So how did all this valentine stuff come about?

 Below is an article I wrote on the history of Valentine's day for the February 2014 Sturbridge Times Magazine, see page 14. 

In this country, there are unofficial holidays we enjoy that are fun, but other than the names, the ancient roots are obscure.  Oh, we may know Saint Patrick’s was a holy man, but his sanctity is rarely celebrated on March 17.  Halloween was the pagan New Year that Christianity took over to observe deceased saints, though one would hardly know it these days.

So it is with the 14th of this month.  As children, we learn about it in elementary school as notes are given and received.  Candy is a big part, especially those little hearts with messages like “be mine.”  As we grow up, a young swain forgets the day at his peril.  One should not begrudge the florist or restaurant owner his or her living, let alone the employees, but why does all this happen?

It goes way back, really way back.  We know of the Roman fertility festival called the Lupercalia.  Undoubtedly, the celebration long predated the Latins, but they enjoyed it with gusto.  From the 13th to the 15th of February young men would whip young women with the flesh of sacrificed goats.  At the end there would be a lottery to pair up the boys and girls for a year with marriage possibly ensuing.  Hey, not every society can come up with speed dating.

Christianity would replace Paganism within a few short centuries after Christ.  The West took up the new faith easily enough, but the people were attached to many of the old ways.  The excesses of the Lupercalia could only offend the theologically advanced of the new dispensation.  The masses would have to be weaned away from the ancient practices.

Something the church did not lack was an abundance of martyrs.  One that died for love could fill the bill in co-opting the pagan holiday.  Valentinus was the man for the job.  He was a priest at the time Emperor Claudius was persecuting the faithful.  Against an imperial prohibition, the cleric married Christians and was jailed for it.  

Valentinus would talk with his jailer’s daughter, eventually converting her.  In his last letter, he told her to stay strong in her faith and signed it, “your Valentinus.”  The next day on February 14th 270 A.D. he was martyred.  Whether fact or legend, Pope Gelasius established his feast day in 496 A.D. noting the saint was among those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God."

In the post-Roman age, Saint Valentine’s Day was celebrated here and there, but was not a major event.  The Lupercalian overtones continued, with doves, known for fidelity becoming symbols.  In Hamlet, the doomed Ophelia in her madness sings of it.  

The Calvinist Reformation was not kind to the day.  The Puritans who came to New England treated it almost as they did Christmas, which, while not a hanging offense, was near anathema.  In spite of that, some vestiges remained.  The stern Puritan, John Winthrop, who would become governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, while still in England wrote in a letter to his wife that he hoped she was his valentine.

It would take about a couple of centuries for the holiday to attain widespread popularity.  For this we owe a debt to the postal system in the Mother Country.  In 1840 the British restructured rates, dramatically lowering the cost of mailing a letter.  The penny post made it much cheaper to be romantic.

As they did to promote the acceptance of Christmas as a commercial holiday, merchants promoted Valentines Day through newspaper advertising.  

America was in thrall to almost everything English.  Anglophilia being in vogue, when London had its opulent Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, it would be necessary for New York to copy it.   In 1853, Gotham would put on a similar, if not more sumptuous display with its own Crystal Palace.

Well, if we could do as well as the Brits in the field of proto world’s fairs, we could be even more commercially romantic with Yankee ingenuity, and we had just the gal to do it.

Esther Howland pioneered the American Valentine.  She had graduated from Mount Holyoke when it was an academy and returned home to her parents’ house afterward.  Dad owned a stationery store in Worcester.  Esther saw an English paper lace valentine and said she could do better and proceeded to.  Her salesman brother took samples on a trip and came back with $5,000 in orders and an industry was born.

The third floor of the family home was converted into a valentine’s card factory.  The cards sold for from a few cents to ten dollars.  Esther knew about branding, the back of each was embossed with a red H.  By the 1860s her company was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, a vast sum in the day.

