In mid 1914, Mleier bought out John Taylor's shares to own the club outright. Meanwhile, something was happening in Baltimore. Here's another domino, folks, which would change the course of Red Sox in baseball history. Because even though they were in first place, the American League's Baltimore franchise was having a terrible time trying to compete with the new Federal League team. And in the middle of the year, they began selling off players to keep from going out of business. One of them was this 19-year-old pitcher who had a decent 14-6 record for Baltimore. His name was George Herman Ruth. Now, some legends are true. On July 11th, 1914, his very first day in Boston, Ruth met waitress Helen Woodford at a coffee shop. She would later become the first Mrs. Ruth. That afternoon, he went out and pitched his first game for the Socks against the Cleveland Indians.
Now as planning for route 128 from peed to Walam was begun, more money was allocated for the construction of route 128 through to Gloucester. And here in early April of 1950, we see the completed peers of the A Pat Andrew bridge in Gloucester standing ready to receive the steel bridge structure. Here we see workers easing one of the main girdters of the approaches to the bridge in place in April of 50. It's interesting to note in the days before field welding of structural steel became widespread, these girdters had to be fastened to other structural elements of the bridge with hundreds of rivets. Each one had to be heated red hot in the field. But the practice of fuel welding had proliferated wildly w rapidly here in the northeast after the close of the second world war as thousands of skilled welders from our wartime ship building industry shifted to jobs in the civilian construction industry.
But if it's between 300 and 579, it's poor and it goes from there. So a good credit score starts pretty much at 670. Um, when you try to buy a house, that's very important. Um, a lot of banks will take a credit that's good, but they prefer if you have a better credit score. So, this really helps you in getting loans, building your credit, and by the time you have a social security number, you can transfer all that history to your social. Um, and then there's apps um for to get organized with your bills. They're free and they're great because they will send a notification when a bill is due. Um, so I'm gonna give it over to our friends here who are going to talk about testament living will.
Uh, so she wants to make sure to present the information. So, if you do have additional questions after Vanessa's done, we can certainly come back to this. But I also want to honor her time since she's taking away beach time. So, how we're going to do this is we Thanks, Joe. How we're going to do this is we'll keep the stack for questions. Um, and then we'll listen to her presentation. I would like you to take out that handout that lists um I think it's the first is tabled and then it says um options that require finance and then non- finance and as she is giving us um dollar amounts because some of those we didn't have the dollar amounts and you're going to need that information. Yes, it looks Thanks, Kelly. It looks like this. It's a stapled one. Um, and there are some on the looks like this.
And Aaron Calleros is a senior. He's the only senior that we're losing from the team, but he's a three-time state placer, two-time champ, and a state runnerup. But more importantly, it's not even about the wins and losses to me. These guys are the epitome of what it takes to be a high school student. They all have 4.0's or above a 3.7. They're all leaders in the classroom on campus. We travel the country wrestling as a team all through the year and these guys represent Gilbert Desert Ridge everywhere we go. So I'm just blessed to coach them. Excellent. Well done. Desert Ridge High. If you guys would shake hands with the board, we'll take a picture. All right, ladies and gentlemen, right up front here in the middle and then we'll kind of form around you. Nice job, Des. And from Gilbert High, Coach Wyatt Richardson and Landon Loya.
Now, truth be told, his first season was less than stellar. In fact, he was having so many problems that he was sent down to the miners for a few weeks near the end of the season. Now, there was a World Series held at Fenway Park in 1914, but it was not it was not the Red Sox who played it. It was the National League Braves. You see, their south end grounds were being replaced by a brand new ballpark nearby on Commonwealth Avenue. And during construction, Red Sox owner Lannon was more than happy to charge them rent to play at Fenway Park. By the way, it was the underdog Boston Braves who swept the Philadelphia Athletics in that series and would forever be known as the Miracle Braves. Now, in 1915, the following year, the Red Sox returned to contention and won their third pennant. This time, the Braves would return the favor by renting out their much larger Braves field for the World Series, thus allowing Lannon to make even more money.
Here's the completed bridge carrying 128 traffic over the Anisworm River Bridge. The last eight mile stretch of Route 128, the so-called missing link in Manchester between Beverly and Gloucester, began in 1952. Here we can see alignment has been cleared of trees and brush and excavation is proceeding to expose rocky ledge that needed to be blasted away to make way for the highway through the n rough northshore terrain. In fact, the assistant DPW commissioner called it the toughest piece of road construction ever undertaken in eastern Massachusetts. That of course was way before the big dig. Construction of the 22mm stretch of 128 from the Lynfield Wakefield border down to the Welssley Needm border was begun simultaneously at several places along the highway between the spring of 1950 and the summer of 1951. Here in Reading from where I'm speaking, we're looking northwest across Main Street or Route 28.
