The Children's Library

The Race in the Park

This picture was taken at the Race in the Park, an annual event that was originally affiliated with the Komen Race for the Cure, but splintered off a few years ago so that its proceeds could be used locally, rather than nationally. The Komen event is held in Hartford now, and many New Britain residents take part in that event as well as this one, held Saturday in Walnut Hill Park.

The Race in the Park is yet another example of the closeknit community in New Britain. My kids and I have been participating since I pushed them in strollers. It is a very humbling and awe-inspiring experience to meet in our park with thousands of other participants, the survivors a sea of pink shirts, the rest of us fortunate enough to wear white ones. So many locals participate that we can't walk two feet without bumping into a group of people we know. Everyone claps and cheers as each survivor triumphantly crosses the finish line.

The New Britain Book Club

When I first joined book club, it didn't have a name, so I referred to it snidely and privately as the Democratic Women's Auxilliary. Rather a flip label, given that few, if any of us, were linked to the Democratic party simply by virtue of involvement with, or marriage to, a male Democratic.

Several of us have been elected to public office ourselves, and all of us---your Chronicler included---try to contribute to making NB a better place for the entire community. To those of us in book club, that sensibly precludes membership in the Republican Party.

For the first time, we have been organized enough to compile a book list for the year. As you can see, we even have a name, generic though it may be.

I have attached here the list of books we've chosen for 2006. Please feel free to leave comments regarding those about which you have opinions or information.

2006 Book List for The New Britain Book Club

Why New Britain?

Most of the friends I grew up with in New Britain moved away and stayed away.
When I was still young, I came back from the west coast after a particularly tumultous series of traumatic events, for what I assumed would be a temporary breather before I moved on to more interesting places. Instead, I became enmeshed and comfortable and somehow never did leave, primarily because of the tightknit community and new friends I made, most of whom did not grow up here and have stayed by choice.

That was a long time ago. I never did leave, and I live here now with my two children, who attend public elementary school in our wonderfully rich, diverse, open-minded community,--- a nurturing, affordable and realistic place to raise kids.

Always adventurous, I never thought I'd be one to say such a thing, but I'm not sure I can imagine myself ever living anywhere else. On the other hand, I've never been all that predictable.