Take On Life

Hi everyone,

For some, hitting a curveball or dunking a basketball is the sole criteria for a hero. For others, a starring role on the silver screen is all that it takes.

But let’s be honest here. Most athletes and actors aren’t heroes. They’re not even role models.

Most superstars are the taste du jour, the marquees — and the meltdowns — we can’t escape.

To me, the real heroes — other than parents — are those among us who reach inside and pull magic and miracles from their chests.

On Thursday morning, the American Red Cross Connecticut Region honored a group of these folks — some young, some old, but all inspiring — at the Amber Room Colonnade in Danbury.

There was Wesley Yllanes, a Western Connecticut State University freshman from Newtown, who performed CPR on three separate occasions last year with the Newtown Ambulance.

“I was very fortunate to be able to use my training,” said Yllanes, whose father, Joe, is a longtime member of Newtown Ambulance. “I just like helping people, and this is a great way to do it.”

There was Ryan Donovan and his buddy, Devin Guy — two members of the upstart Danbury Whalers ice hockey team — who pulled a woman from a smashed pickup truck last November on the team’s bus ride back from Binghamton, N.Y.

As the team bus approached the Connecticut state line on Interstate 84, the Whalers watched in horror as a pickup truck spun out of control and headed down a ditch before it stopped against a tree.

While some players looked for a mile marker and others called 911, Donovan and Guy raced down the hill to try and rescue the driver.

“That vehicle could have slipped off that tree and crushed them at any time,” Danbury Police Sgt. John Krupinsky wrote in his letter of nomination. “Ryan and Devin stepped up and set a shining example of what it’s like to be a hero on and off the ice.”

There were God’s Do Gooders from St. Rose of Lima Parish in Newtown, a group of kids who’ve made the world a better place at the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, Ronald McDonald House in New Haven and Renewal House in Danbury.

During the summer, Shannon Paproski and God’s Do Gooders travel to Albany, N.Y., to work with the JC Club, an outreach group that makes bag lunches — to the tune of 1,000 a day — for less fortunate kids.

Paproski said God’s Do Gooders make 400 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and another 400 turkey sandwiches, and match them with a container of milk or juice.

“Literally, the kids run to the van,” Paproski said in a video essay shown Thursday. “These kids couldn’t appreciate a simple bag lunch any more than they do.”

To read more about Greater Danbury’s heroes, check out my “Take on Life” column Friday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

Cliff Kolwicz still has the coveted leather bag, only now, it’s filled with memories lighter than air, not letters, magazines and packages.

Kolwicz, born and raised in Danbury, spent 42 years with the U.S Postal Service before he retired Jan. 1. He remembers when every corner in the city had a mailbox.

“As a kid, I always thought that I would grow up to be a police officer or a firefighter,” the 61-year-old Kolwicz said. “But I went to work at the post office instead.”

And life was never the same.

Long before computers and hand-held scanners became his tools of the trade, Kolwicz walked Route No. 1 in Danbury with a leather mailbag in the 1970s.

Kolwicz spent more than six years delivering the mail — and a wave — all along Franklin Street, Mallory Street, Robinson Avenue and the rest of the neighborhood.

“It was a good route. There were a lot of nice people on that route,” Kolwicz said.

Of course, some folks were a little more zealous than others when it came to their mail.

“I remember on ‘Social Security Day,’ we’d get a big stack of checks to deliver,” Kolwicz said, looking like he was holding a Dagwood sandwich with one hand.

“Well, this one time, this guy was following me because he wanted his Social Security check. So I asked him, ‘Where do you live?’ He told me and I laughed: ‘I haven’t gotten there yet!’

“People got to know you, and you got to know them. I can’t tell you how many people made me plates of cookies at the holidays. That always meant a lot to me.”

For Cliff Kolwicz, a big man with a bigger heart, it didn’t matter whether he was walking Route No. 1 or driving a two-ton mail truck. He loved people.

It was the same thing at home.

His five kids are grown now — Steve is 33, Chris is 29, A.J. is 28, Danny is 26 and Brian is 23 — but they all have memories of writing letters to Santa and stuffing them inside their dad’s mailbag.

When Kolwicz cleaned out his locker at the post office a while back, he found a couple of the letters the boys had written.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“We’re very lucky to have him as our dad,” Danny Kolwicz said. “My parents raised us to be family-oriented. That won’t ever change. We’re all very close and we owe that to them.”

To read more about Cliff Kolwicz, check out my “Take on Life” column Wednesday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

Like so many other Americans last month, Gene Sharp was stirred by the compelling and historic theater unfolding in the streets of Cairo.

