By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning, Father’s Day will have arrived, and along with it all the greetings from family and some friends, via text. It’s how we do things these days. And of all the disruptions, texts are among the most manageable–unless your phone is set to alerts and keeps pinging.
And get ready, we are bracing for a spike in temperatures, Tuesday through Saturday. Gov. Lamont has already set into motion the state’s extreme heat protocol.
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Another magnificent maple, this one a silver maple, has been taken down from the tree border along Broadview Street. A tremendous branch split off a week or two ago, revealing that its core had hollowed out, so it had to come down before causing trouble with powerlines and street traffic.
One worker on site with more knowledge about trees than I will ever have, estimated that the tree was at least 250 years old. He has seen some as old as 350 years, he said. To put a 250-year-old life span in perspective, our state is celebrating its 250 anniversary in 2026. I don’t think Broadview was a street until the 1850s.
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Coming this week, a Juneteenth celebration will be held at the Carousel Museum Wednesday. Last year’s celebration was a treat, and this year’s promises to be as eventful.
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An election for the District 3 city council seat left open after the resignation of council member Andrew Howe will be held Tuesday, July 30.
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And there is still one day remaining to this year’s Zorba Greek Festival, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church.
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For listening, try “Gaza, Camus, and the logic of violence,” the latest episode of the podcast The Gray Area. Camus is a hero of mine, and often lately, I find that turning to some of his works provides, at the least, some solid ground from which to take in what is happening around us. The guest is philosophy Professor Robert Zaretsky. Click here.
For reading, I have finished “The Universal Christ,” by Richard Rohr, “Why Fish Don’t Exist,” by Lulu Miller and “On Violence,” by Hannah Arendt. Admittedly, I was a bit ambitious when I picked up these and bunch of others last week, but it is exhilarating dipping into these nonfiction works, one of which, reads like a novel–MIller’s “Why Fish Don’t Exist,” which I learned is not fiction at all but fact: fish do not exist. You’ll have to read the book to find out why this is–or you might just ask OpenAI or the new Siri or try googling.
This week I am on to Frantz Fanon’s “Black Faces, White Masks” and “The Wretch of the Earth” and several others by Arendt, including “The Life of the Mind — Volume One: Thinking” and “Thinking Without a Bannister.”
For those interested in the library’s summer reading program, click here for information.
Also, the Friends of the Library is holding its summer book sale through June 21.
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City meetings this week include the following:
On Monday, June 17
- no meetings scheduled
On Tuesday, June 18
- Insurance Committee, 9 a.m., Meeting Room 1-3, city hall.
- Economic and Community Development, Policy Committee Special Meeting, 4:30 p.m., Meeting Room 2-1, city hall.
- Real Estate Committee, 5 p.m., Meeting Room 1-1, city hall.
- Police Commission, 6 p.m., council chambers, city hall.
- Sewer Commission, 6 p.m., Bristol Water Filtration Plant, 1080 Terryville Ave.
- Water Commission, 6:15 p.m., Bristol Water & Filtration Plant, 1080 Terryville Ave.
On Wednesday, June 19 (Juneteenth–city hall is closed)
- meetings rescheduled
- Board of Park Commissioners, 6 p.m., Meeting Room 1-2, listed.
On Thursday, June 20
- Commission on Aging, 11 a.m., Bristol Senior Center, Room 103, 240 Stafford Ave.
- Code Enforcement Workshop, 2 p.m., Mayor’s Office, city hall.
- Citation Hearings, 3:30 p.m., city hall
- Animal Control Building Committee, 5 p.m., 131 North Main St.
- Purchasing Committee–canceled.
- Public Works, 6 p.m., council chambers, city hall.
- Energy Commission, 7 p.m., Meeting Room 116, city hall.
On Friday, June 21
- No meeting scheduled.
TBE will do our best to update meeting times and locations, but it’s a good idea to check the agendas ahead of time for cancellations. Click here for specific meetings and times.
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As part of our citizen journalism initiative, TBE will seeking 12 people with Bristol stories that they would like to share in the form of long-form journalism. This project involves identifying 12 people with a uniquely Bristol story, something that happened here in Bristol that says something about who we are as a community–during a specific time in our history. Please email editor@bristoledition.org if interested. Type Bristol Stories candidate in the subject line.
We will work with each person to develop a well-written long-form piece of storytelling for publication in TBE and possibly in other forms. More on this in the future.
In addition, we are seeking reporters to cover sports and city meetings, neighborhood news, people and entertainment–book reviewers and movie/tv streaming reviewers–take note. Contact editor@bristoledition.org to for next steps.
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One more time: A practical matter–updating your credit card information might be a little more challenging than we here at TBE might have thought. There are several things to consider.
First, if you get a message that your credit card needs to be updated, login to TBE and click on the membership tab. Here is where things can get tricky. If under billing change, a tab appears for billing, click on it and you will find the appropriate fields to update.
However, if the billing tab does not appear, it means that you need to update your information on your PayPal account or on your Stripe account.
Sorry for the inconvenience — and thank you for your patience and support.
Of course, to build a viable business, we need funding. Consider becoming a member by signing up for monthly recurring donations of $6, $12, or $24 or making a one-time donation of $60 or even better donating more. It might seem outrageous, but 5,000 members paying $6 a month would allow us to hire editors and reporters who would do a great job covering Bristol.
If you are writing a check for a donation, write the check out to Central Connecticut Online Journalism Project, our official 501(c)(3) designation. The same name will appear on any digital receipts.
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Happy day!
All TBE readers, supporters and donors
The Bristol Edition will be limiting the number of stories non-members and free readers may access each week. This decision is based on our financial projections and, most certainly, to remind people that TBE is serious about providing accurate, timely and thorough reporting for Bristol. To do this we have devised a financial support structure that makes unlimited access extremely affordable, beginning with a $6 monthly donation.
- Non-members will be able to access four (4) articles per week.
- Free readers and people who have subscribed by email will be able to access four (4) articles per week.
- Donors and financial supporters will have unlimited access as long as they log in.
Note: Donors may have to contact TBE if they find they are being limited, since we will need to set up a membership account for you. Email editor@bristoledition.org for instructions. Sorry for any inconvenience. People with financial difficulties may write editor@bristoledition.org to be considered for free access.