I was the sports editor of The Beverly Times back in the day when a young freelance sportswriter told me about an idea for a new business. He’d pore through the rosters of major league baseball teams as they came to Fenway Park to play the Red Sox, then reach out to their hometown newspapers and ask if they wanted him to write a story about their local hero.

It was a great idea, a lot of work, and a sign that this particular sportswriter had an entrepreneurial spirit. So it’s no surprise to me that Rob Bradford has ended up as one of the most well-known people in Boston sports media — a Red Sox “insider,” even. On Wednesday, the Red Sox will hold Baseball Isn’t Boring Night during a game at Fenway Park, marking a huge milestone for the brand that Bradford established four years ago with former Red Sox pitcher Joe Kelly.

Anyone who follows the Red Sox has probably seen, heard or read Rob. But you might not know that he lives in Beverly, or the interesting route he’s taken since his days as a stringer for The Beverly Times. I sat down to talk with Rob about his journey and what it’s like to cover the team he grew up watching like the rest of us.

Rob actually grew up in Essex, but let’s first establish his Beverly bona fides. He’s lived here with his wife, Jen, since 1995, and they raised three kids. Rob’s dad, Bill Bradford, taught at Beverly High School for 25 years and coached basketball, and Jen is a former girls lacrosse coach at BHS.

While Rob is now known as a Red Sox expert, the team he rooted for most while growing up was the Essex Shipbuilders of the Intertown Twilight League, an amateur league that’s been around since 1929. I grew up watching the Beverly Recs of the ITL, so I understood what he meant when he said that, to a boy like him, the ITL players might as well have been major leaguers. I asked him who was the big guy that used to hit home runs for Essex and he immediately said, “Kendall Stone.”

“The Little League field was in back of the big field. We would have to stop the Little League game because Kendall’s up,” Rob said. “He was like Babe Ruth to us.”

Rob, 56, went to Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, where he played baseball, and then to Springfield College, where he was the sports editor of the school newspaper. He worked as an intern for NESN at Red Sox games, counting how many pitches the starters threw.

“The first time that I put my foot on the Fenway Park field, it was a feeling I didn’t expect,” he said. “It was something that I watched all my life on TV, and it was almost like the moon. You see it, but you can’t imagine putting your foot on it. You just had this feeling, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m on the Fenway Park field.’”

Then came the journey through the increasingly perilous newspaper business — The Beverly Times, Salem News, Gloucester Times, Lowell Sun, Eagle-Tribune, Boston Herald. At the Herald, Rob, at age 35, landed his “dream job” of becoming the full-time Red Sox beat writer.

In 2008, radio station WEEI offered Rob a job that tapped into his entrepreneurial side. They wanted him to create a website that would compete with the Globe and Herald covering Boston sports, a concept that was nearly unprecedented at the time for an online site, he said.

That’s when he started to get invited to appear on radio and TV. He wrote a book with 2007 World Series hero Mike Lowell. He played in the annual media games at Fenway and Yankee Stadium.

The media business, of course, continued to change, and Rob kept changing with it. In 2022, he and Kelly set out to write a book asking famous people why they love baseball. To promote the book, they made up “Baseball Isn’t Boring” T-shirts and used social media.

The book was published with the name “Damn Near Perfect Game,” but the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” slogan began to take hold. Red Sox player Kiki Hernandez wore his “Baseball Isn’t Boring” T-shirt every day at spring training. NESN did a story. Celebrities like Noah Kahn and Alex Cooper and Chris Tucker posed for photos holding up the T-shirts. Rob started doing a daily “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast for WEEI and handing out BIB stickers.

“The reaction that I got from people whenever they saw the T-shirt and whenever they saw the sticker would always bring a smile to their face,” Rob said. “So we knew that there was something there.”

Last year Tom Hanks posted on Instagram to his 9.5 million followers how much he loved the “Damn Near Perfect Game,” and the book sold out on Amazon soon after.

Rob and Joe decided to capitalize on the brand’s growing popularity by forming a “Baseball Isn’t Boring” company and trademarking the name. There are now T-shirts in Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. There’s a “Baseball Moms Aren’t Boring” shirt. There’s one that says “Mune Shot,” the nickname given to Chicago White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami. There are baseball hats and wristbands (bbisntboring.com).

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When Rob went up to three-time batting champion Luis Arraez at the All-Star Game to give him a “Baseball Isn’t Boring” sticker, Arraez pulled one out of his back pocket, saying he carries it with him all the time. Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo had one in his hat during the team’s one victory in the 2023 World Series.

“These guys who make millions upon millions upon millions of dollars, when I introduce myself and say ‘I’m going to give you this sticker,’ it immediately disarms them,” Rob said. “I’ve run into a lot of players who I’ve given a sticker to and they’re like, ‘It’s on my notebook, it’s on my water bottle.’”

Rob said the slogan, which acknowledges the criticism of baseball as too slow while at the same time inviting people to make the case for why it’s not, has taken on a life of its own.

“It sounds Pollyannaish, but it’s true — baseball has meant so much to so many people,” he said. “This slogan offers people the opportunity to say that. For whatever reason it’s just resonated.”

A lot of Rob’s success can be attributed to his naturally friendly style. He can joke around with players — many of whom are now less than half his age — in a way that turns his podcasts into conversations more than inquisitions. Here’s a good example from yesterday’s podcast with Red Sox pitcher Payton Tolle and Yankees pitcher Cam Schlitter.

Rob acknowledges that others in the business might think he’s too close to some of the players. He says he’ll still write the tough stories when they’re called for, but the media dynamics have changed and he’s had to change along with it.

“I don’t care what other writers or podcasters think,” he said. “I like to have fun in the conversations. I’m just secure in knowing right from wrong and how the landscape has changed and how much I’ve had to change. If I remained the same as I was 20 years ago, I wouldn’t be having the fun that I have now. I wouldn’t be employed.”

As for this year’s Red Sox, Rob said it’s been interesting for him not only because of the team’s remarkable turnaround, sparked by a bunch of backups, but because he’s had to adapt to the change in manager and coaching staff after the firing of Alex Cora.

“This year has been unlike any other year I’ve covered. It’s not even close,” he said. “I had a great relationship with Alex Cora and those coaches who got fired. It took me a while to get past the fact that those guys got such a raw deal. I covered Cora going back to when he was a player. I’ve known him for years. We talk outside the field. I’d never gone through anything like that. But you have to go on and cover the team in a fair way.”

I asked Rob to put in perspective what it’s like for a local baseball-loving kid like him — he once drew a picture of himself in a Red Sox uniform for a school assignment asking what you want to do when you grow up — to have reached this point in his career.

“If you told little Robby Bradford from Essex that he’d be co-hosting a night at Fenway Park, it would be insane,” he said. “I’m trying not to lose sight of that through all this, and to not lose sight of how fortunate I am to live out a dream. The industry is tough and my path to get to where I am is probably one of the more unique ones. I didn’t have a full-time job until I was 29. When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 I was answering field hockey calls at the Lowell Sun.”

“I tell people that one of the biggest lessons is that you shouldn’t take your foot out of the door because you won’t put it back in. You never know where you might end up.”

Now comes “Baseball Isn’t Boring Night” at Fenway. Kelly, he of Joe Kelly Fight Club fame, will throw out the first pitch. After the game, there will be a panel discussion about baseball at Cisco Brewers Fenway next to the park featuring Kelly and former major league pitcher Rich Hill.

It should be a great night for baseball, and for Rob Bradford. Maybe even better than an Essex Shipbuilders game.

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Joe Kelly will also be at Sully’s at 282 Rantoul St. in Beverly on Thursday signing autographs from 1 to 2 p.m.

There’s a lot of buzz about what’s showing at The Cabot right now, and I don’t mean “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”.

The talk is about what looks like a chain-link fence strung across the front of the historic theater on downtown Cabot Street. It’s getting a lot of attention on social media, and (don’t be shocked), not all of it complimentary. A couple of people have said they thought it was safety netting as part of a construction project.

So this afternoon I called up The Cabot’s president and CEO, Brian Ridolfo, to find out what’s going on. Before I could ask a question, he said, “I think I know what you’re calling about.”

