The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 17

THE BOSTON GLOBE MONDAY. OCTOBER 4. 1982 17 Business 21 The old man and the sea 'Z A hearing tomorrow on plea of Lenox 7 "7 i -I Route 128 isn't lost By Jerry Ackerman Globe Staff Bostonjs legendary Rte. 128, which was given" yet another accolade a few weeks ago Nvith new signs marking it as "Americans Technology Highway," Is about to make a comeback. The "Golden Horseshoe" that reshaped the face of eastern Massachusetts had just about faded from view in the last seven years.

Notwithstanding the ingrained beliefs of most of the 85,000 commuters who daily drive Rte. 128, long stretches In 1. Associated Press The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments tomorrow on the highway busiest parts, from Woburn to Braintree, disappeared in 1975. Since then that 47-mile stretch has been Rte. 128 only in the mind.

The part from Woburn to Canton is designated Rte. 95. From Canton to Braintree it Is Rte. whether seven young Lenox men should go to jail for the drownings of two young men who died in connection with' a fight sparked by a high-school rivalry. The seven were convicted of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of assault and battery each in the June 5, .1981, drownings of Barry Griffin, 19, and Richard Retzel.

18, of Lee. I Griffin's and Retzel's bodies were found in a 1971 white Cadillac pulled from Laurel Lake a few hours after the seven defendants finished a nitfht relphratfntf He gives kids more than an 'Opportunity' By Robert B. Kenney Globe Staff PORTLAND. Maine He is a craggy, retired Yankee ship captain and for 50 years a boat builder. His name is Donald A.

Crandall and, at 74, he's about to add another chapter to his local legend. It will be Chapter 20. He will appear as "The Captain" in a segment of Nancy Reagan's forthcoming book, "To Love a Child." It tells of Crandall's work with troubled youth, his efforts to teach them boat-building and seamanship. The book, which Is about the nationwide volunteer Foster Grandparents Program and the people in it, is scheduled for release this fall but Crandall already has his copy. "It's damned nice.

I really appreciated it," Crandall said of the book and of a personal note from its author. Crandall's work with tough, streetwise kids came to the attention of Reagan's co-author, Jane Wilkie, who spent most of a day talking with him last spring. She also got a guided tour of "The Opportunity," a 36-foot diesel-powered craft he and 18 of his young charges spent over 3 years restoring to its World War II condition. "The boat's called that because that's what we give them an opportunity," Crandall said in an fnter-view last week. "Here in Portland we always have the sea, and we motivate them to look to the sea.

It's tough and they're tough." The Liberty boat belongs to the Youth in Action Program, a project designed to give kids a trade. The kids Crandall works with come in on their own or are sent to him by probation workers. "We give them a marketable skill which can lead to a job," Crandall said. 93. I tt' Commuters, creatures of habit, have barely noticed.

Tourists are another matter. Guidebook instructions to take Rte. 128 to Lexington to visit the Minuteman for example, were useless, Bernice Chester, author of "In and Out of Boston (With or Without Children)." "AJIot of people have ended up ln Concord fithout having meant to," she says. I As if toompletely commit 128 to obliv high-school graduation. It was during that night, authorities charged, that the seven attacked the two victims and another Lee teenager to avenge a beating given two Lenox youths.

The seven fled as the car sank, and they DONALD CRANDALL They like me and I like them." ion, crews went out only a few days before the "Technology Highway" imtmn i nit 11 -ferns urpnt im vstnkintf been coming to me since I started boatbuilding in Maine in 1928. They like me and I like them. We take to each other," he said. He spends 20 hours a week on the program. He and his wife, Irene, 71, live at Congress Square Plaza, a government-subsidized housing project.

They have three children, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. CAPTAIN, Page 19 "We've got kids lobstering, seaweed gathering, tugboat operating, in ship building and repair, longshoremen. Putting a kid to work washing dishes or raking leaves won't give them anything, he said. "What kid would stick with it?" Crandall said unemployment in Portland is close to 30 percent and among the kids it's even higher. The captain came to foster grandpar-enting quite naturally.

"Teenagers have the last, fading roadside 1 U.n.Irf authorities alleged. Judge William Simons sentenced the seven to 2lh years in the Berkshire County jail, but Appeals Court Justice John Greaney let the seven remain free pending appeal. The Supreme Judicial Court hearing returns the case to the Dublic attention. tlW i uiamcis ucai iiik muse WQ numbers. S-y I However.

Rte. 128 is iucin.uig a luiiicuauii. The old markers, it turns out, were pulled so 1 The trial, attended by the families of the victims and defendants, drew attention throughout the nation. "People have not forgotten. I don't think it will be forgotten," said Barbara Holmes, the mother of Barry Griffin.

don't really talk about It with people I don't know. I Just hope it comes out the new ones fould be put in. The new. signs bear two numbers the old "128" and the tiewer or "93." And what fate in the meantime befell the highway so important in modern Massachusetts history? The road that moved th city to the country, spawned shopping tnalls copied nationwide, and opened ug a sprawling base for a new brand of ipdustry? The highway that today is a Symbol of the state's economic health? jjf The answer is in the ways of government, es right way. Holmes, her family and friends, and the Retzel family and friends sat through the trial last November on one side of a small room in Berkshire County Courthouse.

The defendants sat on the other side, their family and friends filling up the rows behind them. State Police troopers stood guard in a middle aisle the night the pecially those of the Federal Highway Administration. They aren't always as easy to follow as a roadmap. William McKay, chief of the sign section in the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, GLOBE PHOTO BY DAVID L. RYAN verdict was announced and the day the sentences were imposed.

