A Look Back: Nov. 30

50 Years Ago

■A 5% electrical power cutback started Monday throughout New England, and as was announced by the New England Power Exchange, had only slightly noticeable effects in the average home. Hampshire County residents adjusted their home heating patterns and reduced speeds on highways in line with President Nixon’s announcements Sunday night.

■Northampton’s director of the Hampshire Community Action Commission (HCAC), Joseph Paul, resigned to accept the position as director of the Management Assistance Program in Holyoke, where his duties will begin Dec. 24, it was announced Thursday.

25 Years Ago

■The Northwestern district attorney’s office met Monday with Hatfield Police Chief David Hurley about incidents in which residents’ property was vandalized by swastikas and other hateful symbols, but so far, no charges have been filed. Another act of vandalism was discovered Saturday on a barn.

■A project to erect a three-story, 89-room hotel on land near Exit 18 of Interstate Route 91 is advancing. Some say the site, on the west side of Route 5 across Atwood Drive from the Inn at Northampton, is ideal for a hotel. Others, though, say the market can’t sustain another hotel here.

10 Years Ago

■Families, friends and individuals totaling about 150 came in out of the cold for a community Thanksgiving dinner provided by Manna at Edwards Church on Thursday. Manna, the group that runs the church’s soup kitchen, also provided take-out meals to another 150 people and home-delivered lunches to 250 people.

■Pro-marijuana activists in Massachusetts have already succeeded in paving the way for dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries and decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the drug. Now many of those same activists have set their sights on the full legalization of marijuana for adults, effectively putting the drug on a par with alcohol and cigarettes.