Home Care In Upton, MA

A resident of Upton, Massachusetts, made an unexpected discovery during a hike—a balloon with a secret message.

Tim Fobes was hiking along the Sandra Pond trail system in Westborough with his two daughters when they stumbled on the helium balloon.

"My oldest daughter pointed out the balloon in the water," Fobes told Newsweek. "I got a stick and fished it out with the intent of just popping it and throwing it away."

But when he popped the balloon, a note fell out.

"I wasn't able to read it, but by the looks of it, it was written in Russian," said Fobes.

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Prompted by a desire to unravel the mystery, he turned to the online community for help.

"I posted it to Reddit in the hopes someone could translate it," he said.

Shared on r/Pics on Reddit, the post, including a picture of the note, gained over 36,000 upvotes and 1,400 comments.

Before long, a Redditor under the handle u/m4mu came to the rescue, providing a translation.

The translated text revealed a plea, perhaps addressed to a higher power, expressing a longing for growth, compassion and a world free from suffering.

"I ask for a miracle! For a new game in the development of humanity! Where there is no place for cruelty and suffering!" the message read.

"I can only imagine they had filled it with helium and let it go from somewhere a good distance away," Fobes speculated. "While they may have good intentions… the truth is, it's going to end up somewhere it shouldn't and become pollution and someone else's responsibility to clean up."

Reddit users reacted to the poignant message after reading the translation.

"The pain and grief in this letter hits hard," said one.

"American here. Please let this stand as a shining example of us not being so different after all," wrote another. "Most of us want the same damn thing. When will we stop letting the few ruin it for the rest of us?"

A different Reddit user added: "Although it's sad, and I'm an atheist, I'm so happy to see something on reddit associated with Russia or Russians that isn't horrible. "

In other comments, people shared their own experiences of finding unusual things.

One commenter wrote: "I had the remains of a lantern fall into my backyard last summer. The intact portion of it was mourning the loss of a young wife and mother, and had hand written notes from the husband and children on it. It was incredibly depressing to find."

Correction 02/29/24 10:55 a.m. ET: The spelling of Tim Fobes was corrected.

UPTON — Instead of a board of selectmen, the town's top governing board is a select board.

The name change from "board of selectmen" to "select board" occurred once Town Meeting voters approved two articles at the Nov. 7 Special Town Meeting. Upton now joins a long list of area towns that changed to a gender-neutral name for its governing body.

The two articles were requested by the Select Board. The first proposed to change the name from "Board of Selectmen" to "Select Board" in Upton's local general and zoning bylaws. The second article seeks residents' approval to petition the Legislature to change the name.

Previously:Upton could be latest Mass. community to make this change with its board of selectmen

"It's not something new," Town Manager Joseph Laydon previously told the Daily News. "Many towns have made this change. The state agency that represents Board of Selectmen members (the Massachusetts Select Board Association) changed its own name to reflect change."

Upton's current three-member Board of Selectmen includes two women — Chair Maureen Dwinnell and Laura Hebb, the latter of whom joined after winning election in May. The third member is Brett Simas.

Select Board members did not respond to a request for comment.

More municipal boards switch to gender neutral designations

Upton is now among many Massachusetts cities and towns using gender-neutral designations for their governing bodies. Several towns near Upton — including Milford, Hopkinton, Westborough, Grafton, Mendon and Hopedale — have already made the change. In January 2021, the former Massachusetts Selectmen’s Association was renamed to become the Massachusetts Select Board Association.

Advocates for the change have flagged the use of “man” or “men” in titles as casual gender bias and have said the gender-specific term is a subtle way of discouraging women from running for the highest local office.

Most cities already had gender-neutral titles, such as "city council," when a push to remove gender from top boards began to gain momentum in 2019. Massachusetts' last "board of aldermen," in Melrose, changed to "city council" that year.

So long, selectmen:More Mass. communities are adopting gender-neutral titles

That made title changes an issue for towns, where townwide approval was needed at the centuries-old New England tradition of Town Meeting.

