Tuesday, Aug. 6, Ken Vinton, president of TRIAD, was surprised with a room full of birthday well-wishers at the regularly scheduled August meeting.
Vinton noted, before realizing that the celebration was for him, that there were a record number of attendees on Tuesday, 34 in fact, there at the August meeting.Asked how long he plans to remain president of TRIAD, Vinton responded that he was having a lot of fun with the group and that it’s always easy to get speakers.’
State Rep. Kathy LaNatra presented Ken with a Citation from the Massachusetts House of Representatives praising his leadership and activities promoting senior citizens’ rights with Halifax TRIAD and congratulating him on the celebration of his 90th birthday. Plymouth County Sheriff Joe MacDonald presented Ken with a ball cap from the sheriff’s department.
A beautiful birthday cake was enjoyed by all.
Vinton introduced Fred Corrigan, this month’s speaker, an active 89-year-old Halifax citizen who spoke about growing up in the White Mountains in Randolph, NH, in a three-room house with his parents, his brother, and baby sister.
Years later, the little house was moved, as was the custom, to become a garage to another home. The owner would brag that she had the only garage with wallpaper on the walls, Corrigan told the group.
He showed a photo of the one-room schoolhouse in Randolph, NH, where he had the same teacher as his father. She taught there for 33 years, grades 1 through 8 in the one-room schoolhouse, where she had to keep an authoritarian rule on the group – the youngest in the front rows, and older kids in the back. There was a blackboard in the front, and another in the back, so she could teach separate lessons to separate age groups.
There was no electricity, no running water, and an outhouse in the back. Life was simple. High school was in Lancaster, NH with about 30 kids in the senior class, Corrigan told his audience.
Fred told about Saturday nights in Lancaster, where the entertainment was movies at the Rialto Cinema. “Drive from the three-room house in Randolph to Jefferson, then to Lancaster. It was shopping night, ‘because you don’t run that trip every day to pick up a loaf of bread,’” Corrigan said. “Shopping night was Saturday night; we stocked up for the week. While Mom and Dad went shopping, we three kids got to go to the theater to see whatever was playing. Fred’s brother was an usher at that theater. The cost to go to the Rialto theater was five cents. That theater is still operating today.”
Fred told some of the history of the area that was his home so long ago, and showed a photo of a sculpture of a wolf erected “to honor the brave men and women who redeemed Lancaster from the wilderness. This memorial is erected by their local sons and daughters upon the 150th anniversary of the founding of the town of Lancaster. July 6, 1913.”
“Lake Coos and the Presidential Range. Lancaster, founded in 1763, lies on the bed of glacial Lake Coos, formed as the glaciers receded 14,000 years ago.
“Today, the Connecticut, an American Heritage River, flows along the bottom of the ancient lake. You stand at a gateway to the Great North Woods Region.
“To the east, aligned from north to south, are Mounts Madison, Adams, Jefferson and Washington, the highest peaks of the White Mountains Presidential Range. Mt. Washington, at 6,288 feet, is the highest in the Northeast.
“The strongest winds ever recorded, 231 miles per hour, were measured on its summit on April 12, 1934.”