Against all odds, against the armed regime of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Tahrir Square became the birthplace of a new democracy.

And the world saw it happen live.

Indeed, people in the United States watched their TVs the same way brand-new parents watch the hospital nursery – with their curious faces pressed against the glass for a better look.

But for Sharp, the senior scholar and founder of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, the script in Cairo was refreshingly familiar, even as each day’s events grew bolder and more unprecedented than the last.

For a man who spent nine months at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury as a conscientious objector during the Korean War, the power of ideas and nonviolent change is hardly new.

Long before Sharp’s writings were translated and disseminated in Egypt, they were used with great success in Latvia, Estonia, Bosnia and elsewhere.

And yet, perhaps never before has democracy enjoyed such sweeping momentum as it does now in the Middle East and North Africa.

“The genie is out of the bottle. The knowledge is out there and it has been demonstrated to be effective,” the 83-year-old Sharp said Friday afternoon.

“As much as some dictators would like to put the genie back into the bottle, they cannot,” Sharp said. “Ironically, it is this fear – the power of non-violent struggle – that defeats them.

“How do you wipe out knowledge when you can no longer control how it spreads? The answer is simple. You cannot.”

It isn’t how Gene Sharp says things — his voice is one part whisper, one part wheeze – it’s what he says in books such as “From Dictatorship to Democracy” and “The Politics of Nonviolent Action.”

Never mind the criticism from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and other heavy-fisted bullies around the world. Sharp wears their rhetoric like a badge of honor.

Recent demonstrations on the other side of the world are about decency and dignity as much as democracy. They are the anthem of the human condition, the rallying cry for freedom.

Sharp cherishes these ideals above all else.

More than 50 years after his prison sentence at FCI, Sharp wouldn’t change the path that set him on a bumpy bus ride to Danbury.

“I didn’t have to go to prison. I could have stayed out as a conscientious objector,” Sharp said. “But I had taken a strong position and I chose not to weaken it.

“The first six months weren’t so bad, although everything is extremely regulated and you are not allowed to make decisions. I read an awful lot during those first six months and I worked on the farm there.

“But during the last three months, I began to feel very frustrated. Looking back on it now, I don’t think anything good came from that experience except that I managed to keep my integrity.”

To read more about Gene Sharp, check out my “Take on Life” column Sunday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

A few months ago, three workers from Green Star Energy Solutions in Brookfield came to my house and spent four hours sealing leaks, installing weather-stripping, wrapping pipes and swapping old-school light bulbs for more efficient ones.

Right before they left, amid promises of big savings on my electric bills and heating costs, I wrote them a $75 check and handed it over.

Today, I’m writing to tell you it was worth every penny.

The $75 check was my co-pay for the Connecticut Home Energy Solutions program offered by the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund. The program is underwritten by the Combined Public Benefits Charge that’s included in your monthly electric bill.

For someone in Greater Danbury paying about $100 a month for electricity, the Combined Public Benefits Charge is about $2 a month. The home energy audits are available to anyone who pays the CPBC, so I urge readers to take advantage of this program.

It’s your money, after all.

Aside from paying only a fraction of the cost to have three guys work on my house for four hours, the cost savings are just as promised.

In my family’s case, we’re saving about 20 percent monthly on our CL&P bill. The savings become even more dramatic when you look at our energy use year over year.

Check out my February bill from CL&P (included with this column) and you’ll see what I mean.

In February 2010, the average daily temperature was 29 degrees, according to CL&P, and my family consumed an average of 21 kWh of electricity per day.

In February 2011, the average daily temperature was 26 degrees — three degrees colder than 2010 — and my family used even less energy than the year before, an average of 14 kWh of electricity per day.

That’s a 33-percent decrease, the kind of noticeable savings we expect to see now when we open our CL&P bills.

“What’s nice about making energy-saving improvements to your home is that they have to work,” said Joe Novella, owner of Green Star Energy. “Think of it this way: If you put on a winter coat, you have to feel warmer. It’s not theoretical. It’s not mumbo-jumbo.

“The HES measures are the most cost-effective improvements — the most bang for your buck — when you consider all that you get for $75,” said Novella, whose company performs about 100 HES audits each month. ”In most cases, you’re going to see a 10 to 20 percent savings in your electric bill.”

Green Star is one of 18 statewide companies authorized to perform Home Energy Solutions audits on behalf of United Illuminating and CL&P; EnergyPRZ in Brookfield is another.

For a full list of contractors and more information, visit www.cl-p.com/Home/SaveEnergy/Rebates/HomeEnergySolutions.aspx.

