UpCountry Magazine, July/August 2018

Adventures in the Berkshires and Southern Vermont

Summertime Celebrations Bennington Battle Day remembers the Revolution Behind the scenes at the Brattleboro Goes Fourth Independence Day Parade

Happy Birthday, Lenny: Tanglewood marks 100 years of Leonard Bernstein Plus: Baseball in the Berkshires | True North Granola Scenery and serenity on Mount Equinox Vermont Woods Studios | Lincoln's Hildene and more...

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

27 37 42 50

A towering tribute Honoring history at the Bennington Battle Monument

Baseball in the Berkshires America’s game finds a home in the Berkshires

The maestro

Tanglewood celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday

Life is a bowl of granola Franklin and Ingrid Chrisco of True North Granola

Scenery and serenity on Vermont’s Mount Equinox

6 From the editor 15

9 Contributors 12 Out & About

Made in Vermont Vermont Woods Studios showcases fine furniture from local artisans 57

UpCountry Wine, Food and Spirits Celebration

19 Up Next

Step by step The secrets behind a small-town parade

Driving to the sky

64

Experience culture in three dimensions

69 Up Close ON THE COVER: A drone’s-eye view of the Bennington Battle Monument in Bennington, Vt. Photo: Ben Garver.

Hildene, Robert Todd Lincoln’s summer home UpCountryOnline.com | 5

FROM THE EDITOR This could be one of my favorite issues of UpCountry Magazine to date.

Why? Because it’s taken me to a couple of places that I’ve never been in, like to the top of Mount Equinox in Manchester, or at least haven’t been in a while, like Hildene, the home of Robert Todd Lincoln. I’m resolving to visit both spots at some point this summer because UpCountry’s Telly Halkias and this magazine’s associate editor Jennifer Huberdeau have inspired me with their pieces on both places, respectively. (Read about Mount Equinox on Page 50, and Hildene on Page 69.)

And it’s one of my favorite issues of UpCountry because it’s about so many of my favorite summertime destinations, like Tanglewood and the Bennington Monument.

Who isn’t looking forward to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood celebration of the anniversary of the great Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday? The maestro was an amazing force and a true character who adored Tanglewood. As the classical music critic Andrew Pincus points out in his reflection upon the legendary conductor and composer on Page 42: “Everything about Bernstein … was larger than life.”

Of course, there’s baseball. And this region is steeped in baseball history, as Rebecca Sheir points out in “Baseball in the Berkshires” (Page 37). When you stop by to see a Pittsfield Suns game at Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Mass., you’ll have to make a point to visit some of the city’s historic baseball landmarks, too.

If you have a family with young children like I do, my wife and I particularly enjoy heading up to the Bennington Monument in Vermont. (Cherise Madigan writes about the location on Page 27.) The kids like to run around on the grass around the monument, then we head to the gift shop nearby, and finally we ascend the elevator to the top for the view.

It’s a busy summer with a lot to take in. We wouldn’t have it any other way here in the Berkshires and Southern Vermont.

Kevin Moran, Editor kmoran@berkshireeagle.com

Publisher Fredric D. Rutberg

frutberg@berkshireeagle.com

Editor Kevin Moran

kmoran@berkshireeagle.com

Associate Editor Jennifer L. Huberdeau

jhuberdeau@berkshireeagle.com

Art Director Kimberly Kirchner

kkirchner@berkshireeagle.com

Chief Revenue Officer Jordan Brechenser

jbrechenser@berkshireeagle.com

Chief Consumer Sales/ Events Officer Warren Dews Jr.

wdews@berkshireeagle.com

Regional Advertising Managers Berkshire County, Mass.: Kate Teutsch kteutsch@berkshireeagle.com

Bennington County, Vt.: Susan Plaisance

splaisance@manchesterjournal.com

Windham County, Vt.: Josh Unruh jdunruh@reformer.com

UpCountry Magazine is a publication of New England Newspapers Inc.

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CONTRIBUTORS Bob Audette [“Vermont Woods Studios,” page 57] has been writing for the Brattleboro Reformer for close to 15 years. When he’s not working or hanging out with his 6-year-old son, he can often be found on one of the many trails leading to the summit of Mount Monadnock, in southern New Hampshire.

Benjamin Cassidy [“Up Next,” page 19] is the arts and entertainment reporter for The Berkshire Eagle. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School and the University of Michigan, Benjamin now lives in Dalton, Mass.

Telly Halkias [“Driving to the sky,” page 50] is a national awardwinning, independent journalist. He lives and writes from his homes in southern Vermont and coastal Maine.

Jennifer Huberdeau [“Up Close,” page 69] is New England Newspapers’ online editor and associate editor of UpCountry magazine.

She also pens the column, “The Cottager,” for Berkshires Week and The Shires of Vermont.

Cherise Madigan [“A towering tribute,” page 27] is a native Vermonter and frequent contributor to the Manchester Journal and Bennington Banner.

Kevin O’Connor [“Step by step,” page 64] is a Vermont native and Brattleboro Reformer contributor.

Andrew L. Pincus [“The maestro,” page 42] is The Berkshire Eagle’s classical music critic and the author of five books, including three about Tanglewood and musicians associated with it. As a freelance writer, he has written for The New York Times and other publications.

Elodie Reed [“Out & About,” page 12] is a freelance journalist living in Williamstown.

Rebecca Sheir

[“Baseball in the Berkshires,” page 37] is a veteran public radio reporter and host. She has been on “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition,” “Marketplace,” “Here and Now,” “The Splendid Table” and the Alaska Public Radio Network. She currently hosts/writes/produces “Circle Round,” WBUR’s storytelling podcast for kids and grown-ups.

Natalie Wise [“Persons of Interest,” page 15] has a masters degree in poetry from Dartmouth and is the author of four books. When she isn’t writing, she is likely baking or spending time exploring this beautiful area with her husband and their chocolate lab.

UpCountryOnline.com | 9

OUT & ABOUT

UpCountry Magazine raises a toast to the season The UpCountry Wine, Food and Spirits celebration draws hundreds to Eastover Estate in Lenox

By Elodie Reed UpCountry Magazine celebrated the beginning of the cultural season (and the end of a long winter) with the first UpCountry Wine, Food and Spirits Celebration in May. At the newly renovated Eastover Estate and Eco-Village’s Tally Ho in Lenox, Mass., attendees dined on hors d’oeuvres from Berkshire caterers and sampled wines from local sellers, while mingling with hosts of various performing arts venues about upcoming performances.

On stage, the Berkshire Jazz Collective played beneath red and blue lights. Youth musicians in Kids 4 Harmony, the free after-school music program run by Berkshire Children and Families Inc., performed three songs. (A portion of the night’s proceeds was donated to Kids 4 Harmony.)

Tatiana Cruz attended the UpCountry celebration to watch her daughter, Heather, play the cello in Kids 4 Harmony.

“The best part is that it keeps the kids busy — it gives them something to do,” Tatiana said.

Before and after the Kids 4 Harmony performance, folks crowded around round tables on the Tally Ho dance floor to eat, drink and chat.

Bev and Bob Moncy of

RIGHT: Igor Sheir, 2, of West Stockbridge, enjoys his first-ever chocolate covered strawberry while his mom Rebecca looks on during the UpCountry Wine, Food and Spirits Celebration at Eastover Estate and EcoVillage on Friday, May 4, 2018. Photo: Elodie Reed.