Esther never married.  She sold her business to take care of her parents. The buyer, George C. Whitney Company, continued to make the valentines in Worcester until 1942.  

There is a local connection.  A couple of lovely portraits of her parents are on display at the Fitch House in Old Sturbridge Village.

The association of chocolate and the day is even newer than the mass produced valentine.  This is because until the second half of the 19th Century, chocolate meant a beverage, and not a confection.  In fact, there was no chocolate in chocolate cake in the same sense there is no coffee in coffee cake.  The recipe for chocolate cake from a famous cookbook, The Virginia Housewife, had recipes without any cocoa.

  

With the invention of a process known as “conching” chocolate could be made into candy.  In 1868 Richard Cadbury came up with the heart shaped candy filled box, connecting chocolate to the holiday.  

We have come along way since the Lupercalia, or have we?  A young couple from ancient times or prehistory transported to the present would not understand.  Then again, they would not comprehend much about our times.  It is doubtful they would think the day interesting or fun without the raucous festivities.  Until, of course, they had some chocolate.

Tom Kelleher of Old Sturbridge Village consulted for this article. The Village is holding Be Mine: Chocolate and Valentines on Saturday, February 8^th and Sunday the 9^th.

Review of Jonathan Cook's Beer Terrain

Below is a book Review from the December 2012 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine Page 6, of a book about the revival of brewing in New England.

Jonathan has an interesting blog that features his ongoing exploration of brewing culture.

Sturbridge native and his love of local beer

Beer Terrain: Field to Glass from the Berkshires to the Maine Coast

By Jonathan Cook with Suzanne LePage

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

Paperback, 156 pages

ISBN 978-1492346715

List: $16.20 Amazon: $16.20

Book review by Richard Morchoe

Jonathan Cook’s Beer Terrain is a labor of love about people who love their labor.  With his wife, Suzanne LePage they have come up with a book about the efforts of those in New England who are creating an industry that is an art form.  The couple is serious about beer.

Just how serious?  Jonathan writes of a pause at a tavern in the White Mountains,  “This was a great stop on our honeymoon which took us all around New England visiting brewpubs and drinking microbrews.”  To spend so much time at the beginning of the marriage on the quest displays a devotion to the subject and the region.

There had been fair beer industry in New England at one time.  Prohibition obliterated that.  So of necessity, our new brews have had to restart the process from nothing.  Is this necessary?  After all, there is beer in this country, freely sold.  In the introduction, Jonathan makes the point about two versions of capitalism, “One is the global supply network that sells grain on the commodity market and homogenizes the malt distributing it worldwide via vast interlinking petroleum based transit systems.  The other involves a handshake and a short drive in a small truck.”  Must it be a worldwide consistency or is there room for a local uniqueness?

 It is not possible to say if Jonathan intended it, but Beer Terrain is report card as to how far we have come in getting the beer from our fields into our glasses.  A lot has been done, and there is room for more.

Jonathan starts close to home in Worcester.  Ben Roesch at Wormtown Brewery is trying to be as local as he can.  Year round, five percent of the ingredients are “a little Mass in every glass.”  The day of Jonathan’s visit, he gets to taste a beer made with hops and malt grown within 40 miles.  Granted it’s a special offering of Masswhole  Hop Session, but that is an achievement.

100% once a year, is that all we can do?  Well, since 2010, it’s been getting easier.  That year, Christian and Andrea Stanley opened New England’s first malthouse since prohibition in the Pioneer Valley town of Hadley.  Their malted barley is the freshest around and their customers can now close another part of the circle.  Over 20 breweries use the product of Valley Malt,

There’s another ingredient associated with beer.  How are we doing regionally with hops?  In 2010 the University of Vermont did a feasibility study suggesting there is enough demand for at least a hundred acres of production.  People are trying it even nearby at Hardwick’s Clover Hill Farm.  Steve Prouty has planted a third of an acre and has supplied the aforementioned Wormtown Brewery.  Hop cultivation is no easy number.  Our damp climate puts us at a disadvantage, yet that is not stopping the adventurous.

