Flags
were flown at both the corner of McGrath Highway and Broadway and at
the top of Winter Hill – on brand new flagpoles donated by the local
Kiwanis Club – with the help of students from the East Somerville
Community School and the Healey School. There were some of us there who
live in that immediate area who have been going to the annual
reenactment at Foss Park for over 40 years straight and have seen the
attendance by the public ebb and flow over the years.

So we
stood there, enjoying the morning and the festivities and it occurred
to us that the annoying politicians and their hangers-on (aka Pod
People) weren't there. In fact, neither were the "haters" – you know,
the ones who start their own little groups because they claim there's
too much "old school" shenanigans going on.

According to them,
there's not enough transparency in local government, there's too many
"back room deals" happening and there's too much one-sidedness in the
news.

But they have their own "secret meetings" and they call
themselves journalists, having email interactions with elected
officials and then calling them "interviews." They are even now trying
to pass themselves off as historians because someone is stupid enough
to give them some space in a print medium. You have to love this stuff
– you can't even make it up, it's that comical.