Ribbons for troops put condos in a tangle

PEMBROKE - Residents of Barker Square condominiums say their community is a good one. They use words like "quiet," "nice," and "supportive" to describe it.

Not long ago, Mary Doller, the secretary for the community's board of trustees, also used the word "uniform" when she talked about the cul-de-sac of 24 picture-perfect homes painted in an identical light brown and framed with white trim.

That was before the yellow ribbons. Now the community is better described as divided.

About a week ago, 10 residents, in a show of support for members of the military, strung bows up in front of their homes. The yellow symbols have now become fuel in a bitter feud in the Pembroke community.

"It's a very sad thing," said Doller. "There's been a rift here always. This is just people trying to bring it to a head."

The tempest is swirling not far from Pembroke's main thoroughfare, Center Street, where hundreds of yellow bows have adorned a mile stretch through the center of town since Matthew Bean, a Pembroke resident, was killed in Iraq last year. They jibe with the town's center, where tiny American flags sprout around memorials at the graveyard and red-white-and-blue bunting hangs from several buildings.

But some residents of Barker Square, apparently put off by the condition of the ribbons after more than a year in the weather, voiced concerns to the local group that had put them up. "You know what a rough winter we had," Doller said. "You can imagine what the ribbons looked like."

The military support group explained that parents of other Iraq war service members had asked that the ribbons remain until their children came home. The group replaced the bows with fresh ones and invited residents of Barker Square to hang ribbons at their homes. Ten obliged.

The board didn't like it. The issue, Doller said, is not so much the ribbons themselves as their placement. The bright bows accent porch posts, but technically, those posts are common property, Doller said. The ribbons, she said, must be moved to the homeowners' doors - literally a few feet - which are considered private property.

"We support and encourage the yellow ribbons as a board," Doller said. "Our only concern is the placement."

Doller is one of three residents on the five-person board who moved to levy $25 fines each month for ribbons that remain hung in common areas. Another member, June Lane, thought the bows were fine. A fifth was not present for the vote.

Lane was born and raised in Peabody, but relocated to a condo on the sun-drenched shores of Florida nearly a decade ago. She moved back to Massachusetts two years ago. "I needed two new knees and two new hips," she said.

In Florida, Lane said, condominium board meetings took place in sidewalk cafes, over dinner, with a glass of wine. She thought it would be more of the same in Barker Square.

"I thought it was a nice, quiet little town, with nice, quiet little people," Lane said. She put a ribbon on the post outside her unit, and doesn't intend to remove it before the board meets again in August. The dust-up has left her dismayed.

"I get a laugh out of all of it," she said.

Condo resident Barbara Burke is keeping her ribbon on the post, though she would prefer to spend the $25 elsewhere. "I think it's ridiculous," she said of the board's ruling. "I don't see any harm [in the symbol]. It's not unattractive."

Another resident, Sultana Daoulas, a former schoolteacher, sidestepped the dispute, which will no doubt be a hot topic at the board's August meeting. She put a ribbon on a flower pot - next to the disputed post but considered private property - near her bright yellow marigolds. "I don't like confrontation," she said.

Daoulas says her community is nice, but she considers the disagreement a little ridiculous.

"I think that boy deserves more than ribbons," said Daoulas, whose four brothers are veterans and whose nephew is serving currently. "Certain people, it just seems to bother them, and I don't know why.

"This boy died. That we could sit around discussing this . . . it bothers me."