The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 50

50 (The Boston (globe SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1985 Lunch-hour church visits cause flap for officer -1 oid-5riouth1nn i 4 s- ft i rmr rnnnl' Hal HPIC? mam ni ift i I FREDERICK WILLIAMS Charges unfair labor practice 4l IVVU, '11 nnrw Ill ii imim 1 Plf'tf- 'LODGING 7 rr til jr. 4 lil IV i ft n. Route 6 A in Yarmouthport, where some residents have proposed a ban on new guest and lodging houses in most residential areas along the road. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO BY JOSEPH RUNCl Yarmouthport divided By John Milne Globe Staff NASHUA, N.H.- On four Sundays last spring, Nashua police officer Frederick H. Williams said he took his lunch hour by slipping into the back of First Church of Nashua and listening to the sermon.

That, city officials said, violated a department rule banning personal business for officers on duty. Williams can have lunch in a restaurant, even go home to eat, but he can't go to the Congregational church on Lowell Street during his shift. Williams received a written warning for his church attendance and has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state Public Employees Labor Relations Board. A ruling is expected before the end of the year, and if the board orders the city to let Williams attend church, some police chiefs in the state say it could set a precedent undermining their authority. Most police departments in New Hampshire and throughout the nation prohibit conducting personal business while on duty, according to Gerald S.

Arenberg. executive director of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. But to his knowledge, Nashua is the first department to Include church attendance in that category. "That's one of the most unusual situations I've ever heard about," Arenberg said Friday by telephone from Washington. A spokesman for Boston's police commissioner, Francis M.

Roache, said he could not see an objection being raised to a policeman attending church on his lunch hour. Said Manchester's chief, Thomas King: "It wouldn't enhance the control and discipline of any police department. If we're ordered to let policemen go to church, say some Sunday they wanted to hold a job action, a protest, and all the officers went to Mass at once. How could the department respond to an emergency?" Arenberg said there are constitutional implications, whichever way the decision goes. If it is in favor of Williams, it raises the question of separation of church and state; against Williams, it raises a question of whether it violates the man's First Amendment rights of freedom of religion.

Williams is not raising either of those issues, however. He says it is not fair to be allowed to go home for lunch on duty and not be allowed to go to church. He also says he is being singled out because he is a shop steward and was a union organizer. Williams and his labor union. Local 464 of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, filed an unfair labor practice charge June 25.

One hearing was held Sept. 25 and a second is planned for December. Williams, 25, of Hudson, has been attending First NASHUA, Page 52 Rte. 6A over lodgings on residential area to a mostly commercial one has started on Route 6A on the bay side of Cape Cod, some residents say. To halt what they claim is "creeping commercialism" in their village of Yarmouthport, they have proposed a ban on new guest and lodging houses in most residential areas along 6A.

Even though the ban would not affect existing lodging houses, some residents oppose it "because it takes away a traditional right and a valid option for many people here who might want to open an inn in their house some time in the future," according to Don Spagnolla, owner of the Crook' By Teresa M. Hanafin Globe Staff YARMOUTHPORT This village has become a neighborhood divided, victim of a feud over a proposal to ban new lodging and guest houses along Route 6A that has pitted innkeeper against homeowner, neighbor against neighbor. In the '40s and '50s, Route 28 through West and South Yarmouth was a quiet road lined with houses. Today, it is a strip, busy with hotels and motels, restaurants and bars, gift shops and miniature golf courses. What happened to Route 28 a gradual change from a mostly Jaw Inn.

Edward B. Teague of the Yarmouthport Village Improvement Society, the group that supports a ban, said some innkeepers have opened galleries and gift shops in their houses, moves he sees as the beginning of commercialization of the road. The village should remain a residential area complemented by some commerce, rather than a tourist-oriented business area with a few families living in it, he said. Not since voters barred new motels on Route 28 in 1984 has an issue so polarized this town of YARMOUTHPORT, Page 53 'A hard competitor in a competitive business Smoking is out iiotu The rabbi was among the first speakers at this breakfast meeting of Jewish war veterans in the basement of a synagogue in Quin-t cy. He had immigrated to this country In the 1940s, had the ac- cent of the old country, and that I made his story more effective.