12 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

Pittsfield attended with Karen O’Donnell and Peter Sheffer of Richmond. O’Donnell said she was at the event since she was “always up for a party,” but she was especially wanting to see

what Eastover Estate looked like after its current owners, Yingxing Wang and Gudjon Hermansson, bought the 600acre property in 2010 and renovated it.

The Moncys used to work for General Electric in Pittsfield. Back in the day, the Tally Ho was a popular place for company parties.

“We had all the GE functions here and we loved the place,” Bob said.

During a tour of the property’s mansion, which has been updated throughout from guest rooms to sitting rooms, Pittsfield resident Kristene Erwin took photos on her cell phone and reminisced about her parents’ annual ski trip to Eastover.

“My parents came for 25 years,” she said.

While some at the UpCountry celebration thought back to old traditions in the Berkshires, others anticipated what they might do this summer.

Natalie Matus, who grew up visiting Pittsfield and moved there full-time last year, listed off her summer plans: yoga on the lake, the farmers market, live theater and Tanglewood.

“Especially picnicking on the lawn,” she said.

Rebecca Sheir and her 2-year-old son, Igor, had their own little private picnic of sorts just outside the Tally Ho. Igor munched on his first-ever chocolate-dipped strawberry.

Rebecca writes “ little-known history pieces” for UpCountry, about things like the Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail. She said she used to visit the Berkshires on vacation, then her family moved to West

Stockbridge from Washington, D.C. That’s when she said she started uncovering the stories she writes now. While the summer season is nice, she said, the region’s four seasons — long winters or not — are better.

“When you’re here yearround, that’s when the magic happens,” she said. •

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Peggy and Tony Pagliarulo of Dalton, center, chat with Elizabeth Roberts of West Stockbridge, far right, and Cindy Basdekis of Lenox, left, in the Tally Ho Building at Eastover Estate and Eco-Village in Lenox.

Larry Strauss of Lenox enjoys a drink.

Debbie Arpante of Hinsdale, left, Nora and Paul Doucette of Dalton, center, and Deborah Donati of Pittsfield, right, huddle for a photo.

Berkshire Jazz Collective drummer Sturgis Cunningham plays during the UpCountry Wine, Food and Spirits Celebration. Photos: Elodie Reed.

UpCountryOnline.com | 13

PERSONS OF INTEREST

Life is a bowl of granola Lifelong educators Franklin and Ingrid Chrisco took their love for granola and turned it into growing a ‘handmade in Vermont’ business

By Natalie Wise For granola lovers, True North Granola is the North Star: Follow the scent of toasting pecans, warm maple syrup, and all manner of spices, nuts and dried fruits off Interstate 91 in Brattleboro, Vermont, to the edge of the Connecticut River, then down a corridor in the unassuming Cotton Mill building …

And voila! You’re at the center of the universe for granola goodness.

As granola aficionados know, granola must be crunchy, but not too crunchy.

The ingredients can’t be too hard or dry, and must retain their original flavors.

Granola needs to strike the right balance of oats (or nuts, in the case of True North Granola’s Nutty No-Grainer) to ingredients, and it has to hold up when drenched in milk or drizzled with yogurt and honey.

Tr u e No r t h G r a n o l a founders Franklin and Ingrid Chrisco improved upon the crunchy pantry staple by doing all of the above. And they make sure their granola isn’t overly sweet, that it’s made with healthy fats and ingredients, and that it’s low in carbohydrates. Of course, ultimately, their granola has to taste great.

Franklin and Ingrid had decades of experience making granola at home for themselves.

But it wasn’t their intention to

start a granola business.

“It was a delightful hobby that gave us some relief from the intensity of our jobs,” Ingrid said.

But when friends and family persisted in asking for more of their granola, the Chriscos thought that maybe it was time to sell their creation.

True North Granola opened in 2006.

Family and friends spread the word about the granola, and soon the two lifelong educators — he taught fifth and

The Chriscos’ advice for starting a ‘made in Vermont’ food business: “Vermont specialty food products have a strong cache, which is why we put on our labels, 'Handmade in Vermont.' We hear that from customers wherever we go,” says Ingrid Chrisco. Here are some of her best business tips: • Start with quality products.

• Believe in what you do.

• Know your mission and your vision.

• Start small. Try your product out on family and friends first — and your local farmers market!

• Don’t be afraid to walk in the door of a business and show your products and talk about them.

• Be ethical, creative and work with integrity.

• When you do hire employees, treat everyone with respect and create a collaborative work environment.

RIGHT: True North Granola founders Franklin and Ingrid Chrisco. Photos courtesy of True North Granola.

UpCountryOnline.com | 15

True North Granola now bakes 50,000 pounds of granola a year with MapleVanilla Gluten Free being the most popular. Each batch is handmade by experienced bakers.

Photo courtesy of True North Granola

sixth grade for 41 years and she was an English teacher and middle school principal for 44 — found themselves growing a business after long days at work. As Franklin and Ingrid headed into their “retirement” after several years of doing both, they were able to spend more time building the business.

In the beginning, the couple spent summer weekends selling their granola at the Brattleboro Farmers Market.

There, they received feedback, tested new flavors and gained loyal local fans.

Since 2006, they haven’t missed a summer at their corner booth at the Farmers Market, and it’s typically Franklin you’ll see handing out samples.

The Brattleboro Food Co-op was another eager supporter in the company’s early stages, and True North Granola’s shelf presence there caught the interest of other co-ops in the region.

In year one, the Chriscos sold 500 pounds of their original granola. Within a few years, they expanded to 17 varieties, including gluten-free and nut-free flavors. It was time to expand.

Four years into the busi-

ness, a move to Brattleboro’s Cotton Mill, home to a number of local food manufacturing businesses, allowed for a substantial increase in production.

With 17 varieties and a regional presence, True North Granola was soon in high demand — from bulk orders from university dining halls to a boutique hotel in Manhattan and from Amazon to the Brattleboro 7-Eleven.

Once again, the Chriscos needed to expand to keep up with demand and nearly doubled their space in the Cotton Mill.

True North Granola now bakes 50,000 pounds of granola a year with Maple-Vanilla Gluten Free being the most popular. Each batch is handmade by experienced bakers.

“We hear repeatedly that our product makes people happy, and that’s the most rewarding thing about the business,” Ingrid said.

For the Chriscos, it’s important that their product is “handmade in Vermont.” And they say it’s important that they work to better the community, not only with their personal lives, but with their business.

16 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

But of course, some of the ingredients that go into each variety aren’t locally available.

Macadamia nuts from New England? It just can’t happen.

But True North uses local ingredients whenever possible, like the maple syrup from Hidden Springs Maple up the road in Putney.

Since Ingrid retired 3 1/2 years ago, she’s been pouring even more of her time and effort into the business.

Ingrid and her husband are “All in,” she said.

“We do spend a great deal of our waking time working in and on the business,” Ingrid said. “We are loving every bit of our work right now and are driven by the quality of the products.”

Their dedication and hard work has garnered the support of Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses Program, an investment program designed to help small businesses grow. True North was one of 150 businesses picked from 2,000 applicants. This cohort of small business mentors and colleagues is inspiring the Chriscos even moreso. A fellow small business, an engineering firm, has NASA as its sole contract. Perhaps we’ll see True North granola literally up in the stars?

While the Chriscos don’t envision True North Granola on every grocery store shelf in the United States, they do want Americans to know and love their product through more specialty channels.