Imelda LaMountain, a lawyer for defen Red Line construction near Rte. 2 and Rindge avenue in Cambridge. The changes coming to Alewife explains tfiat "you have to go way back" to the ealy 1970s, when superhighway, constructtbn in Massachusetts slowed to a creep. Proposed interstate highways through Bpston and Cambridge were canceled under pressure from urban activists, and federal highway funds shifted to the MBTA. I Then tjie Federal Highway Administration noticed that with the change, gaps remained i Rte.

95 and Rte. 93. "Inter-states ca't end just anywhere," McKay said. "They must tie in with another interstate." The cure was to designate 128 from Peabody tjb Canton as the missing link in Rte. 95.

The Braintree-to-Canton segment became Rfe. 93, along with the Central Ar-, tery and Southeast Expressway. dant Bruce Kern, said she expected at least some of the families of the defendants to attend the hearing tomorrow. Older residents of both towns have spoken of petty jealousies that occasionally sparked fights between residents since the days when Lee was considered a home for blue-collar workers and Lenox was dotted with estates for the New York rich. Defense attorneys have argued that the fighting outside the car had no connection with the drowning.

The prosecution contends the fighting did cause the drownings. Daniel Ford, assistant district attorney in Berkshire County, portrayed the victims as frightened youths trying to escape assailants. Ford said the pair possibly panicked and shifted the car gears into forward, instead of reverse, sending them- selves Into Laurel Lake. By Paul Hirshson Globe Staff The final piece of the multimillion-dollar mosaic taking shape in the Alewife area of Cambridge is now being formed by the state's roadbuilders a system of ramps and bridges that will tie together the new MBTA station there with a dozen or more new buildings sprouting in the neighborhood. State officials said last week that "a concept" for the new roads has been agreed upon, and work now moves to the planning stages.

The next step is to begin the environmental assessment, prelimi- nary to the environmental Impact statement. The MBTA is spending about $600 million to extend the Red Line north and west from Harvard Square to Porter Square, Davis Square in Somerville and to Alewife. Together with the extension of the Red Line, which will bring about 32,000 people in and out of the area each day, the new, roads are expected to bring new life to a long underused area of Cambridge near Alewife Brook parkway and the Concord TJurnpike that until recently was home to a of steelyards, garages and factories. Planners see the new MBTA station -to be located on the west side of Alewife Brook parkway near Rindge avenue extension and the new roads as vital links between Alewife, bordering on Arlington and Belmont, and the affluent western suburbs and the academic and financial centers in Cambridge and Boston. City officials estimate more than $210 million in new building or rehabilitation is either under way or planned for the area.

Much of this, the city said, is associated with high tech industries: offices, research and development and some light manufacturing. The Red Line extension is becoming a reality, with work on the station, garage and tunnel there about halfway complete. The construction has resulted in numerous traffic disruptions, particularly for cars using Rte. 2 to the west, as workers altered the shape of the roadyay and bridge to accommodate the tunnel digging. And traffic experts, developers and just ordinary motorists see worse problems ALEWIFE.

Page 18 Suspended officer charged with assault fi Federal rules also said the state had to give up te numerals 128 on those segments. Solmaps were changed, along with the official records. And slowly, as old "128" sighs were hit by cars or snow-plows or became dim with age, "Rte. 95" signs wer up in their place. By las winter, most of the old signs, although jpnot all, were gone.

Only overhead signoards, too expensive to replace on a whm, remained. Some of these, though, afe four miles apart. "Tourists can usually live with this," said McKay. "But for people who live around 128 but don't use it every day, it was becofhing a bigger and bigger problem. When they want to take a trip to Burlington, they don't want to have to pick up map and say, 'Where do we go from Puncturing federal tradition, the state won permission to give the "Golden Horseshoe" a dual designation.

Signs could be posted giving all the numbers motorists might need. Under a $50,000 contract, Flashing Barricades, of Canton Is now bringing J28 back to life. Double? signs started going in at 39 Intersections last month. More are coming. And travelers from Rhode Island and New Hampshire soon will see bigger billboards, also making double reference to 95 (or 93) i and 128.

"Electronics Alley," "Golden Horse-shoe," "Nightmare Boulevard," "Highway to "Yankee Division Highway" -all are names that 128 has borne. And, while many may never have noticed that ts time-honored numbers were missing, they are returning, this time to stay. 4 1 v5 V- Ov 1 i Ik fKy i' iUis A suspended Chelsea police officer, one of several persons indicted in connection with a motel brawl In that city early in the morning of July 23, was arrested last night at a Maiden bowling alley on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. V- Maiden Police said Michael F. Nad-worny, 34, of Swan street, Maiden, the suspended officer, and Daniel DiBene-detto, of Hoover avenue.

West Peabody, were both charged with assault by means of a dangerous weapon following an altercation at Town Line Ten Pin, 665 Broadway (Rte. 99), about 10 p.m. Both wer bailed for appearance in Maiden District Court today. Investigators said they took a 9 mm gun. from Nadworny and a .38 caliber Colt from DiBenedetto.

Both are licensecl to carry firearms, police said. Police gave no further details other than to say the matter was being investigated under the direction of Capt. James Keohane, chief of detectives. Nadworny, under suspension as a MALDEN, Page 19 GIRL DIES IN FIRE Firefighters give oxygen (center) to a 137 Pleasant st. in Dorchester (left).

A 10-year-old girl was girl they carried from the third floor of the triple-decker at killed in the fire. Story, Page 18. globe photos by dan sheehan.