To read more about saving money on your energy bills, check out my “Take on Life” column Friday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

Gus Edwards, the gold standard of Danbury High School football for nearly a generation, held up his shirt to reveal a hook-shaped scar over his liver.

“That’s where they went in and took out the cancer,” the 76-year-old Edwards said Friday morning at his New Fairfield home.

But the real revelation, the one he wants you to hear like he’s coaching the most important play of his life — and he just might be — is all about hope and gratitude.

“I know I’m one of the lucky ones,” Edwards said, nodding his head and rubbing his chin. “I really can’t explain it. I don’t know why I’m here and plenty of other good people aren’t. But I’ll tell you what, I’m very thankful to be alive.

“I’m not looking for any attention here. I’m looking to get the word out. I’m looking to thank people. I want everybody to know they can make it. They can beat this thing.”

Two weeks ago, Edwards heard the best news imaginable from Dr. Vincent Rella, his oncologist at Danbury Hospital. After a six-month battle with cancer, Edwards finally had the upper hand.

Hugging wasn’t required that day, but it sure wasn’t discouraged.

Gus Edwards is here today, he will tell you, because of a miracle.

Last August, with nerve pain in his hands and feet stemming from a spine condition, Edwards tried a new medicine recommended by his orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. David Kramer.

The treatment was supposed to last nine days. On day five, Edwards noticed bleeding in the bathroom.

As it turned out, the new painkiller had dilated the blood vessels in malignant tumors in Edwards’ colon and caused bleeding. Without this bleeding, Edwards never would’ve gone to Danbury Hospital for medical attention.

What began as a colon cancer diagnosis for Edwards turned even more frightening when he underwent life-saving surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering after the cancer spread to his liver.

“I was fortunate enough to have some of the best doctors and nurses and medical people in the world take care of me, both at Danbury Hospital and Sloan-Kettering,” Edwards said.

“But without my family, especially my wife, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. I’ve gained back 10 pounds and I’m almost back to my old playing weight.”

To read more about Gus Edwards and his battle with colon cancer, check out my “Take on Life” column Sunday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

Unless you happen to be driving a motorcycle around town, you’ve probably had a hard time parking at the New Fairfield Free Public Library this winter.

Although the library outgrew its 9,700-square-foot space in a converted church long ago, parking — or rather, lack of it — might be its worst problem.

On a good day, there are about a dozen parking spaces — certainly no more than 15 — behind the old library on Brush Hill Road. But with snowpacks encroaching from all sides, there are even fewer spaces now.

In an era when the New Fairfield Free Public Library attracts 9,000 visitors a month, according to local officials, this town desperately needs to upgrade its library.

On Saturday, New Fairfield residents will get a chance to do just that with a referendum to build a new $2.5 million library at 74 Gillotti Road on town-owned land near the high school.

With a renovation of the current library estimated at $4.5 million, town officials said, a new library isn’t just the most cost-effective way to go.

It’s the only way to go.

The referendum will be held from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Meeting House Hill School on Gillotti Road. The plan calls for a $2.2 million bonding package with another $300,000 in contingency money.

If the bonding package is approved, New Fairfield residents will get a 14,000-square-foot library with 80 parking spaces that will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and current building codes.

New Fairfield First Selectman John Hodge, who prides himself on the town’s AAA bond rating, supports this project wholeheartedly.

“For all the wrong reasons — it’s a tough economy, money is tight — it’s the right time to do this,” Hodge said Thursday, leaning over his desk for emphasis.

“If people vote no Saturday, you’re not going to be able to build a library for this price in two or three years. Plus, the need to address the existing issues isn’t going to go away.”

So how much are we talking here with a new library?

A new library would add $2.41 per month in taxes for 20 years — $578.40 — on a private home assessed at $300,000, town officials said. It’s not a cost to dismiss, but it’s not one to reject, either.

There are those in New Fairfield who predict that libraries are little more than museums in-waiting.

They’re wrong.

Libraries are — and always will be — a focal point of the community, a nexus of interests, curiosity, education, exploration and family, all gathered under one roof.

Despite the advent of e-readers such as the Kindle from Amazon, the Nook from Barnes & Noble, and the iPad from Apple, print books aren’t just alive and well.

They’re thriving.

Consider: From 2000 to 2010, book publishing in the United States increased almost four-fold, from 282,242 titles in 2000 to more than 1.05 million titles in 2010, according to Newsweek magazine last July.

Computers were supposed to be library-killers too, remember? Instead, computers have enhanced a library’s ability to shrink the world for its patrons and make it more accessible than ever with free Internet.

Today’s libraries are where people go to connect — whether it’s with wireless Internet or with a friend from across town.

