to exclude anyone on the basis of gender identity. In fact, there has been plenty of legislation in this state and several others to further codify the rights of transgender individuals into existing law.

Over the span of that aforementioned half-century, I have met plenty of athletes that don't fit the "Ozzie and Harriet" definition of gender identity which seems to drive Trump and his dim-witted minions. I have known many gay athletes who felt the sting of prejudice while playing sports in the high schools and colleges. I've also known three individuals I can confirm that were transgender.

Let's look at that number in perspective. Over 50 years of writing for newspapers and announcing games for cable TV, and using ballpark estimations for roster sizes, available sports and the number of schools I covered, it's reasonable to suggest that I may have seen 286,500 athletes take to the fields, courts, ice or what have you during that time just from the 10 schools that I covered on a regular basis.

I was just a one-sport athlete,
but I don't count in these totals.

Now, let's just assume that of that figure, there were several athletes among them that played at least two sports. There used to be a lot more that played three, but over time, there has been more specialization and more athletes that had no interest in playing the traditional offerings such as football, basketball or baseball/softball and focused upon other disciplines. That would drop the total to 143,250. So three transgender athletes among those would represent exactly 0.00209 percent -- or in plain English, two one-thousandths of a percentage point.

Not exactly an army of young men just standing in line to cut off their penises and become female athletes, is it? Of course not. But that's what the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and its propaganda outlet, Fox News, would have you believe.

In fact, two of those athletes competed before this became an issue. I firmly believe that as a recently as 15 years ago, and maybe even more recently than that, transgender athletes in America could have competed happily and safely without drawing attention to themselves because nobody really cared until the ignorant and prejudiced among us started making an issue of it. Two of the athletes to which I alluded did finish their high school careers out of the relentless spotlight of public scrutiny, and I only learned their stories (and didn't write them) long after their school days were over. 

That's not to say their lives were a lot more peaceful; they weren't. Transitioning is a life-changing event, not entered into lightly, and not everyone understands or accepts it. There were issues, but it was confined to a much tighter circle of attention and not turned into a circus of hatred that stretched from coast to coast.

If there's one thing I have learned in my 71 years on this planet, it's that no two individuals are alike, regardless of their personal circumstances. There are as many different reasons for a person to want to change his or her entire life as there are people on this planet. And I have a hard time believing that for any of them, the reason was solely to finish in a fifth-place tie in a collegiate women's swimming event.

But then again, that's what MAGA would have you believe. Women's sports are under attack, they claim. Males with evil intent want to tuck their peckers between their legs, if not undertaking full castration, then dress up like girls and take all the ribbons away from their precious, helpless daughters. And God forgive that any of their sweet young things should be exposed to a naked penis in the locker room. That's assuming, of course, that Redneck Daddy hasn't already burst into her bedroom at night and taught her the facts of life through practical application. 

It makes me sick. And that's exactly what I felt when, late in the spring of 2023, a friend texted me and told me that a muckraking blogger that purports himself to be an "award-winning journalist" had attempted to out the girl playing locally.

The post on this individual's website was removed almost as swiftly as it went online, presumably under threat of legal action. But nothing is gone forever, and I read the offending post and saw all the accompanying photos that were lifted without permission from local newspapers. It's not the first time this fellow had sought to publicly shame transgender athletes, but to my knowledge, it's the first time I can recall him being forced to back down.

Trump signs his infamous executive order.

I never asked to know the full circumstances of this athlete's transition. It's none of my business. I know this person as the person she is, and that's good enough for me. I don't share in the morbid curiosity some individuals have, and I hoped that would fade with time.

The athlete continued to play with the full blessing of her coaches and her school's administration through the next season. Things settled down for a while. But after Trump returned to the Oval Office, and he issued his worthless executive order banning transgender athletes in women's sports, the undercurrent boiled over and spewed into the open. It reached an extreme when, through the encouragement of the "hecheated.org" website, an anti-trans protest was staged near the entrance to a school where the local girls' team was to play a scrimmage prior to the start of postseason play. Adults gathering to harass a high school athlete is a shameful and reprehensible act. 

I also learned that "hecheated.org" was being fed information, and its X/Twitter posts were retweeted frequently, by a parent of an athlete at another school in our area. I won't identify that individual because I have made it a career point never to hold the sins of parents against their sons or daughters, and the latter need not be publicly shamed. 

That's also why I did not send a letter I wrote that detailed the parent's actions to that school's athletic director, principal and superintendent. It was complete with screenshots of the social media posts intended to shame the local girl out of high school sports, and the envelopes were sealed -- but I stopped before the stamps went on.

Sadly, this is an illness that has infected our nation as a whole -- and attempting to remove one malignant freckle in this small corner of the continent wasn't going to result in a cure.

Over my life, I've made my share of mistakes. I've said hurtful or stupid things and I had some outmoded beliefs, but I'd like to believe that I learned from my mistakes and became a lot more accepting of those around me, no matter how different their lives are from mine. As my days grow shorter, I want to believe that I've become a better person by understanding two very important things about being a human being -- first, as I stated before, that there is infinite diversity in human existence and that you can not put every example of a divisive issue such as transgenderism into a satchel and come out with a folder that has all the answers; and second, when an experience arises that is outside my area of understanding, I at least attempt to ponder what it would be like to walk a mile in the shoes of those facing such a crisis. 

In the situation I've discussed here, I've asked myself what I would do if, as a parent, I had a child that was physically or psychologically challenged over sexual identity, and time after time I've come up with the same answer -- I would do anything that would give my child the opportunity to have a happier life. And that would require a full understanding of all the issues at hand, and knowledge of all the options available.

Many judge without trying to understand. Riley Gaines is one of those. Even now, she is taking a victory lap because Biles offered an apology. Gaines is smug, self-righteous and totally intractable in her fight against transgender participation in activities that are open to any other American citizen as guaranteed under the Constitution.

Speaking of Americans, Gaines' new husband isn't one. He's a British subject that swam at the University of Kentucky and now sells swimming pools for a living while his wife nurses at the tainted teat of Fox News. As of the beginning of this year, he was still not on a track to citizenship and had not been issued a Green Card because he refused to be immunized against COVID-19. MAGA types would call that another freeloading foreigner, right? ICE, anyone?