But first I want to know if anyone has any questions. Yes. So her question is, I applied for the but I was here for six months. before that. So, I'm just explaining the same thing. Um, a lot of accountants, they will not going to explain that to you. Um, they are going to apply, but they're going to put another date. So, you're eligible to receive that from the IRS. Unfortunately, we see that happening every day. Um, sure. I hope that so when you apply for the acting you can't write here let's say I'm going to give you an example I am right here in 2025 and I apply in 2025 for the IT but when I apply for the IT I need to file my income tax so the income tax is from last year right we can't file an income tax in the same year So when that happens by IRS rule, you needed to be here in the country at least six months in the prior year.
And there are some options that we didn't have the monetary amount last week and I noted that um as she gives us those amounts. Would you please um write those in on that handout? They're they're also available. Uh Vanessa shared them through the chat. So you should have a document that's linked in the chat. It's also in the meet and confer requested items uh and it's called link not link options cost options I think it's toward the bottom and that's the document I think that Vanessa is going to share with us morning Vanessa good morning good morning it's so great to see you taking time out of your vacation to do this with us I appreciate it obviously. Uh so I did want to I wanted to uh go over the priced out options and then also um do some clarifying comments uh before I have to jump off.
Are you guys here? There you are. [Applause] How are you guys? Good. How are you? Good. Thanks for being here. Of course. Thank you. So coach, you got a wrestler. You want to talk about Landon a little bit? I would love to talk about Landon. So Landon has been a big part of our program growing the last three years and he has worked incredibly hard to become the first 100 win wrestler since 2005 for Gilbert High School. And he is the first male to become uh a state finalist since 2013, which is huge for our program. and he has been a big leader in getting our program to where it's at today. He has uh finished his season, his career, high school career with a 101 and 32 record, becoming a 100 win wrestler, the first one for Gilbert High since 2005. Um, which is a huge accomplishment for us.
And in a really interesting bit of synergy, the World Series of 1915 featured the same two cities that played in 1914, Philadelphia and Boston. only now it was the American League Red Sox and the National League Phillies, but the result, at least city-wise, remained the same. Boston Red Sox took the 1915 title, and here they are, your 1915 world champions. Now, here's another domino. Following the 1915 season, the Federal League went out of business and now the owners of the National and American Leagues could, no pun intended, play hard ball with their players contracts. The Red Sox owner cut Tris Speaker and Smokeoky Joe Wood's salaries, arguing that their production had dropped and they weren't worth the big bucks. Smokeoky Joe Wood refused to sign and he sat out the 1916 season. So Lannon sold Wood to Cleveland in what up to that point was the most expensive sale in baseball, $50,000.
Now, Route 128 would in a few years take Eleanor and Stan Brown's farm stand in the foreground and their gas station, but the England family home that's up the street, you can see it in the distance, it was saved temporarily by demolishing the barn behind it and moving the house into where the barn used to stand. Reading would even bring us build a short spur off of South Street named England Road to provide access to the house. The house is no longer there, but England Road still exists. Looking north from Main Street here in Reading towards the construction of the interchange with 128. This is near the site of the old Browns Farm stand. According to Jack Bowden, Reading's former police chief, construction crews, at the end of the day, they would just leave dynamite in the holes for their blasting overnight, and they would hire people like Jack to watch it.
The translators are doing such a great job. Thank you. Amy on their live stream. I think we're good to go. Um, if you need any other services, don't hesitate to give us a call. I ask you to please leave a message and we will return your call. Okay. Thank you so much, everyone. [Applause] My name is Shannon. I'm a funeral director with Wear and Sullivan Funeral Home and I take care of pre pre-planning and just the importance of setting up your arrangement before something happens. So, I always say that pre-planning, funeral, or cremation services is part of estate planning. So, I don't know who here has heard of estate planning, but it's similar to taking care of your power of attorneys, your health proxies, your wills, sometimes even a trust if you have a house or other finances. And that takes place with an estate attorney.
