Grand Fenwick, Massachusetts is a collection of stories about life in New England, and my goal is to publish one per month until I finally run out of material – which is, nevertheless, highly unlikely. While inspired by real-life experiences in New England, the stories you are about to read are based solely on the author’s imagination. Names, locations, and events are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event in the past or present.

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Grand Fenwick and The Political Life

Sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them. – Brock Clarke, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, 2007

I looked at my laptop in disbelief. Why would it deny access to our home network? It just didn’t make any sense.

“I am going to kill him,” my wife grumbled.

I just hate Windows. In all those years they never managed to make networking easy.

“I will hunt him down, wherever he might be, and I will kill him!”

Maybe it’s time to switch to a Mac.

“Are you listening?” my wife barked at me.

“Of course! What did he write now?”

Everybody tells me, once you go Mac you never go back. Maybe I should give it a shot.

My wife’s head disappeared behind the newspaper again. “It’s about traffic in downtown. Apparently, he adopted his sister’s opinion yet again.”

She held up the paper to show me the article, but, without giving me enough time to read the headline, she pulled it back and recited: “Just the other day I drove my new BMW down on Main Street when a car, apparently operated by a woman, cut me off and continued to annoy me by driving about ten miles under the posted speed limit. I must admit, I have no solid evidence the driver was, in fact, of the female sort, but the erratic driving style was a dead give-away. It is my firm belief, that it would improve driving conditions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts immensely if we were to deny drivers’ licenses to women.”

I shook my head and turned back to my laptop. There is an Apple store in Worcester, close to the office.

“And,” my wife continued, “he can prove his case.”

Maybe today, after work, I’ll pay a visit…

“Oh, really?”

She quoted again: “Recent statistic show that about 40% of all women fail their first driving test, while 60% of all men pass the test with flying colors.”

It took me a moment to process the information, and then I laughed.

“He really wrote that?”

“What? You think I’m making this up?” We knew out of experience that Drew Gingrich was not a joker.

“No. I just can’t believe this nonsense. I mean, everybody has the right to be stupid, but it’s not a good career move to put it in writing.”

“I agree,” she nodded. “But remember, he owns the paper. His career is not in jeopardy here. He can write whatever he likes.”

“Yeah, and apparently it doesn’t matter if he sticks with the facts or not. That man is a slap in the face of every hard working journalist who investigates facts while paying attention to reporting in the most objective manner.“

As a matter of fact, if you lived in Grand Fenwick and you read the local newspaper, you couldn’t help but learning everything about Drew Gingrich’s life, including – but not limited to – dating and digestion problems, in more detail than you ever care for.

“And, of course, he supports the demand for a new study to investigate the impact on traffic in case the town approves the high-rise building with attached supermarket in downtown Grand Fenwick.”

“But we don’t know what’s happening with the paper mill property,” I protested.

“You don’t have to tell me,” my wife scowled.

“And listen to this,” she added in an apparent rage. “He writes, ‘I would like to see adjustments to the plan of a new supermarket in town, provided the zoning board approves the plan. These adjustments include reducing the hours of operation, limiting the amount of groceries the store can sell, limiting the size of the store, and requiring the owner to restore the property to predevelopment conditions if the building remains vacant for twelve consecutive months at any time in the future.’ ”

It took me yet another few moments to digest what I had just heard, but there was no use to express the myriad of thoughts that came to mind.

“Well, then let’s make sure the town spends the money to record the current condition of one of the shabbiest sites in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. What else is new around town?”

“Oh, a lot,” she smiled. “A cooling tower at the New Hampshire Nuclear Power Plant collapsed, spilling some cooling water. But not to worry, the water was part of the non-radioactive circulating water system.”

She turned to the next page. “The Grand Fenwick Diner is under new management.”

“And,” she added, “J.C. Penney is having a sale!”

“Whoo-hoo. I guess it’s time to take you out to the mall.”

“Yeah! You mean, a trip into civilization? Walmart? Target? Kohl’s? What’s the occasion? It’s neither my birthday nor our anniversary…”

She turned back to her paper, and I finally managed to access our home network. Things were back to normal, and my mind floated back to the time when I learned everything of the town’s greatest controversy.

It was actually our pediatrician, Dr. Yoshida, commonly known as “Joe,” who filled me into the dirty details. Both our kids were patients of his until the time when they had to go to college and, under great protest, had to find another primary physician. During these last twenty years, Joe and I became friends, and we started to have our regular “boys’ night out” at O’Connors, an Irish restaurant and bar on the outskirts of Worcester.

“Hey, Joe,” I asked him one night. “I’ve been reading a lot lately about the new town hall and the paper mill property. I don’t quite get the relation between both. What is the problem here?”

Joe rolled his eyes and folded his hands. “Oh Lord, forgive him, for he doesn’t know.”

“I didn’t know you were Christian.”

“Oh, I’m not,” he winked, “but don’t tell anybody. I might lose patients. I’m Italian, remember?”

I nodded. “Si.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Please, kind Sir, do tell me about controversy.”

He grinned and took another sip from his Guinness.

“Just be aware,” he warned me, “at the end of my summary, you will call me a liar.”

Without giving me a chance to ask he continued, “That’s a line from Forget Paris, a great movie with Billy Crystal and Debra Winger. I’ve been dying for years to use it.”

Another sip of Guinness.

“Anyways. Let me ask you this: When you think of the Grand Fenwick town hall, what comes to mind?”

“Well, scaffolds. Lots of construction. Actually, since the time we moved here I have never seen it without any kind of repair work going on.”

