A Look Back, Dec. 23

Jim Bridgman
Published: 12-22-2024 11:01 AM |
■By 8:30 this morning more than 100 people were lined up, stretching around Pleasant and Armory Streets, waiting to sign up for unemployment checks. These were some of the 2,000 Hampshire County workers who have been temporarily or “indefinitely” laid off during the holiday season.
■In the Year of the Great Slump, Hampshire County residents can be proud of the way in which they have responded to fundraising efforts. Faced by high prices in stores and a lessening of the real worth of paychecks, residents here have, nevertheless, brought the Hampshire United Way to within $4,400 of its $200,000 goal.
■With hospitals from Hampshire County to Springfield full, doctors have been scrambling to come up with an emergency plan to send patients out of the region for treatment if necessary. The Cooley Dickinson Hospital and three other major Pioneer Valley hospitals were full Tuesday, and only a handful of intensive care unit beds were available in the whole region.
■More than 55 years after World War II deprived them of their chance to graduate from high school, 18 of Northampton’s veterans will get a diploma at a special ceremony next month. The program, to be held at JFK Middle School, is part of a national effort to award diplomas to veterans.
■The University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a $5 million state grant to run a major air traffic control research and training center at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee. Plans are also being considered to make the base the site of low-cost flights to Washington D.C. and Disney World, or a repair facility for a major airline.
■Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz welcomed Gov. Deval Patrick after the governor arrived in the city on the inaugural ride of the Amtrak Vermonter Monday afternoon. When the Vermonter’s new route and schedule along the “Knowledge Corridor” starts Dec. 29, service through Northampton will consist of a southbound stop at 1:31 p.m. and a northbound stop at 4:03 p.m.