State Fire Marshal Jon M. Davine and Massachusetts Firefighting Academy leadership has announced the graduation of 18 firefighters from the 50-day Career Recruit Firefighting Training Program.
“Massachusetts firefighters are on the frontlines protecting their communities every day, and today’s graduates are needed now more than ever,” said State Fire Marshal Davine. “The hundreds of hours of foundational training they’ve received will provide them with the physical, mental, and technical skills to perform their jobs effectively and safely.”
“Massachusetts Firefighting Academy instructors draw on decades of experience in the fire service to train new recruits,” said Massachusetts Firefighting Academy Deputy Director Dennis A. Ball. “Through consistent classroom instruction and practical exercises, today’s graduates have developed the tools they’ll need to work seamlessly with veteran firefighters in their home departments and in neighboring communities as mutual aid.”
The graduating firefighters of Class #BW33 represent the fire departments of Barnstable, Dennis, East Bridgewater, Hull, Kingston, Milton, New Bedford, Sandwich, West Bridgewater, Whitman, Wrentham, and Yarmouth.
The Richard N. Bangs Outstanding Student Award, which is presented to one recruit in each graduating career recruit training class, was presented to Firefighter Christopher Palin of the West Bridgewater Fire Department. The award is named for the longtime chair of the Massachusetts Fire Training Council and reflects the recruit’s academic and practical skills, testing, and evaluations over the course of the 10-week program.
Basic Firefighter Skills
Students receive classroom training in all basic firefighter skills. They practice first under non-fire conditions and then during controlled fire conditions. To graduate, students must demonstrate proficiency in life safety, search and rescue, ladder operations, water supply, pump operation, and fire attack. Fire attack operations range from mailbox fires to multiple-floor or multiple-room structural fires. Upon successful completion of the Career Recruit Program, all students have met the national standards of NFPA 1001, Standard for Fire Fighter Professional Qualifications, and are certified to the levels of Firefighter I/II and Hazardous Materials First Responder Operations by the Massachusetts Fire Training Council, which is accredited by the National Board on Fire Service Professional Qualifications.
Today’s Firefighters Do Much More than Fight Fires
Modern firefighters train for and respond to all types of hazards and emergencies. They are the first ones called to respond to chemical and environmental emergencies, ranging from the suspected presence of carbon monoxide to gas leaks to industrial chemical spills. They may be called to rescue a child who has fallen through the ice, an office worker stuck in an elevator, or a motorist trapped in a crashed vehicle. They test and maintain their equipment, including self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), hydrants, hoses, power tools, and apparatus.
At the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, recruits learn all these skills and more, including the latest science of fire behavior and suppression tactics, from certified fire instructors. They also receive training in public fire education, hazardous material incident mitigation, flammable liquids, stress management, and self-rescue techniques. The intensive, 10-week program involves classroom instruction, physical fitness training, firefighter skills training, and live firefighting practice.
The MFA provides recruit and in-service training for career, call, and volunteer firefighters at every level of experience, from recruit to chief officer, at campuses in Stow, Springfield, and Bridgewater.

PLYMOUTH – More than 500 South Shore residents gathered at Plymouth Rock on a frigid Presidents Day to protest illegal cuts to federal programs and access to government data bases by a group of 19-24-year-old acolytes of presidential appointee Elon Musk, and excesses of the Trump administration generally.
The protest was in concert with similar rallies, large and small, across the country. Dubbed “No Kings on Presidents Day” in some places, the Plymouth protest, which featured local and state government officials, was called, “Not On Our Watch.” The local protest was organized by the several South Shore Democratic town committees.
“We are living in a time when our democracy is being tested, not just in Washington, but in communities like ours,” said state Rep. Kathy LaNatra, D-Kingston, who added that, while it’s easy to get caught up in headlines about the nation’s angst and problems, focusing instead on what people can do to make changes right in their own backyard. “The truth is, Democracy isn’t just about what happens in Washington, it’s about what happens in our town halls, in our community meetings, in our local elections. If we want to protect democracy, we have to start right here, where we live.”
Musk, a South African immigrant, and said to be the world’s richest man has been given unfettered access to computers in government departments, such as the Treasury Department, where it is alleged his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has accessed personal information of millions of Americans.
The office carries the same acronym as an internet meme and joke cryptocurrency.