Maybe that's mean-spirited of me, but it would be even more so if I wished that Gaines and her new hubby would be blessed with a child that faced the same level of personal conflict as the transgender athletes mentioned here. It would be the ultimate irony that this purveyor of hatred and bigotry would be forced to face the same sort of agonizing decision in order to provide that child with a better life -- but I won't wish for that. There would be far too much pain involved, most of it likely to be experienced by the child.

No, I just want Riley Gaines to return to irrelevance -- which she was well on her way to achieving with her miserable finish in her last collegiate race. The best way to achieve that is to start at the ballot box in 2026, and to throw MAGA Republicans out of office in the Senate and House and to subject Trump to impeachment and removal from the presidency for the many hatred-fueled indignities he has made this nation endure during his relatively short time back in office. 

Maybe then, we can start to restore human values to a nation that has clearly lost its way.

MARK FARINELLA supports the rights of all Americans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, without exception. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

The ICE thugs have arrived in Milford.

A member of the Milford High School boys' volleyball team (not pictured above) was detained by ICE agents on Saturday. (Milford Daily News photo)

You would have to be living under a rock to not have read or heard about how agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (known popularly as ICE) have been unleashed across the nation to enforce President Donald Trump's campaign promise to rid the country of individuals that are living here illegally, or are criminals at large, or whatever excuse they can make to justify their Gestapo-like tactics.

These so-called officers of the law are often wearing plain clothes or military-style fatigues, are heavily armed to the point of excess and are masked to hide their identities. They operate without any regard for due process, which is supposed to be guaranteed to anyone in the country by the Constitution of the United States (not just American citizens as some claim). They swoop down upon their prey and spirit individuals away to unknown destinations regardless of age, gender, or proof of American citizenship or legal residency status -- and if you don't understand how closely that parallels Nazi Germany's persecution of European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, you've clearly never read a history book.

With all that said, the horror came to the Hockomock League in recent days.

A member of the Milford High School boys' volleyball team was detained by ICE officers while he and teammates drove to practice on Saturday morning, according to multiple news reports.

Responding to several requests for information, Milford school officials would not release the name of the athlete, only to confirm that he is an 18-year-old member of the junior class. Boston TV station WCVB revealed that the first name of the athlete was "Marcello," but said in its reporting that students interviewed for the report would not offer his last name.

The website HockomockSports.com, which provides extensive coverage of all sports played by the league's 12 member schools, runs full rosters of all of those teams in tandem with their season schedules. Under Milford's entry in boys' volleyball, there is one athlete with the first name of "Marcelo." As I am not up-to-date with the current legality of releasing such information publicly without confirmation, I will note simply that the athlete named Marcelo is a member of the junior class and wears No. 10 on his uniform. Anyone may find further information by calling up the website's main menu, clicking on Schedules, locating the Milford boys' volleyball schedule and then scrolling down to the roster.

The Worcester Telegram and Gazette did reveal what it believes to be the student's full name. The newspaper's reporting said the student is originally from Brazil, and was first sent to a facility in Burlington and then transferred to a detention facility in Plymouth.

ICE agents often hide their faces while on the job.

Reports on the Boston Globe's website as well as WCVB's profiled the athlete in question as a "model citizen" that had lived in the United States since he was 5. They said he is enrolled in honors classes, is an "exceptional musician" and member of the high school marching band, and even assisted in coaching the girls' volleyball team during its fall season.

Milford boys' coach Andrew Mainini said that when the athletes driving to practice with the detained student did not arrive at the school for a 7:45 a.m. practice, he assumed they had just overslept -- until he received a text from one of them explaining that the group had been stopped by ICE agents.

"Our athlete, who was detained, may be the friendliest person in the school," Mainini told WCVB. "Every day, no matter how he felt, he always had a smile on his face. He was not only happy himself, he made other people smile."

Milford High's graduation ceremonies were this morning. Later in the day, students and community members gathered at the town hall to protest the student's detention.

"I can't imagine any issues with authorities," Mainini told the Telegram and Gazette. "He's an innocent kid who is heavily involved in his church and has no disciplinary issues in school. He's a truly innocent young person."

Milford's volleyball team tied Taunton for the Hockomock League title this year, and took a 12-9 overall record in the MIAA Division 1 tournament as the No. 22 seed in the playoffs. Milford defeated No. 11 Chelmsford, 3-1, in the opening round, and is scheduled for a rematch with No. 3 Taunton in the Round of 16 at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Taunton. Mainini said that the game will go on as scheduled.

MARK FARINELLA, 71, is a second-generation American whose grandparents emigrated to this country at the start of the 20th century, and who never believed he would see these totalitarian tactics being used within the United States during his lifetime. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

Alex Cora fiddles while the Red Sox burn. Could be time for a change.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while grumbling over forecasts that this will be the 11th straight weekend with rain on its way:

** It's been more than 35 years since I last covered a baseball game at Fenway Park as a sportswriter, and probably about 25 years since I last set foot in the ballpark save for two Thanksgiving weeks ago, when the King Philip Warriors and Franklin Panthers played their annual football rivalry game there on the Tuesday before the holiday (KP won, 35-0).

So I admit, my insight into the Red Sox is completely pedestrian in nature. I'm just another guy sitting in the recliner before the 48-inch TV (I upgraded from 40 last year, but anything larger would not fit in my living room). But I'm not at all hesitant in telling you that this team is absolutely infuriating me.

These Red Sox should be a lot better than they are. No question about it. But right now, as they find themselves 11 games behind in the loss column to the flawed Yankees in the AL East, I want to throw things at the new big-screen in frustration at their miserable lack of consistency ... and maybe even an accompanying lack of cojones. 

Their fielding is suspect. Their pitching is inconsistent at its best, and downright undependable at its worst. They make stupid baserunning mistakes. They have no idea how to close out games that would be wins. And worst of all, they just can't fucking hit the ball. They put 19 runs on the scoreboard in a win over the Orioles on May 23, and have scored a total of 15 runs in five games since.

And all the while, manager Alex Cora goes before the cameras with a blank stare in his eyes and says, "We have to be better," and so on -- his delivery mirroring the total lack of motivation that his team shows every time it can't hold a 1-run lead going into the ninth inning.

I was a big Cora fan at the start of his tenure with the Sox, and was pleased he returned after he served his suspension for his minor role in the Houston Astros' cheating scandal. But the miserable finishes of the team over the past few years and the overwhelming mediocrity of this team are just pissing me off. This team is stagnant, no matter what moves it seems to make -- and often, those moves don't really make sense.