It’s no different in New Fairfield. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be.

To read more about the proposed new library in New Fairfield, check out my “Take on Life” column Friday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

It took Rosemarie Scott more than 70 years to confront the memory of a grammar school teacher taping her mouth shut on the first day of school.

It was first grade, the Danbury woman said, the year before the City of New York built Public School No. 48 across the street from her building in Jamaica, Queens.

“They didn’t have kindergarten back then,” said the 81-year-old Scott, who is pursuing a Masters in Business Administration at Western Connecticut State University this semester. “I went to first grade at Junior High School No. 40, which doesn’t exist anymore.

“I sat in the first row, first seat. I remember the teacher handed us yellow paper with red lines,” Scott went on, pausing briefly to see that paper again. “It was so beautiful. I couldn’t wait to write my name on it.

“My parents taught me how to do it: R-o-s-e-m-a-r-i-e P-i-t-t-a-r-e-l-l-i. Nineteen letters. I didn’t even have to count them. I was still three weeks from my fifth birthday, but I already knew how to write my name.”

All these years later, Scott still isn’t sure what happened that awful day.

Maybe she talked out of turn. Maybe she spoke the first few of those 19 letters when she started writing her name on that beautiful yellow paper with the red lines.

“Whatever it was, I remember the teacher ripped the paper out of my hands and went to her desk. She got a piece of that tape you use to ship boxes at the post office and made me lick it,” Scott said. “Then she put it over my mouth.”

Scott cried that day on the walk home from school with her older brother. The tears rolling down her cheeks only made her walk the 10 blocks faster, she recalled.

“For so many years, I thought I was crying because I wanted to be independent. I didn’t want my brother to have to watch out for me on the walk home,” said Scott, who requires heels to flirt with five feet.

“I didn’t really understand why I was crying until I began writing about it and opening up about it. I guess I had blocked it out of my head all these years.”

Along with taking two business courses this semester —Management 501 and Marketing 509 — Scott continues to craft her thesis with Dr. John Briggs, one of three Connecticut State University Distinguished Professors at WestConn.

Scott’s thesis — actually, it’s more of a book — is called, “The Silence of Little Rose.” After working with Briggs for the past three years, she’s almost finished.

With her latest revision.

The book retraces Scott’s footsteps from first grade in Queens to age 23. As a child of the Great Depression, college wasn’t an option. Her mother said she should become a bookkeeper like her Aunt Mildred.

“In those days, you either went to work or you got married,” Scott said. “I never knew I could go to college until much later in life.”

Much, much later, in fact.

After working for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a patent law office in Stamford and elsewhere for nearly 40 years, Scott retired. She took her first class at the age of 69 at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y.

The school was later absorbed by Fordham University in New York, but not before a renewed love of learning had absorbed her.

The MBA at WestConn will mark Scott’s fifth degree when she completes it. She’s already earned two bachelor’s and two master’s degrees after studying art, law, education and now business at WestConn and Fordham.

To read more about Rosemarie Scott, check out my “Take on Life” column Sunday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.

Hi everyone,

Croix Sather, a New Fairfield motivational speaker, plans to run cross country starting Feb. 26.

Big deal, right? Lots of people run cross country — through the woods, across fields, in parks.

The difference here is that Sather plans to run across the country. In fact, Sather plans to finish his unlikely 3,000-mile journey — he calls it, “Dream Big, Act Big” — from San Diego to New York in 100 days.

For those keeping track at home, that’s 30 miles a day — the equivalent of more than a marathon a day — every day until June 4. But wait, it gets better.

On top of that, Sather plans to give 100 motivational seminars — again, one every day — in such outposts as Wellton, Ariz.; Van Horn, Texas; Lordsburg, N.M.; and Eutaw, Ala.

“I’m running across America to prove anything is possible when you dream big and act big,” Sather touts in his YouTube video. “If I can run from San Diego to New York City, what can you do in 100 days?”

How about get tired just thinking about running from Southern California to the Big Apple.

To the critics who say Sather’s “Dream Big, Act Big” plan is crazy, he counters with — what else? — his own version of eternal-optimist reality.

“Running across America is the most sane challenge ever,” Sather insists. “Insanity is getting up and going to work every day at a job you don’t like and then coming home too tired to enjoy your family and your personal time and repeating the process over and over for 40 years. And then, at the end, you ask, ‘is that all there is?’ ”

For Sather, anything other than a big, juicy bite out of life is unpalatable. Each breath, each day becomes more precious than the last.

To read why Croix Sather feels that way, check out my “Take on Life” column Saturday.

Exclusively in the print edition of The News-Times.