The first thing to know is that the material is part of an architectural design that is not yet finished. This is what it will look like when it’s done:

Ridolfi said the material was manufactured in Spain and is made out of stainless steel. He likened it to a “really fancy chain-link fence,” and said it has never been used for an installation of this size.

“It’s a very intricate process to get these things up and looking right,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is not at all what it’s going to be when it’s finished.”

The actual triangular sails, in fact, have not yet been completely installed. Neither has the lighting. When everything is up and running, the sails will blow in the wind, shimmer in the sunlight, and light up with different colors at night, Ridolfi said. The colors could change to match the type of show, maybe pink and purple for rock ‘n roll, red and blue for comedy, and also for holidays, like green for St. Patrick’s Day.

The mesh sails are intended to be a nod to Beverly’s maritime past. They’re part of a larger restoration project of The Cabot’s facade that is intended to take the building back to what it looked like when it opened in 1920, Ridolfo said. The 1960s-era marquee was taken down and replaced by a blade vertical sign in the style of the original, while at the same time revealing the half-rose window that was hidden behind the marquee.

Ridolfo said he understands why people would have concerns about the sail design if they thought it was finished.

“I see where people are coming from,” he said. “But when it’s done, I think everybody will get what we’re trying to accomplish. My personal opinion is it’s going to be stunning. We just have to get there. I’m looking at it as the gateway piece to the downtown. As people come into the downtown from that direction they’re going to say, ‘OK, this is really something special.’”

The Cabot is planning to hold an official lighting of the sails on Tuesday, Sept. 15, called “Light the Night,” followed by a concert inside the theater by “The Rule of 3” band.

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Robert Kaufman wants to get back to walking his golden retriever, Homer. He wants to get back to hiking in the woods. He wants to get back to riding his bike.

“It’s waiting for me,” he told me, pointing to the bike stored away in the garage at his home on Dane Street.

Bob, who is 76, can do none of those things right now. In 2020 he was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. It has slowly progressed to the point that his kidney is no longer functioning. Dialysis treatments — four hours, three times a week — are keeping him alive.

I found out about Bob’s situation the way anybody else driving on Dane Street would these days. There’s a big sign on the front of his house.

I met with Bob to talk about his ordeal and why he decided to use a professionally made sign to help him find a donor. We sat on his patio out back, Homer lying quietly at our feet. Bob, who grew up in Pittsburgh, has lived there for 27 years. He and his wife, Stephanie Rosseel, love the easy access to downtown and the ocean.

“I still pinch myself that I live here,” Bob told me. “It’s so beautiful.”

A retired therapist, Bob said he and Stephanie decided to put up the sign as another way to spread the word about his need for a living kidney donor. They also started the Robert Kaufman Living Kidney Donor Search Facebook page and had T-shirts made. There are more than 100,000 people on the national transplant waiting list for a deceased donor, and the wait for kidney can be as long as five years.

“At 76 that wouldn’t be an option for me,” Bob said. “I can’t really wait for my name to show up on a list. I have to find people.”

With a new kidney, Bob said he could get back to the active lifestyle he has always lived. As a kid in Pittsburgh he spent hours exploring the wooded trails at a park near his home, even giving the trails his own names. He’s always been an outdoors guy, hiking, biking, camping.

“It’s an enormous identity crisis,” he said. “For the last 70-something years I’ve always felt younger than my age, and acting like it. And then to not be able to do those things anymore . . . it’s been part of my identity since I was a kid. I don’t want to let go of the best parts of my childhood.”

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Bob said he’s grateful for the dialysis treatments that are keeping him alive. He sees the people who come in for treatments, often in wheelchairs, who are in worse shape than he is. But the treatments take a toll. He’s often tired and has lost weight and muscle. He has constant brain fog, which is why he had to retire as a therapist, a job he loved.

“It keeps you alive but it doesn’t make you feel well,” he said. “I want more than to be alive. I want to feel well.”

Bob said his wife, Stephanie, a professional photographer, has been “a jewel.” His daughter, Sylvie, who is a neuro ICU nurse in Florida, moved home temporarily to help support them. His son, Eli, lives in Manhattan but makes frequent trips to Beverly.

They’ve also received great support from friends, and even from Bob’s former clients from the therapist practice he had for 40 years. “I use the counseling and advice you have given me over the last 14 years every day to help steer my path in a more growthful direction,” one former client wrote on Facebook.

I asked Bob about his outlook on finding a donor and he put it this way: “I’m hopeful without waiting for it to happen.”

If you’d like to consider donating a kidney to Bob, you can find information here on Lahey Clinic’s living kidney donation program. All donors must be in good physical and psychological health, over age 18, have a blood type that’s compatible with Bob’s, and have normal kidney function.

To apply to be a donor, go to www.lahey-livingdonor.org or call 781-744-2500. You can also spread the word by letting people know about Bob’s Facebook page.

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I don’t know much about boating, but I do know this much: An 18-foot-tall boat cannot fit under a 17-foot-high bridge.

The folks at the Bass Haven Yacht Club have done that math when it comes to the new plans for the Hall-Whitaker Bridge. And they’re not too happy about it.

In a recent letter to the U.S. Coast Guard, the club said it opposes the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s plan to construct a fixed-span bridge rather than a drawbridge that opens for boats. The letter accuses the state, which owns the bridge, of a “bait and switch” after first saying they would build a drawbridge and then changing their mind.

“To be blunt, Bass Haven is against the proposed fixed span bridge,” wrote a lawyer for the club.

As you probably already know, the state is in the process of building a temporary bridge to replace the Hall-Whitaker on Bridge Street, which has been closed to traffic since 2022 due to structural deficiencies. The temporary bridge is scheduled to open next spring. The plan is to then build a new permanent bridge that would open in 2032.

The state originally said the permanent bridge would be a drawbridge capable of opening for boats on the Bass River, as the old Hall-Whitaker did for decades (about 20 times per year, mostly in the spring and fall, when larger boats move to and from the Bass Haven Yacht Club for winter storage, according to this Coast Guard notice.)

But last month the Coast Guard, which has final approval on bridges over navigable waters, issued a public notice saying that MassDOT, “after further review,” now wants to build a permanent fixed bridge — meaning one that doesn’t open for boats.

The fixed bridge would have a vertical clearance of 17.4 feet over the Bass River at high tide. The problem is that the Bass Haven Yacht Club has 17 boats that would be unable to pass through because of their mast height, according to the club’s letter. Bass Haven, located on three acres of waterfront property on McPherson Drive, is upriver from the bridge and the boats have no other way out on the river.

The letter said Bass Haven would have objected to the temporary bridge being a fixed span if it knew that the permanent bridge would also be fixed. That’s where the “bait and switch” accusation came in. The letter said construction of the temporary bridge “is already significantly impacting Bass Haven’s members.”

The letter was written by attorney David Smith of Farrell Smith O’Connell, a Salem-based law firm that specializes in maritime law. It was addressed to Gregory Hitchen, the bridge program manager for Coast Guard’s Northeast district.

Hitchen told me he has received the letter and that the Coast Guard will review it. The Coast Guard is accepting comments from the public on the state’s proposal for a fixed span bridge through Friday.

I’ve reached out to MassDOT several times about their plans for the bridge but they haven’t gotten back to me.

According to the letter from the club’s lawyer, the 17.4-foot-tall bridge would be too short for sailboats with tall masts as well as power vessels with a flybridge. The letter said that would discourage potential new members who have those types of boats, which he said have been a “large part of its historical use of the Bass River.” The club has been around since 1910.

“The proposed structure will have a significant negative impact on Bass Haven’s continued viability and its members’ ability to use its facility,” the letter said.

The lawyer cited federal statues that say that no bridge shall “unreasonably obstruct the free navigation of the waters over which it is constructed . . .” He asked the Coast Guard to require MassDOT to either build a drawbridge or come up with another design that preserves navigation to and from Bass Haven, “possibly a fixed-span bridge with an air draft of 60 feet.”

Hitchen told me previously that the Coast Guard looks hard at a bridge’s impact on mariners, “but we do consider other needs — the people who cross the bridge as well as go under it.”

Bass Haven Yacht Club member Justin Steele told me in an email that the club is one of the few in the area that continues to make boating and waterfront access “affordable and attainable for the everyday person.”

“With that mission in mind, I believe the club would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with the city and state on ways to expand public waterfront access and create improvements that benefit not only the boating community but Beverly residents and visitors as a whole,” he said.

