Dear readers,
It is with more than a little wistfulness that I bid you farewell — today’s edition is my last with
Hometown Weekly. I have spent nearly seven years with the paper, and I am full of gratitude for
my publishers, Paul Stanton and Mike DeSario, for trusting me with their publication and
supporting me every...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Let me set the scene.
It’s a quiet Sunday morning in late November, the weekend after Thanksgiving. It’s early and it’s
chilly. I’ve headed out for a walk along a pond.
I can hear the silence as I wander the edge of the water. This is a trail I’ve traveled hundreds...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
As has become a fantastic tradition in town, Walpole Trails hosted guided and self-guided walks around some of the community’s prime parcels on January 1. The walks, which this year were scheduled for Adams Farm, Jarvis Farm, Norfolk Aggie and the new Rt 1A ballfields...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Throughout the entirety of the autumn, I noticed a trend during my walks in the woods.
It seemed every time I turned a corner in the vicinity of a body of water, I found a heron, typically a great blue heron, staring...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
A couple weeks ago, as I arrived at the basketball courts at the crack of dawn (it’s a far less masochistic routine than it sounds), I received quite an interesting welcome.
A little background. The courts I frequent...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Casual stargazers in Hometown Weekly’s communities are gearing up this week for some extraterrestrial visitors in the form of the annual return of the Perseid meteor shower. The Perseids, which represent one of the year’s more reliably excellent displays of falling stars, are peaking now...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
This week, with Hometown Weekly celebrating its 25th anniversary, we’re looking back to March of 1997 to see just how differently home looked when the first edition of our paper (then known as The Home Shopper) debuted.
• A 50-year-old Bill Clinton...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
A few months ago, before the cold precluded our doing so comfortably, I was sitting outside with an icy drink in my hand, enjoying the last of New England’s nice weather for the season.
As I sat, scanning my surroundings as I usually do, I heard...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
It seems most seasons around New England have their detractors.
While the skiers and skaters among us are loving every moment of the winter, self-identified “summer people” are kvetching about freezing extremities and aching bones. In springtime, as the world wakes itself...
The exotic-looking scarlet tanager is thought to be rarer, globally, than the wild turkeys we see running around our communities.
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
As a small boy growing up in New England, one of my prized possessions was an old illustrated field...
VigUU Wellesley Hills will hold its monthly, 15-minute, silent, Black Lives Matter Vigil on Tuesday, August 3, at 6:00 p.m. in front of the church at 309 Washington St. All are invited to stand with VigUU Wellesley Hills to honor Black lives harmed and lost, those victims of racial violence and injustice, known and...
Sherborn’s Pine Hill Cemetery is very much alive.
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Among nature preserves and hidden wooded locales in the middle of nowhere, we often forget that all of our communities feature quiet, green spaces - typically centrally placed ones - that...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Years ago, when I was a small child, I spent my weekdays alongside my maternal grandmother, Ma, who watched me while my parents worked. In retrospect, those days had an outsized influence on me - it was in Ma’s kitchen where I first would develop...
To The Editor,
Thank you to Jamie O’Loughlin and the “Project Love” team along with many unknown folks in the Medfield community who contributed to help make Valentine’s Day extra special for the residents of Tilden Village (and the residents of the Thomas Upham House) during the pandemic.
Patrick Brennan’s Simon Blake and Molly Gooman’s Mary Rose.
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
In a pandemic-altered year that’s forced changes to nearly everything, among the more disappointing consequences has been watching young, talented members of Hometown Weekly’s communities denied their “close-ups.” It is...
The gray fox's face is flatter, and could perhaps be described as more feline than that of a red fox.
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
The yips grew closer and closer. Two distinct individuals could be discerned, as though they were in conversation. As...
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Before I start, I'm going to have to apologize in advance for the amount of onomatopoeia in this story. Typically, I'm not one who relishes rendering (or reading) abstract sounds in print, but really, there's no other option here. How else is one to describe...
Since 1927, the Wellesley Service League (WSL) has provided numerous volunteer services in a variety of cultural and education ways, and in conjunction with other charitable organizations, for the town of Wellesley.
Due to the onset of COVID-19, WSL had to reevaluate how to safely proceed with their operational responsibilities....
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;
For years, July 4 has lulled us into a sense of almost patriotic routine. We know the day, its festivities and rituals so well that its trappings have...
'I have a local resident through which you can live vicariously this summer: the ruby-throated hummingbird.'
By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Editor
Social distancing and quarantining were always going to be difficult.
It was far easier to stomach, though, during the gray,...