What’s next? “ We're growing, we're building more awareness, we're finding new avenues as we listen, and loving every bit of it,” Ingrid said. “We think True North Granola is a well-kept secret, and we’re ready to let the secret out of the bag.” •

Where to find True North Granola: Order online at … truenorthgranola.com Shop/eat at …

Brattleboro Farmers Market, Brattleboro, Vt. Brattleboro Food Coop, Brattleboro, Vt. Putney Food Coop, Putney, Vt. Whole Foods, Hadley, Mass.

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Dining and Café, Brattleboro, Vt.

University of Vermont Medical Center, Burlington, Vt. Landmark College Café, Putney, Vt. Cabot Cheese Store, Quechee, Vt. River Valley Market, Northampton, Mass.

Green Fields Market, Greenfield, Mass.

UP NEXT

CULTURE IN THREE DIMENSIONS

By Benjamin Cassidy

PHOTO: Markus Spiske/Unsplash

Institutions in the Berkshires and Southern Vermont present a season of new perspectives.

Summer doesn’t just bring more people to the Berkshires and Southern Vermont; it brings more art. The annual Marlboro Music Festival will once again turn Marlboro, Vt., into a chamber music hub throughout July and August. The 21st edition of the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show will transform the Vermont village into an exhibit. And Jacob’s Pillow Dance in Becket, Mass., will ramp up its programming with troupes such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago visiting.

While these institutions have made dazzling audiences summer tradition, there is still room for new entrants to do the same. Take, for example, the inaugural Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots Festival, which will host bluegrass up-and-comer Sierra Hull, among others, in mid-August. With FreshGrass at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass., still a month away, this roots music gathering aims to extend the region’s bluegrass season.

Old-reliables Shakespeare & Company and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute can be counted on to bolster the region’s summer arts offerings, too. The former’s stages will be crowded with works by the Bard of Avon and others this July and August; “Macbeth” will certainly attract attention at the Tina Packer Playhouse.

The latter’s “The Art of Iron: Objects from the Musée Le Secq des Tournelles, Rouen, Normandy” adds some three-dimensional flavor to a museum known for its paintings.

Like some of those pieces, this summer arts season is best approached from all sides.

UpCountryOnline.com | 19

MARLBORO MUSIC FESTIVAL

MARLBORO MUSIC PERSONS AUDITORIUM MARLBORO COLLEGE 2582 SOUTH ROAD, MARLBORO, VT.

Marlboro Music estimates that less than 25 percent of its school’s rehearsals pertain to its festival performances. Yet, it turns out that less than a quarter of Marlboro Music’s time is worth more than 100 percent of many other institutions.

Entering its 68th season, the Marlboro Music Festival is one of the country’s most esteemed gatherings of chamber players. Every summer, some of the best up-and-coming and established musicians from around the world spend weeks on Marlboro College’s campus. These “participants” arrive having proposed pieces to work on. Following roughly three weeks of rehearsals, they present some of their favorite compositions to the public during weekend concerts. These choices (and the personnel they require), however, aren’t known more than a week before the shows.

This scheduling tactic adds intrigue, but not all remains a mystery; the approximately 70 participants in this year’s festival have already been announced. Twenty newcomers will join regulars such as pianists Jonathan Biss and Cynthia Raim. Artistic director Mitsuko Uchida is back for another summer, and Shulamit Ran’s influence will be felt as the current composer-in-residence. They’ll have chamber buffs’ full attention.

Courtesy photo

20 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

Marlboro Music Festival Saturdays at 8pm & Sundays at 2:30pm July 14–Aug. 12.

Two special Friday evening shows will be held at 8pm on Aug. 3 and Aug. 10.

North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show opens July 7 The 21st edition of this annual display features more than 35 artists and is curated by Joe Chirchirillo.

Nancy Winship Milliken’s “Stall.”

Photo: Nancy Winship Milliken

The Berkshires and Southern Vermont have no shortage of compelling art exhibits throughout the year, but all-hours shows are rare.

For early risers, night owls and everyone in between, the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show has been a reliable source of artistic inspiration for more than two decades. Now in its 21st year, the annual exhibition will begin on July 7 and continue through Nov. 3. During that period, North Bennington pedestrians can view works by more than 35 artists, including Peter Barrett, Elizabeth Keithline, David Nyzio and Nancy Winship Milliken. Their pieces will be placed in the vicinity of the Vermont Arts Exchange, among other locales.

Local artist Joe Chirchirillo will curate the show for the sixth time. Milliken’s “Stall,” a 15-foot-by-15-foot wall-like sculpture that uses “steel, reclaimed cello bow strings made of horsehair woven into netting,” according to the artist’s website, will be one of its many pieces. It was part of The Mount’s 2017 SculptureNow display, another summer installation that appeals to the region’s art-loving wanderers.

NORTH BENNINGTON OUTDOOR SCULPTURE SHOW 48-66 MAIN ST., NORTH BENNINGTON, VT.

NORTH BENNINGTON OUTDOOR SCULPTURE SHOW UpCountryOnline.com | 21

GREEN MOUNTAIN BLUEGRASS AND ROOTS FESTIVAL HUNTER PARK, MANCHESTER, VT.

GREEN MOUNTAIN BLUEGRASS AND ROOTS FESTIVAL FreshGrass has made bluegrass a late-summer staple of the Berkshires soundscape. Now, a new festival aims to extend that resonance to the north earlier in the season.

The inaugural Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots Festival will bring a host of the genre’s performers to Southern Vermont in mid-August. Sierra Hull, Mandolin Orange, Donna the Buffalo, Peter Rowan and Upstate Rubdown are among those who will play during the four-day festival at Hunter Park, where campers and local vendors will set up shop.

Hull has lived with the “prodigy” label for more than half her life now, having signed with Rounder Records when she was 13. The mandolinist and vocalist has received praise from Alison Krauss and collaborated with Béla Fleck along the way, but creative darkness hasn’t eluded her. Her most recent record, 2016’s “Weighted Mind,” ruminates on the burdens of this expectation.

Whether Green Mountain’s reputation can rise as quickly as Hull’s remains to be seen.

Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots Festival Aug. 16-19 Hunter Park Sierra Hull leads a lineup of roots music performers at this inaugural event.

Photo: Gina R. Binkley

22 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

JACOB’S PILLOW DANCE TED SHAWN THEATRE 358 GEORGE CARTER ROAD, BECKET, MASS.

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO

Jacob’s Pillow Dance has become a year-round cultural force, but even its administrators would admit that recreating the Becket institution’s rustic summer splendor is an impossible endeavor. Anyone who has roamed the grounds while some of the world’s best dancers sprawl and stretch just feet away, or picnicked while taking in a performance at the Inside/Out Stage, or just shuttled between the Doris Duke and the Ted Shawn, would agree. Thousands of dance fans make the pilgrimage every year, largely, because of this marriage between movement and setting.

Dance companies aren’t immune to the Pillow’s pull. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has appeared more than a dozen times in Becket since its first stop there in 1983. This year, the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary, bringing a diverse contemporary program led by choreographers Crystal Pite and Alejandro Cerrudo, among others. Performances will run Aug. 1 through Aug. 5 at the Ted Shawn Theatre.

Pillow regulars Dorrance Dance and Faye Driscoll will return, too. But it isn’t all regulars. Cie Art Move Concept, Netta Yerushalmy and Compañía Sharon Fridman will make their Pillow debuts in July and August.

