April 1978
For the second year in a row, Massachusetts Electric offered customers garden space under its electric lines. As part of the “Grow on Us” program, the company offered to plow and harrow the land, stake out plots of up to 1,000 square feet, and offer guidance on planting and growing.
The town received $929 in federal disaster aid as reimbursement for emergency snow-plowing costs during the February blizzard (i.e., the Blizzard of ’78”).
Playing at the movies: The Goodbye Girl, Star Wars, Annie Hall.
April 1988
At a public forum in Littleton, U.S. Rep. Chet Atkins told constituents, “America’s racked up a trillion-dollar deficit over the last eight years and a trillion-dollar balance of trade. We’re spending more than we’re producing, and we’re borrowing money from overseas to buy goods from overseas.” During the ensuing discussion, he talked about the “morally abhorrent” bill Americans were passing on to their children. In response to a concern voiced by a constituent, about foreign countries buying American real estate, he said, “They’re buying America because we’re selling our birthright.”
The owner of a local turkey farm wrote a letter to the editor expressing concern about Mass. House Bill H4002, the “Farm Animal Rights Initiative,” which, he said, would require regulations that would attack a majority of common farm techniques and practices. He said that the bill had been put forth by a committee of scientists selected by animal rights activists, as opposed to farmers and animal husbandry specialists who had experience with farm procedures. He cautioned readers to be “absolutely sure” what they were voting for when asked to vote on the measure. “The phrase ‘farm animal rights’ can be very deceiving,” he said.
April 1998
A letter-writer urged residents to write to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to express concerns about proposed national standards for organic food. She wrote that in their original form, the standards were consistent with generally accepted agricultural practices, but that as a result of pressure from agribusiness lobbies, changes were made that incorporated into the standards: allowance of the use of sewage sludge on organic farmland; allowance of food irradiation, genetic engineering, factory farming methods for livestock, and the use of animal byproducts in feed for normally herbivorous animals.
Voters at Annual Town Meeting approved a budget of $13.136 million.
Temperatures in the 80s brought Town Meeting-goers out in shorts.
Based on reports in the old Harvard Post.
