Ashland Emergency Fund

Quietly providing hope to those in need.

Since 1987 the AEF has been Ashland’s behind-the-scenes, private place to which those in need have been able to turn for help.

Shapiro: Remembering the Good Old Days

By Martin Shapiro/ Fiddler on the Keyboard

Ashland Tab: Thursday, November 30, 2006

Do you long for the "Good Old Days?" Well, I have a gift for you. It's a free trip to "Old Time Radio" via your computer. All you have to do is type in www.fiftyplusadvocates.com. Then you will see a page with an old radio someplace near the middle. Click on the radio and you will see a menu with various programs offered. Click on one that pleases you and sit back to listen. I listened to a half hour "Amos and Andy" show complete with commercials for Rinso. That was a popular detergent 50 or more years ago. The audio quality was very good and the comedy situation was funny. It was a lot more wholesome than many of the so-called "comedy routines" that we see or hear today.

I hate to use the term "Good Old Days" because the days of my youth and all those about me, were really a "mixed bag." Some were good and some were bad. My father's first three automobiles didn't have a heater. There were no heaters available at first and then they were sold as an expensive accessory item. Our home was heated by a coal-burning furnace. Guess who shoveled coal morning, noon and night? Both my father and I did it and we dug out the coal ashes and disposed of them too.

I was about 12 years old before we bought a refrigerator. I don't think they existed much before them. We had an ice box and the ice man loaded it every day. The ice man delivered the ice with his horse and wagon.

My mother cooked our meals on an old iron stove in our kitchen. She bought an early electric stove, but she still cooked some of our food on the iron stove since the old stove kept the kitchen warm and supplied our hot water too.

Our first telephone was a party line shared with three other customers. Air conditioning and television didn't exist. I can't remember when snowplows came into being, but the old cars were not built close to the ground and they had big wheels that could carry them over ruts and rough terrain. There were no snow tires, but there were tire chains that worked fairly well on ice and some snow. The earliest cars had no self-starters. You had to start them with a crank outside in the front of the car. Even with a self-starter, you frequently had to use a crank on cold days, because the car batteries were not strong enough to start a car on a really cold day. If you weren't careful while crank starting a car, you might get hit by a spinning crank and suffer with a broken arm.

Good old days! BAH! Those who long for them have probably forgotten the tough parts.

Now, here we are many years later. Most homes are heated with oil or gas, if you can afford to buy oil or gas. Too many homes are cold because the people who live in these homes can't afford to pay their fuel bills. That's why John Ellsworth started the Ashland Emergency Fund and has maintained the fund for several years. The Emergency Fund has paid for fuel so that people who live in Ashland and are in financial distress have a group that they can turn to for help.

Unfortunately, the Ashland Emergency Fund has been growing smaller and smaller recently. The fund's main source of revenue had been its Bingo games held in "Smoke Filled Rooms." (I borrowed this quotation from what once had been a popular description of the rooms where the Republicans held their national conventions.) Now that smoking is not permitted at the Bingo games, most of the players do something else on Bingo night and the Emergency fund is unable to help everyone with every problem.

Tomorrow is Dec. 1. Unofficially, winter is here. The weather is bound to get colder and those of us who have fuel will use it. Those who do not have fuel will feel cold, very cold and even colder as the winter season goes on. Imagine that, in this day of obscenely high salaries for CEOs and sports figures. It's really unimaginable.

Fortunately, December generally brings out the best in the rest of us and we give all kinds of gifts to our friends and families whether they need them or not. Maybe this year, some of you will give a gift to some needy fellow Ashlanders by way of the Ashland Emergency Fund. This fund really needs your help. Please write your checks to the Ashland Emergency Fund and send it the AEF c/o John or Margot Ellsworth at the Homes Connection, 91 Main St., Ashland.

"Tis the season to be jolly" and I want to be the first to wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Kawnza and a Happy Chunukah. Enjoy all three, please. Enjoy the one closest to your heart the most, but please, share in the joy of all the others too.

Shalom.

You can Donate Now through The Network for Good or donations can also be sent directly to The Ashland Emergency Fund, P.O. Box 112, Ashland, MA 01721.

For more information on volunteering or donating, contact John Ellsworth at 508-881-3404 or Youth and Family Services Director Susan Gauvin at 508-881-0109 ext. 18.