If history serves, they’ll be back.

Dorrance Dance July 18-22 | Ted Shawn Theatre Michelle Dorrance’s tap virtuosos return with a new work, “Myelination,” and a live score.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Aug. 1-5 | Ted Shawn Theatre Pillow regulars celebrate 40 years with a program choreographed

by Crystal Pite and Alejandro Cerrudo, among others.

Sonya Tayeh Aug. 15-19 | Doris Duke Theatre An Obie Award-winning choreographer’s dance symphony, “you’ll still call me by name,” examines a mother-daughter relationship with music by indie folk duo The Bengsons.

Courtesy photo

23

MACBETH

Macbeth

by William Shakespeare July 3–Aug. 5 Tina Packer Playhouse Obie Award-winner Melia Bensussen directs this edition of The Bard’s tale of corruption and its horrors

Shakespeare & Company, artistic director Allyn Burrows emphasized in a recent interview, has an ampersand in its name for a reason. The Lenox institution tackles William Shakespeare’s famous works and contemporary playwrights’ additions to the dramatic canon. This July and August, for example, the troupe will host productions of Terrence McNally’s “Mothers and Sons”, Simon Stephens’ “Heisenberg” and August Strindberg’s “Creditors” (adapted by David Greig).

Still, Shakespeare & Company knows what comes first in its moniker. Though they are well-trodden, the Bard of Avon’s plays offer ample territory for the troupe to explore. One of this season’s highlights is “Macbeth.” Obie Award-winner Melia Bensussen will direct this tragic story of misguided ambition; Jonathan Croy and Tod Randolph will play the Macbeths.

Gregory Boover, Thomas Brazzle, Nigel Gore, Deaon Griffin-Pressley, Zoë Laiz, Ella Loudon and Mark Zeisler round out the cast.

Bensussen cites Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” as inspiration for this production. If this “Macbeth” pays homage to that work, audiences may be in store for some heart-pounding. A Shakespeare reprieve may even be in order.

As You Like It

by William Shakespeare Aug. 9–Sept. 2 Roman Garden Theatre Shakespeare & Company Artistic Director Allyn Burrows helms this production of the comedy examining love and gender.

Creditors

by August Strindberg adapted by David Greig July 19–Aug. 12 Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre Nicole Ricciardi directs this psychological thriller.

Courtesy photo

24 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY TINA PACKER PLAYHOUSE 70 KEMBLE ST., LENOX, MASS.

With a world-class collection of impressionist paintings, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute often draws the types who want to see a Renoir oilon-canvas. It exhibits artistic titans, such as Picasso, that cater to paint-loving crowds, too.

This summer, however, those more drawn to the trades may have reason to find themselves strolling around the Williamstown institution. At the Clark Center, “The Art of Iron: Objects from the Musée Le Secq des Tournelles, Rouen, Normandy” will feature 36 objects that champion wrought iron. These signs, locks, gates, grilles and railings, among other items, demonstrate the material’s predominance before the mid-19th century. For example, “Bracket with Dragon”

by Pierre-François Marie Boulanger (one of the few signed objects on display) is made entirely of wrought iron.

Artist Jean-Louis-Henri Le Secq Destournelles developed an appreciation for these objects while on photography assignments, frequently saving them when buildings were destroyed.

They now belong to France’s Musée Le Secq des Tournelles and, until Sept. 16, to the Clark.

Pierre-François Marie Boulanger (French, 1813–1891), Bracket with Dragon, French, 19th century. Wrought iron, with modern mount, 78 3/4 x 44 1/8 x 11 7/8 in. Réunion des Musées Métropolitains, Rouen, Normandy, LS.2016.2.1 © Agence La Belle Vie – Nathalie Landry

The Art of Iron: Objects from the Musée Le Secq des Tournelles, Rouen, Normandy through Sept. 16 Signs, locks, gates, grilles and railings, among other items, demonstrate wrought iron’s predominance before the mid-19th century.

Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900 through Sept. 3 Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, among others, are exhibited in a show honoring female artists who worked in Paris during the latter half of the 19th century.

Jennifer Steinkamp: Blind Eye through Oct. 8 The media artist creates the Clark’s first video installation piece, featuring six projections.

THE CLARK 225 SOUTH ST., WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.

THE ART OF IRON: OBJECTS FROM THE MUSÉE LE SECQ DES TOURNELLES, ROUEN, NORMANDY

UpCountryOnline.com | 25

Awaiting Completed Media

A towering tribute

to a key moment in our history

The Bennington Battle Monument is Vermont’s most popular state historic site

By Cherise Madigan

American heritage stands tall in Bennington, Vt.: Visitors and passersby can’t miss the Bennington Battle Monument that defines the destination and embodies the revolutionary spirit that shaped it.

In the midst of the sweltering summer of 1777, British General John Burgoyne made his move to quell the American rebellion by cutting off New England from the rest of the colonies. By August, however, the general found himself dangerously low on provisions, wagons and livestock. Tantalizingly close to his destination of Albany, N.Y., Burgoyne saw Bennington’s arsenal depot, located at the site of the monument today, ripe for plunder.

Little did Burgoyne know that a militia of more than 2,000 men from Vermont, New Hampshire and the Berkshires of Massachusetts, under the leadership of Major General John Stark and Col. Seth Warner, stood ready to defend Bennington. But instead of waiting for Burgoyne’s men to arrive, Stark took the fight to the advancing troops.

THIS PAGE: The Bennington Battle Monument silhouetted in front of a sailor sunset. Photo: Holly Pelczynski.

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“Before [Burgoyne’s troops] could achieve their objective they were stopped dead in their tracks by General Stark on August 16,” explained David Pitlyk, an assistant at the Bennington Battlefield Historic Site in Walloomsac, N.Y., where the actual battle took place. “Carrying off a series of enveloping maneuvers and storming fortified positions defended with a light cannon, Stark not only won the battle … but also defeated reinforcements who arrived too late to [assist] in a second engagement that same day.”

The victory was crucial to the patriots’ later success at the Battle of Saratoga, considered by many to be a turning point

of the American Revolution.

Though the battle took place across the New York border, it has come to define Bennington’s historic landscape and culture.

Perhaps the most stunning fixture in the Southern Vermont skyline, the stone obelisk rising from historic Old Bennington continues to mark that history. Built on the site of the arsenal Stark’s men were defending, the Bennington Battle Monument is more than 306 feet tall.

“It’s certainly the historic asset of this community,” said Tyler Resch, a research librarian at the Bennington Museum and author of “Bennington’s

Battle Monument: Massive and Lofty.”

The monument receives 50,000 visitors a year, according to Resch.

“It’s the most frequented of the state historic sites in all of Vermont,” he said.

In the early 1800s, the idea to memorialize the victory began to gain speed, according to Resch. The Bennington Historical Society, founded in 1850 by North Bennington native Hiland Hall — a former Vermont governor and U.S. representative — led the charge to commemorate the Battle of Bennington and the revolutionary generation that had begun to fade away.

Progress moved slowly, and it wasn’t until 1876 that the Historical Society set its sights on a small memorial surrounded by statues. Preferring something “massive and lofty,” however, Hall utilized his political acumen to organize an extensive public relations campaign that would eventually undermine his own committee.

“It happened after he was 90 years old, and he knew that he wouldn’t live to see the monument himself,” said Resch.