There are a few areas of major concern that are particularly maddening.

Garrett Crochet: Is he Chris Sale 2.0?

For one, free agency signings seem to get the kiss of death once they step off the plane at Logan. Chris Sale was an injury-ridden bust during his time here, and now he's regained his Cy Young pitching form in Atlanta. Infielder Trevor Story appeared heading along that same path, and now, even though he's in the lineup, he can't hit his weight. Ditto Alex Bregman, who got off to a great start -- and yup, there goes his quad. 

And how many more terrific pitching performances by Garrett Crochet can they squander before he becomes Chris Sale 2.0?

Another concern of mine is how many young players are being jerked around and told to play different positions at a time in their careers when too much disruption could turn them into the baseball version of Mac Jones. And it's all because Raffy Devers won't play in the field. Sure, he has actually put up some decent numbers as the DH lately, but his petulance to play either third or first put a growing cancer in the clubhouse.

The fielding lapses just irritate the hell out of me, too. I like Jarren Duran, but that line drive that just fell out of his glove in Milwaukee was the kind of outfield defense that I used to play when I was literally the worst player in the Hockomock League. And the way the Red Sox throw the ball all over the infield haphazardly and allow runners to advance? That has no business happening in the major leagues.

Maybe it's just time for a change. Maybe it's time to clean house in the coaching and training staffs to put people in the jobs that will instill fire in their players' bellies and keep them healthy enough to do something about it. 

Do you think Jordon Hudson would let Bill Belichick coach a baseball team?

All I can say is, "they're ruinin' my summah ..." and it hasn't even begun yet.

** I don't know which is the better burn, but these two recent developments in Trump World have warmed my heart with the potential they have for getting under the Orange Turd's skin.

First came the news that Wall Street investors are calling Trump's policy on tariffs "TACO" -- for "Trump Always Chickens Out." In just a few short hours, that phrase has become the dominant comment on social media.

And right up there is the news that Pope Leo XIV, a Chicago native, will televise a special Mass to be shown to tens of thousands of Chicagoans on the message board at Rate Field (otherwise to me, the new Comiskey Field) on June 14, Trump's birthday and the day on which he wants a massive military parade in Washington. The Mass will likely be shown live on American television.

Both are priceless.

** Nothing still prompts me to turn off the radio faster, after all these years, than that insipid 1-800 Kars-4-Kids jingle. I'll die before I contribute a single penny -- and yes, I will still use that phrase even though the U.S. Mint is no longer minting pennies.

** This is the time of year in which I start feeling a little lost. My work as a sports play-by-play announcer is in hiatus until September, even though several local teams have begun play in the MIAA spring tournaments. 

Locally, the King Philip baseball, softball and girls' lacrosse teams, the North Attleboro baseball team and the Bishop Feehan baseball and softball teams have the best chances to advance deeply in their respective tournament fields. Best of luck to all of the local teams, and I promise, I'll be back behind the mic for the start of the 2025-26 school year.

Oh, and a special shoutout to my hometown's softball team, the Mansfield Hornets, ranked 29th in Division 2, which advanced out of the preliminary round today with a win over No. 36 Dartmouth. Go Hornets.

** Back when I returned to The Sun Chronicle in 1989 as the "Weekend Sports Editor," following a two-year stay at The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, we may have had the most educated sports staff in all of New England. I, of course, proudly hail from Northwestern University, while Bill Stedman, then the sports editor, was a graduate of Harvard -- which I always respectfully referred to as "the Northwestern of the East."

OK, I was joking. Northwestern is a fine school, and it boasts what's universally regarded as the best journalism school in the country (the Medill School of Journalism), as well as a pretty damned fine business school (the Kellogg School of Management), a highly-respected medical school, and top-notch programs in law, engineering and technology, and the dramatic arts -- none of which would accept Donald Trump or any of his offspring. You probably didn't even know that back in the 1970s, Northwestern's computing school was one of the initial origin points for a world-wide linkup of computers that would eventually come to be known as the Internet.

These cards started the Internet.

Not that I had anything to do with that, of course. I'd just stop in there occasionally and steal a whole stack of used computer punch cards, utilized initially to input data. They were great all-purpose items, especially well-suited for sticking under a too-short leg of a chair so it would stop rocking. I was ahead of my time where recycling was concerned.

But Harvard is ... well, Harvard. It's in a class by itself. And now it finds itself in the crosshairs of Trump's vindictive quest to use "anti-semitism" (which is bullshit) as justification to force Harvard to adjust its curriculum to reflect the conservative tropes of the MAGA movement, eviscerate the school of its federal grants, and deport its large enrollment of international students -- rumored to be partially because Harvard would not admit his youngest son with those serial-killer vibes, Barron. Yes, I know Melania's spokesman claimed that isn't the case, which gives me all the more reason to believe it.

Well, as is usually the case, Trump has conveniently forgotten that he does not have the power to erase the First Amendment from the Constitution. He has made a career of acting out his petty and misinformed grievances by forcing governmental influence (or more accurately, his own personal influence) in every walk of life -- and I firmly believe he will eventually fail.

But in the meantime, I stand firmly behind the Northwestern of the East in its legal battles against this half-pint dictator. 

** You may have noticed a new look at the top of this blog. After almost 17 years, I've changed the photo at the top and the title font to give it a more recent and up-to-date look, and to reflect my new venture into electronic media.

I've been investigating an entirely new look for the blog, but I've gone through all of the templates on the hosting site and I have yet to find something that really tickles my fancy. So I just changed the top photo -- although if you're really sharp-eyed, you may notice a hint of its past.

At the upper left-hand corner, where there is a replica of one of the Patriots' championship banners hanging on the wall behind me, you may notice the letters "BF" inside the blue field. That's the old typeface for the title of the blog, and without those letters, the online version of the blog does not have an identifying title. Now, the online version will have "BF" as its title -- which could stand for a lot of things I can't print here, but it actually stands for "Blogging Fearlessly." Duh.

That may be resolved if I find a new template I like. In the meantime, I still think it was a good idea to freshen up the look a little. After all, a baby born when I started this blog would probably be entering his or her senior year in high school this year. 