He nodded. “That is the problem exactly. Many years ago – as you mentioned, before you arrived here – it was determined that the town hall was in dire need of some repair. That included the sanitary facilities, the heating system, lack of air-conditioning in the summer, and much more.

“You won’t believe it, but to this day most of the heating is provided by burning wood in a huge wood stove, and the heat is distributed through vents insulated with asbestos.”

“You have got to be kidding!”

“No, I kid you not,” he grinned. “But it gets worse. The structure of the town hall is still supported by huge tree stomps in the basement. All in all, the town hall was and is beyond repair, and everything they do these days is mere cosmetics.”

“So, when came the decision to build a new town hall?”

“Oh, that was about 1985, maybe 86, I’m not sure. It all started with an evaluation by a local construction company, and they determined that the repair costs would be about factor three to four in the best-case scenario compared to building a new town hall.

“So, as the political system in Grand Fenwick works, the Board of Selectmen didn’t dare or couldn’t make a decision without the consent of the majority of Grand Fenwick residents. You must understand, officially, the town of Grand Fenwick practices a perfect democracy, thus providing everybody, and I mean everybody, with a license of being the ultimate expert on matters of the town.

“The discussion before the actual vote was heated, and everybody, and I mean everybody, chipped in. In the end the new town hall was approved by almost seventy percent of the voters. Well, as I said, the discussion was heated, but only thirty-five percent of all voters showed up.”

He waited until the arrival of the next Guinness before he continued.

“I mean, that tells you something about our fellow Grand-Fenwickers. All mouth and no stamina.”

“But, after more than twenty years, we still don’t have a new town hall.”

“Wait,” he cautioned me. “You’re getting ahead of things.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay. Anyways, at roughly the same time of the vote, the old paper mill property across the street from the town hall miraculously became available for sale, and there was yet another vote allowing the town to buy the property, which naturally implied that the new town hall would be in a different location.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Why interrupt or move operations during construction? But, Joe, where did they get the money to buy the property, and how did they intend to finance the new building? I’m assuming money was tight then as it is now.”

He grinned. “Well, to this day the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sponsors a great portion of the move.”

“But they are not moving!”

“Well, let’s hope the Commonwealth of Massachusetts doesn’t find out. The town uses the money for the continuing repairs and to pay off the mortgage for the paper mill property.”

I swallowed and took a big gulp from my beer. “So, what went wrong?”

Joe laughed and shook his head.

“Democracy went down the sewer. That’s what went wrong.”

I was confused.

“Okay,” he said, “let me go back to the very basics. The original Grand Fenwicker is highly allergic to any changes of his lifestyle. What worked for the last one hundred years should work for the next one hundred years. Maybe I am too sarcastic here, but it seems to me the Grand Fenwicker does not want modern-day improvements.”

“Like the Amish people. Buttons are ‘Hochmut.’”

“Exactly! But that alone doesn’t describe the whole picture. As I said before, Grand Fenwick, at least officially, works as a perfect democracy, meaning everybody is equal and everybody is allowed to make his or her view known. However, the political system changed radically right after the vote with the emergence of the ‘Voice of Grand Fenwick.’”

I threw my arms into the air. “Oh, God!” I said. The ‘Voice of Grand Fenwick’ was the main target of my blog posts. The ‘Voice of Grand Fenwick’ was a group of ‘concerned citizens’ dissatisfied with the handling of the town hall controversy. In the beginning it was only a small group of extreme-conservative residents, but they gained increasing support by local business owners as soon as the idea of a new supermarket in town emerged.

Joe grinned. “As you well know, they represent a small, but extremely aggressive and vocal minority in town who, at least officially, wants to preserve the identity of Grand Fenwick. They used all possible strategies to put their pressure on town officials to reverse the majority vote. After all, the vote was not binding, and the Board of Selectmen was the final authority.”

“What it comes down to,” I interrupted him, “is that there are some people who are a bit more equal than the rest. The ‘Voice of Grand Fenwick’ acts almost like a politburo telling the government and their people what is best for them.”

Joe thought about this for a moment. “Yes, I guess that’s a valid view. In all consequence you could say, we are living in a Soviet-Communist-Amish society.”

We both had a good laugh, but Joe was not finished with his story.

“ I vividly remember the day when the Board of Selectmen announced their final decision. They had rented the dance hall at the Grand Fenwick Diner to accommodate everybody, and, believe me, it was packed! The press said there were roughly two hundred people present.

“Finally, the entire Board appeared, and the chairman announced the decision and he made it quick and dirty.

“First, the decision had been made to erect a new town hall. There were cheers by the supporters. Secondly, the decision was made that the old town hall, in order to assure continued operation, would not be dismantled until the construction of the new town hall was finished. Yet again, cheers by the supporters. Thirdly, to address conservational concerns and to preserve the identity of Grand Fenwick, plus addressing financial concerns, material, such as bricks, wood, etc. of the old town hall shall be used to erect the new town hall.”

Joe watched me in amusement when I choked on my beer. The bartender hurried by and handed me a kitchen towel to dry off the mess on my shirt.

‘Well, Doctor,” I coughed, “thanks for your medical support.”

“Sorry,” he said without remorse in his voice, “but the view was just too precious.”

“Needless to say,” he continued, “but the ‘Voice of Grand Fenwick’ had prevailed, and to this day the Grand Fenwick town hall is still under repair. The town is stuck with the old paper mill property, and, as you well know, selling the property would be one good solution to solve their financial problems. One day, sooner or later, the guys in Boston will want their money back, and when the day comes, the town of Grand Fenwick will be in big… well, how would a three-year-old say… poo-poo.”

I wish I could say that the rest is history, but that doesn’t describe the current situation. But that is another story and that story shall be told another time.