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In addition to an operable bridge, Steele said Bass Haven would like to see expanded green space around the new youth center, a public dock that would provide walkable access to downtown, and possibly public access kayaks and/or paddle boards. He said those improvements would “encourage people to explore our waters and would represent a far better long term investment in the community.”

Mayor Mike Cahill told me that Phillip Eng, the state’s interim secretary of transportation, expressed a desire for a fixed-span bridge when he visited Beverly earlier this year. Cahill said he also supports a fixed span.

Ward 1 City Councilor Todd Rotondo, who represents Ryal Side, said he has been told it would be faster to build a fixed bridge and less expensive to maintain, as opposed to one with lots of moveable parts.

State Rep. Hannah Bowen emphasized that no decision has been made yet, but said local officials have been pressuring the state to get the permanent bridge done faster.

“I think it’s a good step,” Bowen said of looking at the possibility of a fixed span. “We’ll see what the Coast Guard outcome is.”

Hitchen said he didn’t know when the Coast Guard will make its decision whether to allow a fixed span. If you want to comment on the state’s plan, you can send an email to SMB-D1Boston-Bridges-PublicNotices@uscg.mil. Again, the deadline is Friday.

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Sometimes when you’re driving down the street the story is right in front of you. Like this one:

The billboard is located on Cabot Street, above the storefronts that include Little Italy next to The Cabot. Normally I pay no attention to advertising — I’m the kind of guy who’s been muting TV commercials for 30 years. But how can you not look at this billboard? And how can you not think it’s awesome?

I ended up running into the man in the driver’s seat at the Lobster Festival a couple of weeks ago, and no, his name is not Mark Adrian. It’s Adam Farber. But he is the owner of Mark Adrian Shoes in Gloucester. So I decided to pay him a visit at his store and find out the story behind The Best Billboard in Beverly.

Mark Adrian Shoes was founded in 1975 by Mark Adrian Farber, Adam’s father. Adam, 46, took over the business in 2017 when his father retired. The family’s history in the shoe business actually dates back over 125 years, so Adam is a fifth-generation shoe retailer.

When I showed up, Adam was placing a sandwich-board sign on the sidewalk outside the store, which is located right on Main Street in downtown Gloucester. It has over 9,000 pairs of shoes, including its warehouse space in the basement. Adam said it’s not easy to compete with the retail giants and online shopping, but Mark Adrian Shoes offers something those others can’t match.

“The truth is everyone needs shoes, and there are a lot of places to buy shoes, especially online,” he said. “But there are very few places to buy shoes and work directly with someone one-on-one, get the proper fit, have a curated selection, and get to know the person. To me, we sell shoes but that’s not really our core business. Our core business is customer service, curation and expertise.”

OK, so why does a shoe store in Gloucester take out a big billboard in Beverly? It so happens that Adam lives in Beverly with his wife and two sons. He grew up here until he was 11, when his family moved to Swampscott. He worked in the music business in New York for a decade before moving back to Beverly to join the family business.

Adam said he and his family love Beverly. They live on Pearl Street in the Montserrat neighborhood. His kids go to Beverly Middle School. He’s a sponsor of Beverly Homecoming and The Cabot and has had a table at the Lobster Festival for the last couple of years.

Adam told me the store had never advertised on a billboard before, but he always had his eye on the one next to The Cabot, where he’s a frequent patron. “To me it’s the perfect spot,” he said. “I’ve wanted to increase my visibility in Beverly. As a resident there I’m really passionate about that community as well.”

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Adam didn’t want a just-the-facts billboard with the name and address of the store. He wanted to be creative. In the past he’s taken out a newspaper ad showing him naked except for his shoes and a large, well-placed Mark Adrian logo. “My marketing is outside the box,” he said.

His first idea was to show him and his family on the billboard saying something like, “What, we have a billboard?,” but decided that wouldn’t work. So he started thinking that every morning when he gets in his car, his GPS pops up and says “18 minutes to work.”

“I always thought that was a good hook,” he said. “We’re a lot closer than people think.”

Adam started brainstorming with his marketing firm, Leland Creative Marketing of Beverly. Brent Leland, the company’s founder/creative & art director, came up with the idea for, “Seriously, that’s like 4 songs*.” Then Adam came up with the asterisk line: “Or just one Grateful Dead jam!”

Adam asked his two sons if they wanted to be on the billboard, riding in the backseat. Rohin, 13, said no thanks, but Kai, 11, was all in. “The day it was up Rohin wished he had. Their school bus drives right by it and their friends all saw it and thought it was cool.”

To create the image, a photographer took pictures of Adam and Kai sitting in chairs in the Leland Creative Marketing studio, with a leaf blower used to simulate their hair blowing in the wind.

Here’s the shot of Kai that made the final cut:

For Adam, the billboard symbolizes his connection to Beverly and Gloucester, the places where he lives and works.

“There’s something really unique about each of these cities,” he said. “They’re not small towns, but they feel small. They feel community oriented. We can’t go anywhere without bumping into friends that we know. I love waking up in one and going to the other, that back and forth. I feel very well connected to both communities.”

The billboard has been up since June and is scheduled to come down at the end of this month. Adam declined to say how much it cost, and he’s not sure how many shoes it’s actually helped to sell. But in a way, that’s almost beside the point.

“Is it worth the price? I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I’ve heard people say something every day. It makes me so happy when people get a smile from it.”

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Could the city end up buying the Coast Guard houses on Laurel Street?

Mayor Mike Cahill told me he doesn’t think that will happen. But he has reserved the city’s right to have first crack at the property.

Cahill on Monday submitted an “expression of interest” regarding the 16 houses, which the Coast Guard is looking to sell. By federal law both the city and the state get first dibs on the property and needed to submit an expression of interest by Monday in order to proceed with a possible acquisition.

Cahill did just that. In a short letter to the General Services Administration, the agency that oversees the selling and buying of federal property, Cahill said the city “welcomes the opportunity to discuss and pursue further due diligence with the USCG and the General Services Administration with respect to the conditions of the property.”

The mayor added that the city anticipates the chance to conduct a site visit and to “review any and all relevant materials with respect to the Property.” You can read the letter here:

City Of Beverly Expression Of Interest; 40 55 Laurel St

315KB ∙ PDF file

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I asked Cahill what this all meant and he said local and state officials have expressed a desire to do more “due diligence,” including examining an environmental impact report on the site and what the property would be appraised at. The houses will be sold as a single lot, not individually.

But, he added, “I have stated that I don’t believe that this is a property that the city can participate in trying to purchase and then dispose of.”

Cahill said the most likely outcome is that the federal government will sell the property to somebody who will redevelop it for residential use, which is what the city’s zoning rules allow.

“That’s really where I believe things are most likely to end up,” he said.

State Rep. Hannah Bowen said she agreed with the decision to submit the expression of interest.

“If it turns out the price is going to be too high and introduce too much risk for the city, it still goes right to auction and there’s nothing lost in that process,” she said.

Bowen said many neighbors have said they would prefer to see starter homes or market-price houses built on the property, rather than “deeply affordable” housing or, on the opposite spectrum, McMansions.

Bowen confirmed that the state did not submit an expression of interest, so the city has the 60-day window to itself to discuss what it wants to do next.

The 16 ranch-style homes were built in 1958 and have housed U.S. Army and then Coast Guard families who were serving in the area. They have been empty for about three years, with the Coast Guard saying they no longer needed them and planned to sell them.

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The last time I spoke with Brendan Sweeney was on election night last November. The young city councilor — he turned 31 on Election Day — had lost his attempt to unseat Mayor Mike Cahill. Ever earnest and polite, he showed up at Cahill’s election night party at REV Kitchen & Bar to congratulate the mayor in person.

When I asked Sweeney what was next for him, he said, “I’m not sure what’s next other than knowing my wife and I have a nursery to set up.”

Sweeney and his wife, Sydney, did indeed have a baby. Lincoln, named after Brendan’s favorite president, is now eight months old. But Sweeney has also become more than a new dad. In May, he was named town manager in Ipswich.

Last week I saw Sweeney and he was running again — not for political office, but in the Beverly Homecoming 5k. It made me wonder how it’s going for him in his new role, so I took a drive to Ipswich to meet up with him at Town Hall.