In fact, Hall’s desired design was not completed and dedicated until 1891.

“The monument that resulted is exceptional,” Resch said.

“It dominates the landscape.”

BELOW: The Bennington Battle Monument being built in 1889 (left), and today. Photos: The Bennington Banner

28 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

“The Bennington Monument is more parabolic,” compared with others like the Washington Monument, and “very subtly done with an airy and graceful quality.”

— Phil Holland, author of “A Guide to the Battle of Bennington and the Bennington Monument”

The Bennington Battle Monument, viewed from the air.

Photo: Ben Garver.

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30 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

“That was how we got our beautiful and original obelisk, which is essentially an Egyptian-style sculpture,” said Phil Holland, whose “A Guide to the Battle of Bennington and the Bennington Monument” continues to shepherd visitors through Bennington.

“The Bennington Monument is more parabolic,” compared with others like the Washington Monument, and “very subtly done with an airy and graceful quality.”

Crafted from blue-gray magnesian limestone from New York’s Hudson Falls, thousands of visitors scale the monument’s steps [or hitch a ride on the elevator] each year to enjoy views encompassing Vermont, New York and Massachusetts.

An imposing statue of Warner, a commander of the Green Mountain Boys, rests on the monument’s grounds, as well as a bronze tablet placed in honor of Stark and his New Hampshire forces (donated by New Hampshire citizens in 1977).

History buffs may also enjoy a visit to the 372-acre Bennington Battlefield in Wallamoosac. Other historic sites, like Fort Ticonderoga in New York, are within range for those planning a day trip.

Whether you call Vermont home or are just passing through, a tour of Bennington’s historic landscape is bound to edify and awe.

“This is a slice of history waiting in our own backyard,” Pitlyk said. “The opportunity to connect with our shared American heritage awaits.” •

Don’t miss...

The 54th annual Bennington Battle Day Weekend Bennington Battle Day When: Thursday, Aug. 16 What: All Vermont state historic sites are free, including the Bennington Battle Monument. A commemorative ceremony, at the Bennington Battlefield, Route 67A, Walloomsac, N.Y., is at 7 p.m.

14th annual Battle Day 5K road race When: Saturday, Aug. 18. Registration at 8 a.m., race at 9:30. A half-mile kids fun run follows the 5K. In keeping with the theme, the firing of a cannon or Revolutionary War-era rifle starts the race.

Where: Starts at the Bennington Battle Monument.

Information: 802-447-0550, benningtonbattlemonument.com.

Battle Day Parade When: Sunday, Aug. 19, 12:30 p.m.

Where: Downtown Bennington. Runs

from Main and Safford streets to Depot Street then to River Street and ends at the Bennington Fire Department.

Fashionable Times When: Sunday, Aug. 19, 3 to 4:30 p.m., following the parade.

Where: Old First Church Barn, Monument Circle.

What: A historical fashion show

by Vintage Visitors Presentations, featuring women’s fashions, ranging from Colonial to Victorian times.

Included in the collection is a 19th century riding habit, a Victorian mourning ensemble, day dresses, evening gowns and wedding gowns.

Fashions for children and gentlemen also are featured. The Vintage Visitors interpreters will remain for a short period after the show, in costume, to chat and answer questions.

Tickets: $10 for 15 and older, $2 for youth, ages 6 to 14 Information: 802-447-0550, benningtonbattlemonument.com.

LEFT: Rosemary Edgar of Somers, Conn., plays a battle hymmn on the violin during Bennington Battle Day activities.

RIGHT: Revolutionary War reenactors stand proudly at the Bennington Monument during the Bennington Battle Days.

Photos: Holly Pelczynski.

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WORTH CHECKING OUT School's out for the summer. Here are some suggestions for keeping everyone entertained (and sane) through the warmer months.

Have a day out with the kids...

The Mount, Edith Wharton's Home 2 Plunkett St., Lenox, Mass.

Kids 18 and under are free every day at The Mount. Families can spend time together exploring the house and gardens.

Scavenger hunts are available to help get everyone involved.

On Friday mornings, The Mount offers Books & Blooms, a free storytime for children 2-6 years old.

Please visit the website for more information.

Hours of Operation: Sunday-Saturday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

More information: 413-551-5111 EdithWharton.org PHOTO: Sarah Kenyon for The Mount

Ioka Valley Farms 3475 Rte. 43, Hancock, Mass.

Uncle Don's Barnyard at Ioka Valley Farm features friendly farm animals to pet and feed, with many farm toys and activities for the whole family to enjoy including a hay tunnel, wagon train ride, farm theme playground, pedal powered tractors, Molly-Milk-Me, goat ramp, farm library, farm dress up, 40-ft. pipeline slide, adult pedal carts, wiggle cars, indoor and outdoor sandboxes and tryke track. Be sure to pick up a bottle of their pure maple syrup from the farm shop!

Hours of Operation: June 26-September 1: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

More information: 413-738-5915 • iokavalleyfarm.com 32 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

Sponsored Content

Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort 37 Corey Road, Hancock, Mass.

Mountain Adventure at Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort is open Memorial Day weekend through late October and features the Mountain Adventure Park—including the Alpine Slide, Mountain Coaster, Euro Bungy trampolines, climbing wall, and more— as well as the Aerial Adventure Park; an elevated challenge course through the trees with six different levels and a zip course. The summer season at Jiminy is a perfect day out for the entire family!

Hours of Operation: Jun. 16-Sept. 3: Open daily, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Sept. 8-Oct. 21: Open weekends and Columbus Day, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

More information: 413-738-5500 • jiminypeak.com

... and a night out with the grown-ups.

Shire Breu-Hous Brewery • Restaurant

63 Flansburg Ave., Dalton, Mass.

Craft beer, extensive beer and wine list, spirits, upscale pub fare, live music, trivia Come explore the Berkshire’s newest brewpub located underground at the Stationery Factory in a thoughtfully renovated space.

Located just five miles from downtown Pittsfield, Shire offers a continually updated array of twelve craft drafts poured from their proprietary tap system, a variety of wines, beers and cocktails to suit any taste, all paired with a seasonally inspired menu. Check out their food specials, weekend brunch and live music schedule each weekend.

Hours of Operation: Tues.-Thurs.: 4 p.m.-12 midnight Fri.: 4 p.m.-1 a.m.

Sat.: 10 a.m.-1 a.m.

Sun.: 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Weekend brunch: Sat. & Sun., 10 a.m.

More information: 413-842-8313 • www.shire.beer

Sponsored Content

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Art from accidents Glendale Brook Studio brings a vibrant splash of color to downtown Lenox, Mass.

It all started with an ordinary can of paint.

One day it spilled, and Alex Kamaroff watched, fascinated, at the swirls and patterns of color as they hit the floor.

He picked up a paintbrush and began.

That was five years ago. Then, through an accident of fate, he met James Hendricks because they shared the same exterminator. James was a brilliant, Smithsonian-exhibited artist, and they became fast friends. Because James had been a professor of both art and art history at Amherst, he gave Alex a crash course in the techniques of modern art.

Inspired by the great 20th-century abstract artists such as Mondrian and Kandinsky, Alex became an expert in the area of hard edge painting, which requires artist’s tape, precise measuring tools and richly infused colors. Alex likes to quote a line from Picasso: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Not that Alex is a thief, but he does take basic styles and takes them to another level. If you love Mondrian but don’t feel like spending $17 million, you can still have original art in your home that captures the feel of a Mondrian.

