To the Editor:
Once upon a time there was a pretty little town with a pretty small beach that everyone loved to visit. It had a pretty name: Silvershell. The only thing that was not pretty was the dirty water that ran down from the roads into the swimming hole at Silvershell. The people thought and thought about this problem and one day they came up with a solution that was so good and so new that folks came from all over the country to see it. Here’s what they did: They dug ponds and marshes for the dirty water to seep through so that the marsh plants and time itself would clean the dirt out and return it, all cleaned, to the pretty beach. It worked! Over 200 people of the pretty town worked hard and planted lots of nice plants in their new marsh and they named it Spragues Cove. The garden club helped with money and work. Folks donated rosa rugosas so when the new fence rotted with age, there would still be a barrier so toddlers couldn’t stumble into the ponds. The pretty town got grants for bushes and trees to create habitat for birds and animals. People from the neighborhood planted pretty flowers all over it, and cared for them, and once in a while they mowed the path so folks could walk around the ponds and peek at the baby herons and otters and turtles who came to live there. Years and years went by and the ponds and marsh quietly and peacefully kept cleaning the water, and the birds and animals and people kept enjoying it. Then one day a Troll who lived in the neighborhood decided, all by himself, without asking anybody, that all the pretty bushes and trees and flowers and nests and animal homes had to go away! The Conservation Commission agreed with him and set out to destroy the pretty place. They sent men with big, noisy machines to rip and tear and ruin the pretty place, and they did. When the big machines were done, not a tree or flower or bird or animal remained. What a shame said the folks who had loved the ponds and marsh. What a shame said the heron chick and the otters and the turtles that had lived there. It has stopped working said the folks who designed it. Give us $12,000 so we can keep ruining it every year, said the Conservation Commission and the Troll. Please vote NO on Article 10 at Marion’s Town Meeting!
Annie Rockwell, Marion
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