Now, the 1918 series had its bumps. There was a brief kurfuffle over World Series bonus money which temporarily halted the fifth game. But the players egged down by angry fans already peaked over healthy young men playing a game while boys were dying in France eventually took back the field. But the games went on and Boston took its fifth world championship. And this would be the last time that Boston would read this headline in the 20th century. Now, the story I had read, this is back in 19, excuse me, 1997 when I had first conceived of the idea about a musical about this team. The story I had heard was the story we had all heard that before the 1920 season, Harry Fee found himself short of cash and needed money to produce a Broadway show called No Nanette. So he sold some of his players to the New York Yankees.
By the way, it's kind of funny. DPW Commissioner Callahan, he hated the gas stations and the restaurants and all the facilities along the roadsides. Um he said, quote, "These stands have been springing up like weeds and ruin the new road when in fact uh they were an example of why the nude road was going to be such a success." Here in July of 1955, we see drilling crews boring holes in granite ledge here in Denim prior to blasting to make way for a cloverleaf of ramps that would serve Route 109. And in the background, you see the trucks and the cars driving along the ad hoc 128 with the interchange ramps still being blasted out of the ledge alongside the roadway. a short stretch of the future northbound barrel of the new highway was a two-way traffic highway and retained a signalized interchange here in July of 1955.
And then at the time, we just review everything we have on record and then you're able to get the services that you requested. When a family pre-plans, some people think, "Oh, pre-plan, that's great. We're done. No, you need to share it with someone. So, you need to share it with at least two people. So, I would do your closest relative. So, either your spouse or your children. And if you don't have either, usually it would be your siblings. And then share it with the second person, preferably younger um than yourself. So then if things go the way we think they will, that person knows what they need to do. And it kind of gives a a buddy system. So if you have both of those people there at the time, they can help support each other with figuring everything out. So it's again important to do it, write it and make it accessible to families.
And then kind of down here at the bottom was the longevity 10% which is just you know pretty much half the 20%. So I did want to talk about the compression items really quickly and then I can take some questions. Um so the $1 an hour for the bus drivers. Uh that one was pretty simple. The reason being is because the bus drivers are on their own schedule and because of that we can make adjustments to them however we like. Um the psychologist was a separate conversation from the market demand. Uh so the market demand doesn't cost anything. It's just a decision. We put it in the to the salary schedule. Happy to do that. Um whatever the market demand uh was 15,000, I can't remember. Um that's a no cost. We're already paying the market demand. We just add it to the salary schedule.
Um, when you see Joey, congratulate him even though he's not here. Uh, Mr. Blackburn, make sure that he knows that we're thinking about him. If you want to bring him back next month, we'll recognize him publicly. Is that like the mayor? Oh, he's at the mayor. So, the mayor trumped the superintendent. I get it. I get it. I I I understand. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our recognitions for this evening. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. [Applause] All right, congratulations to everybody that was recognized uh tonight. We are moving on to uh shifting things around a little bit. Instead of the superintendent report, we're going to uh move to an action item for this evening. 5.01, appointment of Eric Cruz as principal of Desert Ridge Junior High for the 2025 2026 school year. Is there a motion? I move that we approve Eric Cruz as Thank you, Miss Humphre.
One of them, of course, was Babe Ruth. Ruth would go on to star in New York, helping the Yankees, who to this point had yet to even appear in a World Series, to dominate the sport in the 20s and then in the 30s. The Yankees would go on to win, is it 26 or 27 World Championships? I've lost count. Some New Yorkers in the crowd will probably raise their hands and tell me. But the Red Sox would not win one more in at least in that century. But it wasn't just that the Red Sox weren't winning. It was the way they weren't winning. And of course, nobody told this part of the story better than Globe sports writer Dan Shaughnessy did in his best seller. You see, it took almost 30 years after the sale of Ruth to get back to the World Series. And when the socks did, fans watched or listened on their radios when in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh and deciding game of the series with the score tied, shorts stop Johnny Pesky held a relay throw from the outfield long enough to allow country enus slaughter of the Cardinals to make it all the way home from first base.