** I'm still planning to re-invigorate my podcasting platforms in the next few weeks, especially now that I have more time to devote to them. But I'd also like to take some of this time to do what they call in Australia a "walkabout" ... or in my case, jumping into the ragtop, pointing it elsewhere and then heading there.

I've always loved driving, since the days when my parents would load me into the '56 Chevy for the annual 2,600-mile round-trip drive to Florida to visit my grandparents, as well as my frequent drives to and from Northwestern in my college days. Yeah, I'm older now and I have to take that into account, but I was thinking -- before all of the current North American nastiness erupted, that is -- of heading north into Canada, maybe to Montréal or maybe retracing my steps from a 1980s drive through the Maritime Provinces.

Those considerations were made, of course, before Donald Trump started this nonsense of demanding that Canada become our 51st state and then threatening to inflict all sorts of vindictive tariffs on that sovereign nation. Now, I'm not so sure.

Yes, I'd like to take a spin up there. I'd like to get back in touch with Molson and Labatt's, with Tim Hortons coffee and "viande fumee" (smoked meat) and maybe even try some poutine (never had it!). And it's not as if I am afraid of crossing the border. I don't think the Canadian border guards will be hostile. They, like most of their brethren, are generally polite, almost to a fault. They've also probably heard lots of Americans tell them, "I didn't vote for the son of a bitch!" and so on.

The true north, strong and free.

It may also help that I am fond of wearing a small flag pin on the collar of my polo shirts, a faithful representation of the maple leaf in all its glory. I've worn those since I used to make frequent "beer runs" to Montréal back in the 1970s, bringing back multiple cases of the high-test Molson Brador brew (8.5 percent alcohol) in those little squatty bottles you don't see anymore. I wasn't smuggling; I always paid the duty fee at the U.S. border.

No, I'm more afraid of coming back to my native land. I have no idea if Trump has replaced the border guards with his neo-Gestapo ICE thugs, and if the sight of the flag pin and one half-empty Tim Hortons cup is going to get me thrown into an El Salvadorian gulag.

If I do make the trip, I intend to bring along my mixing board and a new laptop computer, and I should be able to put together some "on the road" podcasts with some new technology. Those might come in handy if I'm processed for deportation as an undesirable upon re-entering Highgate Springs, Vt.

** And finally, some of you may recall my old friend Jackie Pepper, who served as a reporter and sports anchor for NBC Sports Boston and NECN back in the 2000s. Barely 5 feet tall, but feisty and enthusiastic in her work, no one could burrow her way through a scrum of reporters to get right to the source of the group interview better than Peps. 

My friend Jackie Pepper.

The Boston TV market has always been volatile, especially in the cable realm, so Jackie returned to her native Los Angeles and held a variety of positions, including at TMZ and KNBC, before landing a great job as a senior video producer for Yahoo! Sports, where she won a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for her work.

Part of what gave Jackie the confidence and energy to excel in life was her association in her youth with Camp JCA Shalom in Malibu and the Shalom Institute. The organization operates a camp, conference and retreat center, focused upon instilling Jewish values, promoting sustainability principles and practices, and being welcoming and inclusive to people of all ages and abilities.

As I have gotten to know Jackie a lot better since her brief tenure in Boston ended, I have learned just how much she treasured her experiences at the camp, and the bonds she forged there. Truly, the friendships she made there have lasted a lifetime, and the lessons she learned made her one of the most confident and personable individuals I have met in the sports media.

But the camp faced a severe challenge to its very existence when, on Nov. 9, 2018, one of the most destructive wildfires to leave a charred path through the southern California landscape destroyed more than 95 percent of the buildings on the Malibu campus. The institute amazingly had most of its programs operating at other sites within four months of the fire, and then it embarked upon the effort to rebuild.

Jackie has made the full commitment to help. Since February, she has been a full-time development associate for the Shalom Institute, and today she put a post on social media that included links to a story about how new facilities on the original Malibu campus are starting to open to the next generation of campers. But the work has really just begun.

I know how much that camp meant to her, and I also know how personally devastated she was when the wildfire claimed it. She's putting 100 percent of her efforts behind the quest to offer new generations the same opportunities she had to experience personal and spiritual growth. I really have to respect that.

I wouldn't ask you to reach into your wallets and contribute, as I have, if I didn't believe in the sincerity of her efforts. You can learn more about the Shalom Institute and its goals at this website: Home - Shalom Institute.

** We'll be back with more posts soon ... but hopefully, not sent out by carrier pigeon from within an El Salvadorian gulag. Cheers!

MARK FARINELLA wrote for The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., for 42 years. You may send him cakes with hacksaws hidden inside, but not at his email address -- which is theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

A new North High: To be, or not to be?

North Attleboro voters will be asked in June to replace their current high school.

The hottest debate in the area is definitely over whether North Attleboro's electorate will vote in early June to build a new, $290 million high school off Landry Avenue, replacing the one that was built in the mid-1970s to finally replace what's now called the Community School, which is in the middle of town and adjacent to Community Field.

As I am no longer a North Attleboro resident -- and no, I don't use the overly pretentious spelling that employs the colonial-era "-ugh" at the end -- I really shouldn't tell people that pay taxes in that community how to vote. But because I was a resident from 1992 through 2002, and because I've spent practically all of my life living in this area and covering the athletic teams of 11 local high schools including their beloved Red Rocketeers, I think I have some measure of understanding of the issues on the table.

North Attleboro, which separated from big brother Attleboro (which dropped the -ugh from its name in 1914) in 1887, is the second-largest community in the circulation area of my former newspaper, The Sun Chronicle -- which, itself, was the product of the merger of two daily newspapers, the Attleboro Sun and the North Attleboro Chronicle, in 1971. I worked for both. But while North Attleboro has roughly 5,000-6,000 more residents than my bordering hometown of Mansfield, it barely has more than a few hundred more students in the high school.

Mansfield has always been a little more proactive about building new high schools than North (which is what the residents prefer to call it). North built the Community School in 1919, and let it serve the high school students of the town until the new school was finished in 1973. Mansfield, meanwhile, built what's now the town hall as MHS not long after North's, replaced it in 1954 with what's now the Qualters Middle School and then replaced that with the current MHS building in 1970.

Both current high school buildings have been augmented by temporary classrooms over the years, mostly to deal with a sudden uptick in student population in the 2000s. But that has subsided in both communities -- one of the reasons why the proposed NAHS replacement is supposed to house only 1,050 students upon completion.