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After all these years there’s one Homecoming event that has become especially meaningful to me — the 5k road race. I’ve run the race almost every year since 2005, interrupted only by a torn ACL, my father’s wake, and the pandemic. And while, yes, the sports world is still abuzz about my 2023 third-place medal in the 60-69 age category (fact check here), it’s not about the glory. For me it’s about running with — or more accurately, trying to keep up with — my daughters.

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For most of those Homecoming races I’ve run with Sarah or Elizabeth or both. We pulled off our first father/daughter combo in 2007 when Sarah was 8 years old. We ran together and she happened to beat me by one second. Same thing the next year when she was 9. After that, the gloves were off and I was no longer running alongside her as the proud and watchful dad. I ran as fast as I could and she did, too. After I beat her for a few years, she finally overtook me when she was 15.

Elizabeth, who is 3 1/2 years younger, soon joined in on the fun. Some years it was all four of us, including Susan, my wife.

Over the years Sarah and I began building up Homecoming as the race of the summer. Even though we ran other 5ks, not to mention a half-marathon for Sarah, we’d gear up our training to run our best times at Homecoming. That was the case again this year, when we ran our final tune-up together on the track at Beverly High School on Monday night. Sarah joked how we make such a big deal every year out of the race, as if it’s the Olympics or something. I even have a wrinkled coffee-stained piece of paper stuck to the inside of our kitchen cabinet with all of our Homecoming finishing times — 49 in all.

I’ve discovered over the years that running road races satisfies my desire for competition. I really missed that when I could no longer play pickup basketball (see torn ACL, above). Running 5ks fills that gap. The competition is mostly with myself. At first it was trying to improve my time each year. Lately, it’s more like how can I keep it from slowing down too much. To tell you how far my competitive urges go, I even look around at the starting line and size up my fellow old-guy runners, wondering if I can finish ahead of them in my age category.

But the Beverly Homecoming race has become more than a race to us. It’s become a family tradition. Whatever the combination, depending on schedules and injuries — from all four of us running, to one of us running and three watching and cheering — we’re there almost every year. The last two years, my sister Christine and brother-in-law Joe have come up from Florida to cheer us on, making it even more of a family affair.

And here comes the really sappy part. As an older dad — I’m 69, Sarah is 27, Elizabeth is 24 — there’s almost nothing more satisfying than being able to still go on a run with my daughters. There’s not even a need for conversation when you’re running together. Just the shared experience of pain and sweat and a sense of accomplishment. I’m not sure about premonitions, but Susan tells the story of how, when she was pregnant with Sarah, she saw a father running with his young daughter on Corning Street near Leonhard’s Florist. She said that’s when she knew we were going to have a daughter.

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So when Sarah woke up with a sore throat on Wednesday, and felt no better on Thursday, we were both rattled. Whether she ran or not was going to be a game-time decision. She showed up at Lynch Park and picked up her running number, joking that the race was going to be her Michael Jordan flu game. But as race time got closer, and her cold wasn’t getting any better, she made her decision: “I’m getting an ice cream,” she announced.

So as Elizabeth and I headed up the hill to the starting line, Sarah stayed with our cheering section. My goal was to run under a 9-minute-mile pace, and Elizabeth said she’d pace me for the first mile or two.

We came to the first-mile marker just past Cove Playground in exactly nine minutes. Elizabeth picked up the pace, looking over her shoulder to keep an eye on me. “You’re doing great, dad,” she said. When we came to the hill on Boyles Street, she said, “Let’s hit the hill hard.”

Elizabeth hit the hill a lot harder than I did and eventually took off for the last mile. That’s when I turned to Sarah for help — or at least Sarah’s watch. When she knew she wasn’t going to run she handed me her fancy Garmin so I could track my pace, something I never do during races. (Kudos to the Greater Beverly YMCA, the race organizer, for providing pace clocks at the mile markers.)

One of the great things about the Beverly Homecoming race is that you actually get shoutouts by name from spectators who know you, as in, “Way to go Paul.” One person even added, “And great story on Ray Novack.” And let me stick in right here a huge shoutout to the Y staff, volunteers and kind people manning water stations and spraying hoses along the route.

As I turned into Lynch Park and headed down the hill to the finish line, I knew I was going to achieve my goal of a sub-nine-minute-mile pace. I soon heard my family cheering me on, with Sarah and Elizabeth, who had finished a good minute-and-a-half earlier, screaming and shouting, “Go dad!” It felt different to see Sarah standing on the sidelines cheering, and I soon realized why: It was the first time she’d ever been to a Beverly Homecoming race without running it.

I ended up with a time of 27:31, good for sixth place in my 60-69 age category. I’m already gearing up for next year, when I’ll be a mere rookie in the 70-and-over age group. Hopefully I’ve got many years left, with my daughters setting the pace.

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If you’re looking for the most Beverly of Beverly things — and I mean that in a good way — you’ve got to be at Lynch Park on Sunday for the final day of Homecoming.

I’m not talking about the fireworks. I’m talking about Ray Novack and his band.

For the last 40 years or so, Ray Novack and Horizon — now Horizon and the Horns — has been the final musical act of Homecoming at Lynch Park. We’re talking songs like “Beginnings” by Chicago, “All Night Long” by Lionel Ritchie, “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift.

But the real story of Ray Novack goes back even further. It’s not an exaggeration to say that he has been the premier musical figure in Beverly for the last half-century.

So I sat down for a coffee with Ray earlier this week to talk about his career, what keeps him going, and how, at age 70, he still plays pickup basketball three times a week (jealous!).

Ray’s music journey actually starts in Malden, where he grew up. Every night after dinner, his mother would say, “Raymond, you have to get out the accordion and practice for half an hour.”

In the fall of 1973, Ray and three other Malden High School graduates formed a band called Horizon. Their first paying gig was at a local club on New Year’s Eve.

“I got 50 bucks,” Ray told me when I did a story on him for The Salem News back in 2012. “I couldn’t believe it. It hit me between the eyes that this is what I wanted to do.”

In 1977, at the age of 22, Ray was hired as the band director at Beverly High School. For the next 35 years, he taught thousands of Beverly kids who played in the concert band, jazz band, string ensemble and/or pit band or took his History of Rock and Guitar classes.

You could argue that being the band director at the high school is one of the most visible jobs in the city. You’d see Ray leading the marching band in parades down Cabot Street, at halftime of football games at Hurd Stadium, at performances in the high school auditorium. I remember attending an elementary school performance at the high school when my daughter was playing the flute and in walked Ray Novack, wearing his baseball umpire uniform, having just arrived from a game. He smiled to the crowd, sat down at the piano and started playing.

The kind of impact that someone like Ray Novack has made on the community is impossible to measure. But you know it’s been significant based on all of the connections he still maintains with former students and band parents. When I was meeting with him at the Dunkin’ Donuts in North Beverly, a woman walked in and, of course, knew Ray. Her daughter had been one of his drum majors and went on to become a high school choral director. When she got married, guess who she hired to play her wedding reception?

And guess what Ray is doing this Friday and Saturday, before Sunday’s Homecoming gig? He’s playing at the weddings of two of his former students. And not to take this too far, but even the guy Ray matches up against in his pickup basketball games is one of his former drum majors, Dave Macdonald (now Dr. Dave Macdonald).

You might have figured out by now that Ray’s band includes several of his former students — Jack Pickell (Class of 1982), Brian Price (Class of 2000), Nick Consone (Class of 2003). There’s even a former band parent, Bill Beckman.

There’s also Kelly Lauranzano (Class of 2001). She happens to be Ray’s daughter. Kelly joined Horizon about 15 years ago, the same time the band’s name was changed to Horizon and the Horns. Kelly is the lead singer and also plays trumpet.

“I was living at home at the time and my dad said, ‘What would you think of singing in the band?’” Kelly told me. “I sang my whole life growing up with him as my music teacher, so I said, ‘Oh, sure.’ Then he said, ‘You also have to play trumpet.’ I hadn’t played trumpet since high school. He really wanted to focus on the horn side, and that was exciting. I hadn’t really had a creative outlet since college so I was really excited to join. My dad and I have a great relationship and we really work well together.”