The rabbi told of a judge who asked an I immigrant seeking citizenship: "What is the capital of New York?" "Albany." The judge nod-I ded and asked, "What is the cap- ital of the nation?" "Washington. D.C." The judge nodded and I asked, "And what does the D.C. stand for?" "Da Capital," the im- migrant said. It was a good story. Several speakers followed the rab-I bi, the meeting continued for two hours, and though there were 50 or 60 people in that room, there was not one whiff of cigarette, a phenomenon of our recent histo- ry.

In 1944 or '45, I remember go- ing to the corner drugstore and I getting one package of rationed I Camels for my father. Some years later I would smoke myself, and I remember still the taste of Camels I and the last one I had, in 1963, on a golf course in the Caribbean, and I remember the taste of Ches-1 terfields, dry and nutty. We smoked Lucky Strikes in the 1950s because it was the fashion-I able cigarette among caddies at the old Brookline Muni golf course. Luckies were advertised as toasted, and I imagined they tast-; ed that way. I smoked Philip Mor- ris for a while because my brother was a fighter pilot in the war and he smoked them.

I think of all this because of the breakfast in the synagogue and a note from Wayne Bosowicz, the bear guide of Sebec. I do not miss cigarettes and feel healthy when driving to work in morning and see people in other cars ingesting smoke down their throats and into the lining of their lungs. People have some choice on how they live and some choice on how they die, too. I quit cigarettes in 1963 and smoked cigars in-' stead, thinking that form of tobac-: co less injurious. I used to smoke one cigar after lunch in this news- paper office, but smoking is no longer in fashion here, and I stopped.

Toothpicks are not in fashion, either, and probably never were, though Winston Churchill carried a gold toothpick and hid it behind a napkin when he used it. Tooth-; picks are not a very strong substitute for cigars, but that is what I use in this newspaper office. These toothpicks, the package says, "are strong and yet thin enough to be inserted between closely set teeth." Few things are as Inexpensive as these toothpicks, only 29 cents, and no one could go through a pack a day, for the pack holds 750. The toothpicks are made in Wilton. Maine, a town I have visited, to see the man who grows dandelions for a living.

I would have visited the toothpick factory, too, if I had known it was there but can vouch for their value without having seen them made. I chew on them instead of on a ci-; gar. If, in addition, I substitute crackers for cake and water for whiskey, I will be healthy at least into the next century. My correspondent, a professional guide, does not smoke and looks healthy as a bear in early fall. He and I last met in Collette's restaurant in Dover-Foxcroft where we sat as far as possible from the cigarette smokers.

(Smoking is not only unhealthy, it is unfashionable, and the farther one gets from centers of fashion, the more smokers there are. Dover-Foxcroft is some distance from Boston and thus, I suspect, has a high percentage of smokers.) The bear guide sent me a clipping of a letter to the editor of his local newspaper. The letter, writer, a salesman, wrote that of all the smoke-filled restaurants in Maine, Collette's Is the worst. He calls It a "regular smoke house." Collette's is certainly more attractive than many restaurants, and, Kittery to Madawaska, Collette'9 Is not the smokiest pjace I have been in, either, but maybe I was there on a slow day. By Michael Kranish Globe Staff MEREDITH, N.H.

On a 95-de-gree day last summer. Walter N. (Rink) DeWitt, chairman of New Hampshire's fourth-largest bank, BankEast put on his corduroy pants, flannel shirt and down vest, and filmed a television commercial. Presenting an upcountry, one-of-the-folks Image, he strolled through a mountain pass and made a pitch for his bank. At least one of the state's other bankers sees DeWitt as anything but the laid-back businessman.