Uh there is still only one remaining signal technically on Route 128 and we'll save that for the very end of our talk. Hey, the 1950s were a very good time to be in the road building business here in Massachusetts as nearly half a billion state dollars were spent on highway construction in the first half of the decade alone. So, remember that $200 million estimate we got from Callahan? No, a lot more than that. This is a really great picture because it shows us the difference between what was being built, what had been built in the northern portion of the highway and what was now going to be built for the second half of the highway and through the 1960s. Over on the right side is the original overpass between the old 128 and Route One. Notice the art deco styling of the concrete. Now look at the left side.
Again, if you ever do have questions about pre-planning or your different options if you again do want to go back or even I have some families um I have a church that I deal with and a lot of them travel to Nigeria. So, we have something called travel protection where what it is is if you travel 75 miles or more from your legal address and pass away unexpectedly, it would take care of flights and preparation to get you back here to Massachusetts if that's where you choose to be buried or cremated. So, it's something it's $599. It's a onetime fee. I have it because I don't want to be cremated, so I have to come back here. So even if I'm traveling to Florida, California, a different country, I can be brought back. So that's something that um we've found beneficial to families, especially if you do travel back home or even if you travel within the country.
But after we did that and we were talking about it in compression, we recognized that our salary schedule still wasn't getting up to where we needed to be for being competitive with the other districts and it also didn't uh address any kind of compression uh with the psychologists that currently are employed with Kraton. So through the compression conversation, it was determined adding another um 5,000 to the schedule and this would be effective whether the market demand gets added into the schedule or not. Either option would work. This is separate from that market demand um which was to add 5,000 to the current schedule level. And then that would actually end up being a cost of about 24,000 because we currently have people sitting on that schedule that would get that $5,000 bump. So, I wanted to explain that because I wasn't here at the last one to to define that.
Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Murray. All those in favor of appointing approving the appointment of Eric Cruz as principal of Desert Ridge Junior High for the 2025 2026 school year. Say I. I.
Two years later in 1948, the Socks ended the season with the first ever tie for the pennant. A one-game playoff with the Cleveland Indians would decide who would go to the World Series. And with all stars like Ellis Kinder ready to play, manager Joe McCarthy instead chose a journeyman pitcher named Denny Gailhouse to take the mound. The Socks not only lost the playoff game, but the last chance Boston would have for a trolley series with the Boston Braves, who won one of their few nationally pennants. The Braves would lose the series to the Cleveland team, then known as the Indians. 1949. Frustrating as well for both the Socks and their belleaguered manager Joe McCarthy, who by the way did just swell when he managed the Yankees, taking them to several championships. But with the Red Sox, all he got was an ulcer. 1949 was classic.
That's going to be for the new northbound barrel of the new Route 128. And look how well it's not very artistic. It's very utilitarian. And that is what became mandated by the national federal government, especially after the signing by Eisenhower in 1956 of the National Highway Act, to standardize the overpasses as a way to ensure that throughout the country, the heights and the strength of these bridges would be enough. Because for Eisenhower, it was important that tanks be able to move from one part of the country to the other. He learned a lot when he was stationed in Germany before the war. Here in Canton, near the current location of the interchange with I95, we see a thick layer of asphalt laid over a finely graded bed of gravel. Now, I95 was constructed in the late 1960s and was originally intended to go all the way into Boston, but when political opposition blocked those plans and forced I95 from the south to terminate at Route 128, Route 128 inherited the I95 designation from Canton to Peody, where I 95 again would split off and go north.
Again, really, it's just important. It's another step in making sure your family's protected. We think about protecting them while everyone's living. And a lot of times people don't think about protecting them once someone's passed away. So, it's just part of the estate planning, talking with a lawyer to go over information about a will and then talking with your funeral home of your choice to go over any everything.
The facilities compression, we're we're in the bucket with that one because unlike the bus drivers, the facilities drivers sit or the facilities staff sit on multiple schedules that have multiple other positions on them. So, the only way for us to fix this is to start pulling out those job functions. So, if I'm on a schedule and I'm a C22, there may be six jobs in there. If I just look at the facility staff, it's not looking at the other five jobs that sit across the district in that same bucket. So, the the ESP schedule itself has to be fixed. That's what the compression committee is excited to jump into for next year. Um, it is going to take some substantial work from the committee to evaluate those job descriptions and try to align that a little better so that we don't have so much spaghetti on a page.