Not that Alex was a stranger to modern art. He grew up on beachy Long Island, alternately surfing the waves and taking the train into New York to see his grandmother, who, at his request, took him often to the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. (He likes to kid people that he would skateboard down the sloping floors of the Guggenheim, but that’s not true!)

34 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

Sponsored Content

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Grandma would sit and wait while he roamed the galleries, soaking up the images around him. To him, modern art wasn’t modern. It was just art. Years later, he majored in art history at Columbia University.

What began as a passion turned serious when Alex started selling paintings to local businesses in the Berkshires. His fresh, bright, bold style was good for business. Others wanted his work hanging in their homes, where it often became the focal point of a room.

Meanwhile, Alex’s wife, Irene Goodman, had started a successful literary agency back when they were first married and living in New York. Alex was very much involved, and had a keen eye for discovering talent. While finding authors who became bestsellers out of the “slush” pile, he also co-wrote 21 genre novels with his wife and eventually became the agency’s CFO. He has the same eagle eye for art, and has viewed hundreds of thousands of paintings in museums, galleries and online. When you look at that much art, you develop a fine sense for separating the A’s from the A+’s.

So when someone at a party showed him pictures by a New Hampshire artist on their phone, Alex knew he had found a winner. Intrigued by the organized complexity and intensity of the paintings, he contacted the artist, Matt Pigeon. Matt became a friend and a colleague, and is now also featured in the gallery.

More artists will be added as they emerge.

Alex and Irene are very excited to become part of the bustling arts community in Lenox. Irene runs the literary agency from the Berkshires, with semi-monthly trips to New York. Alex is in the Berkshires full time and paints most days in the window of the gallery. People walking by can stop and watch him work.

Better yet, they can walk in and study his technique up close, and discover the airy and light-filled interior of the gallery, offset by the riotous bursts of color that cover the walls. Chairs and beautiful benches are arranged around the space, so that viewers can sit and contemplate, or just take a break from shopping.

As residents know, summer in the Berkshires is a magical time. Locals look forward to it all year long, and it always seems to go much too fast. Glendale Brook Studio is a welcome addition to that vibrant scene. Jacko Vassilev, a world-renowned photojournalist, described the paintings as “healing art” because they are joyful and bright and filled with warmth and energy.

Alex no longer spills paint. Now he purposefully applies it to canvases and creates images that get wide-eyed responses. What began as a curiosity has blossomed into a full-time business, and no one could be happier about it than he is. • Learn More: Glendale Brook Studio, 27 Church St., Lenox, Mass.

413-551-7475 | glendalebrookstudio.com THIS SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Glendale Brook Studio owners Irene Goodman and Alex Kamaroff pose with one of Kamaroff’s paintings.

The Studio features work from Kamaroff and painter Matt Pigeon, with more artists to come.

Kamaroff works on a painting in his Lenox, Mass. Studio.

Paintings by Alex Kamaroff.

The Studio is located in bustling downtown Lenox.

Paintings by Matt Pigeon.

Photos: Casey Albert

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In the Berkshires, baseball has a home Museum exhibits array of area history tied to the national pastime

By Rebecca Sheir In the middle of the Berkshire Mall, what was once a national clothing chain is now a home base for America's pastime.

“It's about 3,500 square feet, and I think we've got every inch taken care of,” says Larry Moore, co-author of “Baseball in the Berkshires: A County's Common Bond” and direc-

tor of the nonprofit Baseball in the Berkshires Museum.

Since taking over the former Eddie Bauer space in spring 2017, Moore and his partners have collected more than 1,200 artifacts telling baseball's story in Berkshire County. Dating back to the 1800s, the memorabilia represent everything from Little League to American Legion teams to the majors and minors.

Wahconah Park on a quiet evening. Photo: Ben Garver

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“And we get these things from the people of Berkshire County,” explains Moore, a lifelong baseball fan and former physical education teacher and coach. “Nothing has been bought. Everything was donated or loaned to us.”

Perusing the autographed balls and uniforms, the pennants and posters, the score cards and photographs, you'd never know you're in a former outerwear store.

Until you reach the fitting room.

Only now, it's the “kids locker room,” where burgeoning baseball fans can gaze in the three-way mirror as they try on professional uniforms, mitts and catchers' masks.

They also can compare their handprints, footprints and heights with those of pro players who were born or raised in the Berkshires or who settled here. The tallest is Pittsfield's Chad Paronto (6 feet, 4 inches) who pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros.

The shortest: North Adams native Jack Chesbro (5 feet, 9 inches) and Pittsfield-born, Williamstown-raised Frank Grant (5 feet, 7 inches).

But Chesbro and Grant were only small in stature.

The historical giants are the Berkshires' only native sons in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Major League pitcher “Happy Jack” Chesbro was born in 1874; his 41-win record

from the 1904 season remains unbeaten.

Ulysses F. “Frank” Grant was born in 1865; Moore and his fellow “Baseball in the Berkshires” authors call the African-American second baseman “the best ballplayer of the era.”

The color line kept Grant from the majors. So this “slick fielder with a strong arm” (to quote his plaque in Cooperstown) flourished in the minors. He also captained topnotch touring black teams like the Cuban Giants and Cuban X-Giants. You can learn more about both teams in the museum's black history display, showcased in the front window.

When you visit the Baseball in the Berkshires Museum, you'll see that baseball was popular in the county long before Chesbro and Grant laced up their cleats.

Case in point: A facsimile of a statute you'll find on the museum's back wall. Pittsfield created this bylaw in 1791, after erecting a new meetinghouse.

The meetinghouse “was designed by Charles Bulfinch, an architect who contributed to the Boston State House and the Capitol in Washington, D.C.,” explains “Baseball in the Berkshires” co-author Jim Overmyer. “And it had glass windows, which were a treat around here and expensive to replace.”

The Bulfinch meetinghouse faced the town common, where people loved playing games — especially games with balls.

Run the bases of Berkshire County baseball history

ABOVE: A player smokes a cigar on the field at Wahconah Park, undated. Photo courtesy of the Dalton Historical Society

“So in 1791, the local government passed an ordinance banning a long list of games with a ball that couldn't be played near the meetinghouse,” Overmyer says. “They didn't want the windows broken.”

That list included “wicket,” “cricket,” “football,” and a little something called “baseball.”

Historians agree that it's one

of the first written references to the sport in the United States.

Pittsfield scored another run in baseball history nearly 70 years later, when Amherst challenged Williams to a game.

The rivaling colleges sought a “neutral site” for the match, and the Pittsfield Baseball Club made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

1791: On the south side of Pittsfield’s Park Square is a plaque commemorating the “1791 Broken Window Bylaw.” “Splitter,” the steel baseball sculpture that originally accompanied the plaque, has been removed for repairs.

Photo courtesy of Baseball in the Berkshires

38 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

ABOVE: Joe Klein, Rangers manager, 1973. Photo: Warren Fowler

The teams played July 1, 1859, on a lot in front of the Maplewood Young Ladies Institute. The museum features an elegant charcoal sketch of the all-girls' finishing school, which once stood east of North Street.

Overmyer describes the choice of Maplewood as “ironic.” Seeking more classroom space, the school had recently purchased a building from the

city, then relocated it to campus.

That building was none other than the Bulfinch meetinghouse.

“So the baseball game was played next to the building that everyone had worked so hard to protect from baseball in 1791,” Overmyer says.