So I'm going to share the document just so I can walk through it um as I'm talking about it. And I think that should come up for everybody, right? All right. And then I will try to make it bigger. By the way, okay, double check your numbers. They might on your handout might not coincide with her numbers. So, just be aware of that. Okay. Yes. I'm I'm not sure which handout we're discussing, but um this is the options. I know that uh last meeting uh Dominic tried to put some numbers together. Um some of these numbers have the benefits, some don't have the benefits. I mean, we kind of just got a little ride with that, but the numbers are are on average. And as we know with these numbers when we pull them, it's daytoday. So what I pulled today might not be exactly the same, but it's, you know, historically accurate over approximations.
And he has earned himself the right to go wrestle in college, division 2 at the University of New Mexico of Highlands. Wow. Landon, what do you want to accomplish there in college? Uh, be a national champ. Be a national champ. He said that like that was a dumb question. I like that. Well done. What do you want to study? General business. General business. All right. Well, you see that lady? She's over our business department. When you graduate, she'll find a job for you. Landon, we're proud of you. Congratulations. Congratulations, coach. Thank you, guys. If you shake hands at the board, take a quick pick. Right here in the middle, gentle. Well done. And now on to girls basketball. Would coach Savannah Bix and the Gilbert High girls basketball 6A state runner-ups. Please come over. Give them a hand. There you go. [Applause] So, Gilbert High, they were the state runnerup.
But Boston still had the league's best pitching. And for the second year in a row, they won the American League pennant. And they had the right to face the National League champions, the Brooklyn Dodgers. And the 1916 season again played at the larger Braves Field which held those extra 10,000 playing uh paying fans. Boston won the series and for the first and only time won two World Series backto back. But owning the Red Sox seems to drain people. And Lannon started looking around for someone to buy the team. And he found one. It was a theatrical producer from Peoria, Illinois named Harry Fris. Now, normally in the old days before 2004, when I would put this picture up during my presentation, I'd hear a lot of booing, but as I reminded people back then, Harry Fris was he was the consmate self-made man. He was a successful theatrical producer.
And he recalls spending many cold nights sitting on top of the ledge to make sure that kids didn't get to the dynamite. Moving further south, we can see the new highway taking shape in the vicinity of Washington Street in Wuburn. Today, one of the most heavily developed areas around the highway. We're looking west in 1950 and we can see the concrete peers and abupments of the Washington Street overpass being formed in the foreground while debris from a recent blasting job are being cleared in the background. From Wuburn Street, the new highway swung southwest through Burlington, where it cut between the Crawford family farmhouse and the farm itself, requiring the family to take instead of being able to walk out their front door and down into their fields, instead they now had to take a onemile long drive to access their fields, which were now across Route 128.
I always say that part of that or even really the final step is pre-planning the funeral or cremation arrangements. So we do all of this to protect our kids are could be spouses. It could be family sometimes even friends that are going to be taking care of the arrangements. So it just it's the inevitable. We all know we're going to experience it. We hope it's not for a long time but we never know. So, one of the things that we do is we meet with families and we give them a guide. So, we're part of a network of funeral homes called Dignity Memorial. One of our locations is right up the street on Winter Street. It's on top of the hill. And we can meet there. We can meet your families at the actual funeral home at your home if you're more comfortable. And we go over your options.
So um, with the option number three, so and then going up here, we know we have 750,000. I know that number has changed. I wanted to make it a set number so nobody had to worry about the dollars and cents. I think at one point we were 124 and change and uh, we were like, let's do 125, but then we had that 80,000 sitting at the bottom. kind of an imaginary number because we don't know what exactly what that bottom line number will be until we close the year uh with our expenditures and our encumbrances. But and looking at those numbers once again as we've gotten uh closer to our cuto off in spending, uh those numbers are tracking right where we need them to be to accomplish our fund balance reserves and um and keep those dollars available for the things that we've discussed in the budget lines multiple times and what's been taken to the governing board.
Now, that that title does not give it any justice in my opinion. I saw that game and I got to tell you, you want to talk about drama with how many seconds left did we tie it? Was it 1.5? Uh, it was like 1.2. 1.2. And you guys have seen it on TV. Someone takes it out. They're dribbling down. It's a halfcourt shot. It goes in and it goes to overtime. This wasn't a half court shot. This was more like a 3/4 court shot. And I'm sitting there going, "Well, you know, cuz I'm old and I'm like, well, all right. How do I get home? How quick can I get? We're downtown Phoenix. What route am I going to take?" And I'm kind of not really clued in or thinking that this is going to go to overtime. and all of a sudden, boom, the shot gets hit and we go to overtime.