Any opposed? It's unanimous. Congratulations. Come on up and say a couple words. [Applause] Thank you guys. Should be it's always the microphone. There we go. All right. And so one I want to governing board Gilbert governing board and superintendency. First I want to thank you guys for the opportunity. I'm very excited. I hope you can see the smile on my face and uh it's uh I'm really looking forward to this uh next few years. So, this is going to be a great opportunity and thank you. Um, my family's here and so I want to thank those that were able to come here and be here tonight and for their love and support and so my lovely wife Chassity over here and Cooper and Riley and Hayden that are here and then those that couldn't be, but they are uh unwavering in their support and so thank you guys so much for being here and uh I'm I've got to go out and meet the staff earlier today and I'm super excited to be there.
The Socks were 12 games behind in July and made it back to first place. But the problem was they still had to play in August and September. You know, for years, August and September always seemed to be a problem for the Red Sox, and they slumped. So, by the end of the season, all they were was just one and a half games over the Yankees. Excuse me. They were just one game o over the Yankees. They had to win one of two games over the New York Yankees to take the pennant. And of course, they would lose both. Nothing much happened at Fenway Park for almost 20 years as the team slipped further and further down the standings. In 1960, Ted Williams retired, homering in his last at bat and inspiring John Updike to write what I believe is the greatest work ever written about baseball.
It's kind of like what they did in the 20s. Remember, instead of spending all those millions of dollars on asphalt and concrete and barriers and just put some signs in the ground. Well, in the 1960s, because we weren't going to build a highway north into and through the city of Boston, the state got the area, the section of 128 between I 95 south in Canton and I 95 north in Peody to be designated I95. And that I designation, that interstate designation, meant that the highway was now qualified for federal funds for expansion, for lighting, and for maintenance. Once again, our New England thriftiness um saved us more than a few million dollars. It also explains why for many years if you were driving south on 128, you would pass the I95 highway uh connection down to Providence and all of a sudden you would find yourself on I 93 north without barely having to turn your steering wheel.
Does anyone have any questions? Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for the presenters and uh we know that this topic is um has sensitive information sometime that we want to ask because um each of us individually may have our situation that we don't want to disclose here in public. That's why we reserve this moment at the end. So we have the two institutions here. Uh you can come to ask your question you know you can go to them individually to ask your question. So we have plenty of time that's why we reserve this moment at the end. So you can come and um talk to them and tell them what is your situation and ask information that you might u want to ask tonight. Uh otherwise, thank you so much for being here and again, thank you so much uh for the presenters.
You pull one and it touches so many others. It's it's super difficult. Um, so we kind of just threw well we want to do some compression work next year with facilities and we were hoping that maybe like with the um putting aside maybe the 20,000 I I'm not sure. it was just a number that we put on it. Um not sure how much it will cost or what else we'll discover, but that's kind of where we sat with facilities compression. Um we knew we had made some, you know, efforts with the bus drivers and the psychologist uh last uh session with the slideshow, the ED secretaries. When we looked at them and compared them to other districts, we were actually right in the bucket. So compression committee uh did not want to make any recommendations for increases at this time. for that job function. Um, and then the other thing that's kind of new and I apologize, we had discussed this at the last compression committee.
uh they have a a wonderful foundation and it's it's I couldn't be prouder to be able to uh be the next principal at Desert Ridge Junior High School. So, it's been one wonderful thing to see happen here. And so, I'm I'm again, I'm super excited. I'm just going to keep saying it over again. you know, they uh um you know, I've been at Mosqu High School the last couple of years, and as uh as proud and excited as I was to see uh Coach Gonzalez come up here and all our cheer team looking like young adults and and coming up here to uh receive their reward u their award, I'm I'm super excited to see the Desert Ridge Junior High School students next year and what they're able to accomplish. So, thank you guys very much and thank you for the opportunity again. I thought I thought you were going to turn that thing all the way around, 3C.