Around Town

Raised and Rearing in New Canaan: Frog Days of Summer

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My mother kept her beach chair in the back of the car for impromptu trips to Kiwanis. She had her favorite spot where she would set up camp with our sand toys, towels, baby oil, Bain de Soleil SPF 2 for later in the day, and a makeshift ashtray. We five Pennoyer kids would spend the entire day there with her, and at least one of us would cry when we had to leave. Our mother’s beach chair was the sundial, turning to a new angle every so often, her watchful eye on us although we believed we had the run of the place. We leapt around like frogs in the pond, played Marco Polo, couldn’t see through the water until we were close to shore, and loved the random cool spots we could find on the pond’s sandy bottom.

Around Town

Farewell, Margaret: Oenoke Ridge Family Loses Well-Loved, 300-Year-Old Apple Tree

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“You will always be in our heart … because in there you’re still alive.” —Angelina Hubertus, 8, writing to the apple tree ‘Margaret’ in her diary

The Hubertus family cannot say just how or when it settled on ‘Margaret’ in naming the apple tree by the driveway of this lovingly landscaped 4-acre Oenoke Ridge Road property. Yet at some point for Gregory and Linda Hubertus, and their 8-year-old daughter Angelina, Margaret’s eyes, nose and lips took shape in the tree’s knobby trunk, and there is something in the tree’s bearing and bark (the plant is estimated to be 300 years old) that animates, gives an impression of a living thing that is more than passive. Straightaway after purchasing this upper Oenoke property last summer and moving into its 1810-built house, the Hubertuses found themselves gathering near Margaret, turning toward her—Angelina and her friends pedaling their bikes around the tree last fall, family golden-doodle Barley playing on the snow piled up near the tree this winter, and Gregory just weeks ago voicing a plan to relocate some outdoor furniture in her ample shade. “Everybody loves this apple tree,” Linda told NewCanaanite.com on a recent morning.

Around Town

The Kiwanis Club of New Canaan Grants $16,000 to Local Organizations Serving Youth

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The Kiwanis Club of New Canaan met at the New Canaan YMCA on Friday to give $16,000 to 16 local nonprofit organizations serving youth, thanks largely to funds raised at the Zerbini Family Circus last June. According to Kiwanian David Hoyle, an attorney who sits on the club’s Allocations Subcommittee, just three years ago the club was only able to give away $2,000. “I think it is just a wonderful thing to be able to give this much money away,” Hoyle told the New Canaanite. “You feel like you’re making that much more of a difference. It’s really great and it’s wonderful because of all of the work that the folks and [Kiwanian] Kathy [Holland] and [YMCA Marketing Director] Kristina [Barrett] do for the service.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Many New Canaanites by now have seen a rendering of the Midcentury Modern-inspired commercial building that John and Melissa Engel have planned for the lot at 215 Elm St. The architect on the project is Westport-based Frederick William Hoag. Some time after John Engel explained what he had in mind to a University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation professor, a document that included some truly fascinating concepts came in from students (see above). The Maryland architecture program been called the only one in the nation that includes professional Masters programs and related PhD-level studies in planning, preservation and real estate development within the same school. ***

Bill Egan, the newly hired principal of New Canaan High School, has gotten into the spirit of the job very quickly: At his formal introduction at the Board of Education meeting on Monday night, board member Sheri West astutely noted, Egan was sporting a NCHS Rams tie.

News

No Idling: NCHS Friends of the Earth Club Works for Cleaner Air and a Better New Canaan

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Idling cars are a major pet peeve for New Canaan High School sophomore Will Santora. The 15-year-old is aware that it’s illegal in Connecticut to idle a motor vehicle for more than three minutes, yet he estimates that up to 80 percent of the cars that back up at the NCHS lot when school lets out are idling. “You waste gas, you waste money, you are polluting—and all for no reason,” Santora said from Room 115 at the high school on a recent afternoon, surrounded by a half-dozen likeminded sophomores and juniors. “You don’t need to leave your car running at all. And people sometimes just forget to turn off their car or they don’t realize it’s going, so that is a big issue because it does pollute a lot and if you idle for more than 10 seconds, you are already starting to waste gas.”

In the next month or so, Santora and this group of high school teens—together they are the Friends of the Earth Club, an extracurricular group—will purchase and install a “no idling” sign on school grounds.