Hot topics at the Frost Free

Some fun at the Marlborough Frost Free Library. Below’s a picture of the gang that gathered for stories. They were kind to me, though I was two minutes late for my own program on account of YET ANOTHER betrayal by Mapquest. Unfortunately, my GPS cord lost its power, so I was up the creek for a while. But I showed up. They were waiting for me. Patiently. To look at them, you wouldn't think them too revolutionary, would you? Well, their stories revealed Marlborough to be a hotbed of controversy. 

Like the story of the local book discussion group back in the 1970s, all women, who thought they might like to get political. So they went to the town fathers to offer their services on committees and so forth. “Just let us menfolk take care of the town,” the storyteller recalled the town fathers saying. “You ladies go plant flowers in the square.”

This did not sit well. Soon the ladies found a cause. Town Meeting and School Meeting were traditionally held on Saturday, back to back. This didn’t seem to allow enough time for deliberation, so the ladies lobbied to have one of them – forget which – moved to a Tuesday evening. They succeeded. Which made the town fathers mad. Evidently they didn’t want to have to work an extra evening. 

“After that,” the storyteller said, “we were referred to as ‘those damn women.’ ”

“Are there any other of ‘those damn women’ here tonight,” I asked.

“Most of us are dead,” she said.

Teacher Nancy Coutts, with the braids in the middle, told of the time her third-graders bugged her to pick Secret Santa names for their classroom Christmas party. (This was back when schools still held Christmas parties.) She gave in and duly wrote names on 36 little slips of paper and had each of her students each draw one. She swore them to secrecy. “Don’t tell anyone who you picked for secret Santa,” she said.

Then came recess. The children returned to the classroom agitated. Miss Coutts had written her own name on every slip!