L uc kil y, no windows were broken during the Williams-Amherst game, though

1859: A plaque commemorating the first intercollegiate baseball game is at North and Maplewood streets in Pittsfield.

Photo courtesy of Baseball in the Berkshires

it lasted 26 innings. “[Baseball] was very freeform in those days,” Overmyer explains. “Nobody had gloves, there was no foul territory. The ball could go anywhere.”

Amherst trounced Williams, 73 to 32. Alumni from both schools recreated the game in 1959 and 2009. You can view their replica uniforms at the museum.

The centennial and sesquicentennial re-enactments of the Williams-Amherst match happened at Wahconah Park, built along the Housatonic River in 1892. The museum devotes an entire section to the park, which made the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Wahconah Park is one of the last remaining baseball stadiums with a wooden grandstand. It's also one of two professionally used parks that “face the wrong direction for today's baseball,” explains Tom Daly, museum president and another “Baseball in the Berkshires” co-author.

In the olden days, teams only played when it was light out. With the advent of night games in the 1930s, batters and catchers at Wahconah Park found themselves squinting into the sun as it set behind center field.

“So they have to stop the baseball game for about 20 minutes,” Daly says. “They have sun delays, much like a rain delay.”

Wahconah Park is also one of the nation's oldest ballparks

with an active team: the appropriately named Pittsfield Suns.

You can watch highlights from their most recent season at the museum.

You also can learn about Wahconah teams of yore, and the Major Leaguers they produced. Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk played for the Pittsfield Red Sox, as did Reggie Smith.

Joe Girardi was a Pittsfield Cub. The Pittsfield Electrics helped launch legendary player and manager Al Rosen: The only man in baseball history to win both MVP and Executive of the Year.

The museum includes artifacts from dozens of Major League players born or raised in the Berkshires: baseballs signed by pitcher and Dalton native Jeff Reardon, a photo of Pittsfield High School graduate Art Ditmar with the 1961 Yankees.

Larry Moore points to a baseball bat mounted vertically on a base, with a platter on top.

“The great Dale Long, who played for the Pirates, was from Adams,” Moore says. “This is his bat that was turned into sort of a ’60s-type thing: an ashtray!”

Then there's Pittsfield native Steven John “Turk” Wendell, who pitched for the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies.

The museum has Wendell's uniform from the 2000 World Series, along with a photo of the trademark necklace he fashioned from claws and

1892: Wahconah Park is nestled in a neighborhood off Wahconah Street in Pittsfield.

The ballfield is so close to houses, residents often find fly and foul balls in their yards!

PHOTO: Ben Garver

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teeth of animals he'd hunted.

There's also a list of Wendell's legendary quirks, like chewing black licorice on the pitcher's mound, then brushing his teeth in the dugout.

Accordingly, Wendell's museum display features a bag of licorice and a toothbrush.

Twice a month, the Baseball in the Berkshires Museum hosts the “Golden Age of Baseball,” where players and fans of yesteryear reminisce about the good old days.

Charles Garivaltis, a 1952 Pittsfield High School graduate, is a regular. The All American Amateur Baseball Association Hall of Famer's AAABA trophy is on display at the museum.

“There's quite a legacy we have here in this community,” says Garivaltis. “It surprises people because it isn't like

you're in Florida or Texas; we have a lousy spring sometimes.

Yet baseball seems to have historically been our sport.”

Al Belanger, a former St. Joseph's High School baseball coach and 1957 Pittsfield High School graduate, agrees. His

brother, Mark, was a Major League shortstop. On view at the museum is a trailer from an upcoming documentary about “The Blade,” who died of lung cancer in 1998.

Belanger thanks the Baseball in the Berkshires museum

“There’s quite a legacy we have here in this community. It surprises people because it isn’t like you’re in Florida or Texas; we have a lousy spring sometimes.

Yet baseball seems to have historically been our sport.”

— Charles Garivaltis, All American Amateur Baseball Association Hall of Famer and 1952 Pittsfield High School graduate

40 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

for bringing local baseball history to life — from the legendary to the lesser-known.

“The first time I saw this, I knew what some parts would be,” he says. “But my God, there's a lot! I probably knew 10 percent.”

“It's unbelievable,” he adds with a proud smile and a misty eye. “Absolutely unbelievable.” •

If you go ...

The Baseball in the Berkshires Museum is open from noon to 6 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. It is located at the Berkshire Mall on Route 8 in Lanesborough, Mass.

BELOW: Wahconah Park Rangers game, 1973.

Photo: Warren Fowler

On the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, classical music critic and author Andrew L. Pincus recalls the legendary composer and conductor

Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood, undated. Photo: Walter Scott

42 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

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By Andrew L. Pincus In Tanglewood’s crumbling, now disused Theater-Concert Hall, Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa were sitting side by side in the audience at a student concert.

During intermission, a boy in a Red Sox cap came down the aisle and asked Ozawa for an autograph.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra director happily signed the boy’s program, then pointed to Bernstein and asked the boy, “What about him?”

“I don’t know him,” the boy said, and disappeared.

The kid had yet to learn: Bernstein was larger than life, overshadowing even a Tanglewood icon like Ozawa. Nobody could be around Tanglewood on a daily basis in those years without encountering Bernstein, and nobody could be around Bernstein without getting scorched.

At Tanglewood, he was alumnus, scion, conductor, composer, pianist, teacher, mentor, genius, polymath, god — and nobody knew it better than he. He was a member of the inaugural class of the Tanglewood (then Berkshire) Music Center, 1940, becoming a protege of Serge Koussevitzky.

On the verge of death in 1990, he conducted the BSO in the Koussevitzky Music Shed in his last concert anywhere.

It was the sad farewell to a 50-year career as a fixture at Tanglewood and a citizen of the world.

He wasn’t known as “maestro.” He was “Lenny.”

In an opening address to the 1970 crop of students, Bernstein recalled how he had arrived at Tanglewood 30 years before “in a state of wild excitedness and anticipation.”

Koussevitzky was the polestar: “He was a man possessed by music, by the ideas and ideals of music, and a man whose possessedness came at you like cosmic rays, whether from the podium or in a living room or in a theater like this.”

Bernstein had other allegiances — the New York, Vienna and Israel Philharmonics high among them — but it was to Tanglewood that he returned nearly every summer to conduct, teach, party, revel among the young and be an all-round presence.

So it is fitting that the season-long retrospective of his compositions that Tanglewood is about to present is probably the grandest of the many tributes being paid around the world on the centenary of his birth. The climax of Tanglewood’s festivities and obeisances will be a gala on Aug. 25, the actual birth date. Classical and Broadway stars from his firmament will take part.

There was a precedent.

In 1988, Tanglewood threw a four-day birthday blast for Bernstein’s 70th, culminating in a nearly four-hour gala. The celebration laid to rest various squabbles and absences that had arisen over the years.

The low point came in 1981-82, when Bernstein, miffed by the BSO’s refusal to record Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with him as conductor and pianist, boycotted the orchestra and festival.

Only Bernstein was privileged to wear Koussevitzky’s cufflinks and capes, to drive onto the car-free campus in an open convertible bearing the license plate “Maestro 1.”

With an entourage of managers, assistants, press reps, family, friends and a housekeeper, he arrived for 10 days to two

THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood rehearsal, 1972. Whitestone Photo.