In Mansfield, no one is talking about replacing the 55-year-old high school -- probably because it has been maintained well over its lifetime, as my property taxes can attest. North residents, however, have seemingly taken great pride in keeping their tax rate artificially low by, as it has been explained to me, cutting corners on maintenance and upkeep of all of the school buildings in town. 

Admittedly, I don't get to see every inch of either school in my ongoing quest to cover high school sports in the towns. Most of what I see are the athletic facilities. This past year, my town raised quite a bit of cash through taxation to renovate the football field, buy a video scoreboard, put down a new floor in the high school gym and meet a few accompanying needs without even a peep of protest. Paying for education is something Mansfield voters tend to do, although they drew a line recently by refusing to pass an override of Proposition 2½, the state legislation that limits annual municipal tax increases to 2½ percent of the previous budget.

North recently spent nearly $5 million for a full reconstruction of its on-site football stadium, lending some to whine about how there are those in town that will pay for anything related to football and not for academics. That can be debated until the cows come home, but North was forced into the project when all of the stands were condemned, and state and federal regulations required construction of additional facilities (including bathrooms) that were compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also, it should be noted that plenty of teams of several different sports use Beaupre Field.

The much-debated Beaupre Field scoreboard.

The new Beaupre Field is an excellent facility. Among the improvements were a $200,000 scoreboard that projects video replays, just like Mansfield's, which raised the hackles of some of the so-called taxpayer watchdogs in town. School officials countered with three points of information -- first, the old scoreboard was falling apart and new parts were not available; second, the new one could be turned into a revenue stream by selling advertising time to local businesses; and third, by swinging a deal for two new scoreboards for the existing gymnasium that can be mounted in a new gym once it is built.

The bottom line, however, is that a new school would be far more likely to meet the educational needs of the next generation of NAHS students and beyond than a costly renovation of the old school. Younger residents seem to be in favor of it. But there remains the old guard of those that wave their walking sticks in the air and shout that they didn't need all these fancy modern doo-dads to get an education.

I've gotten the distinct feeling that many of those that have made their objections loudly public either didn't graduate from the current NAHS, or haven't set foot inside it since their graduation. And there's this one chap, a constant letter-writer to The Sun Chronicle, who proudly proclaims in his missives that he is a tireless advocate for taxpayer rights. He has also claimed that all of the media organizations covering the town, both The Sun Chronicle and North Attleborough Community Television (Full disclosure: I now work at the latter on a part-time basis), have a liberal bias and are deliberately misrepresenting the facts in an attempt to push their evil liberal Democrat agenda upon the good, Trump-loving conservative voters in town. 

The fact is that North voted to support presidential candidates Hillary Clinton in 2016 (51.2 percent), Joe Biden in 2020 (58 pct.) and Kamala Harris in 2024 (52.4 pct.). The margins may have been a little closer than in other local towns, but facts are facts. The notion that North is some sort of Trump stronghold is nonsense.

Besides, I've always felt that those who constantly tout their allegedly noble intentions are overstating their importance.

The new Tri-County is under construction.

I can't blame North voters for looking out for their wallets -- especially older ones that may not have the resources to cope with constant tax increases. But it could also be argued that the town has artificially kept its tax rate low for many years. North also got a double whammy recently in having to fund the largest share of the new Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin because it sends the largest share of students to the school that opened in 1977. Like many other communities, North stopped offering vocational education in its own high school once a modern vocational school opened nearby -- but Tri-County's success at its mission eventually caused it to outgrow its facility and create the need for replacement.

The new Tri-County has a $286 million price tag, and North voters approved their share by a large margin. But now there are concerns that Trump's constant threats of tariffs to overseas suppliers of building materials are going to result in huge cost overruns -- which the taxpayers of neighboring towns will have to pay.

There's one hard truth to be stated here. A new North Attleboro High will not be getting any cheaper. The town will be getting a pretty good chunk of change back from the state if it proceeds with the project now, but there are no guarantees of future lucrative reimbursements. And nothing seems to be getting cheaper anywhere -- except, maybe, within the addled confines of Donald Trump's failing brain.

As I said at the start, I can't tell anyone in North how to vote. I know what I'd do, which would be to vote for the new school, because I believe that part of the responsibility of living in a community is to look beyond my own selfish concerns and do what's best for the community as a whole. If that means paying more taxes for a community need, then so be it.

Perhaps that one fellow that touts his undying vigilance over North Attleboro's bottom line should come to realize that North will still exist once he is gone. Decisions of this sort are made with the future in mind -- even if it's not likely to be a future he will live to see.

For more information about the project prior to the June 3 vote, check out the fact sheet at this website: MSBA High School Building Project Updates | North Attleborough Public Schools.

MARK FARINELLA wrote for The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro for 42 years until his retirement in 2018. He had the distinct privilege of being among the first classes of Mansfield students to enter the Everett W. Robinson Elementary School in 1966 and Mansfield High School in 1970.

When I found 'shelter from the storm,' and a good catch-phrase.

The newsroom of The Sun Chronicle, which I lovingly called "the Blue Ribbon Daily."

I still read my former newspaper practically every day, even though I lost my job there in 2018 as part of a corporate downsizing following its sale to venture capitalists. It wasn't the fault of anyone that actually worked there ... and I was going to retire in just a few months following my layoff, anyway. The time had come.

There's no denying, however, that The Sun Chronicle played a major role in my life. Not only did I work there from Feb. 7, 1977, through Aug. 28, 2018 (with a two-year break in the middle), I also served as a part-time sports correspondent for both of its predecessor newspapers, the Attleboro Sun and the North Attleborough Chronicle, when I was in high school.

That's not easy to forget. I've made it impossible to do so, in fact, because an entire wall in the room in which visitors enter my house is dedicated to all the plaques from the many awards I won for my writing and editing skills over my many years there.

The Sun Chronicle did quite well in the awards department in those days. We had a strong staff of news reporters, sportswriters and editors, and we'd bring home a lot of hardware from the many banquets staged by the regional news organizations that doled out such awards every year.

The triumphant return of my newspaper's nickname.

In fact, one of the favorite terms I used in my sports columns to refer to the newspaper was "the Blue Ribbon Daily." That's not a reference to Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, but instead, a reference to how prize-winning entries at state fairs and other such events were often issued medals hung from blue ribbons to indicate first-place honors.

