Around Natick recalls trips to the Natick Pharmacy on Rte. 9 (near where the Pizza Hut is now, by Speen):

... A trip to the pharmacy always included a visit to the toy department downstairs, where the owner, Mr Finklestein used to keep close watch on whatever the neighborhood kids were up to. Occasionally, someone would tease him and he'd start yelling, chasing the perpetrators up the stairs and out the doors. ...

Things aren't going quite as planned at the uptown section of the Natick Mall (as opposed to the original ghetto wing, the one where you can still buy black-light art), the Globe reports, quoting analysts who blame New Englanders:

... While there is ample wealth in this region - the average household income is about $110,000, nearly double the state average - there is still a culture of buttoned-up Yankees who aren't accustomed to indulgent spending on luxury goods, according to Madison Riley, a retail analyst at Kurt Salmon Associates in Boston. ... "There has been a culture in the Boston area of that Yankee thriftiness, even when one had money," Riley said. "That's changed in the city of Boston but the mentality still resides in the suburbs, and that is impacting Natick." ...

Michael Pahre discusses the oddity of Boston having two marathons this year - one Sunday for Olympic women trialists, and the normal one, on Monday.

Jim Sullivan recounts a day at the race.

Boston Police vow to crack down on drunken revelers. Are you listening, Boston College?

Why Tufts's president isn't running this year.

The year's grossest Marathon discussion.

Channel 4 reports a guy is wanted for holding up at least 10 area banks. On at least two occasions, he was wearing a Boston Water and Sewer Commission jacket. He's a white guy, between 5'10 and 6" and is beefy. And he's armed and dangerous.

Is it my imagination or has there been an increase in the number of bank robberies around here in recent months?

Natick votes 2-1 to keep calling its teams the Redmen.

Dear Boston Globe: I know times are tough, but you should really consider hiring a historian to proof stories like this, so you can avoid gaffes like this:

Redmen traditionalists say the name is part of town history and refers to red athletic jerseys, not the Native Americans who settled in this Boston suburb in the 1600s.

Two things, guys:

Natick committee proposes changing Natick Redmen to Natick Red and Blue.

The MetroWest Daily News reports two mothers got into it at the Natick Chuck E. Cheese over the issue of issue of whether one of their kids was hogging an arcade game:

"Unfortunately, a birthday night out turned into a birthday melee," police Sgt. Paul Thompson said. "I don't even know if they finished their pizza."

Earlier:
I'd get fighting mad in a Chuck E. Cheese, too.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury today found Oscar Rosa, 21, of Natick, guilty of second-degree murder in the Nov. 26, 2006 stabbing of Craig Viera outside the Embassy Club the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Rosa was sentenced to life in prison, but will be eligible for parole after 15 years.

Prosecutors alleged that Rosa and his pals were ejected from the club after Rosa had been restrained twice for causing trouble. Viera, the club's head of security, went outside the Lansdowne Street club and attempted to quiet the group down by offering them free admission the following weekend. Instead, prosecutors say, Rosa lunged at Viera, a Framingham resident, and stabbed him in the abdomen, leaving him with a liver injury that led to his death two weeks later from blood clots that formed in his lungs.

Rosa's attorney argued that Viera, a bodybuilder, actually died from steroid abuse.

Stabbing victim remembered.

Tim F-W proposes a replacement for Redmen:

... According to the Census Bureau, out of the 32,170 inhabitants of Natick, only 134 claim Native American ancestry. If Natick sports fans want to continue the tradition of having mascots named after tribes, why not reflect the actual composition of the town? I humbly suggest the Natick Palefaces. Surely the good citizens of Natick would recognize that name as one without racial overtones at all.

Natick sports teams may have new nickname.

Natick was founded as an Indian town, complete with its own Town Meeting - Speen Street gets its name from one of the leaders (and the first bible printed in British North America was John Eliot's translation into the Natick language). But even though the Natick Indians mostly sided with the British during King Philip's War (Captain Tom's Hill, now home to Jordan's Furniture, is named for an Indian who spied for the English), the revenge-mad colonial legislature exiled the town to treeless Deer Island, where most of the residents died over that winter.