BY SAL GIARRATANI
COOKIE AND CHARLESTOWN BACK ON BNN-TV
I am so happy that Cookie Giordano will once again be doing a Charlestown program on BNN-TV. Her old show, «Charlestown Live›› was on the air for nine years and became a vital part of Charlestown›s life. Her new show is called «All Charlestown & Beyond» and will offer programs of interest to the entire city with special emphasis on topics that hit home for Townies right here at home.
Cookie and I have been friends going back years when we both worked for Gloria Conway at the old Charlestown Patriot when it was located in the old Bank Building in Thompson Square.
She is a class-act journalist and always puts her heart and soul into the subjects she shares with viewers and back in the day with readers. She is Charlestown. This is her home. This is where her roots are. This community is her passion. You can sense it immediately.
Her new show runs live on BNN-TV on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month on Boston’s Comcast 9, RCA , Channel; 15 or on the web at http://www..bnntv.org/. Call-in phone number is 617.708.3290. Join the conversation.
KUDOS TO SMOKEY CAIN ONE GREAT DUDE
I proud to say I am a friend of Smokey Cain. He is one great guy and clearly a positive force in the community as it fights the fight against drug addiction. There are many great survivors in recovery who have the ability to hopefully inspire others to take on the battle before the battle takes their lives.
Today he is paying back all those Townies who came to his aid like Peter Looney and Billy Boyle who try to see through all the *#@* out there and see the human faces of those suffering on a daily basis. Charlestown has had a drug problem for a very long time. Substance abuse needs to be tackled generation to generation. It is so easy to get hooked, so difficult to get clean. However, many have got cleaned and are traveling on the road to recovery. This battle never ends for them or the rest of us who are witnesses to their self-destructive behaviors.
Smokey is Charlestown’s Number 1 DJ. He is giving back to his community in his own way with his music and with his voice of experience. He has joined the ranks of Peter Looney, Billy Boyle and so many others in the past and present who are true community heroes and leaders.
Keep it up Smokey, what you are now doing is music to our ears. You had a tough year and many before it too but you are a survivor because you are strong and not afraid to stand up and speak out for the young people of Charlestown many of whom are struggling with their demons.
WHERE’S THAT PRETTY WOMAN SPOTTED ON MAIN STREET
Last week as I was about to cross over from the Bunker Hill Mall on Main Street headed to Bunker Hill Florist, I spotted a young woman looking down at the front of her parked car. I noticed an oil spot on the street. I told her the spot wasn’t from her car. She said she was actually looking at her front license plate thinking it was hanging crooked. I told her the license plate indeed was crooked rising up to the right. She thanked me for the second opinion and then asked if I would look at her rear bumper. She was proud about something and I quickly found out why.
She had a cut in her plastic bumper, which she said was caused by a municipal snow plow driver this past winter up in a town off I-93. She was miffed and went to the town hall and was persistent that the town should pay for the damages. She never gave up and eventually she got a check from the town.
I asked her if she was from Charlestown but she said she recently moved here. I told her she sounded just like a real Townie with her attitude about getting things done. She laughed and said, alas, “I am from Winchester.”
She did tell me she loves reading the Patriot and I told her to keep on reading it because I wrote Townie Tidbits in it.
Sometimes it is so nice to meet someone by pure chance and have a great conversation with them. To often most of us live like strangers to one another, afraid to make any real human contact.
A brief conversion put a smile on two peoples’ faces. That›s a positive thing. That’s what Charlestown should always be about. If you are out there “Pretty Woman” reading this, thanks for a pleasant memory.
FINALLY…
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