The movement to change the names of municipalities' governing bodies has faced opposition, citing tradition and cost.

How much does it cost to change to select board?

A 2021 Daily News survey of seven communities in which "board of selectmen" either became "select board" or "selectboard" in the previous year, or were in the process of doing so, found that expenses ranged from less than $1,000 to close to $8,000.

Costs cited by the seven communities included those associated with calling a Town Meeting or local election, changing letterhead or nameplates, and legal fees. Most town officials pegged the cost as not significant or “minimal.”

Milford changed its top governing body's name in 2021. At the time, its finance director estimated it would cost $1,000 to $2,000.

Ashland ended up with the highest estimate, about $8,000, as the change required hiring an outside company to rework the town’s bylaws, replacing “selectmen” with the newly chosen title, select board.

The Nov. 7 Special Town Meeting in Upton took place at Nipmuc Regional High School. Along with the name change, voters approved spending $110,000 for exterior improvements to two town-owned buildings — the former Holy Angels church building and the Risteen Building.

Voters also approved $114,000 to upgrade the cemetery records to move to a new computerized system and to reconcile records.

As of March 2024, the average solar panel system costs $3.30/W including installation in Upton, MA. For a 5 kW installation, this comes out to about $16,496 before incentives, though prices range from $14,022 to $18,970. After the federal tax credit, the average price drops by 30%.

You'll probably pay even less than what we show here. It doesn't include the federal ITC or Upton, MA state incentives, which will lower this price by at least a few thousand dollars.

It may seem obvious but larger solar panel systems cost more money. We use cost per watt ($/W) so you can easily compare quotes, controlling for slight variations in system size.

While a 5 kW system will only cost you $16,496 in Upton, MA, doubling the system size effectively doubles the price, so you'll pay about twice that for a 10 kW system. The higher the price tag, though, the more you'll get back as a credit towards your federal tax bill.

Average solar cost by system size in Upton, MA

Solar panels are worth it in most areas, including Upton, MA. Certain factors, including the cost of electricity, incentives, climate, and the angle at which the sun hits your roof impact how quickly you break even on your investment relative to other areas around the U.S.

If you pay for your system with cash, you'll save about $107,300 over 20 years on electricity costs with a 5 kW system in Upton, MA. We generate this estimate based on real solar quote data from our Marketplace. It considers your system's cost, the federal tax credit, and inflation rates.

If you can't shell out $16,496 in cash to pay for solar, don't sweat it. You can choose to finance your system with a loan instead. Some companies even offer $0-down loans so you can start saving on day one if your loan payments are less than your current electric bills. Just keep in mind that your long-term savings will be lower with a loan due to interest rates.

The numbers we're showing are averages. The price you'll pay for solar depends on many factors unique to you and your home:

Solar is a major purchase, but you can get the price tag to come down a bit by being an educated shopper. Taking advantage of incentives and rebates and shopping around for quotes can bring down your cost of solar in Upton, MA.

As long as your federal tax bill is high enough, you can take advantage of the federal tax credit in Upton, MA. This incentive allows you to apply 30% of your solar installation and equipment costs toward your federal tax bill. If the amount exceeds your tax bill, you can roll over the remaining credit to the following year. Many states also offer great local incentives and rebates.

Comparing multiple solar quotes can save you money through competition and transparency. Each additional quote you receive for solar will help you find the right solar panel system at the right price.

This is where EnergySage can help. With funding from the Department of Energy’s SunShot Prize, EnergySage opened the country’s first (and now the largest) marketplace for home solar panel installations. We gather custom solar quotes from local installers on your behalf and put them in an easy-to-compare format. When you compare quotes for solar panels on the EnergySage Marketplace, you can expect to see prices up to 20% lower than if you work with a single solar company.

Commemoration project set to be completed soon

UPTON – The days of the one-room schoolhouse are long gone, but many of the structures still remain around Massachusetts towns as a reminder of a past no one is alive to tell us about first-hand.