Locally, Brimfield’s Tree House Brewing Company uses hops grown not ten minutes away.  Granted, production is such that the Local Nugget (named after a hop variety) is only occasionally on offer.

So malt and hops are coming on line more and more.  What else do we need?  How about yeast?  Is it important to have that locally too?  Bryan Greenhagen, brewer and microbiologist, seems to think so.  In of all places, urban, gritty Chelsea, he is working on it.  From off the skin of a plum, he has developed a strain of the fungus that not only ferments, but also imparts some flavor.

Beer Terrain does not overlook the largest component of almost any beverage, H2O.  The book has that covered.  Suzanne is an engineer and teaches at WPI.  Her research has focused on storm water management.  Okay, we don’t want storm water in our brewskis, but she does know water.  Chapter 8 is her paean to aqua.

Suzanne notes we do not have a common water source.  So, other than the Quabbin, the water used is going to be local.  Does that affect taste?  It can.  Depending on composition.  The atoms that make up water can bond with other atoms.  The hardness and softness has an impact as well.

Whatever else we can grow here, water will always be local.  The more other ingredients of a nearby origin become part of our beers, the more we will have our own “terroir.”  Jonathan used that term, more often associated with wine, to describe the sense of place.  The malt and hops grown here are and will be different from those of other regions.  We have had wonderful local brewers for a couple of decades now.  It is time to build the terroir.

The book is no sense a dry technical manual.  Jonathan and Susanne have enjoyed their odyssey and convey it from the Wonderful Peoples’ Pint in Greenfield to the Peak Organic Brewing Company in Portland Maine.  Jonathan, the Sturbridge native enjoys the product served at Hyland Orchard as well as the aforementioned Tree House when not on the road.  One can learn a lot from Beer Terrain while working up a thirst.

Review, Rose32 Bread bakery/café

Below is my review of the Gilbetville Bakery, Rose 32 Bread that appeared in the December, 2012 Sturbridge Times Magazine.

Hardwick is an idyllic spot in Western Central Massachusetts.  The town center is the usual, picturesque common.   The road leading to the Quabbin has a fine view.  There are beautiful farms with happy cows and, as reported in the September 2010 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine, the town is the capital of grass fed ranching in the Commonwealth.  Despite sometimes-harsh winters, there is a thriving winery on a fine piece of land.

So, a perfect town exists just northwest of Sturbridge Country.  Well, not completely.  If you travel onto Route 32 from Route 9, there is a stretch of moribund factories and aging workers’ housing.  The manufacturing jobs of the mainly Polish immigrant population are gone.  The working class section of Hardwick, known as Gilbertville, has seen better days.

That does not mean there is no enduring historical merit in the district.  The Covered Bridge that spans the Ware River is an exemplar of the style.  Recently renovated, it is something to see and could occupy the tourist for at least several nanoseconds.  Clearly Themepark Gilbertville is not going to happen.

For me, the road through Gilbertville has been a way to get somewhere else.  This is not horrible; most roads are, as is the one that passes by my home.  One expects little on the way to the destination.

Only vaguely did I notice the place with the outdoor tables and umbrellas.  It looked like a shop, maybe garage that had been converted to some kind of food business.  Nothing about it enticed me to stop.  Luckily, It was word of mouth that changed my mind.

Our first foray to Rose32 was for takeout.  There was a line of people waiting to order.  The display case did not make choosing an easy chore.  The variety of cakes and pastries was lavish and a feast for the eyes.  Steeling ourselves to the task, my daughter, Bríd, and I made our selections.

First up, the almond croissant, which had an almond paste, baked in.  The filling was good, but as in all them, it is the lovely moist croissant that is the best part.

The tarts, cherry and raspberry were rich.  If you are averse to flavor, they are not for you.  Same with the peach scone. 