Ray said the addition of Kelly and Nick Consone, who plays guitar and sings, “breathed new life in the band.” The band ranges from four to seven players, including up to four horn players. Ray plays keyboards. He can play 11 instruments in all, a versatility he attributes to his mother’s insistence on those nightly accordion practices.

“I’m happy to sit back and call out the tunes and let everybody shine,” he said.

It’s that type of equanimity that has kept the band going all these years, according to Joe Randazzo, a drummer for Horizon. He should know. Randazzo was one of those Malden High pals who teamed up with Ray to form Horizon all those years ago.

“I’ve been in many other bands, and they’re always a mess when it comes to personalities and conflicts and egos,” Randazzo said. “There isn’t any of that in Horizon. Everyone gets along so well. It flows down from Ray and how he treats people. That’s why it stayed together for so long.”

Horizon and the Horns does about 30 to 40 gigs per year. Ray also performs solo at assisted living communities, and is in his 15th year as band director at the Glen Urquhart School in Beverly. He’s been married to his wife, Kathy, for 44 years, and they have three grandchildren. Their other daughter, Erica Harrington, also occasionally sings with Horizon.

So in case you’ve lost track, Horizon has been around in one form or another for 53 years now. The one constant is Ray Novack. He’ll be at Lynch Park on Sunday night at 6:30, just before the fireworks.

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Instead of just thanking you here, I’d love to do the same in person. On Wednesday I’ll be at Lynch Park from noon to 8 p.m. during LobsterFest as part of Beverly Homecoming. If you can, stop by The Beverly Beat table to say hi, let me know what you think of The Beverly Beat and how I can improve it, and what stories you’d like me to cover.

Also, for the first time we’ll be offering Beverly Beat T-shirts for sale. The cost is $25. You can place your order with us at Lynch Park and I’ll personally deliver it to you when it’s ready.

Hope to see you there.

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Stephen Walker is not from Beverly. He grew up in Louisiana, spent time in Arizona, and now lives in Amarillo, Texas.

But Walker has a deep connection to our city, one that is so strong he makes the trip here every year — and he’ll do so once again this week.

Walker will be on hand Thursday for the opening ceremonies for a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall organized by Beverly 400+ as part of Beverly Homecoming.

Walker, 75, served in Vietnam for two years. He was wounded twice, including being shot 11 times with an AK-47, resulting in the loss of his left arm. But he would never have made it home were it not for U.S. Army Lt. Stephen Doane of Beverly.

In 1969, Doane saved the lives of Walker and two other soldiers when he destroyed two enemy bunkers, losing his own life in the process. Every year since 2002, Walker has made a point to come to Beverly to support the Beverly Vietnam Veterans 1st Lt. Stephen H. Doane Chapter Post No. 1 .

On Thursday at 5 p.m., Walker will be the keynote speaker for the opening ceremonies for the wall at Beverly High School, where it will be on display. The wall is an 80% scale replica of the Vietnam Wall honoring the more than 58,300 American service members who died in Vietnam.

“It’s the least I can do,” Walker said.

I spoke with Walker by phone from his home in Amarillo last week. I had written a story about him in 2003 when he made his first trip to Beverly to attend the Vietnam Veterans scholarship dinner at the Vittori-Rocci Post. The dinner was discontinued during the pandemic, but Walker still comes up to Beverly to take part in the annual canning fundraiser held by the group to support their scholarship drive. You might have noticed him sitting outside the Shaw’s in North Beverly collecting donations and handing out poppies.

“I come every year,” he said. “This will be my 23rd year.”

Walker told me he grew up in an orphanage in Louisiana. He was drafted in 1967 and sent to Vietnam as a member of the 25th Infantry Division. On March 25, 1969, he was out on patrol in Hau Nghia Province. According to Doane’s Medal of Honor citation, here’s what happened next:

1LT Doane was serving as a platoon leader when his company, engaged in a tactical operation, abruptly contacted an enemy force concealed in protected bunkers and trenches. Three of the leading soldiers were pinned down by enemy crossfire. One was seriously wounded. After efforts of one platoon to rescue these men had failed, it became obvious that only a small group could successfully move close enough to destroy the enemy position and rescue or relieve the trapped soldiers. 1LT Doane, although fully aware of the danger of such an action, crawled to the nearest enemy bunker and silenced it. He was wounded but continued to advance to a second enemy bunker. As he prepared to throw a grenade, he was again wounded. Undaunted, he deliberately pulled the pin on the grenade and lunged with it into the enemy bunker, destroying this final obstacle. 1LT Doane's supreme act enabled his company to rescue the trapped men without further casualties. The extraordinary courage and selflessness displayed by this officer were an inspiration to his men and are in the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

“He saved all three of us,” Walker said. “He took out most of the machine gun placements. He basically dove into the second bunker with his grenades and they went off.” Doane was 21 years old.

Walker helped put Doane’s body in a body bag and loaded it onto a helicopter. “We continued on our patrol after that,” he said. “That’s just the way it was.”

Two months later, on another patrol, Walker was severely wounded in an ambush — shot six times in the arm, four times in the back and once in the chest. He spent 18 months in a hospital in San Francisco.

Walker said he suffered for years with post-traumatic stress syndrome. He became an alcoholic, drinking himself to sleep to deal with the pain and the night sweats. He told me he’s been sober for 46 years. He graduated from Arizona State University at the age of 42 and worked for NBC as a logistics person for “Dateline” and NBC sports. When he retired, he became a full-time ordained minister working with veterans. He’s a member of Combat Hero Bike Build, which builds specialized motorcycles for wounded combat veterans. He and his wife have been married for 47 years and have a daughter.

“It was a long, long, long, long journey,” he said of his recovery. “It wasn’t easy. I’m just fortunate after all I went through physically and with the PTSD that I’ve been healthy. It turns out I don’t have to deal with the PTSD anymore.”

Walker has kept in touch with Doane’s family over the years. Doane was born at Beverly Hospital, where his father was a doctor, but spent only a short time here. Doane grew up in Walton, New York, where a bridge was renamed in his honor in 2022.

Walker has visited Doane’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery. Every year, on March 25, the anniversary of his death, he sends a text to Doane’s niece. But it’s his connection to Beverly that remains his most enduring tribute to the man who saved his life.

“All those guys up there have been like a family to me,” he said. “Even people I meet in the community, they know who you are and they’re glad to know you’re there. They ask how my family is doing. It’s nice to have that connection.”

The wall will be on display at Beverly High School from Thursday at 5 p.m. to Sunday at 10 a.m., when closing ceremonies will be held.

On Thursday, the 4th annual Riley Rocks Gala will be held at the Danversport Yacht Club. The event raises money to help families who are battling childhood cancer and to fund pediatric cancer research. More than 400 people are expected to attend.

It doesn’t surprise me that Riley created such a legacy. But I have to admit I was unaware of the full story behind the gala and the incredible success it has had raising money and helping so many people.

In 2013, at the age of 6, Riley was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called esthesioneuroblastoma. Over the next three years she bravely underwent 14 rounds of chemotherapy, 104 radiation treatments, and countless hospital stays, medications and blood transfusions.

Beverly responded with love and support. A Riley Rocks fundraiser carnival drew a huge crowd. School PTOs and other groups delivered gift baskets to Riley’s home during a “12 Days of Riley Rocks” event over the holidays. Students at Beverly High started a campaign that led to a landscaped Riley Rocks garden at Lynch Park. Riley met Tom Brady, was named grand marshal of Beverly’s holiday parade, and was given the key to the city by Mayor Mike Cahill on “Riley Fessenden Day.”

Two days after Riley died, hundreds of people attended a candlelight vigil at Lynch Park, next to the Riley Rocks garden, many wearing pink and turquoise, her favorite colors.

Riley’s parents, Kamie and Todd, created the Riley Rocks Memorial Foundation to raise money for cancer research and help other families dealing with childhood cancer. Kamie said the fund came about because, as Riley battled, so many organizations stepped up to help their family because she wasn’t working.

Whenever possible Riley and the family chose to give back to these organizations. Kamie said it was only natural that the mission took shape helping others in the same way their family was so fortunate to receive.

“It's hard for families because your whole entire world goes on pause when your child is sick,” Kamie said.

But it wasn’t until four years ago that the first Riley Rocks Gala was held. And this is the part I didn’t know — the one who came up with the idea was Meghan Fessenden, Riley’s sister.

