The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 45

Boston INSIDE NOTABLE For the first time this year, the StuderU Council at Billerica's Locke Middle School was lowed to decide how to spend proceeds from school activities. 1 'mtead oj 'indulging themselves, they decided to help others far less fortunate. Page 9. Bulletin Board 9,11 Calendar 9-10 Dining Out 11 Home 13 Letters 2 Opinion 2 People Places 9-11 Sports 12-13 vv irjiPiiiii ii 1 Disease popular white ash tree Towns forced to fell stately old species By Diana Brown SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE Mi hen chain saws resonate through Acton this week, the sound will signal the end of an era for scores of towering and majestic white ash trees. killing JANUARY 1, 1995 it.

LltJS Japanese school in Medford has roots in shipping history The old ship-building city on the Mystic River now tends to be known as an Italian-American enclave, not as an outpost of Japanese culture. But for the past 20 years, children of Japanese nationals living in New England have traveled to Medford High on Saturday mornings to attend a Japanese language school based there. A 1 1 that 4 GCOBE PHOTO GAIL OSKIN Two students at the Japanese Language School are Aoi Takahashi (left) and Eriko Kawamura. With them are principal Yoshimasa Tachikawa, teacher Robert Terrano, PTA president Hidenorl Fukutoku and teacher Jay Griffin. bind Similar to the stately elms and grand chestnuts before them, white ashes are rapidly succumbing to disease and drought in many NorthWest Weekly towns from Medford to Littleton.

"We're getting beaten up really badly," said Dean Charter, Acton's tree warden and secretary for the International Society for Arbor Culture, as he prepares to cut down about 50 white ash trees this week. "The trees are doomed. Once they've got it, that's it There's no cure." Although an exact cause is unknown, there are two problems suspected of plaguing white ashes, which grow up to 80 feet in an oval-shape with rich green summer foliage and put down roots in mostly well-drained, fertile soils. "Ash yellows" is a disease where a micro-T organism bores into the trees and kills them from the trunk out to the branches, said Charles Burnham, acting chief of the state's Department of Environmental Management Shade Tree and Pest Control Bureau. "Ash decline" is another phenomenon that Burnham attributes mostly to the lack of water in recent years.

"We've had a couple of dry years, and the ash trees are responding to that," he said. White ash is the most common and natural to the area compared to the green and brown ash varieties. The white's fast-growing quality appealed to many towns, which planted them to line city streets. The trees can also proliferate quickly in forested areas because they seed themselves. WHITE ASH, Page 13 Treasures tells us a lot about pur past Historical societies tend the great and small By Leslie Anderson SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE he cannonball on display at the Billerica Historical Society's headquarters is part of an unusual happening 150 years ago.

It was fired at the First Parish Church in Billerica in 1844 in order to pivot the building from facing north to facing east as part of a renovation. The unusual procedure actually worked. At the Belmont Historical Society they retell the story of how Col. Je-duthen Wellington toasted the Marquis de Lafayette in his Belmont tavern in 1824. And how the very glass that touched Lafayette's lips is kept safe in the Claflin room of the Belmont Library.

And in Acton, if old Aunt Hattie were ever to learn where her undergarments ended up, she would be morti- The eccentric things that we choose to keep as icons that's what's so wonderfully delicious about local historical ALBERT WHITAKER State archivist fied. Fortunately, Hattie passed away some 90 years ago, so she has no idea that her petticoats and pantalets are in full view at Hosmer House, a museum run by the Acton Historical Society. "They fascinate little girls and older people, but they embarrass the heck out of Cub Scouts," observed Elizabeth Co-nant, librarian for the distinguished group. History buffs looking to study local history or simply to gawk at the knick-nacks, gewgaws and whatchamacallits of earlier generations don't have to travel far in the NorthWest Weekly region. Tucked away in libraries, antique museum houses and the attics of town historians are enough curiosities to hold the attention of an army of Cub Scouts.