“Lots of things can be done by a small group of committed people,” said Halifax Democratic Town Committee Co-chair Ellen Snoeyenbos. “We’re going to gain strength from each other, take a measure of how much we have built together. … We have built safety nets – Social Security, education, Medicare, health care and state-of-the-art research facilities, to protect our health and sustain life on this planet, environmental, climate and weather safety – these things are at risk.”
All are programs and/or departments targeted for deep cuts and mass firings of employees by the Trump administration. Cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which have been pointed to as contributing factors to a recent spate of crashes and threatened cuts to NPR under the National Endowment for the Arts, and National Parks were also spoken of.
“We built it! Don’t let them take it away,” she said as motorists honked their horns on the way by. “Not on our watch!”
Whitman Select Board member Justin Evans “nerded out” on the risk to the nation’s administrative and regulatory agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tasked with enforcing marine regulations, monitoring the atmosphere and oceans for evidence of climate change – and, most importantly, has control of the National Weather Service.
“In Trump’s first term, he nominated the CEO of AccuWeather to take over NOAA,” he said. “His explicit goal … was to privatize or prevent that from becoming public information. That didn’t happen, but in Project 2025, it’s back and the goal there is to dismantle the research arm of that agency, because their research gathers evidence of climate change. Elon and his staff have already shown up, they’ve told staff to expect 50 percent in cuts.”
Evans outlined the risk
“He’s coming in with a sledgehammer for political means, and the downstream risk is we are not going to have as accurate climate modeling or weather tracking, and local officials like myself rely on that,” he said, listing hurricane forecasts, fire watches, tornado watches to know whether to issue evacuation warnings or shelter in place.”
He added that towns need to know if heatwaves or deep freezes are coming in order to plan for opening warming or heating centers.
“Not having this publicly available access to information is a threat to all of us,” he said. “All of this stuff is interconnected, and if you’re cutting the safety net across each of these regulatory agencies, the risks are catastrophic. … I know the experts are freaking the hell out. I want you too, as well.”
So, what to do with it?
Rockland Democratic Town Committee Chair Jessica Laverty had some suggestions.
“We’ve got 625 days – until what?” she said.
“Midterms!” the crowd shouted.
“Guess what’s not going to make it through 625 days?” she asked: “Our environment, our democracy, our Board of Education, our departments, our NOAA – nothing is going to make it through 625 days, so we need to stand up right now.”
Donate your time, reach out to people and look to municipal elections, she advised. Confront “obnoxious betrayals of the truth” in person or online but do so with facts and with kindness.
“We need those folks to make sure that, in four years, we’re not here again, in whatever wasteland is left,” she said.
State Rep. Michelle Badger said that the Office of the President represents unity, leadership and the voice of the people and there is no better time than Presidents Day to reflect on what those qualities mean to the country.
“These issues matter deeply and its natural to feel frightened and uncertain about what lies ahead, but we cannot let ourselves be paralyzed with fear,” Badger said, encouraging people to apply for appointed posts on local boards and commissions, which are always seeking new members, or run for elective office. “We need to take our nervous energy and channel it into action. … When the federal level seems to be too hard and overwhelming, look locally. Find your voice.”

Diesel technicians from Advantage Truck Group (ATG), including Kingston resident Kevin Johnson who works at the company’s Raynham location, recently earned the Daimler Truck North America expert-level certification for the Freightliner Business Class M2 truck.
The technicians earned the expert-level certification for the M2 truck by completing classes that provided in-depth training on the functions, operation and troubleshooting of the vehicle’s multiplexed electrical system and all of its electronically-controlled systems, including lighting, instrumentation, HVAC, body builder interface and air management system.
“Achieving this certification is an important milestone that distinguishes a technician’s expertise and ensures a high level of service for our customers,” said ATG Training Director and certified dealer-trainer Rob Lynds, whose classes at the ATG training center in Shrewsbury often include technicians from other dealer companies.
Lynds, along with ATG Network Trainer Matthew McCuin, leads training for ATG technicians throughout the company’s locations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Temperatures throughout the region have been frigid this week, far below average, testing the limits of our home heating systems. Meteorologists have said that this is the coldest period of winter. Temperatures are expected to rise this weekend and a return to normal will be welcome.