Meghan was a junior at Beverly High School when she decided to organize a gala as part of a DECA project with her friend, Keelin Cannon. Meghan is Riley’s big sister, but she’s only a year and a half older. She was just 10 years old herself when Riley passed away.

“We were best friends,” said Meghan, who is now 20 and a junior at Coastal Carolina University. “We were inseparable. We were only 18 months apart so we shared friends. We did everything together.”

According to Kendel Davy, a close family friend and a founding board member of the foundation, the initial reaction to Meghan’s big idea for a gala was, “That’s crazy.”

“We were more of a mom-and-pop shop nonprofit,” Kendel said. “But Meghan knows what she wants. She said, ‘I’m doing it. Get on board or don’t.’”

“I wanted it to be much bigger,” Meghan told me. “Something that would bring everyone together in one room.”

The gala raised $25,000 that first year. More people stepped up to help and the amount doubled the next two years — $50,000, then $100,000. It got so big they had to move it to the larger upstairs ballroom at Danversport.

“It gave us so much visibility,” Kendel said. “It started to be this trickling in of gifts. Then we got grants, new donors, and we started to grow the foundation.

“Meghan loves Riley so much and she cares so much about continuing Riley’s legacy and helping families,” Kendel added. “She will not stop. A lot of the ideas we have come from Meghan, like remembering to focus on siblings because she was part of the battle. She said, ‘When people cared about me too, it always made me feel better.’”

Kendel’s connection to Riley’s story also came about through a DECA project. In 2013, when Kendel was a junior at Beverly High School, she and two other students, Jack Morency and Joey Kozlowski, raised money for the Riley Rocks Foundation. She ended up forming a close relationship with Riley and the Fessenden family.

“I feel like it was me, Riley and Meghan. We just did everything together,” Kendel said. “They came to work with me at Dairy Queen. We went to the beach together. They came to my cheerleading competition in Rhode Island. When our team won a national championship, we got jackets for Riley and Meghan.

“I feel like Riley and Meghan have this really infectious, wonderful way. If they love you, they love you so much. They’re so sweet and kind and thoughtful.”

When Kendel gets married next summer, Meghan will be her maid of honor.

Kendel said the work of the foundation would not be possible without its team of volunteers: Amy Nesbitt, Jess Hannon, Ali Lamson, Alex Kelliher, Grace Kowalski, Caroline Munnelly and Mary McDonald.

The foundation has given out over $250,000 in grant money to support over 150 children who are dealing with pediatric cancer. The foundation calls them “Riley’s Rockstars.”

One of those rockstars is Auden Muchnik of Beverly. Auden was diagnosed with bone cancer when she was 18 years old. She received a grant from the Riley Rocks Foundation and has since helped organize the galas and has been one of the speakers.

Auden, 23, said the cancer has come back three times. Doctors told her this last time that it’s terminal, although she wasn’t given a timeline.

“So I’ve just been living with that, trying to make the best of every day, but dealing with a lot of pain from surgery and all of the treatments I’ve done,” she said.

Auden said the grant money from Riley Rocks has helped with the many expenses associated with her treatment, including massages, acupuncture, hypnosis and physical therapy.

Auden called the work of the Riley Rocks Foundation “really inspiring.” In addition to helping out with the gala, she has attended Riley Rocks events for kids with cancer such as shoe painting and a magazine photo shoot.

“Cancer can be quite isolating, so finding a community through that is really important,” she told me. “That’s a big part of what Riley Rocks strives to do. Knowing that you’re not alone really makes the burden for kids easier.”

You can still buy tickets for the 2026 Riley Rocks Gala or become a sponsor here. You can also donate to the Riley Rocks Memorial Foundation, host a childhood cancer drive or a fundraiser, or volunteer.

So far here at The Beverly Beat we’ve taken you on tours of the water filtration plant in Beverly and the sewerage treatment plant in Salem. Maybe not the most exciting places, but don’t you sometimes wonder how these things work?

In that spirit, welcome to your next stop: the Black Earth Compost site in Manchester-by-the-Sea.

Black Earth Compost is where Beverly’s food waste ends up, as long as you don’t throw your food waste in the trash. The tour was organized by Green Beverly, a nonprofit working to lower the carbon footprint of Beverly residents and businesses.

I was one of about 20 people on the tour yesterday. The Black Earth site is located on Pine Street in Manchester-by-the-Sea. You could smell the compost as you got close, although as was the case at the sewerage treatment plant, it’s not nearly as strong as you might think.

The tour was conducted by Black Earth employees Justin Sandler, Cody Chirichiello and Taylor Dubose, and I’m here to tell you that these guys know their stuff. You can tell how committed and passionate they are about composting and its benefits to the environment. At one point during the tour, Chirichiello and another employee, BP, sat down on one of the big piles of compost, looking very much at home.

There are lots of details to composting and recycling, including what can and cannot be composted or recycled. But as Sandler explained, the actual composting process is not super complicated or high tech.

Basically Black Earth sends out a fleet of trucks to pick up the food waste of residents and commercial customers — restaurants, schools, businesses — in dozens of communities in the area. The stuff is brought back to its Manchester facility, dumped inside their large receiving building and mixed with yard waste from the town’s compost site. The material sits there for a month in a controlled environment, with air pumped in through the floor to help decompose the waste and air pulled out of the building into an adjacent bio-filter to mitigate the smell.

After a month, the material is moved by conveyor belt to the top of the site, which is a capped landfill.

There it sits for another five months, continuing the natural decomposition process. The material is screened and picked throughout the whole process for items that could contaminate the compost. One of the biggest culprits are those produce stickers on fruits and vegetables. They don’t break down in the compost pile and are too small to be filtered out in the screening process. So they literally have to be hand-picked out of the finished compost to prevent contamination.

The material is monitored for the correct internal temperature, then tested to ensure maximum nutrient retention, according to Black Earth. The company sells the compost to farms and garden centers and landscapers and its individual customers (you can order online here and Black Earth delivers).

Black Earth is also now offering a new CHaRM service, which stands for Collection of Hard to Recycle Materials. You can sign up for a ‘starter kit’ and they’ll come to your house to collect things like plastic grocery bags, bubble wrap, water and soda bottles, Styrofoam, electronics and lots of other things.

Black Earth Compost was started in 2011 by Conor Miller with a single truck in Gloucester. It has grown “exponentially” over the last few years, Sandler said. It now has four compost facilities, including ones in Groton, Framingham and Wareham. Sandler said they have customers from Cape Cod to Worcester and all of Rhode Island, and have begun getting into Connecticut and southern New Hampshire — about 45,000 residents in all. Black Earth also does composting for events, including Patriots’ games and the recent World Cup soccer games in Foxborough.

Beverly launched its program with Black Earth in 2015 and now has over 1,470 residents participating, according to the city’s website. It costs $99.99 per year for weekly service. Residents get a $20 discount on their annual trash fee for participating, as well as free compost upon request. Black Earth also has commercial customers in Beverly including The Cabot, Organic Garden Cafe, Delphine’s Kitchen, Gentile Brewing, Kid Dream and beantrust.

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Sandler said it would be nice to have more people participating, but said the program should remain voluntary. He said states that have mandated food waste composting have had problems with contaminated waste, because people who aren’t committed to the program don’t always follow the rules regarding what can be composted and what cannot.

Sandler some people have misconceptions about composting. They wonder how it can be good for the environment if all those trucks are driving around picking up the food waste. And they’re skeptical of the fact that Black Earth gets paid on both ends, by customers having their food waste picked up and by the people buying the end product, the compost.

But overall, Sandler said people are starting to get the message about the benefits of composting, both environmental and economical. Instead of shipping trash to Alabama, which Massachusetts does, food waste can be kept local by composting it in Manchester-by-the-Sea and selling the end product locally.

“People are starting to understand the full story of where our trash goes and how much it costs,” Sandler told me. “It’s one of those rare things that is really an environmental and economic win if done at scale.”

In addition to the curbside program, Beverly has established compost drop-off stations in the parking lots at City Hall and Bessie Baker Park. You must register for the program to receive a code to the combination locks at those sites. Green Beverly also has a new compost pilot program with drop-off locations at Hannah Elementary School and Glen Urquhart School. You can register for that program here.