I was reminded of this on Monday when I thumbed through the online print edition of the paper -- yes, I actually pay for it -- and found "Blue Ribbon Daily" in an opinion-page column written by former colleague Tom Reilly. I was overjoyed to see it; hey, it's not as if I held a copyright on it.

Truth is, I actually stole it from someone else -- and now, the story can be told.

Portrait of the author as a young man, circa 1975.

I finished my education at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in December 1975, but because I had to polish off a few course requirements in an extra semester or two, I missed my chance to graduate with the Class of 1975 and had to wait until the following June to participate in the Class of 1976 graduation ceremonies inside the school's basketball arena.

Before that, I started my first post-graduation job in the real world -- as "suburban editor" of the Westfield (Mass.) Evening News. We didn't have a very big staff at that tiny newspaper, so it took quite a bit of negotiating to get a long weekend off so I could head out to Chicago for my graduation. And I was getting paid only $110 a week to work in Westfield, so I had to travel on the cheap. I took off-peak-hours flights from Bradley Airport in Connecticut and back again, and in planning for the trip, I called former classmates that were still in the area, hoping I could crash at their apartment for the two nights I'd be in Evanston.

All seemed to be going well by the time I landed at O'Hare Airport on a late Friday afternoon and took the shuttle bus to the northern suburb where Northwestern is located. It dropped me off at the Orrington Hotel in Evanston, the only real non-fleabag hotel in town at the time, and well out of my price range. I disembarked from the bus, grabbed my huge garment bag (remember those?) and headed out on foot into the campus area to the address given to me by my former classmates.

I reached the house in about 20 minutes, rang the doorbell and waited to see the friendly faces of my old pals, eager to take a load off. The door opened, and instead, strangers greeted me.

Apparently, my friends absolutely forgot that I was coming out for graduation, and they had already terminated their lease and headed to their families' homes in the Chicago suburbs with the intention of returning to campus the next day for their graduate school ceremonies. The new occupants had no idea what was up, however, and they weren't bashful in telling me to go elsewhere. Maybe they thought I was a narc, or something ... I always did look pretty straight-laced, and even more so after I shed my longer locks to join the workforce a few months earlier.

So, back I went into the mean streets of Evanston. If you're from there, you'd understand how sarcastic a statement that is. Despite being only 14 miles north of the center of one of the largest cities in the country, Evanston was as prim, proper and tight-assed a community as you could find. Even in 1976, you could not purchase hard liquor in the city (and couldn't even buy beer except served with a dinner) because it was the headquarters of the national Women's Christian Temperance Union, and those sweet little old ladies wielded iron fists in denying the purchase of alcohol to a community that hosted a Big Ten university.

I wandered the town for hours, wearing a three-piece suit (don't ask why) and slinging the big garment bag over my shoulder. Occasionally I would stop at pay phones and try to call phone numbers of former classmates that might still be in town, but one call after another was either greeted with recorded disconnection messages or unfamiliar voices. So I kept walking, stopping once for a slice of pizza that practically broke my travel budget, and otherwise retreating to the student union or sitting on park benches along the lakefront just to rest. 

By around 8 p.m., it was dark and I was getting desperate. I stepped into the lobby of a dormitory on the north end of campus thinking that my only option would be to overspend on a room at the Orrington, if one was available, and maybe beg my parents to wire me some emergency cash to pay for it.

As I was dialing, I heard a familiar voice from behind.

"Mark? Is that you? What are you doing here?"

My friend Marilyn Adams in 1977.

I turned and saw a very familiar face. It was a young woman named Marilyn Adams, a fellow Medill student, who had taken the Introduction to Photography class for which I served as a teaching assistant. Marilyn was 6-foot-2, very attractive and absolutely brilliant, and we struck up a friendship during her time in the class -- but as it is with so many people at that stage of one's life, I assumed I'd never see her again once the semester ended.

After the initial hugs and greetings were shared, Marilyn and I found chairs in the dorm lobby and I told her my sad story about being cast into the wilderness by my absent friends. Without hesitation, she said, "I can help!"

Marilyn had become a resident assistant in that dormitory, and she had to remain on station there until all of its residents had departed. This was likely to be her last night in the dorm, but her room was absolutely palatial compared to the student rooms -- two full-size beds, lots of closet space, a kitchenette and a private bathroom -- and she immediately extended the invitation to stay there for as long as I needed.

I was absolutely floored by her generosity. I mean, we hardly knew each other, but it was nice to know that she sufficiently enjoyed chatting with me during her time in the class to offer me sanctuary before I was about to become one of the best-dressed vagrants in Evanston's history.

We went to her room and talked about all sorts of things for at least three hours before it was time to retire. And all the while, I equated my experience to a song by Bob Dylan that had been released the year before -- "Shelter from the Storm."

The next day, refreshed and relaxed, I called my folks and begged them for some money to avoid sleeping on a park bench after graduation. Sadly, Marilyn had to finish moving out of her room that day, otherwise she would have been more than willing to share her room with me for another night. We exchanged addresses and promised to correspond before parting company.

My folks were very generous, wiring me enough cash at the State National Bank for me to afford a rental car and a room at a Holiday Inn in the nearby suburb of Schaumberg for the second night. With all that accomplished, I headed to what was then known as McGaw Hall (now the Welsh-Ryan Arena), donned my cap and gown and finally became a proud graduate of Northwestern University.

Indeed, Marilyn and I did correspond quite a bit over the year that followed. She stayed at Northwestern for another year and we met up for a second time that following June when I went to Chicago to attend the wedding of former classmates. After her graduation, she started working at a small newspaper in Indiana and I moved on to The Sun Chronicle, and we continued to share our experiences in long, thoughtful letters.

In one of those letters, Marilyn explained her joys and frustrations at working out in the sticks in America's heartland. But she was always optimistic about her future, and she ended one her missives with a fateful phrase.

"Life goes on at the Blue Ribbon Daily!" she wrote.

Hmmmmmm, I thought. I like that.

And thus, I appropriated her intellectual property, turning it into my go-to catch phrase to describe my place of employment over the next 40 years of column writing.

As time passed, I lost touch with Marilyn. She didn't stay long at that small newspaper; the Gannett Co., then a far more reputable publishing company than it is today, snapped her up to join the staff at USA Today. She moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and became USA Today's top aviation writer, covering all facets of the industry and airline safety for most of her career there. Not long ago, through the magic of Google, I found a video clip of her being interviewed on C-SPAN about some ongoing issue in aviation sometime in the mid-1980s.