We also purchased a loaf of olive bread.  The breads are whole but they offer to slice them.  I’m more partial to olives than the rest of the family and surely ate most of it.

Our next visit was for lunch.  After ordering, one sits down with the numbered sign so the server knows where to bring the order.  One of the staff came over and apologized to me (with a sincerity that could not have been feigned) because they only had the rustic baguette for my capresse.  Would that be acceptable?  I acquiesced and happily lived to tell the tale.  A capresse is a baguette sandwich of tomatoes, mozzarella, and pesto with balsamic and olive oil.

Bríd had the salmon crostini, an open-faced sandwich with smoked salmon and capers, cream cheese, and onions on toasted sourdough walnut bread.  All too often, a salmon crostini can be overly salty, but this one was just right.

I also ordered the soup of the day which was squash with crispy bacon and balsamic.  It came with bread and butter.  Bríd left with a Breton, which she described as a sort of shortbread cookie.

We came back with Robin, my wife, for breakfast.  Robin had the cheddar and green onion biscuit sandwich with egg, and ham, and described it as fantastic.

Bríd had the chicken potpie on special.  Though the vegetables in the pie were okay, the chicken was perfect.

My scrambled hash, a pleasant mélange of diced ham, potatoes and green onions with a cover of cheddar, left me satisfied.

All of this is in a building that is a converted service station.  It has its advantages as the large windows of the inherited structure gives Rose32 an abundance of natural light.  The industrial aspect of the structure serves it well as most of the production takes place in a huge oven imported from Barcelona.  It is difficult to imagine such a behemoth precision instrument on anything but a heavy-duty floor.

Such an oven is necessary to get the crust right and cook the breads evenly.  This sentiment is attributed to Glen Mitchell by his wife Cindy.  They are the Rose 32 co-owners.  The Mitchell’s had a thriving bakery business in San Francisco with 250 employees and four retail outlets and a distribution network.  As interesting as the story is, the food is most important aspect of their adventure.

That is true.  I have never had a flakier or more buttery croissant.

So there is a reason to visit Gilbertville, and after you eat the sticky bun and lick your fingers, you can cross the covered bridge.

On The Subject of ATM Crime. Can we avoid more Amy Lord tragedies

Below is an article I wrote about what we can do to prevent ATM crime.  It appeared in the October Sturbridge Times Magazine starting on Page 5.

On The Subject of ATM Crime

By Richard Morchoe

On the early morning of July 26^th Amy Lord was beaten in her South Boston apartment and ordered into her jeep by Edwin Alemany.  He had her drive to four ATMs to remove money.  After Alemany was done with her, she was murdered and her body left in a wooded section of Hyde Park.

It was big news when it happened, then it wasn’t.  No one should be surprised, the news cycles being what they are.  Of course, for the family, it will be a wound that never heals.  It might resonate with the readers of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.  Amy Lord was from Wilbraham, just up the street.

One would have hoped there would have been a groundswell for measures that would at least make it difficult for such crimes to occur.  Though it did not happen, there are some people who have thought about the problem and are working for reforms.

BU law professor David Breen has been a longtime activist concerned with the problem.  In the light of the recent murder he is quoted by the Boston Globe, “You would think if one of the five ATMs had at least a 911 phone or a panic button, it would have given her a fighting chance.”

“I think the banking industry has blood on its hands.”  The professor told the Globe.

Professor Breen has every reason to wonder about the lack of safety apparatus in place.  In 1991 he was shot and robbed in an ATM kiosk.  When he recovered, he worked for the passage of a New York City ATM law.

For ten years State Senator Brian Joyce has been pushing for enhanced ATM safety.  Last January the Milton democrat refiled legislation to require ATMs to have adequate lighting, security cameras and an emergency phone that would be a direct line to 911.

So who would oppose such measures?  The banking industry of course would not wish to see an incremental cost.  That said, what is the rationale for being against the legislation?

