Ashlar Starts Older Americans Month On A Positive Note

By Jan Howard

Older Americans Month was kicked off May 3 in Newtown with a talk by Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Diane Smith, who shared stories from her two books, Positively Connecticut and the recently published Absolutely Positively Connecticut.

Ms Smith shared her unique perspectives on Connecticut with about 50 local residents during an afternoon tea hosted by Ashlar of Newtown at Lockwood Lodge. The program was the first of several programs at Ashlar of Newtown in celebration of older adults.

Ms Smith’s books highlight stories about people, places, and things that make Connecticut a unique place. The books showcase collections of her favorite stories from the television segment that was aired for 15 years on WTNH, Connecticut’s ABC-TV affiliate, and is currently seen on Connecticut Public Television (CPTV).

 “I spent 15 years traveling this state for stories,” Ms Smith said of her years as a journalist on WTNH. “The 90s and part of the 80s were not kind to Connecticut. In my travels, I was often asked, ‘Why is it when I turn on the TV all I see is the bad news?’ We went through some hard times, and while we were also telling the good news, the good news was being drowned out.”

Ms Smith said when she broached the idea of the series of good news stories, she thought the segment would be a team effort. Instead, in 1985, only she and a camera crew set out to find the things that make people feel good about Connecticut, things for which people have a passion.

“They have been the most joyful of my years in broadcasting,” she said. “It may be a small state, but you can find anything you can possibly want here. It took me ten minutes to find a place to do dog sledding.”

When it was suggested that she put her stories in a book, “I felt I couldn’t do that,” Ms Smith said. “I was in awe of authors.” But she did write not one, but two books, selecting stories from the TV series that were funny or heartwarming, about people with interesting hobbies or vocations, or who were doing great things in their communities, and about historic sites.

When her editor asked her how she would define what is positively Connecticut, she said all she thought of was passion. “All the stories come down to a person or people who are motivated by passion, about how they choose to spend their lives.”

As one example, she mentioned Herb Barker, who since 1996 has run a cartoon museum that has become one of Connecticut’s most popular tourist attractions.

“He is passionate about cartoons, and wanted to share it with people,” she said. He and his wife had been collecting animation for a long time, so much so that it was all over their house and their office. There were 70,000 pieces in the collection on display and almost as much in the basement, Ms Smith noted. His museum, Mr Barker told her, was his way to give himself the childhood he never had because as a child he had to help out in his family’s store. 

“The museum has something for all ages,” Ms Smith said. “He’s helping others remember things from their childhood.”

A Connecticut doll collector has what Ms Smith referred to as “armies of dolls” in “battalions,” such as Raggedy Anns, bridal dolls, and celebrity dolls. All told, she had 15,000 dolls, Ms Smith noted, and when she was thinking of selling the collection it was appraised at $1 million though she had never paid full price for any of the dolls.

“One thing people are passionate about is history, about where they live or a certain period of time,” Ms Smith said. “There is a lot of real devotion to the history of our area.” As examples, she referred to two historic areas with quarries, Portland, where brownstone was quarried, and Stony Creek in Branford, famous for its pink granite.

“Stony Creek was a very different community before the quarries. It was a typical Yankee community,” Ms Smith said. But skilled labor was needed for the 20 quarries there in 1850. “People were coming from Europe to work there. It became a melting pot community.”

The reason she did a story about Portland was that the community was trying to build tourism around the quarries. Brownstone had gone out of style, and only one quarry was still in operation. The others were flooded, with dark picturesque stone cliffs.

Do you hate it when your dog starts to shed all over the place, and you just can’t stand all the vacuuming? One of Ms Smith’s examples from her books was Kendall Crolius, who learned to spin and now makes garments from dog hair. She wrote a book about knitting with dog hair that has been published in ten countries.

Then there is David Glass, who Ms Smith said is passionate about creating desserts, especially a chocolate truffle cake. “He believes in the power of food.”

Ms Smith has also highlighted people who have a passion for animals, such as Charles Kaman, who trains guide dogs at the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation in Bloomfield, and Lloyd and Joanne Wyatt, who loves winter, because they have a dog sled team of huskies.

“I have met people with a wide array of passions,” Ms Smith said, “passions for all sorts of things.”

Born in Newark, N.J., Ms Smith lives on the Connecticut shoreline with her husband, Tom Woodruff, and her two dogs.

Ms Smith is co-host of the Morning Show on WTIC-AM News Talk 1080, from 5:30 to 10 am. She was a news anchor and reporter at WTNH-TV 8 for more than 16 years, where her reporting earned her an Emmy Award. Her public affairs documentaries have earned state and national awards from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, and other organizations.