SalemNews.com, Salem, MA
News
Are you ready for a witch on your license plate?
Published: October 17, 2008
SALEM — Do you love Salem enough to display a piece of it on your car?
Destination Salem is considering whether to ask the Registry of Motor Vehicles to create specialty license plates containing iconic images of Salem.
Drivers would have the option of buying the Salem plates for an additional $40. The money would go to Destination Salem to promote tourism.
"We're wondering if there's enough interest out there for people to buy these plates," Executive Director Kate Fox said.
So she's inviting people to visit the Destination Salem Web site (www.salem.org) and fill out an online survey asking whether you'd purchase the plate and which image should be featured on it.
Your choices are: The House of the Seven Gables, the Friendship, a witch and the Custom House.
Fox hopes to tabulate the results by the end of next week.
Cape Cod, the Boston Red Sox and the United Way are already featured on specialty plates.
Salem would have to commit to selling 3,000 plates in the first four years to be accepted.
"It'd be a great fundraiser if we could get it to work," Fox said. "It's a community pride thing."
Knock, knock
If you are wondering when ABC-TV is going to run the "Opportunity Knocks" game show filmed in Salem, so are we.
A spokeswoman for the network said it doesn't look like it will run in the next two weeks, which means it will be after Halloween. That's a surprise and a bit of a disappointment, since everybody was guessing that ABC wanted to showcase Salem at Halloween. If you recall, the shoot at the Bertone family's home on Crescent Drive included Laurie Cabot, the city's official witch.
The guessing was that the show would run Tuesday, Oct. 28, but now it looks like that won't happen. It appears that "Opportunity Knocks" will be pre-empted that night by a Charlie Brown special, the spokeswoman said.
Among those anxious to see the show are the folks at Coffee Time Bake Shop on Bridge Street. They made two sheet cakes for the show, one of which says, "$20,000 Kitchen Remodel."
Stay tuned.
Return of native
A familiar face is due back in town today.
Tom Philbin, former chief of staff to Mayor Stan Usovicz and former executive director of the Boys & Girls Club, is now working for the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which meets today at 120 Washington St.
Philbin is a senior legislative analyst for the organization.
Rumor has it that he returns here on a big day — his birthday.
Lost jewelry
We got a sad phone call this week from Louisiana.
It was from a woman who was visiting here a few days ago and lost all her jewelry. She stayed here on the night of Oct. 1 and walked all over the city and doesn't know where she might have lost it.
"It was my stupidity," Pam Duvernay said. "That's the worst thing."
Duvernay, 60, said she had about $5,000 in jewelry in a small satin gold pouch. Inside were a pair of diamond earrings her husband gave her on their 35th wedding anniversary, a gold chain bracelet she has had since her 16th birthday, a necklace with a diamond in a disk that came from her late father's ring and a ring with a gold snail that she had made in New Orleans.
As Duvernay talked about her priceless loss, she started to cry. She said she has contacted police, the hotel where she stayed and every pawn shop in the area.
"I don't care about the people" who may have found it or taken it, she said. "I just want to buy it back."
Anyone with information can contact Salem detectives at 978-745-9700.
Birdman of Salem
The award for "Bird Photo of the Week" goes to Michael Madden, a nice Irish lad who spotted a hawk last Thursday while walking home from the commuter rail station.
He gets extra credit for having a camera at the ready. Or maybe he snapped it with his cell phone.
Baltimore Beth
Beth O'Grady, one of the driving forces behind the Salem Boys & Girls Club, just can't stop running.
She was in Baltimore last weekend where she ran a marathon in four hours, 13 minutes — a personal best. That was a good time considering it was a hilly course.
Coat call
The Salem Mission called the other day to say they are in desperate need of men's winter clothing. If you can help, bring the clothes — including socks — to their thrift shop in the basement of the old St. Mary's Italian Church. It's open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day except Sunday.
Legal loss
Salem's John Bosse is heading west to become Berkshire County's newest assistant district attorney.
The 1998 Salem High grad has been working in the city's legal department for the last four years, starting as an intern before being promoted to full-time work two years ago.
"It's been wonderful, thanks in large part to (City Solicitor) Beth Rennard. She's been my mentor as a young attorney," said Bosse, 29, whose mother, Linda Bosse, is a Salem High teacher.
His last day at City Hall is today, but he plans to make plenty of visits back home as a member of Salem's Wicked Running Club.
By the way, two weeks ago, he finished the Wicked Half Marathon in a time of 1:43:07.
Psychic mayor
In several interviews about the future of local aid, including one on a Boston television station, Mayor Kim Driscoll uttered these words: "Nobody has a crystal ball here."
Has the mayor stepped out of her office recently? All we have in this city is crystal balls.
Pickman chairs picked
A pair of antique chairs connected to a prominent early Salem family fetched a handsome price at a local auction.
Richard DiFillipo, who runs R.A. DiFillipo Antiques and Auctions on Lafayette Street in the Derby Lofts building, said the chairs went for $16,100 at a Sept. 23 auction — three times what he had speculated.
Oddly enough, the two Chippendale side chairs left the North Shore for generations and recently made their way back to Salem by way of a woman in Toronto, Canada, who descends from Francis Willoughby Pickman and Col. Benjamin Pickman, a wealthy 18th-century Salem merchant referred to as one of the "codfish aristocrats."
A city street and park bear the Pickman name, as well as the historic Samuel Pickman House off Charter Street.
DiFillipo believes the chairs were manufactured in Salem sometime in the late 1700s, and were probably used in the Pickmans' dining room, he said.
Despite some wear and tear and faded unoriginal upholstery, the chairs' new owners plucked themselves a pricey place to sit that is rich with local history.
"Pumpkin patch" to bloom
A reminder to local schoolchildren: Bring your decorated pumpkins to the Salem Common today and tomorrow for the city's first Haunted Happenings pumpkin-decorating contest and display.
Any Salem child up to 12 years old is eligible. Pumpkins will be judged Sunday and will be on display for residents and tourists to view.
Fiesta Shows donated the display trailer and a long list of cash prizes for the different decorating categories. Pumpkin entries (one per child) will be accepted on the Common today and tomorrow between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