Bruce E. Spitzer, director of communications at the Massachusetts Bankers Association told the Boston Globe “It’s not going to be effective and doesn’t make sense.”  The legislation does not require measures at machines located in convenience stores and gas stations.   Mr. Spitzer said that is “Part and Parcel of why we have opposed this legislation for a while now.”  That does sound a bit weak.

Yet, the banks have a point.  It’s no reason not to pass Senator Joyce’s bill, but it needs to be considered.  Let’s work through a thought experiment.  Say you were an ATM robber.  You had carjacked your prey and are driving to an ATM.  When you get there, you will probably accompany the victim into the kiosk.  Your instructions would go something like this, “Take out as much money as you can and if you touch the phone or the button, I’ll kill you right here.”

Clearly, the learning curve of the criminal class is not so slow that they won’t figure this out.

What would be truly useful would be something that alerted police without alerting the robber, that is a system where a cardholder could request an alternative pin number.  The use of the number would alert the police that a crime was in progress at the machine.  The system should also alert authorities to the vehicle make and plate number as perpetrators usually use the victim's car.

The alternate number would not cause alarm and the money would be dispensed so as not to tip off the criminal that the police had been notified and were in pursuit.  The CCTV in the ATM kiosk would be recording the criminal as the crime is in progress.

There is no such system in practice at this time.   Still, as everything that runs the ATM networks is controlled by a computer program, it should be feasible.

According to one man it is.  Joseph Zingher has software that if implemented would allow a victim to enter their pin number backwards.  This would go right to 911.  Joseph holds U.S Patent Number 5,731,575.  In the first years of this century, a credit union in Georgia and a bank in South Carolina were set to implement it.  The two institutions dropped the idea when their service provider threatened to drop them.

A 2004 Forbes article mentions that Microsoft has filed a patent as well.   Mr. Zingher has some disagreements with the article, but if a major player is interested, that is significant evidence that it is doable.

Mr. Zingher’s product is his life’s work.  Along with his brother, he is fighting to have his system adopted.  He does wish to be compensated for his system.  Certainly, banks do not want to pay too much.  Joseph has been waiting a long time and he is pessimistic that he will succeed before the patent runs out. 

Of course, the banks could be resisting because Joseph Zingher’s system, or any system is far more difficult to effect than claimed. According to systems engineer and Worcester Polytechnic grad Daniel Earley, “From a technical standpoint the SafetyPIN concept is entirely feasible. ATMs are typically connected via telephone or Ethernet to bank networks. The same infrastructure could be used to connect them to law enforcement networks. Some fairly simple logic would have to be added to the ATM's software so that it would contact law enforcement as well as the bank network if the user's PIN was entered in reverse order."  That does not sound insurmountable.

The question is, what price is it worth to save a life, .0001cent per transaction, $100 per?  Will it be an onerous cost for what may or may not be a statistically insignificant crime?  One’s reaction might be different if a family member becomes a statistic.

It has been quoted too many times, but Willie Sutton is famous for answering why he robbed banks, “That’s where the money is.”  That is what is in ATMs.  It is an easy crime to commit, but statistics are elusive and need a murder rather than a mere assault to be noticed.  In 2006 Professor Breen said, "What does it take, does somebody have to die?"  As the latest crime slips down the memory hole, it appears it will take more than that.

Senator Joyce’s office was contacted and press contact, Jack Cardinal passed on the information.  No response was forthcoming as of deadline.

Professor Breen responded by email, but did not address the question of pin safety.

Review of Walking In Her shoes

Below is a book review from the May 2013 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 11, about a daugter's quest for family information.

The mystery of mom.

Walking In Her Shoes

By Marylou Depeiza

AuthorHouse, 2011

Paperback, 156 pages

ISBN 978-142994617

List: $15.00 Amazon: $15.00

Book review by Richard Morchoe

As the saying goes, the past is an undiscovered country.  For Marylou Depeiza, that is so, but she did as much as anyone could to find it.  Her search for the family story, left untold at her mother’s death was a competent a piece of amateur detective craft.  Alas, even hard work can only take you so far.