I probably should have tried to give her a call on one of my Patriots' road trips to Baltimore or Washington, but I didn't have an address or a number and didn't want to be an intrusive pest. She was busy covering the real world while I was enjoying playtime in the sandbox of journalism. She might not have even remembered me. Life moves on, you know.

But I always wish I had thanked her more -- not only for rescuing me from Evanston's mean streets on the eve of my graduation, but also for that four-word catch phrase that would become my in-print term of endearment for the newspaper that gave me a pretty good career for the majority of my adult life.

And after seeing it in print again on Monday, I'm glad it hasn't been forgotten.

MARK FARINELLA wrote for The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro, Mass., for 42 years. He has yet to come up with a good explanation for his other, less-affectionate nickname for the newspaper, i.e., "The Dinky Daily."

When you gotta go, where can you go?

The Mansfield rest area off I-95 North is getting a long-awaited makeover.

I'm old enough to remember the southeastern Massachusetts corridor without the Interstate highways that now dominate the flow of humanity to the north, south, east and west.

Interstate 95, which extends from Houlton, Maine, to Miami, a total distance of 1,923.8 miles, barreled through the Great Woods in the early 1960s. I was attending a Catholic elementary school in Plainville, which resulted in many bumpy rides over Routes 106 and 140 as the construction relentlessly advanced southward. But there was also a source of wonder in my young soul at seeing the mighty construction vehicles plowing their way through ancient forests to fulfill President Eisenhower's vision of a network of limited access highways that would connect all parts of the nation -- a network very similar to the famed German autobahn system that caught his fancy during World War II.

And Interstate 495, which is one of the longest spur routes in the entire Interstate system, followed not much later -- but it took a lot longer to complete. The section coming down from the Mass. Pike to I-95 near the Foxboro-Mansfield town line was finished not long after I-95's completion, but that's one of the places where it stalled. The extension to Route 24 in Raynham was finally completed in 1982, and it took many more years to extend the road (then called Mass. Route 25) to U.S. 6 in Wareham. The final connection to the Bourne Bridge was held up by court cases seeking to prevent access through farmland held in private ownership, and eventually, compromises created a convoluted route that finally got the superhighway to the doorstep of Cape Cod in 1987.

Before then, good ol' U.S. 1 was the main way to get to and from Boston or Providence and beyond. And as for I-495? Well, its long-awaited completion was a godsend to the residents of my hometown, which had to endure ridiculous summertime traffic jams as vacationers wound their way through our streets over Route 106 on the slow and winding way to Halifax, Route 3 and the Sagamore Bridge.

Sometimes, it doesn't pay to be in a slow-moving car, gulping down cups of coffee to stay alert, and suddenly finding one's self in need of a rest stop. No question about it, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

But in the years prior to the Interstates, three-hour drives that became 45-minute sprints in later years could be interrupted when nature called by stopping at any of the several gasoline stations that could be found in the towns along the route. And all of them touted clean restrooms, as well as attentive attendants that would fill your tank, check your tires and oil, and clean your windshields with smiles on their faces.

That is truly a lost part of Americana, but I digress.

My beloved 1968 Plymouth Fury.

As I grew older, I became quite reliant upon the Interstate Highway System. Starting in my sophomore year at Northwestern, I drove my 1968 Plymouth Fury back and forth to Chicago at least 19 times by my count, and additionally driving from Chicago to Florida and back when my grandfather died in 1974. I became quite familiar with the New York State Thruway, the Ohio Turnpike, Indiana Toll Road and the many expressways around Chicagoland. I even occasionally took sidetrips north, through Michigan and on Highway 401 in Ontario to Niagara Falls, because the Canadians were much better at removing snow from their highways in winter.

And you know what? It doesn't matter if you're driving 30 miles an hour or 70. The longer you spend in your car, you're eventually going to have to make a bathroom stop somewhere. And because the goal is to get from Point A to Point B in as little time as possible, you don't always want to find an exit, head into some unfamiliar town in the middle of the night, and just hope that there's some gas station or restaurant open where I wouldn't have to ask for a key to use the men's room.

That's why I was always glad to see the many rest areas along the Interstates. They had gas, they had food, and most importantly, they had lots of toilets.

Almost everywhere, there were HoJos.

Back in those days, some states called them an "oasis" to distinguish them from rest areas without services. Along the Connecticut Turnpike, they were called "canteens." Most of them would have a full-service gas station with multiple pumps, a restaurant (often a Howard Johnson's along the Northeast corridor), and maybe a gift shop. Some in lesser-traveled areas might have only a gas station and a lot of vending machines. And in New Jersey, the ones along the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway had multiple food choices and even possibly more than one brand of gasoline.

In the 1970s, you could trust them to be clean and safe at all hours of the day. You might even trust them enough, as I often did, to pull into them and catch a quick cat nap before resuming the marathon drive. 

I recall all this because recently, my former newspaper ran a story about the rest area along I-95 northbound in Mansfield, at Mile Marker 10 north of the Rhode Island border. When it was first built, it featured an attractive central building finished in a red brick façade. Located within were modern men's and women's necessary facilities, vending machines and a staffed information desk where you could find pamphlets about local and regional tourist attractions. 

Mansfield's own rest stop fell into disrepair.

But after a lengthy period of financial belt-tightening, the state shuttered the visitor facility and boarded it up. It closed in 2009, re-opened briefly in 2010, but was soon closed for good and fell into serious disrepair. Now, however, relief is about to return to the rest area. Through the efforts of local legislators, the state Department of Transportation has decided to raze the old building and replace it with permanent portable restrooms -- and thankfully, not those stinky plastic kiosks with the noxious blue liquid festering at their bases. These are large trailers that should, if properly maintained, provide the traveler in need with a reasonable level of comfort and privacy while answering nature's call. 

The plan fell short of what the legislators hoped to get -- electric charging stations, automated information kiosks and vending machines -- but at least it's something, and it should open for your business by the end of the year.

Now, you may ask, "where's the Howard Johnson's and the Atlantic gas station?" But if you're asking that, you're my age or older.

In Pennsylvania, the stops are like mini-malls.

