Citizen Kelley: Standing with Local Hero Larry Kelley

Sound and Fury

(Amherst, MA. September 11): 
We in scholarly Amherst like to think we're the center of wisdom.

Nevertheless, often, we can be as closed-minded as many an academic 'burg - and in our most grandiose overreaches we achieve a pettiness, didacticism and tragedy worthy of Horton Foote's Orphans' Home Cycle characters of Harrison, East Texas.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...! 

Kevin Joy and Larry Kelley unfurl the Big One on the Town Common, 2011

Counterpoint: Each year on September 11, Larry Kelley and many other local citizens, police and firefighters help bring attention to this momentous day in the history and life of our nation.  Believe it or not, this upsets some in the town.

Viewed from within the Amherst bubble, Fox News appears downright alien

Larry was called to Boston last week to appear on Fox News, to explain to the rest of Planet Earth just how we in Amherst make sense of things, such as debating whether and how we ought to raise the flag on 9/11.   Predictably, we have a Professor here in town who attested before the Town Select Board on September 10, 2001 - the evening before the attacks - that Amherst should not fly the American flag because "[The U.S.] flag is a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and oppression."  This was eleven years ago, and got us plenty of attention in the aftermath as you would imagine.

What's rich is that so many fellow travelers here used to believe (circa 2000-2008) that dissent was the highest form of patriotism; now, in our current 'flap' over whether to raise the flag on 9/11 we simultaneously prove, and truly get to re-test, this maxim.

Tell It, Brother

Fast forward to 2012: There's more to the story, but in a nutshell one third of the town electors like to see the flag, so citizens get to see it once every fifth year.  What ???  Essentially, many in Amherst have "mixed feelings" about being part of the United States, the balance know that the town should observe 9/11, and so the Select Board put the flag-flying to a vote of the unruly 200+ Town Meeting congregation some years ago and - like Mayor Villaraigosa last week - made the determination that the vote had gone 2:1 against flying the flags.  The ingenious solution? Fly the flags every third year, to reflect public sentiment!  Then, at ten years, the Select Board voted to make it every fifth year because - I suppose - 5 years is an easier rhythm to remember than 3.

You're Wearing That, Larry ??

As town gadfly, Larry Kelley's daily local impact - and his occasional national prominence - are notorious, and thus frequently rankle the populace and the powers that be.

Flag-raising is only one front for soldier Kelley, and this week's national media attention not the first time he's figured in Amherst's questionable notoriety.

Loyal local patriot Stanley Dornakowski

In large part through Larry's civic-minded agitation, the melodramas of Amherst's high school drama department - (1999: first school or town ever to ban West Side Story, which has been performed in over 3,000 communities, over imaginary "racism"; 2004: righteous acting-out by staging the Vagina Monologues) -  have brought Amherst under Good Morning America's lens and drawn international O'Reilly Factor scrutiny for the healthy dose of opprobrium that some think we so richly deserve.

Fanfare for the Common Man (photo - C. Jones)

Larry is also an entrepreneur (and married to an entrepreneurship professor - they know what-of they speak in that household) who has operated a successful local fitness and instruction business, and had a hand in establishing a superior Chinese Immersion Charter School in the area, naturally a threat to the local public school hegemony.

Now he energetically publishes the fine "hyper-local" news blog Only In Amherst.

Larry holds everyone's feet to the fire, including mine.  He forces the town government to be more transparent, the school committee more accountable, the university - administration, students, and the larger eco-system such as party-house landlords - to be more responsible.

He raises the standards of local journalism through competition and innovation.

We need more Larry Kelleys.

Cinda and Larry frame the real issue

As a sixth generation Amherst native, Larry also contributes much to the community in his role of ersatz local history curator.  The current speculation on the existence of a second photographic image of our Emily Dickinson is something Larry reported on 3 weeks ahead of the local press, and he has the bloodline to pursue the facts.  Larry is a Local Hero.

Remember Our Heroes today

And meet two of mine: Ann Judge and Jerry Della Salla