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What’s the solution to the city’s ongoing budget crisis? On a beautiful summer night in July, eight people sat around a table on the ground floor of the Beverly Public Library on Monday and began the thankless task of trying to come up with some answers.

It was the first meeting of the city’s newly formed Deficit Reduction Committee, and I decided to check it out. It was either that or watch the red-hot Red Sox, but hey, The Beverly Beat is here for you.

The group was formed by the City Council upon the recommendation of councilors Kathleen Feldman and John Mullady. The city just came off a grueling process that included layoffs and other cuts to close a $4 million gap in the fiscal year 2027 budget. That gap is expected to be even larger next year. The idea was to form a committee of officials and citizens to brainstorm ideas, starting nearly a full year before the next budget is due, and eventually come up with recommendations.

The committee is made up of eight members, including Feldman, Mullady and School Committee members Kaarin Robinson and Madeline Lennox.

The other four are volunteer citizens:

• Lydia Ames, a Spanish teacher at Beverly Middle School and parent to children in the Beverly Public Schools;

• Christine DePalma, director of capital projects at Salem State University with an extensive background in project management and construction;

• Dan Hughes, corporate controller in manufacturing with a background in finance operations;

• Mark Munoz, retired business owner with a long career as an operations manager.

As they introduced themselves at the start of the meeting, each gave their reasons for volunteering for the committee. Munoz said he has lived in Beverly for 20 years and, now that he’s retired, has time to help out. Hughes said his retired neighbor told him she can’t afford the taxes on her house. DePalma said she changed jobs and has a shorter commute, so she also has more time to volunteer. Ames said she wants to “give the perspective of somebody who cares really deeply about our city.”

Feldman said the goal is to brainstorm possible solutions, research them, invite experts, and produce recommendations. She pointed to a project in Dedham as a model for the group to follow.

“Every other community in Massachusetts is going through a similar crunch,” Feldman said. “The resources are out there.”

The committee tossed around lots of ideas for how the city might be able to save money or raise revenue. Reduce the percentage the city pays for employee health insurance? Seek more voluntary payments from non-profits? Create our own public utility for electricity? Offer early retirement incentives for employees? Cap the number of Beverly students who go to Essex Tech? Charge for summer park programs? Increase Lynch Park parking fees for non-residents? Use local college students to help out in schools? Hire an independent auditor to examine the school budget?

Again, these are just ideas. The committee plans to research them, and many others as they come up, before making any decisions on what to recommend. “We only scratched the surface of ideas,” Feldman said.

As for the possibility of a Proposition 2 1/2 property tax override? That didn’t come up last night, although nobody ruled anything out.

The bottom line for me is that eight people are volunteering to take on this difficult task. Nothing against Facebook commenters, but it’s a lot more difficult to give up your summer nights to get into the weeds of a budget crisis. (Also attending were Bryant Ayles, the city’s finance director; Ward 6 City Councilor Matt St. Hilaire; and three members of the public.)

The meetings are open to the public and will be posted on the city website, so anyone is welcome to attend. Even if the Red Sox keep winning.

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Sorry, nuisance cats. Beverly is about to get a new favorite catchword — the peanutabout.

The city is seeking bids to have a peanut-shaped roundabout — yes, a peanutabout — constructed at the intersection of Brimbal Avenue and Dunham Road. It’s intended to make it easier to navigate the tricky intersection, which also includes on- and off-ramps to Route 128.

We all know about circular roundabouts from the ones up the street on Brimbal Avenue in front of the former Vittori-Rocci Post and on the other end of the connector road at Sohier Road, as well as the one on Essex Street down past the YMCA. I actually think they work pretty well. I’m glad to say I lived to tell the story of the hundreds of left-hand turns I took onto Brimbal from Route 128 while driving to work at The Salem News when it was on Dunham Road, not to mention taking my daughters to North Beverly Elementary School. But I know not everybody loves them (or knows how to use them).

But peanut-shaped? Never heard of that before. It turns out it’s a fairly new traffic design in the United States. Kittelson & Associates, an engineering consulting firm, says on its website that it came up with the first peanut-shaped roundabout design in the country in 2017, for Inman Square in Cambridge. Cambridge ended up not using the design, but it did lead the Boston Cyclists’ Union to coin the term “peanutabout.”

All I can say is, thank you Boston Cyclists’ Union.

This is not the clearest image, but you can see the peanut shape here, in the bid documents the city has posted for the Brimbal/Dunham project.

Here’s a video of the intersection on a recent afternoon. Pretty tricky.

I might not have heard of peanutabouts but Rich Benevento has. Benevento is a traffic engineer and the longtime chairman of the Beverly Parking & Traffic Commission. He told me that everyone in the traffic engineering business knows about the peanut-shaped roundabout in Worcester (below), which was designed to solve a notoriously dangerous intersection.

Here’s a link to a video about that project by VHB, the same firm that provided engineering services on the design of the Brimbal/Dunham roundabout.

A Google search shows that there are also proposed peanutabouts in Massachusetts in Chicopee, West Springfield and Westborough.

Benevento said the peanut shape helps when the intersection involves multiple roadways coming together at different angles. That’s the case here with Brimbal, Dunham and the Route 128 southbound on/off ramps all intersecting.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on there,” Benevento said. “There’s a lot of roadways that intersect. Once people get accustomed to them they work pretty well. They are more efficient.”

Beverly was awarded a $3.5 million grant in 2024 through the state’s MassWorks program to fund construction of the roundabout, as well as an earlier $750,000 grant to pay for the design work.

City officials have said the intersection needs improvement because of the growth over the years at Dunham Ridge, the office park managed by Cummings Properties. The 54-acre campus has several buildings and a 500-car parking garage. Dunham Road, of course, is also home to the North Shore Music Theatre.

Officials say a roundabout and other improvements will make the area safer for vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists, and will also spur further development on Dunham Road. The work will include new sidewalks and a bike lane.

Companies have until Aug. 12 to bid on the Brimbal/Dunham project. The work must be completed by June 30, 2028, according to the bid documents.

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If Yankee Stadium is the House That Ruth built, then Harry Ball Field is the House That Tom — and Duane, and Rodney, and Mike, and many others — built.

I decided to write about Harry Ball Field because it’s the site of this year’s District 15 Little League Williamsport All-Star Tournament finals (Beverly faces Boxford Wednesday night at 6). The fact that Harry Ball — named after a longtime supporter of Beverly sports — is hosting a big tournament is not unusual. It has hosted the Little League state finals several times and is generally considered one of the best Little League facilities in the state.

Most people in Beverly already know that. But I thought it would be a good time to tell the story of how Harry Ball Field actually came to be. It’s a story of unusual commitment and dedication on the part of volunteers, of a time when the community came together to build something everybody can take pride in. And, get this, budget-conscious Beverly — it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime!

This all happened in the early 1990s. Beverly Little League — which started in 1950 and is the oldest Little League in Massachusetts — played its games on several fields around the city, but didn’t have a home of its own. With the growth of soccer and girls sports, there was increasing demand for fields across the city.

Tom Bussone — he’s the ‘Tom’ I referenced at the start of this story — said there was a meeting of all the youth sports organizations to talk about teaming up to build a sports complex. The only problem was money. There was no appetite for the city to pay for it, so it was going to take a lot of fund-raising. And it ended up that Beverly Little League — guys like Tom Bussone and Duane ‘Doc’ Carbone and Rodney Maxner and Mike Dellisola Sr. — took it upon themselves to lead the charge.

Duane, Rodney and Mike have since passed away, so I turned to Tom to get his first-hand account of how Harry Ball Field was built. Tom, a retired lawyer, is now 82 and spends much of his time in Maine and Florida. But he’s still active as chairman of the Beverly Housing Authority board of commissioners.

Tom said he approached then-Mayor Jack Monahan with the idea of building a new Little League park. He and the mayor and a bunch of others piled into a mini-van and rode around town looking for a suitable location.

“We went from field to field to field,” Tom said. “The last field that we went to was where Harry Ball Field is now (410 Essex Street). They had just put in a housing development behind it, and part of the linkage was that they would have to create a park. Jack got people to agree that that could be the field. Little League loved it because we didn’t have to fight the neighbors, we had parking, the space. We had everything we wanted. We just had to come up with a way to pay for this. We promised Jack there would not be a taxpayer dollar spent.”