William Bushnell, chairman of the state's largest bank, Amos- keag Bank Shares last week publicly complained that some of DeWitt's business techniques "offend accepted notions of business behavior," are "especially malicious," and possibly are illegal. The charges, which DeWitt denies, stem from a battle between BankEast and Amoskeag to take over Portsmouth Savings Bank. That the battle is being waged publicly and vehemently says as much about the 48-year-old DeWitt as it does about the turmoil in the state's banking industry. New Hampshire's large banks are gobbling small banks while everyone waits to see if the Legislature allows out-of-state institu tions to join the fray. 1 DeWitt's self-promotion and tactics make him perhaps the most talked-about man In the New Hampshire business world.

DeWitt, whose bank is the 24th-largest in New England, seems to relish the controversy, all the while peddling his advertising image as the kindly nature-lover next door. "I don't know what a 'banker' is. I'm a competitive businessman," DeWitt said in a BankEast office here. "Anyway, what are 'accepted notions of business I'm an ethical, aggressive, moralistic businessman in a competitive business." Because New Hampshire and Vermont are the only New England states that don't allow banks to be bought by out-of-state banks, an aggressive banker such as DeWitt is in position to create a statewide empire. DeWitt for years has fought unsuccessfully to convince the Legislature to approve interstate banking, which would allow BankEast to be bought out and Dewitt to become one of the nation's leading executives.

But the Legislature has refused, fearing out-of-state banks would take over most local institutions. DEWITT, Page 53 WALTER N. DeWITT Fought for interstate banking '82 was an unusual year for Maine high schools I fcrv hi tering high school in fall 1982 were having a tougher time than their predecessors, and some administrators thought they were seeing the beginning of a troublesome trend. But succeeding freshmen classes showed no inordinately high failure rate. For a number of school officials, the classes of 1986 remain a puzzling blip on an otherwise fairly even continuum.

In Skowhegan, officials were so alarmed that they hired a special teacher to supervise a self-contained classroom for a revolving group of 25 freshmen with the most severe problems, according to guidance director William Stone. Teachers brought as- signments to the students who, in addition-to having supervised study, spent an hour a day on self-awareness and goal-setting. But the extraordinary measure didn't work. Stone says, at least for the students who, after a month in what both students, and faculty came to dub "the rubber room," returned to regular classes. But it-did help the faculty, Stone says, who could-take a microscopic look at the most difficult! students.

What they found were youngsters-who "needed a lot more structure Thev! I 1 By Denise Goodman Special to the Globe SKOWHEGAN, Maine Three years ago, Skowhegan's class of 1986 made its high school debut with the Ignominious distinction of having "an alarming tendency to fail." While the transition to high school often accounts for as many as one-third of freshmen failing an initial course, school officials say, one-half of those freshmen failed one or more courses. "It was Just as if they were held in a stall pattern," English teacher Nick Pierce said of the class apathy then. "It was a really scary experience for the teachers." Grades for this year's seniors are at or above average, but a high dropout rate over the Intervening years has pared them to the smallest Skowhegan graduating class in, two decades. Emergency measures taken three years ago to address the unusual problem accomplished litte, according to school officials, who say they've never been able to explain the aberration. Skowhegan freshmen weren't alone back In '82.

"Skowhegan made the news, but everyone was having problems," recalls Thomas Rowe, now Rumford High School principal, who was working at Madison High School then. That year, only six of Madison's more than 120 freshmen made the honor roll, he said. The story was the same in several other school districts, from Wlnslow In central Maine to downeast Ellsworth. Students en 'It, 4 seemea Dngnt enough, stone says, wasn't an IQ issue: it was an 'I won't' nne 1 rvv i 1 As a result of studying the students. Skowhegan school officials tightened up study hall supervision and course selection procedures.

Pierce recalls that year as "the tail end of the unrestricted, unsupervised system" at Skowhegan High. MAINE, Page 51 Counselor William Sone, at chalk board, found that youngsters with problems "needed a lot more structure It wasn't an IQ issue; it was an 'I won't' one." GLOBE Pl.t' ,0 BY MERRY FARNUM.