Surely, it would be nice to offer motorists a fully-functional oasis like you see on the toll roads, with a McDonald's, a Subway, a Starbucks or a Dunks, a gift shop, lots of clean restrooms and maybe even a Mobil station where the gasoline isn't priced 40 cents a gallon more than it is a mile off the highway. Problem is, they can't do it.

In 1960, Congress passed a law prohibiting private businesses to operate within the rest areas on Interstate highways. The idea was to protect local businesses from losing customers to the services operating on the highway itself. That's why there are signs along the Interstates telling you what restaurants, hotels and fueling stops are near the highway.

"But wait," you ask. "What about all those rest stops you just mentioned?" 

Well, many of those operate on pre-existing highways that were made part of the Interstate system long after the facilities were built. And if the states collect tolls in lieu of receiving federal funding for maintaining their portions of those numbered highways, they aren't subject to the ban. A quick trip around Google told me that there are 10 states -- Florida, Maine, Maryland, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Indiana, New York and New Jersey -- where these types of service areas were grandfathered in. I recall some in Ohio as well, and Google Earth confirms to me that those still exist.

Massachusetts also apparently grandfathered in a few other service areas, like the one on Route 24 in Bridgewater and on the former Route 128 (now I-95) in Newton and Lexington. Those were built when the highways were state roads, as Route 24 still is. But I do recall a few that have disappeared from the landscape; one was near Sturbridge heading toward Connecticut on I-84, whose buildings -- orange roof on the former restaurant and red trim on the former gas station -- were clearly visible from the highway for years before finally being torn down. The overview from Google Earth still shows a small clearing where the facilities once were, but nature is reclaiming the site.

Rest areas on American highways have somewhat of a romantic notion about them. When high-speed travel became a possibility, the states that operated them often turned them into palaces. And many of the states added their own unique stamp to them. 

You won't find the Bada Bing at this rest stop.

For instance, New Jersey has always named its rest areas after famous residents of the state. People have long known of the Vince Lombardi Rest Area along the New Jersey Turnpike, as well as plazas named for entertainers Frank Sinatra and Jon Bon Jovi. More recently, the Garden State Parkway has added its service plazas to that list. 

In 2022, a rest stop in the Montvale area of North Jersey was named for none other than the late actor James Gandolfini, whose unforgettable portrayal of mobster/family man Tony Soprano was the force behind the groundbreaking HBO series that redefined episodic drama on television. That rest area was slated for a major renovation and closed not long after, but it re-opened in January. 

Sadly, among the many dining options on the site, there are not franchises of Satriale's Pork Store or Artie Bucco's Vesuvio II.

These Merritt Parkway stops aren't much different.

You can still find some mid-century charm in the tiny rest stops along the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, a favorite alternative for westbound motorists looking to avoid the chaos on the Connecticut Turnpike. The tiny buildings have restrooms and convenience-store items, and there's usually just one row of gas pumps in the middle of a narrow strip of pavement off the travel lanes. Both have been upgraded and modernized a little over the years, but as the accompanying 1949 photo attests, the changes haven't been extensive.

I've waxed poetically about these rest areas thus far, but there's a darker side to them as well.

As time has passed and the highways have grown busier, the rest areas have grown more congested and don't always feel as safe as they might have 50 years ago. And from personal experience, I can tell you that I'm not always impressed with the level of cleanliness. We've seen Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our current Secretary of Health and Human Services, swimming gleefully in a bacteria-infested river, and from that, I surmise he'd feel right at home in some of the feces-encrusted rest rooms I've seen along today's Interstates.

And there are other, less savory issues. You may recall that several years ago, a woman was brutally murdered inside the Burger King on the northbound side of Route 24 in Bridgewater.

Across from the Mansfield rest area, on the southbound stretch of I-95 in North Attleboro, there's a much smaller parking area. There are no services, and it borders closely to Plain Street and the gravel pits in the vicinity. For many years, that area was widely known as a prime area for what the gendarmes called "lewd and lascivious behavior" between same-sex individuals looking for a secretive hookup.

There were frequent arrests made there, and I recall one day in the newsroom when our irascible police-beat reporter, Henry Reiley, stormed through the door and loudly inquired, "Has anyone here heard of (name of local former parish priest redacted)?" When I responded that I had because he used to be the parish priest at my church, Henry responded that the individual had just been arrested at the North Attleboro rest stop. It seems that he had been soliciting a hookup from a motorist, and received a significant beating because of it.

That did not surprise me at all, because when I was a pre-teen, trying to be a good little Catholic and confessing my sins before performing the Easter ritual of taking communion, this individual asked me a very inappropriate question of a sexual nature while in the confessional. Young as I was, I wasn't really sure what the hell I had just been asked, but I knew it was sketchy, and when I told my father (a very devout Catholic) about it later that evening, his face turned beet red and he wanted to head directly to the rectory and commit mayhem. Fortunately, my mother talked him out of it.

And this was long before anyone knew of what was going on at churches all over the state -- far more horribly in a neighboring town, in fact. 

That fellow died about a year ago. There was not one single word of his rest area escapade in his diocesan-approved obituary. Par for the course, I suppose. Pope Leo XIV has his work cut out for him in that area, I suspect.

Now, nothing awful has ever happened to me at a rest stop in more than a half-century of personal travel. But there's no way I could imagine myself taking the quick naps I once did, and thus leave myself vulnerable to who knows what.

Gradually, the rest areas' importance to travelers is waning in favor of the giant truck stops, huge convenience stores and the clusters of hotels and dining establishments that spring up around otherwise isolated exits all across this great land of ours. I'll probably not be availing myself of those in the years to come, because I'm getting a little too old for long drives -- and my bladder would have me stopping every 35-40 minutes at the rate that I consume caffeine-laced drinks to keep myself alert behind the wheel. 

But as I said before, there are just times that when you gotta go, you gotta go. And when you're in those desperate situations and you find yourself seriously considering peeing into an empty Starbucks cup while driving 70 mph, nothing says "Valhalla" better than a blue sign on the side of the road that says REST AREA 1 MILE, and with that, the unspoken guarantee that there will be relatively clean toilets and even a place to get that next giant latte.

I'm glad that my hometown will once again be able to satisfy the restroom requirement to those in need. 

MARK FARINELLA drove that beloved '68 Plymouth Fury through 36 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces before the gasoline crisis of 1974 doubled the price of filling its 24-gallon tank. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com