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Before they could start fundraising, Little League had to take out a loan to get things started. This is where Tom/Duane/Rod/Mike came in.

“The four of us go to the bank to borrow the seed money,” Tom said. “We all had to give personal guarantees — if the project failed, anything that was left over, the four of us would have to pay. Ultimately 10 people signed. But they were relying on the four of us.”

“There was never a doubt in our minds (about signing for the loan),” Tom added. “We were committed to the project. We were going to put our money where our mouth was.”

This is where the heart-warming part comes in. Beverly Little League sent out a city-wide mailing asking for donations. They made pitches on local cable TV. And the money came pouring in.

“We were amazed at how many people threw $1,000 at us,” Tom said. “Some were former players who had gone on to do well. That was their way of paying it forward. It was that kind of involvement. Little League had the ability to raise money, maybe because we were the first in town and everybody had been part of Little League in some way. There was not a family in Beverly that wasn’t touched by Little League.”

It wasn’t just cash donations. When it came time to actually build the park, contractors donated their time and equipment. Tom said one contractor volunteered to build the whole parking lot at his own expense — about $25,000 worth.

“When I talk about it I still get chills about how much the community came together and got that done,” Tom said.

Harry Ball Field officially opened in June of 1994. It had two Little League-sized baseball diamonds, one with lights for night games. There was a two-story clubhouse with a concession stand, and a press box behind one of the diamonds. Bussone estimated the total cost of building the complex at $250,000 to $300,000.

The city still owns the field and Beverly Little League has a long-term license to use it. Little League runs the concession stand and has used the proceeds to pay for hundreds of thousands of dollars of improvements over the years, according to Bruce Doig, the city’s parks and recreation director who was also a long-time Beverly Little League volunteer.

“It was not an easy road,” Doig said of the effort to build Harry Ball. “They took a big risk. But they did it. They got it done.”

Tom Bussone said he’ll sometimes drive by Harry Ball Field and say to himself, “Unbelievable. It’s still there.”

“It’s a personal satisfaction — look what we built,” he said. “That makes me feel good because it was my way of giving back.”

I asked Tom if he thinks people know the origin story of Harry Ball Field, and he said he thinks it’s been mostly forgotten. There’s no plaque honoring the guys who made it happen and even put their own money on the line. But Tom said that’s OK. He told me that his grand-nephew, Bobby McGrath, is playing for the Beverly 12-year-old all-stars in the tournament at Harry Ball (and hit a big home run in last night’s Beverly win). When Bobby’s mother told him that Uncle Tom had built the park, he couldn’t believe it.

"As long as my grand-nephew knows,” Tom said.

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Ends up the city didn’t have to look far for a temporary City Hall.

Mayor Mike Cahill told The Beverly Beat that he signed a lease this morning for City Hall to move into the former TD Bank building, literally the building next door on Cabot Street.

Cahill said the lease starts on Sept. 1 and will cost the city $550,000 to $600,000 over 20 months, the expected length of the stay while City Hall is being renovated.

Cahill said choosing the former bank building will allow City Hall offices to stay downtown and avoid having to split into separate locations.

“We’re able to stay downtown. That’s important,” he said.

The city is planning a $28 million renovation and expansion of historic City Hall that will require everyone to move out of the building. The city had been looking for temporary space since December. It issued two requests for proposals and received a total of four bids.

Only one of those proposals, from Cummings Center, had enough space for all of the city’s needs. The other three proposals came from the Cabot Street YMCA, the former Sterling Insurance building on Cabot Street, and an office building at 138 Conant St.

Cummings Center submitted a proposal that would have required the city to pay about $800,000 for 18 months or $1 million for two years. The Cabot YMCA’s proposal was for $260,082 for 18 months or $347,764 for two years. The 138 Conant proposal was for $205,751 for 18 months or $275,842 for two years. The Sterling Insurance building proposal did not include a price.

The city would have had to use more than one location if it chose the Cabot YMCA, 138 Conant or Sterling Insurance.

Cahill said the cost of leasing the former bank building will be $20 per square foot, which he called a “really good rate.” Visitors will be able to use the parking spaces behind the building, he said.

Cahill said the city will use the month of September to prepare 175 Cabot for the move-in, with the actual move starting at the end of September or beginning of October. He said the renovation of City Hall will start Oct. 1. The work is expected to take 18 months to two years.

175 Cabot St. did not submit a bid during the two rounds of requests for proposals. Cahill said the building was recently sold and the new owners “raised their hand and put a proposal together.”

Cahill said the city is allowed to choose 175 Cabot even though it did not respond to the RFP because, under state bidding laws, municipalities are not required to solicit proposals “if your local jurisdiction has determined that it needs a particular piece of property because of its unique qualities or location.”

According to deed records, the building was purchased on June 22 by Briscoe Partners LLC for $1.45 million. The managers of Briscoe Partners are Paul Herrick, Peter Lutts and Nicholas Zolotas, according to state records. The three men are partners in Herrick Lutts Realty Partners, a Beverly-based real estate company.

175 Cabot is a two-story building located across Thorndike Street from City Hall. It was built in 1860 and was home for years to the Beverly Savings Bank. It was most recently a TD Bank until that closed in January.

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A woman in a banana costume walking a dog through downtown Beverly isn’t the kind of sight most people expect on a summer afternoon. But last year, residents started to look forward to it.

Dressed head-to-toe in yellow as a full yellow banana, Christina Frei became something of a local celebrity — equal parts mystery, whimsy and community cheerleader — before eventually revealing herself as the woman behind the peel.

“I wanted to be a little weird and wacky,” Frei said. “It started with a sequin red flapper dress and moved up to dressing as fruit. It felt super healthy to face my fear of standing out in public.”

Frei, who runs a YouTube channel with about 3,000 followers, and a diverse amount of video content, began turning her playful public appearances into a video series. A familiar face around the North Shore, she brought her costumes to community events and public spaces.

One day she appeared as a bunch of grapes in a Beverly grocery store. Another day, she was a bright yellow sunflower strolling through Marblehead. Soon, residents were anticipating what costume might come next.

“I’ve learned that people either are really nice when you put yourself out there or go about their day,” she said. “The kindness of the community, the willingness of people to go enjoy something silly, gave me a nice sense of humanity. Everything about this channel is facing something I never thought I would be able to face.”

For Frei, performing in costume is nothing new. As a member of Green Beverly, she created a character “The Trash Fairy” to teach children on how to dispose of waste properly.

“The Trash Fairy was creative and theatrical, and really engaged the kids,” said Lisa Willwerth, who met Frei through the Beverly Waste Reduction Committee. “I was working at Beverly Bootstraps at the time and had a stash of fruit and vegetable costumes that I offered to Christina.”

Frei’s community involvement extends beyond costumes and social media. She volunteers with Green Beverly and supports a local women’s shelter by donating a Christmas dinner each year. That effort led her to collaborate with students at Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School.

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“Christina reached out to our superintendent last December regarding a Christmas dinner that she donates each year to a women’s shelter in Beverly,” said Elaine Chirichiello, lead teacher in the school’s Culinary Arts program. “She was not able to prepare the food but still wanted to donate it and wondered if our culinary students would be willing to help out. Of course our students said yes and that’s how it all began.”

Chirichiello said students quickly connected with Frei and the spirit behind her work.

“What struck me most was how engaged they were,” said Chirichiello. “Not only were they excited to show her their program here at Essex Tech, they were actively interested in understanding the impact of what they had done.”

The partnership has continued to grow. In addition to working with culinary students, Frei is collaborating with design students to create her next costume.

“It was clear they saw her as someone doing meaningful work, not just another visitor,” Chirichiello said. “I think they connected so quickly with Christina because she gave them the opportunity to see their trade in a new light. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Students immediately expressed interest in being part of future projects.”

Frei’s playful approach to community-building has also inspired others to join in. A Facebook group called “Bananas on the Town” now has more than 100 members who organize fruit-themed flash mobs, Halloween parties and local meetups.

“I’m having this attitude of, ‘Let’s go do this just because,’” Frei said. “My biggest intention is to bring pure, unadulterated joy to at least one human. When I bring joy to one human, my work here is done.”