The Villager Files: Week of October 17

Each week we take a look back at the top stories reported in the Southborough Villager 10 years, 20 years, and 30 years ago. Here are the stories that were making headlines during the week of October 17. If you have memories about any of these events, please share them in the comments.

10 years ago: Southborough to give voters more options
Selectmen said residents would get to choose between three options for dealing with the space crunch at Algonquin at an upcoming special town meeting: renovating the existing building, splitting the district into two separate K-12 districts, and keeping the district together but building a separate high school in Southborough. Meanwhile, the regional school committee decided to borrow money only for the renovation option. Critics said the school committee’s decision meant voters would have little choice but to vote for renovation since neither of the other options would have funding. (Southborough Villager, October 19, 2011)

20 years ago: It’s ‘lights, camera, action’
It turns out when Hollywood came to Southborough back in 2009, it wasn’t their first visit. Twenty years ago this week Paramount Pictures was in Southborough filming scenes for their movie School Ties on the campus of St. Mark’s School. The film about a Jewish boy who attends an elite prep school in the 1950’s started Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O’Donnell, and Ben Affleck, among others. (Amusingly, the Villager wrote of the production at the time “there are no big-name stars in the film.” That was the pre-Good Will Hunting days, after all.) It wasn’t the first time St. Mark’s had been used as a filming location. A couple of years before School Ties, the boarding school served as the backdrop for a Pepsi commercial featuring Larry Bird, as well as a Mass Lottery commercial. (Southborough Villager, October 17, 1991)

30 years ago: Controversy continues over hermit’s house
It was one of the smallest homes in Southborough, but it caused a big controversy. In 1948 Rameidio Malchiddi, a hermit, built a two-room shack on John Street. It was only 12 by 18 feet total. It had running water (cold only) but no tub or shower, no heat, and no interior finishing. When Malchiddi died in the late 1970’s, neighbors hoped the shack would be demolished, but the property owner had other plans. He got a permit to build an addition onto the home to use as a rental property. The neighbors weren’t pleased. In an introduction to an article about the controversy, the Villager decried the story as “the passing of a way of life.” The editor wrote “Apparently one can no longer live, as did the self-reliant John Street Hermit, in a tiny house he could afford, maintaining his independence and not relying on handouts or welfare as so many do today. The complexities of modern day government, it’s regulations, concerns over conflicting interests, overwhelm the simple way of life depicted by this hermit in his tiny house.” (Southborough Villager, October 23, 1981)