Martin Luther King Day, a day off from school, brought these siblings out into the cold to build a snow fort and play in the white stuff. The cold half moon is just rising over the fields and trees to urge the sun to set.

Linda Redding
Special to the Express
The Chairman, Athletic Director, and Principal, in conjunction with the Superintendent announce the ninth class to be inducted into the Silver Lake Regional High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
Following the practice established in 2007, a team, a coach, and individual athletes will be inducted.
After review of many nominations submitted to the committee from coaches, community, and athletes, the following have been selected for the Class of 2024:
• Fred Abraham – 1987 Ice Hockey
• Audra Lissell Kirtland – 2000 Basketball
• Shaun Redgate – 1977 Basketball
• Alex Rollins – 2006 Wrestling
• Hannah Rapalee Rothhaar – 2005 Soccer, Track
• Jeff Smith 2006 Football, Track
• Zachary Smith – 2010 Baseball
• Larry Walsh Coach – Ice Hockey
• 2015 Varsity Softball State Finalist
The Hall of Fame committee is composed of former athletes, coaches, and school personnel: Bill Johnson, Chair; Richard Swanson, Athletic Director Martha Jamieson, Olly deMacedo, Jim Geronaitis, John Mahoney, Peter McClelland, Scott McKee, Linda Redding, Larry Walsh, and John Montosi.
Anyone wishing to support and congratulate the inductees is encouraged to attend the induction ceremony on Feb. 1, 2025 at the Indian Pond Country Club in Kingston, MA. Tickets must be purchased in advance and are available through GoFan.co by searching Silver Lake Regional High School. Visit the Silver Lake Hall of Fame webpage at silverlakehof.org for more information.

The rock group Chicago’s hit from their debut album may have asked the famous philosophical question about time as a hook for a hit song, but whether anyone actually knows the precise time might be debatable. Yes, people do care.
They care enough that there are at least 40 calendar systems in use around the world today – two in the Christian world alone – and the small nation of Kiribati spread out over 1,800 miles of islands and atolls in the Pacific Ocean began a process in 1994 to successfully petition to have the International Dateline moved by 2000. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Retired Plymouth teacher Nancy A. Franks, who has built an enthusiastic audience for her monthly lecture visits to Whitman Council on Aging’s senior center, appeared there Monday, Jan. 6 with Moon Pies, gummy bears, New Year’s greetings and a talk on New Year’s celebrations and traditions around the world and closer to home, including ball drops – and twists on that theme.
Whitman briefly joined in the latter category with a Toll House cookie drop in 2015 and 2016, but a trend of frigid temperatures both years cut the tradition off before it could take root and the larger-than-life cookie – crafted by SST students for the town is now in storage.
So, why the hoopla over Jan. 1 anyway?
“I really do two different kinds of presentations,” Frank said, “I do the historical ones, or I pick a topic like this and just jump around to anything that comes to mind.”
Julius Ceasar introduced the months of January (for Janus, the god of beginnings, endings and time) and February (for Februus, the god of purification), creating a 12-month calendar in 45 BC. Pope Gregory VIII then introduced in 1582, the calendar we still use today, replacing the Julian calendar.
The difference?
The Julian calendar was not entirely accurate, but Franks argued it was close enough. His inaccuracy is about 11 minutes short of the 365 ¼ days per year in the Gregorian calendar.
“I think it’s amazing that anyone was even thinking or figuring that out that long ago as a reform of the Roman calendar,” Franks said, putting words in Julius Caesar’s thought bubble.
“Eleven minutes? What’s the big deal?” Franks said. “Well, it’s because we would have gained eight days every 1,000 years. Does that really matter? I’m not sure it does.”
But the Julian calendar is still used in astronomy.
“When they started the Julian calendar on Jan. 1, 45 BC, and they recorded events in the stars and the planets, they began counting on that day … and they still use it,” she said. “They didn’t bother to change it over to a new calendar.”
It’s also used and as a religious calendar by the Greek and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches and by the Amazigh people of North Africa.
Ball droppage –
and other things
New York began its ball drop at midnight tradition in 1908 and it was last updated in 2008.
The ball is 12 feet in diameter and is now made of 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles imported from Ireland and 32,256 LED lights. It weighs 11,875 pounds – mostly electronic hardware.
The ball is able to create 16 million vibrant colors in billions of patterns, the theme of which changes each year.