Historical Commission member and retired Upton teacher Joan Burrell said the commission has five commemorative plaques to be placed on the old schoolhouses in town, to highlight that history in Upton.

In what looks like the woods on the side of the road on North Street now stands a chest-high granite post with a bronze plaque reading “Site of District 6 Schoolhouse, 1850.” The plaque sits in front of the remains of the old building - the only remaining piece is the foundation for a shallow basement.

District 6 was the first one to go up and was the only brick schoolhouse in town in 1850. Burrell said the building was 20 by 30 feet with about eight windows. In an article she wrote about the dedication plaque on North Street, she detailed the history of the school.

“It was very durable and not as drafty as the wooden schools. It would take hours to heat up on a cold winter morning,” she wrote. “The teacher and older students would arrive early to start the stove and bring in buckets of water for drinking and hand washing.”

She found in an 1850s census that approximately 12 students ranging in age from 4 to 12 attended the school, with children as young as 3 sometimes accompanying their siblings to school. This, she wrote, was probably the earliest form of daycare.

Each school year had two sessions, winter and summer. Most of the teachers were women, earning about $15 a session, and using $5 to pay for room and board. The less-frequent male teachers, however, were paid $30 a session.

In an interview with the Daily News, Burrell said that there are five schools being dedicated and the project should be completed within the next month. The others, she said, still have the structures intact. The other locations, she said, are now privately owned property around town.

“I think that they (the schoolhouses) were built by the people in the district, it was up to them to build them” she said. “The people in this town were most interested in educating their children. They were all very religious and reading the Bible was most important.”

At the time, she said, a lot of the reason for going to school was to learn how to read specifically for the purpose of church and prayer, in addition to basic writing and math.

Burrell took on the project of getting the plaques in place soon after joining the commission about two years ago.

“At the very first meeting I was at, these plaques were put on the table,” she said. “They said that they were found in the attic of the historical society museum and we felt we should have them.”

Burrell looked at the plaques and said “well, why are they in boxes and not where they should be?” Her comment, she said, got her assigned to the project. With a donated granite post from the DPW and a bit of their help, the first sign went up.

“I was always interested in the town’s history … I’ve been working on this for about two years to make it happen,” she said. “It’s nice to know it’s going to happen,” she laughed.

Scott Calzolaio can be reached at [email protected] or 508-734-0389. Follow him on Twitter @ScottCaz

UPTON — For Ralph Whitney, the fastest road to nearly half a million bucks was responding to his wife's plea for help after her car became disabled.

Better yet, she ended up not needing the help.

Whitney, who works as a mechanic at Ken's Foods in Marlborough, bought a winning lottery ticket last month for “The Fastest Road to $1 Million” game. He made the purchase at the Honey Farms convenience store on Main Street.

"My wife called me, saying that her car had broken down at my son's school, as she had gone to pick him up from school," Whitney told the Daily News. "I tried to help her on call, but nothing worked so I decided to go help her."

But his wife's car started working before he could get there, and he ended up going to Honey Farms. Whitney said he got lucky, because if not for his wife's call, he would not have gotten that lottery ticket.

Whitney took the cash option, receiving a one-time payment of $650,000 before taxes. He was was presented with a check for $461,500 by the Massachusetts State Lottery.

Honey Farms will receive $10,000 for selling the ticket. A spokesperson at the store declined to comment.

Whitney said he had many things on his mind when it came to how he would use the money.

First, to thank the woman who sold him the winning ticket, he sent a thank-you card with some money in it.

"I told the lady that if I won big, I would do something for her," he said. "She is going to be using the money to go on a vacation to New Hampshire."

He also spent some of the money to pay down his house, buy a pickup truck and help fund his nephew's college education.

However, his top priority to open a trust for his son, who is autistic.

"My son is 14 years old," said Whitney. "By the time he turns 18, he might still need some help. So, setting up a trust fund for him can be useful."