Who we are and what we are is an obsession for many people. Ancestry.com is big business.  Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates has a popular show, Finding Your Roots, where prominent people search for their background using documentary evidence and DNA information.  The company 23andme will, for a sample of saliva, tell you where your ancestors come from, if not their names and addresses.

Marylou wasn’t trying to find out she was a direct descendant of the Grand Duke of Ruritania.  Her goals were far more modest, though no less important for that.  Her book, Walking In Her Shoes, is a biographical account of life with her mother, Leola Williams.  The book is an intimate and loving portrayal of a woman who tenaciously kept a family fed, clothed and together no matter how little she had.  It is also chronicles the later life and decline of a strong woman and how it affected those she loved and loved her.

Walking In Her Shoes is a story of Boston from just before World War II through the post war era.  She has it pitch perfect.  The elegance that was Filenes is reflected as well as her mother’s meeting with Mayor Curley.  Marylou imagines her mom’s meeting with His honor.  It is as good as the dialogue of the mayor meeting his people in Edwin O’Connor’s roman a clef about Curley, The Last Hurrah.  One quibble, she has Curley speaking with an Irish accent he did not possess.  The mayor was second generation and spoke with a florid, stentorian voice, but not a bit of a brogue.

Filenes was a vision of middle class style and grace, but it was also part of the cultural patterns of the times.  Marylou notices her mother’s job as stock girl is not the equal of white women who work behind the perfume counter.  Leola brushes it off, but the contrast is stark.

For all that, Leola was a woman of mystery.  Her children never knew her husband and the circumstances of her marriage. About all that they knew was that he was killed in the World War II and she was a war widow.

Finality and closure are not complete even in families where the history is kept as far back as possible.  Roger, her brother found the military files on Leola’s husband, James Williams, through an online search.  Private Williams had been killed in the service of his country by a violent explosion in India. He had been part of an outfit building a road to China to circumvent the Japanese occupation.

But what of the relationship of Leola and James?  Marylou undertook a search of court records. She would find that her mom did not have a marriage made in heaven.  She got the details of James’ suit for divorce and Leola’s contesting of it. Their relationship was complicated to say the least.  She also saw the Veterans’ Administration records of the battle for mom’s rights as a widow.

If the marriage didn’t originate in paradise, the in-laws seemed to come from somewhere far south of it.  They fought Leola over benefits and she was even assaulted.  Still, Marylou wanted to know about the other side of the family.   She continued the detective work to no avail.

Marylou had uncovered a story that would be considered shocking from the point of view of middle class values.  Yet for all of Leola’s tangled life, the Williams household, as Marylou tells it, was no zone of dysfunction.  It chugged along through adversity with a strong personality at the helm.  

Searching for your history can be a minefield as Oedipus found out, but who among us could shield our eyes no matter how devastating the revelation?  Walking In Her Shoes is not a long book.  You will turn the pages quickly and regret that it ends so fast.

Marylou Depeiza is Boston born and bred.  A graduate of Boston State (now merged with UMass Boston), she has been an actress for over 20 years.  Wife and grandmother, this is her first book.  She is currently working on a murder mystery.

Marylou has an author page on Amazon at

http://www.amazon.com/Marylou-Depeiza/e/B0055L19XG.

Review of Straightling: A Memoir

Below is a book review from the April 2013 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 8 about a rehab form hell.
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Book Review

Book tells story of a straightened-out victim

Straightling: A Memoir

By Cyndy Drew Etler

Lucky 17 Publishing, 2012

Paperback, 229 pages

ISBN 978-1469902807

List: $9.99 Amazon: $9.99

By Richard Morchoe

Dissident Vladimir Bukovsky related a story about the Soviet regime, “One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in his desk and called off the search. "But, Comrade Stalin," stammered Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it."

