First Person: An older ode to Kelley Square
Mary Reynolds
Special to Worcester Magazine
Two years ago the young Shane Matthews wrote a well-written ode to Kelley Square that I found charming yet understated. You were, after all, Shane, only 27 years old.
As a 68-year-old who grew up on Vernon Hill, I see Kelley Square from a different lens. I was 10 years old when Ascension Grammar School closed and merged with St. John’s Grammar School. Off we marched down Vernon Street, through Kelley Square, down Water Street, over Pond Street, through an abandoned and litter-filled lot and into the school yard. Did our parents think anything of this dangerous trek for such little people? Apparently not !! And for us it was filled with wonder Red Bergeron’s Third Base Bar (open for the 11-7 workers at the local factories), Lederman’s Bakery, Widoff’s Bakery, etc.. On the way home we chose the Green Street route, where the wonderful people at Table Talk Pies gave us the mistakes for
We Three Kings premiere
Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial presentation of “ … And They Lynched Him on a Tree” by William Grant Still and the world premiere of Rudy Perrault’s “We Three Kings.” I was unfamiliar with this specific work by Still as it is a choral work, but what I learned about it and how significant a work it is makes me want to hear it again and again! I really wish it were performed more regularly.
On the same program was a work by my UMD colleague Jean Perrault. This work is a premiere for the memorial event, the use of extremes and dissonance really captures for me the pain and discord. Thankful music could connect the past and present.