From prehistoric tusks to blown glass rolling pins, oversized shoes to bulletholes, few of these treasures have the fame to appear in any history books. But they provide visitors with a vivid picture of what life was like before every hamlet had a shopping mall. "Tip O'Neill made the observation that all politics is local," says state archivist Albert Whitaker, referring to the late Speaker of the US House of Representatives. "I would say the same is true of culture. The eccentric things that we choose to keep as icons that's what's so wonderfully delicious about local historical societies." While busloads of tourists visit the Lexington Historical Society's Buck-man Tavern, where the Minutemen gathered on the eve of the American Revolution, most don't know about the Dracut Historical Society's fine collection of milk bottles from long-vanished dairies.

They most certainly do not know about the bag of aprons and underwear that belonged to a certain "Aunt Hattie" who is believed to have been born in Acton in 1833. Like many of the treasures at the Hosmer House, it was left HISTORY, Page 7 1 1 1A, Jllfc ta tk Woburnfoes say Horn Pond plan is all wet lilt? By Mark Sullivan SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE EDFORD-In 1885, a mer- rhanf snilincr harlc hnilt. in il i Medford' the Cashmere, 1 I 1 was wrec'te' off Tanegashi-U ma Island, at the southeast ern tip of Japan. For their kindness to the ship's survivors, the villagers on the Japanese island were awarded $5,000 by the United States government. So there is precedent to the ties one finds today, if somewhat unexpectedly, binding Japan and Medford.

Teen foster care: tough job for all Age, habits make placement difficult for state agency By Caroline Louise Cole SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE ETHUEN His direct delivery and cherubic face belie the pain and anxiety not expressed in words. Ask 13-year-old Richie how UVLI it is that he and his brother Johnnie, 12, have livecf in three foster homes in les3 than 12 months, this last a town away from his school friends, and hell tell you it is because the adults couldn't cope. "First we were sent to live with my aunt, but then she didn't want us, so we went to live with this other family. But then that foster mother told us we were going to be the cause of her divorce if we didn't leave so they sent us here," explains Richie without apology- "Here," is a pretty good deal, the boys say. Their new foster mother, Ann Azevedo, is a 20-year veteran at providing temporary for the foster care system's most nn And soon, a new Japanese resource center, with educational videos, books and folk art donated from Japan, will open in the library at Medford High.

The Japanese Language School in Medford is one of 50 language schools the Japanese Ministry of Education sponsors in cities across the United States. The aim is to ensure Japanese children living temporarily in this country keep apace of their peers back home in reading and writing. The Boston-area Japanese Language School, operated on weekends out of MEDFORD, Page 8 I t. by the Lawrence office of the state Department of Social Services has lost 40 foster homes since last January and most of the office's remaining 170 homes don't want teenagers, local foster care advocates are worried the state's ability to provide appropriate care for teen-agers who are wards of the state is FOSTER CHILDREN, Page 6 -w By Sharon Britton SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE To the city officials who endorse the idea, a plan to water the grass at the nine-hole Woburn Country Club by pumping untreated water from Horn Pond is a simple way to maintain the public course while getting a large user off the public drinking water supply. But the plan is being questioned and opposed by dozens of Woburn residents, many of whom live near the pond, concerned about the pumpings effect on everything from water quality to noise pollution on the fish and birds that live here.

And underlying these issues is widespread concern that the proposal is a first step by the Woburn Golf and Ski Authority to launch a controversial plan to expand the municipal nine-hole course to 18 holes. The Woburn Conservation Commission will resume Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. the third night of a public hearing on the Horn Pond pumping plan of the Woburn Golf and Ski Authority. The hearing will be held at the Woburn Country Club, Country Club Road. It has been a goal of the city for a number WOBURN, Page 14 GLOBE STAFF PHOTO PAT GREENHOUSE Ann Azevedo (center) of Methuen has legal guardianship of Eric (left), 15.

Kenny Till-berg (right), 26, came to Azevedo 17 years ago as a foster child. cult age group. "We get more privileges than we did at the other place, plus we have Eric to hang with," said Johnnie, noting that Eric, 15, has been in foster care at the Azevedos for four years. "Plus we get to go to karate lessons twice a week." But because the four-town region served.