We can only imagine the brutality of a totalitarian regime that could make people confess to things they never did and be glad it could never happen here, except that it could and did.  Not only that, those who admitted to things they never did, came to believe their own guilt.

There were no guard towers surrounding the installations in this country.  Barbed wire did not encircle the venues.  Rubber hoses and truncheons were not used to force confessions and yet, they occurred.  A Gestapo or KGB did not search for deviations from orthodoxy to ensnare the deviant.  It was much more effective because of whom the betrayer was, mom and dad.

Cyndy Drew Etler spent 18 months in Straight Inc.  She was willing to confess to near anything except the Soviet Dictator’s pipe and she might have done that if it could have conceivably held marijuana.  Not that she had vast experience with cannabis. 

Cyndy was a teenager from Connecticut with a few problems, but she was not a hardcore drug user or alcoholic.  Not untypical of her contemporaries, she had been drunk once and stoned twice.  She was guilty of having a troubled home life.   Her stepfather molested her and her mother was not notable for being aware or interested.

She dealt with the unpleasant domestic situation by staying away, crashing with friends until the authorities became involved.  Her time at Janus House for Youth in Crisis, a place for a short-term stay, felt like Nirvana compared to home. 

Given a choice, she chose foster care over being sent home.  Home has to be pretty bad for a child to want to be placed with strangers.  Most 14 year olds think parents the enforcers of unreasonable rules and regulations.  In spite of that, few would want to leave the familiar hearth for the unknown.

 It was not to be.  Apathy Mom all of a sudden got involved and signed her into an organization endorsed by Princess Di, already a living saint, but not yet a dead goddess.  Nancy Reagan had also given her imprimatur.  What could be more wholesome?

Sold to her as a boarding school, the truth dawned soon after arrival when the system of restraint, holding belt loops, was used on her.  There were no artsy, cool hippy type teachers as she had anticipated.  Instead, an intake interview was an inquisition to start the policy of breaking her down.

Cyndy didn’t have a clue as to what was happening to her.  For a while she thought that they would see she is not a druggie and let her go home.  That hardly worked so she figured to give them what they wanted. 

In one of the group sessions she “shares” her account of the beating and molestation at the hands of Jacque, her stepfather.  She felt support and understanding and that will lead to her liberation.

Boy was she deluded.  In the next group session, she was told to stand and was asked, “Why’d your father beat you, Cyndy” It does not go well.  The inquisitor screams in her face, “Parents don’t put a hand on their kid for no reason!  What did you do to make him beat you?”

In the same vein, he accuse her of initiating the molestation by being a flirt.  The Borg now has her soul.

Years ago, I read the book, Prisoner of Mao by Bao Ruo-Wang.  He was able to escape the Chinese Gulag because he held French citizenship, being half Corsican.  His account of how a prisoner is broken down is eerily like Cyndy’s.  Still, at its worst, he never believed in his own guilt as fully as Ms. Etler would.  Even when Cyndy is released, she accepts she is a druggie. 

Straightlings did not stay at Straight at night.  They were sent out to homes in the community for a good dose of family.  Just your average clan that locks and alarms every door and window through a confirmation process and observes even your bodily functions.  So what’s the point of dispersing everybody?  Why not just have a residential community?

This is where it gets really cute.  By sending the kids out, Straight was officially non-residential and thus needed only a day treatment license.  Inspections and oversight were lighter for that.  The creators of the program had thought of everything.

Cyndy and others who went through the programs generated enormous amounts of cash for Straight.  Her mother used the money her father, Smith College music professor and composer, Alvin Etler, had left her for her education.  

Did it ever do any good?  Judging by the number of suicides of former Straight attendees, the program’s efficacy may be in doubt.