Around the United States, New Year’s celebrations include the midnight drop of, among others:
The Mobile, Ala., 12-foot in diameter electrified Moon Pie; The Cherry T. Ball in the “Cherry Capital of the U.S.,” Traverse City, Mich., saluting the charitable fundraising purpose in the name; Mt. Olive, N.C.’s three-foot long pickle drops into a giant pickle jar; the Boise, Idaho potato drop; Port Clinton, and Ohio’s Walleye drop on the Lake Erie shoreline. Miami raises an orange in homage to the state’s big cash crop as well as the Orange Bowl Festival parade and football game.
Points of pride
Kiribati, in the central Pacific Ocean, includes a largely uninhabited Caroline Island, renamed Millenium Island thanks to the nation’s effort to move the International Dateline so the island sits with the rest of the island and atolls on the same side of the line.
It was, you guessed it, a publicity stunt to draw tourists to be the first nation on earth to celebrate the new millennium in 2000.
“It would [also] eliminate the confusion caused by having a part of the country on a different day,” she said.
The United Arab Emirates also spared no expense this year in its annual quest to keep their record for the largest drone display this New Year’s Eve,
Traditions
underneath it all
Countries around the world have some interesting – and a few strange – New Year’s traditions. Here are a few:
Philippines – Round objects mean good luck so Filipinos wear polka dots, carry coins in their pockets and eat 12 to 13 round fruits, which also symbolize a sweet and happy new year.
Romania – where brown bears are revered symbols which their mythology indicates the animals have the power to protect and heal, the people don bear costumes – often real full bear skins – to dance the death and rebirth of the bear’s spirit. While some of the costumes are now made of faux fur, and many of the real bearskin costumes have been carefully preserved and handed down in families, the brown bear is now endangered in Romania.
Brazil – revelers jump seven waves head on, while making a wish at the beach, often while wearing white, the color of good luck. The color of underwear one puts on for the occasion also symbolizes your hope for the new year – White is for peace and harmony; blue is for tranquility and friendship; red is for passion; yellow is for money and luck; pink is for love; green is for health; orange is for professional success and purple is for inspiration. Brazilians also carry a bay leaf, also called a priest’s leaf, in their pocket as a spiritual token that sharpens intuition and extra good luck.
Denmark – Danes throw plates and glasses on their neighbor’s door to leave all the ill will from the previous year behind. When one awakens in the morning, lots of smashed dishes outside your door mean you will have better luck in the new year – not that it’s a stellar commentary on your previous year. Germany and the Netherlands also practice this tradition.
Famous birthdays
Dec. 31
Anthony Hopkins, 1937, John Denver, 1943, Donna Summer, 1948
Jan.1
Paul Revere, 1735; J. Edgar Hoover, 1895, J.D. Salinger, 1919.
Franks returns to Whitman Senior Center on Feb. 3 to speak about Valentine’s Day.

WHITMAN – If not for the controversies and the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture, won by “Green Book,” many white Americans might not have heard of the annual guide (1936 to 1967) by that name, offering travel advice, lists of safe and welcoming hotels for African-American travelers across the United States and ads for businesses – especially car sales.
Dr. Gloria Greis, the executive director of the Needham History Center and Museum, spoke at the Whitman Public Library on Saturday, Dec. 14 to add some informational meat on that skeletal knowledge in her talk, “Driving While Black.”
And area towns like Hanson and Kingston have earned listings in the guide over the years – for South Hanson, 1948, to be precise. More on that in a bit.
The Green Book got its name, in part, from the color featured in its cover designs, but also for its founder, Victor Hugo Green, who founded the guide in 1936, aided by his wife Alma, who took over briefly after his 1960 death.
A postal employee and travel agent in Harlem, Green was perfectly situated to make his guidebook the one people immediately thought of – despite the existence of at least six others – he could depend on a national network of postal employees to bolster the word-of-mouth campaign and, more importantly advertising, by his fellow postal employees.
While she admitted her presentation is “a little Needham-centric,” Greis, said that a few years ago, a local resident sent her a note asking if she knew Needham had an entry in the Green Book, sending her on a search for information on several other South Shore communities, as well.
But, initially, Greis, herself, hadn’t known what the Green Book was.
