Coming Monday In Environment:

Coming Monday in Environment: Keene State students engage in detailed study of trees at Robin Hood Park

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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2009

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She was a sight: a homeless elderly woman sleeping on benches or a chair as the daytime bustle went by on nearby Main Street. Mildred didn’’t want to be with her family. She didn’’t want to be in a shelter. While many homeless people in the Keene area go to shelters or set up camp in the woods, she stood out because of where she was –– and how old she was.

Age not a boundary for those on the street

Saturday X A look at the people living in Keene’s ‘Tent City’

Today

By DAVID P. GREISMAN Sentinel Staff

X How does an elderly woman live on the streets in Keene? MICHAEL MOORE / Sentinel Staff

Mildred E. Dearden, 73, spent much of the summer on the streets of Keene. “The Lord is the one that looks after me,” said Millie, shown here in July in Keene.

Monday X What services are available to help those in need?

““Millie,”” the man called out. ““Millie?”” She was asleep, sitting outside, stationed on a collapsible chair in the shade behind a store off Main Street in Keene. Her head was leaning far to the left, unsupported. For a moment, she was unresponsive. ““I’’m very hard at waking up some-

times,”” she said later. ““Some lady came by this morning. She thought I was dead. She called the police.”” Her name is Mildred. She declined to give her last name. When The Sentinel met her in July, she was 73 years old and, for the second time in her life, homeless. She has since left Keene to spend the winter with family. Since spring she had lived around the city’’s downtown, often sitting, sometimes sleeping, occa-

sionally both. ““I don’’t sleep at night sometimes, so I sleep during the day,”” Mildred said, peering out from thin blue glasses, her short, white curly hair coming out from a black, starpatterned hat. She had on brown, flower-patterned slippers and, on a warm, sunny day, multiple layers of sweaters still on from the previous night. See MILLIE on Page A-5

BALING OUT A BEVY OF CHRISTMAS TREES

A quest for some simple riches

Ray Custodio of Keene pulls a tree through a baler at Windswept Mountains View Christmas Tree Farm in Richmond Saturday, as a dusting of snow falls. For more holiday photos from the farm, which was packed with treeseekers, see page A-3.

long for simplicity in this holiday season. Maybe I’’m just weary of swirling around the vortex of technology, wondering why my year-old GPS and yet-to-purchase Kindle, that electronic book-reading device, are about to be supplanted by the latest doit-all iPhone gizmo. Both of those stories came over the tech wire this week. Here today, gone tomorrow. There’’s A SLICE nothing OF LIFE wrong with the inexBy STEVE GILBERT orable march Sentinel columnist of technology. I flail around the living room with my kids’’ Wii, making like Tiger Wo ... Phil Mickelson ... and have reconnected with many long-lost chums of decades past on Facebook. I’’d like a flatscreen TV. But I’’m technologically tired.

I

AMANDA BOROZINSKI / Sentinel Staff

See SEEKING on Page A-4

INSIDE TODAY PAGE A-3

Seniors, teens team up for Wii games Program a hit at the Keene library

REGION SLICK GOING: Saturday’s light snowfall caused major headaches for some drivers in towns around Keene. PAGE A-7

NATION OPEN HOUSE: Once upon a time, anyone could walk through the White House — without an invitation. PAGE B-1

SPORTS OWLS SPLIT: Keene State College opened league play in basketball Saturday on the road at UMass-Boston, with mixed results.

By SARAH PALERMO Sentinel Staff

No one saw the victory coming. The entire group was blinded by the strikes Keene’’s Margurite Castor kept rolling. Roll after roll, the pins laid down for her like grass before a lawnmower. Castor was the crowd favorite, the perceived winner well before the fifth frame. Bill Stempkowski, also of Keene, bowled well enough: a steady stream of spares that made him throw up his hands in despair. He’’d come in second, he just knew it. In the sixth frame though, there it was. A big black X in his score row. When it was all over, the scores were tallied, and Stempkowski had to be told three times he had won before he be-

lieved it. ““I’’m flabbergasted,”” he said, beaming from ear to ear. And he was off to the next challenger: David Bowie. No, Bowie wasn’’t at Yankee Lanes, or any other Monadnock Region bowling facility. He was singing ““Let’’s Dance,”” on a dance competition video game in the basement of the Keene Public Library on Thursday afternoon. Every Thursday, the library sets up video and board games for teens to play after school. This week was the first of what many said they hope becomes a standing date between the teens and members of the Keene Senior Center, members like Castor and Stempkowski. The bowling game is part of the Nintendo Wii, an interacSee AREA on Page A-4

STEVE HOOPER / Sentinel Staff

Marguerite Castor of Keene “bowls” during a Wii game at the Keene Public Library as Bill Stempkowski waits his turn.

THE SENTINEL IS PRINTED WITH SOY INK USING RECYCLED PAPER.

INDEX 1

8 03 28 00 00 2

Established 1799

6

CLASSIFIEDS E SECTION DEAR ABBY C-2 HOROSCOPE E-6 IDEAS & EDUCATION D-1

LETTERS LIFE & FAMILY LOTTERIES OBITUARIES

D-3 C-1,C-2 A-2 A-4

WEATHER OPINION D-2 SPORTS B SECTION SUNDAY DIVERSIONS E-6 Today: 66 pages, 7 sections

Today Sunny, high of 35, low of 20

New Hampshire’’s Oldest Newspaper ... Guarding the Past, Tending Tomorrow

K C

Monday

22 35 LOW HIGH

See complete weather on page A-4

211th year, No. 336