Eventually, Cyndy was able to shake herself out of the Stockholm syndrome and realize that she had admitted to things that had not happened.  The result is her book.  Stylistically, it is almost stream of consciousness.  This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you feel you are with her.  If you are old enough to have been around the block a few times, you almost want to yell, “Hey, Cyndy, you’re being set up.” 

Cyndy’s relationship with her mom is minimal.   Jacque was litigated, but not prosecuted.  Straight is out of business, but successor operations are out there.  The question becomes is our national paranoia about drugs worth it?   One hopes there is a path that can be followed with more wisdom or less foolishness.  What is being done now is not working.

Why do I have a pen name

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Below is my column from the July, 2012 Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 20 explaining why I felt it necessary to be less common.

NOM DE PLUME

BY RICHARD MORCHOE (THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS RICHARD MURPHY)

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Such are the words of Juliet as she tells her Romeo he is not his name.  Is that true?  Is what we are called merely an incidental aspect of our lives?  I’m not sure, but I have a problem with my name.  There are way too many Murphys.

To give you an idea of what I’m up against, nobody in Massachusetts will ever say, “You know the problem with this state is you can never find anybody with the last name Murphy.”  It may not be the most common surname around, but there are a lot of us.

That is not the worst of it.  Murphy is the go to name for humorous treatment of Irish people.  Whether it’s Funky Murphy’s bar or the song, “Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder,” we are the victims of our name.  We don’t even get royalties for Murphy’s Law.

Someone hears your name, they figure you are an expert or at least a source of Irish information.  In my case that might not be completely untrue.  I do have a lot of friends and relatives who are Irish.    There is a lot of Irish history I know, but I am a history nerd and probably know more about someone else’s ethnic record because that is my interest.

Then there is the subject of alcohol.  I am no teetotaler, but there is the assumption sight unseen that I must drink more than average due to my Hibernian ancestry.  True, in college I did my part to keep the American brewery industry healthy, but failed to become an alcoholic.  Though I can happily ingest the odd pint of Guinness, my preference is more vin rouge avec le diner.  

It has become such that when people ask me something that assumes i am Irish, I tell them my ancestry is full blooded Italian.  Upon their skepticism, I reply that when my great grandfather Giuseppe di Merfi came to immigration, those horrible Irish made him drop the di and change Merfi.  I then claim the cost in therapy for the family has been brutal.  Considering the number of people who actually believe that foolishness, I should think about becoming a conman.

I had thought a unique first name would solve the problem for my children.  I didn’t name my son Sue as in the Johnny Cash song.  There would have been no point to that as there are too many Sue Murphys.  He was given a name that I thought no one in America would possess.  Wrong.  I was sure until my sister handed me a business card of a co-worker with my son’s name.  I fleetingly thought it would have been good idea to use exotic names of other ethnicities, but Genghis Murphy doesn’t really work.

Then there was the recent Russian sleeper spy ring that was caught.  One of the spies was named Richard Murphy.  I am no expert on the subject of slavic nomenclature, but my guess is that Murphy was not the man’s original tag.

Getting other peoples’ mail can also be interesting.  Unfortunately there were never any checks.  Someone else with my name was the patient of the same doctor.  I would get notices that I was long delinquent on the bill.  Being considered a deadbeat by the man I was entrusting with my health is not where I wanted to be.

For a writer, the name is much too common.  Yet actually, I am proud to be a Murphy.  My family and ancestors suffered occupation and oppression and never gave in.  I don’t want to change my name, only its form. In fact Murphy itself is an Anglicization, and there is a form, Morchoe, which is more Irish though it does not sound so.  People will mistake me for something else, or nothing else.  I’m okay with that.  Best of all, there are no other Richard Morchoes in the country, or maybe the world.  Go ahead, google it.  There are nada, zip, zero.  When Richard Murphy is searched there are over seven million.

Maybe Juliet was completely wrong and we are our names.  Maybe I’ll be a changed man with a nom de plume.  My family might aver that it would not be a bad thing.  

Anyway, I never had a pen name before.