The calls to Massport from all of us here in the Ville, have helped to slow down the air traffic over the city from constant to every now and then at least for now. As told to us from someone on a flight out of Logan recently the captain came over the loudspeaker and announced that the flight was taking off from over the ocean for “noise abatement”. So the calls are working but we must keep a vigil and when you hear them make sure you call 617-561-3333 or go online and let them know your hearing them again. http://www.massport.com/environment/environmental-reporting/noise-abatement/noise-complaints/.

A special screening of “Ways to Live Forever” will take place at the Somerville Theatre on Sept. 23.

By Cathleen Twardzik

Ways to Live Forever, a unique film about leukemia patients, will be shown at the Somerville Theatre on September 23 at 7 p.m. World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation is distributing this film, which gives an “insider’s look” at the ways in which cancer affects patients and their families.

Eagle Feathers #61 – Trum Field

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

War memorials salt the city’s landscape from East Somerville to West Somerville. If you read them – and you should – they bring remembrance and note the dedicated sacrifice of this city’s residents during all the wars America has been involved in. Being the most densely populated city in New England, this regrettably translates into very large losses. The sons and daughters of this patriotic city, commonly referred to as the Brooklyn of Boston, or the city of homes, or the blue-collar bedroom of Boston, suffered more than her small area would show.

Schedule of neighborhood meetings
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Members of the Somerville School Committee will hold neighborhood meetings throughout the City over the next two weeks. The main topic of these one-on-one and small-group gatherings is the Superintendent Search Process currently under way, although other topics can be discussed.

Restaurant Pescatore
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It’s been a while since we reviewed a restaurant. We have so many choices available to us in Somerville yet it is difficult to pick out just one place that you can recommend. I have had my eye on RESTAURANT PESCATORE in Ball Square, for some time. I never want to review a restaurant until it has settled down and found the right grove. Sure enough, RESTAURANT PESCATORE has achieved a very positive buzz, and for good reasons.

Ida Azzolino turns 102 on Friday, September 19.

Happy birthday to Ida Azzolino, who is really Aida Solari Azzolino, born this very week in 1912. That’s right, Ida turns 102 this week. Wow! Just think, the Titanic sank, Fenway Park opened and William Howard Taft was President. Ida amazes her family and friends with her cheery disposition. She always has a good story to tell about growing up in Somerville. She can remember the rationing in World War I, gaslights, horse drawn carriages and the first automobile. Her family was the first in her neighborhood to get electricity. Ida will be celebrating this week at the Senior Center with her bingo friends. Ida plays bingo every week and socializes with her friends and they are all amazed at her vitality. Happy 102nd birthday Ida!

By Jim Clark

Reports of employees of the Home Depot store on Mystic Ave. struggling with suspected shoplifters brought police to the scene to investigate and make arrests last Friday.

All of us want to do the right thing when it comes to taking those simple and not too time consuming measures to dispose of our disposables in the proper way.

Even the most die-hard skeptics of global warming fears, sustainability pooh-poohers, et al, are gradually coming around to understand that there’s only so much room in the global landfill. Only so much smoke can be tolerated from the handy nearby incinerator. And so on.

Somerville writer Mitch Evich has lived in our burg for many years, but he is originally from the Pacific Northwest. I  had the pleasure of interviewing him years ago about his novel The Clandestine Novelist.  Now Evich has landed with a new collection of essays. A good portion of his collection deals with salmon fishing, and its trials and tribulations. I must admit that my extent of knowledge of the heroic salmon is limited to the Nova on my morning bagel. But after reading Evich’s  A Geography of Peril… I have a better idea of what the agonies and joys are of the life of a fisherman. Evich grew up in Washington State in the 60s and 70s, worked on his dad’s boat the Independence and was privy to frustration of the oh what a tangled web we weave of fishing nets, the endless repairs of the ship, the diminished  fishing industry due to the successful claims of native Americans for 50% of the overall catch from salmon runs, and the endless uncertainties of making a living from this seasonal and mercurial business. Here is an evocative passage in which Evich describes his memory of the boat, his dad, the unraveling of the nets, and the fish when he was a mere lad of eight:

I interviewed the legendary poet X. J. Kennedy on my Somerville Community Access TV show Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer. Kennedy gave me permission to use this poem in the LYRICAL SOMERVILLE.