The following was submitted by Emily Levin, project manager for Essex National Heritage Commission:
Join Essex Heritage for an interpretive walk of the Old Eastern Marsh Trail on Saturday, June 9 from 8:30 - 10:00 a.m. Walkers should meet at the trail parking area on Friedenfels Road in Salisbury.
Jerry Klima, Salisbury Selectman and Coastal Trails advocate, will guide this easy walk along 1.3 miles of paved rail trail from the bank of the Merrimack River through woods and pristine sections of the Great Marsh offering beautiful views, world-class bird watching, abundant wildlife and interpretive signs that shed light on the history of this region, Salisbury and the railroad. The early start will increase the odds of spotting wildlife, including turtles commonly out along the trail digging nests and laying their eggs, during their peak laying season. The walk will also provide an opportunity to learn about the historical importance of this property as a railroad corridor and how it has evolved into a significant community resource today.
This is an easy walk suitable for anyone in reasonably good condition, including children. Rain or shine, please dress for the weather and wear comfortable shoes. The walk should take an hour and a half to two hours. Water and light refreshments will be provided.
The event is open to the public, but space is limited and reservations are required. Please RSVP with payment by Thursday, June 7. The cost is $5 for Essex Heritage members and $7 for non-members.
Please register online at www.wssexheritage.org/membership. Call Essex Heritage at 978-740-0444 for questions and details. Event fees sustain the Essex Heritage membership program and support partner sites.
Source: www.boston.com
We also need gay divorce - New York Daily News
Like many gay Americans, I was thrilled when President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage. But maybe not for the reasons you think.
We need gay marriage so we can have gay divorce.
As a lesbian who came out in the 1970s, I never thought I’d see such progress in my lifetime — or that I’d become an avid proponent of a legal convention I once thought too traditional and too imitative of heterosexuality.
But I learned the hard way why matrimony affords necessary protection and how anything less is separate and unequal. Obama said as much when he shifted his support from civil unions to marriage in an “evolution” on the issue that seems to have come to its happy end last month.
Last June, on the night Albany ushered in same-sex marriage across New York State, I stood cheering in front of the Stonewall Inn (the epicenter of the gay rights movement) on Christopher St. Couples were hugging, kissing, crying. I even overheard a proposal.
But the victory was bittersweet for me. I was single, after my partner of 26 years had dumped me and walked away without looking back.
My ex and I were domestic partners who had registered at the Municipal Building in 1993. The partnership offered very few legal benefits, but it was as significant to us as a marriage license. It represented our commitment.
I returned to the same lower Manhattan office in 2008, now on my own, to dissolve our partnership. Terminating cost a mere $32.50 and did not require my former partner’s presence — or even her signature. I was well aware this procedure was a joke. But I wanted an act of closure.
My former partner didn’t meet anyone new; she just wanted to be free to see what she missed — a midlife crisis right after she turned 50.
I once saw myself as the nontraditional Greenwich Village dyke who rebelled from my conservative Catholic family in New Jersey, only to realize I had become, in time, the loyal lesbian wife whose spouse got bored and took off. My efforts to save the relationship failed miserably, and my ex cut off communication because she had to go “cold turkey.” She refused to go to counseling.
We had been a hip downtown artist couple who somehow managed to slip into the cliche of a middle American heterosexual marriage — but without the benefits that automatically come with tying the knot. As I pondered my predicament, I became the queer version of a desperate housewife.
And I was devastated by how badly my (not legal) marriage ended. My therapist diagnosed me with posttraumatic stress disorder.
Source: www.nydailynews.com
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