“I daresay, I was not alone in my ignorance and I daresay that my ignorance says something about the way we approach local history,” she told her audience at Whitman Public Library. “Despite general sense that modern history is comprehensive and everything is known, the historical record is surprisingly incomplete. Records get lost, or not recorded in the first place.”
She added that even towns like Needham, where today an ABC-affiliate television network is located, and has a well-regarded educational system, was in Colonial times, considered literate, but not literary.
People could read and write, “but they didn’t spend a lot of time putting their thoughts down on paper.”
Therefore, recorded history is usually found in official documents – tax rolls, town clerks’ records, church registers, town reports and the like.
“This is the history of the town’s leaders,” she said. “While this information is incredibly important, it’s very incomplete as a town history. It leaves out large segments of community experience.”
That is largely the experience of the working class, Greis said – “the routine rhythms of work and leisure, the accommodations of neighborhood, the attitudes, opinions and relationships that governed everybody’s everyday life.”
Often who gets to tell that history adds another layer of controversy, which is why the dramatic film “Green Book,” ran into trouble by literally putting a white character in the driver’s seat, not only of a car, but also of a Black character’s story.
“Piecing together historical information about the non-establishment groups in a town takes a number of different strategies,” Greis said. The Green Book is one of those.
Hanson, for example was among the 36 communities in Massachusetts with a listing – a small house at 26 Reed St., once owned by a woman named Mary Pina, was listed in the 1948 Green Book as an accommodation for African-American travelers and tourists both in a guest room in her home, and for campers in her spacious back yard.
“The [accommodations] tend to follow the highways and areas we still think of as vacation spots,” Greis said. “But not all. Some of them are on byways, like Needham.” And Hanson.
Hanson Health Board Chair Arlene Dias was amazed at that bit of historical news.
“There were a lot of Pinas on South Street, but I don’t remember somebody living that far up on Reed Street,” Dias said in a phone interview Friday, Dec. 20. “I’ve never heard of [the Green Book listing]. It is interesting.”
She said she would be calling family members who were more knowledgeable of the Cape Verdean population’s history in Hanson for more information.
“I had relatives that were Pinas, but they were on Pleasant Street,” Dias said.
Greis said that, as much as the Green Book offered guidance for the safety of travelers, it also offered economic safety for small businesses.
“It is a compendium of some of the most important people, successful businesses and important political milestones of the 20th Century,” she said. “It’s a who’s who of a rising class of African-American middle-class entrepreneurs.”
Before the advent of the Green Book and similar travel guide, Black travelers had to prepare ahead, packing food and enough gasoline for the journey, because there was no certainty that they’d find a safe place to eat, lodge, fuel their cars or even use the bathrooms, Greis said.
Green had written in the forward to the Green Book that it served as a way to ensure safety and dignity in travel until African-Americans were afforded equal opportunities and privileges in the United States.
“It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication,” he wrote.
The Jim Crow South was not the only area where travel problems might be encountered.
“These limits were imposed on African-Americans all over the country – even in the North,” Greis said. “We might not have had the actual signs, but we certainly had the signals.”
Even in Harlem during it’s “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s and ’30s, the more famous nightclubs like The Cotton Club, did not allow Black customers in the audience for performances of the biggest African-American entertainers of the day.
As Black workers found job opportunities in the North, especially in Detroit, their economic condition improved, but that was only one reason car ownership by Black Americans grew.
“Sometimes, it was the only way of getting easily from place to place,” she said. The Green Book and other guides also advised Black people to buy a car as soon as they were able to for that reason. “The Green Book guided them to services where they were welcome, reducing what Green kindly called ‘aggravation.’”
That aggravation could range from out-and-out violence to Sundown Towns, where the threat was thinly veiled.
Getting one’s kicks on Route 66, was evidently meant for whites only as there were no welcoming business along the route musically extolled from Chicago as one “motors West.”
The first Green Book in 1936 covered only New York and Westchester County in 16 pages, but shortly grew to more than 9,500 businesses in 100 pages covering the entire United States, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean.
“Esso Oil, which was notable for its progressive hiring, including African-American executives, scientists and franchisees, distributed the book throughout its station network,” Greis said.
It was also aimed at the African-American Middle Class and was relatively unknown among people of color in lower economic strata.
The Interstate Highway system helped spell the end of the Green Book, both by presenting a more homogeneous appearance for travel – and bypassing many of the businesses that advertised in it.