The Daily Item: May 27, 2022

A8 FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2022
Nothing to Fear Day
ILLUSTRATION |
SAM DEEB
National Grape Popsicle Day, National Wig Out Day, Old-Time Player Piano Day
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Lynn Rotary Club honors eighth graders
ITEM PHOTO | SPENSER HASAK
The Rotary Club of Lynn honors Lynn eighth-graders, from left, Hecmarie Borgos Rivera, Lynn
Vocational Technical Institute; Cilian Gomez, Pickering Middle School; Issy Reyes, St. Mary’s;
Rojeiris Cruz Santana, Marshall Middle School; Marleny Nolasco Hernandez, Breed Middle
School, for their achievements on Thursday. Presenting the awards were Rotary Club members
Ray Bastarache, left, and Richard Ruth.
Ellen DeGeneres ends daytime
show with plea for compassion
By Lynn Elber
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Ellen
DeGeneres brought her
nearly two-decade daytime
talk show to an end
Thursday with a celebrity
lovefest and a forceful assertion
of her achievement
as a gay woman daring to
be herself.
DeGeneres and guests
Jennifer Aniston, Billie
Eilish and Pink shared
memories and affection
as “The Ellen DeGeneres
Show” concluded its Emmy-winning,
3,200-plus
episode run that began in
September 2003.
“Twenty years ago, when
we were trying to sell
the show, no one thought
Veterans
Food Market in
Nahant Continues
Through Summer
By Oksana Kotkina
ITEM STAFF
NAHANT — The town
continues to have the
Veterans Mobile Food
Market — a farmer’s market
style distribution of
assorted foods for Veterans
in need, and their families.
The food is distributed at
the Town Hall from the
side entrance at Pleasant
Street. According to Jon
Lazar, the town’s veterans
agent, they will be
preparing food for about
50 families for their next
event in June.
“In terms of the numbers,
they went down a
little, to about 40; during
COVID it was about 60.
Since May the numbers
are going up, maybe it has
something to do with the
economy,” said Lazar.
The next events are
planned for June 1 and
July 6 from 9 to 10:30
a.m. at Town Hall, and
all veterans, widows, and
widowers, as well as the
dependents of veterans
are invited to participate.
All first-time participants
need to verify their veteran
status.
“This is designed for veterans,
widows of veterans,
and their families,” said
Lazar. “We get proteins,
fruits, and vegetables, and
we do this once a month.”
Veterans Mobile Food
Market is sponsored by
the Town of Nahant’s
Department of Veterans’
Services, in partnership
with the Greater Boston
Food Bank and Bank of
America. The food market
also has partnerships
with the American Legion
Auxiliary and the Nahant
Council on Aging.
The communities of
Nahant, Chelsea, Revere,
and Winthrop hold
these events on the first
Wednesday of every
month. The food is provided
by donations from
the Greater Boston Food
Bank.
“We get about 1,000
pounds of food on average,”
said Lazar. “You have
people in teams packaging
the food and delivering the
food to the communities.”
According to Lazar, the
event grew since it first
began in 2016 – at first
there were around 22
recipients at events each
month. The following year
that number increased
to up to 45 recipients on
average. In 2020 the food
market saw up to 60 people
a month.
“When the pandemic
was at its highest, we had
around 60 people show up
each month,” said Lazar.
“It shifted back to 40 to
45, but with these new
variants I think it could go
up again soon.”
Lazar said around 14
volunteers are helping
this year, along with the
Department of Public
Works (DPW), which will
help deliver food. The participants
are required to
bring their own reusable
cloth grocery bags; as the
town’s supply is very low.
The veterans are responsible
for transporting the
food distributed to them,
and for that end they are
strongly encouraged to
bring someone who can
assist them or to send
their authorized representatives.
In advance of the next
events, the town reminds
that everyone who
has participated in our
program in the past is already
registered. For more
information, please visit
https://nahant.org/veterans-services/foodbank/.
Oksana Kotkina can be
reached at oksana@itemlive.com.
Singing about suffrage, and thinking about current struggles
By Jocelyn Noveck
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Phillipa
Soo says she noticed a
change in the audience
immediately.
News had just dropped
of the Supreme Court’s
leaked draft opinion that
would overturn Roe v.
Wade, and there was a
different vibe coming from
the audience at “Suffs,” in
which the former “Hamilton”
star plays an early
20th-century suffragist.
Some audience members
at the Public Theater
seemed to be clearly
feeling a link, she says,
that this would work. Not
because it was a different
kind of show, but because I
was different,” DeGeneres
said of the pushback from
TV stations.
When the syndicated
show went on the air, she
was prevented from saying
the word “gay” or even the
pronoun “we,” DeGeneres
said, since the latter would
imply she had a partner.
She didn’t specify who
imposed the ban. “Sure
couldn’t say wife, and
that’s because it wasn’t
legal for gay people to get
married — and now I say
‘wife’ all the time,” DeGeneres
added, with a touch
of defiance, as actor Portia
de Rossi watched from the
studio audience.
between two struggles
100 years apart — over
a woman’s vote, and over
women’s reproductive
rights.
“There’s a difference in
how people were hearing
this play,” says Soo,
who plays real-life labor
lawyer and activist Inez
Milholland in the musical.
She describes “audience
members literally reaching
their hands up in
solidarity with what we’re
saying — in the same
week that all of this stuff
was happening in the
news surrounding abortion
and bodily autonomy.”
“Suffs” creator and star
Shaina Taub had the
same feeling that Tuesday
in early May. That
afternoon, Taub had led
many of her cast members
in song — “How Long,”
a cry for liberty — at a
lower Manhattan rally
reacting to the Supreme
Court leak. Taub told the
crowd how the scene, with
protesters and their giant
banners, looked strikingly
like a suffrage rally a
century earlier. “I wanted
to write a play that was
there for us on days like
that,” Taub says.
It was one of many
impactful moments the
cast recalls of an eventful,
PHOTO | ASSOCIATED PRESS
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, is embraced
by Jennifer Aniston during the final taping of
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” at the Warner
Bros. lot in Burbank, Calif.
emotional run that began
in April with huge buzz
and advance sales, then
was sorely challenged by
COVID-19, forcing some
20 canceled shows including
opening night itself.
Extended three times, the
run now closes May 29,
and there are certainly
hopes of a renewed life
elsewhere.
“I think the show should
live on and give as many
people as possible the
opportunity to see it,” says
director Leigh Silverman,
asked if there were hopes
of a Broadway transfer.
“That’s my hope for it.”
PHOTO | ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nikki M. James during a performance of the
musical “Suffs” at The Public Theater in New
York.
WEATHER
LOTTERY
SUN, MOON, TIDES
Sunrise today 5:12 a.m.
Sunset today 8:10 p.m.
Sunrise tomorrow 5:11 a.m.
High tide today 10:25 p.m.
Low tide today 4:07 p.m.
High tide tomorrow11:07 p.m.
MAY 27 JUNE 3
National weather
Seattle
e
59/49
San Francisco
66/556/
Pressure
H L
High Low
Los Angeles
72/58
L
Billings
ings
76/53 Minneapolis
76/59
Denver
86/56
6
El Paso
101/71
1/
Kansas City
77/60
H
Houston
92/68
AccuWeather.com
Forecast for Friday, May 27, 2022
Bands separate high temperature zones for the day.
Chicago
63/52
Cold
Detroit
73/56
Atlanta
80/62
Fronts
Warm
New York
77/65
7
Washington
76/64
6
Miami
90/78
Stationary
Showers Rain T-storms Flurries Snow Ice
-0s 0s