Bernstein plays a kazoo during rehearsal of the cast of “The Mass” at The Kennedy Center, 1974. Photo: UPI Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood, circa 1955. Berkshire Festival photo.

44 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

“Everything about Bernstein, whether his gifts or his appetites for cigarettes, drink, late nights and praise, was larger than life; only his height, which was exaggerated by his dynamism and visage — Adonis-like in his youth, rutted and wasted in old age — was ordinary.”

ABOVE: Leonard Bernstein conducting the Camp Onota Rhythm Band in Pittsfield, 1937. Berkshire Eagle photo BELOW: Leonard Bernstein with composer Aaron Copland (left), 1962. Photo: CBS

weeks like a king surrounded by his court.

His conducting classes at Seranak, Koussevitzky’s old mansion overlooking Stockbridge Bowl, were a well of wisdom — also, at times, the occasion for grandstanding for the young.

“I don’t tell you to do it this way,” he would say, in effect, while explaining how to conduct a passage: “Mozart tells you.”

Bernstein would then tell, with deep insight into both baton management and musical comprehension, how to do it his way. In his 1970 address, urging hope rather than despair

during the morass of Vietnam times, he said it was up to the young, “with your new, atomic minds, your flaming angry hope, your secret weapon of art,” to save the world.

Koussevitzky, the avatar, was the BSO director and Tanglewood founder. Aaron Copland, the dean of the country’s composers, headed the music center for the first quarter-century. Bernstein, who returned as Koussevitzky’s assistant after the war in 1946, was quickly accepted as a member of Tanglewood’s founding trinity. Ozawa, who led the BSO 29 years, entered

45

the pantheon but never on a rung with the founding three.

Koussevitzky died in 1951 without succeeding in having Bernstein anointed as his successor. Bernstein and Copland retained a close friendship until death.

Everything about Bernstein, whether his gifts or his appetites for cigarettes, drink, late nights and praise, was larger than life; only his height, which was exaggerated by his dynamism and visage — Adonis-like in his youth, rutted and wasted in old age — was ordinary. (Cigarettes finally led to his death.)

Concertgoers objected to his podium histrionics: the gyrations, the dance steps, the Dionysian gapes, grimaces and grins, the leonine head flung back, the levitations. But they were an emanation of the volcanic forces within.

Suppress his prancing or his extravagances, and you would suppress the 10,000-volt shock the music delivered. The man knew not only where music’s innermost secrets lay, but how to will musicians to go to those hidden places with him.

He often said that when he conducted he became the composer. That of course gave him license to turn every composer into a Bernstein. Mahler’s obsessions became Bernstein’s; Bernstein’s, Mahler’s.

In politics he was forever tarred by Tom Wolfe’s “radical chic” label. Yet his liberalism was genuine, leading to a friendship with John F. Kennedy and a 1989 Berlin performance of Beethoven’s Ninth celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Bernstein’s telling, Beethoven’s exalted summons to “Freude!” (joy) became one to “Freiheit!” (freedom).

The final concert took place on a gray Aug. 19, 1990, six days before his 72nd birthday.

The program consisted of the Four Sea Interludes from Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” recalling the Bernstein-led American premiere of the great opera at Tanglewood in 1946; Bern46 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE

The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood This summer, the Boston Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Leonard Bernstein, celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth with a season-long theme at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass.

On Saturday, Aug. 25, the birth date of the BSO conductor, a gala concert at the Koussevitzky Music Shed will span the breadth and depth of his career as a composer and maestro. Expect a bit of everything, from Bernstein’s “Candide” and “West Side Story” to a finale of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony.

For information on this program and other Bernstein tributes during the season, visit tanglewood.org.

UpCountry also recommends cruising by the Celebrate Bernstein website at celebratebernstein. org. Here, the BSO has assembled a timeline of Bernstein history, filled with gems of information.

stein’s own “Arias and Barcarolles,” in an orchestration by one of his many proteges, composer Bright Sheng; and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.

Bernstein’s appearance as he walked unsteadily onstage was shocking: at once bloated and gaunt. His performance of the music for the death-fated fisherman Grimes had the grip of self-prophecy.

Unable to conduct his own work, he turned it over to another protege, conductor Carl St. Clair. Seized by a coughing spell, he had to cease conducting altogether in the third movement of the Beethoven symphony, leaving the orchestra to fend for itself.

After a frightening minute or so, he threw himself into the whirlwind finale as if to prove he still had the energy of old.

A cigarette, and then oxygen, awaited backstage.

He didn’t have the energy of old. That night, a planned 12-day tour of Europe with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra — the student orchestra’s first performances ever outside Tanglewood — had to be scrapped. It was to have been the culmination of summer-long festivities celebrating the 50th anniversary of the school from which he had emerged.

“In my end is my beginning,” Bernstein said, quoting T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” during the 70th birthday celebration in 1988. He was his own prophet.

On Oct. 14, 1990, six weeks after the final Tanglewood concert, he was dead. Copland followed six weeks later, on Dec. 2.

Tanglewood has not been the same since. •

TOP: Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood, 1975.

Whitestone Photo.

LEFT: Leonard Bernstein undated headshot. The Carson Office photo.

WORTH CHECKING OUT

Time out in:

Windham County, Vt. Whetstone Station Restaurant & Brewery 36 Bridge St., Brattleboro, Vt. This beautiful restaurant sits at the edge of the river, and the view from the outdoor seating is stunning. The menu includes small plates, comfort foods, and grilled dishes made with local products when possible. Beer fans will also enjoy the variety of homebrewed, regional micro-brewed, and international beers. After dinner, you can take a walk across the nearby steel bridge to enter New Hampshire.

Hours of Operation: Sun.- Wed.: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.

Thurs.- Sat.: 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.

Restaurant and brewery open year-round.

Rooftop Bier Garten open April through October.

Live music on Thursday nights

More information: 802-490-2354 whetstonestation.com

The Marina 28 Spring Tree Road, Brattleboro, Vt. The Marina Restaurant in Brattleboro is a memorable, casual dining experience for he whole family. Located where the Connecticut and West rivers meet, The Marina offers beautiful views all year round! Enjoy waterfront dining and outdoor seating with an extensive menu of American cuisine, vegetarian options, pasta and seafood. Make sure to check out their local craft beer selection and extensive wine list. The amazing sunsets, and cozy, friendly atmosphere make The Marina a must-see destination!

Hours of Operation: Monday-Saturday: 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m.

Sunday: Brunch, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Lunch and Dinner, 1-9 p.m.

More information: 802-257-7563 marina.restaurant

Hidden Springs Maple 162 Westminster W. Road, Putney, Vt. Hidden Springs Maple is a family maple farm located in Putney, Vermont. They offer 100% natural and organic maple syrup tapped on family farms in Vermont. They also offer gift baskets and Vermont gifts, including maple cutting boards, wooden bowls, Vermont honey and artwork including woodcuts by Vermont artist Mary Azarian. Their products are available in their farm store, over the web and at restaurants and specialty stores throughout the U.S. Hours of Operation: Tues.-Sat.: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Closed Mondays Sponsored Content

More information: 802-387-5200 hiddenspringsmaple.com UpCountryOnline.com | 49

50 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

By Telly Halkias

Driving to the sky A visit to Mount Equinox offers history, panoramas, gifts and solitude

When you arrive at Mount Equinox, the first thing that grabs at you are the flags.

Sitting on the west side of Vermont Historic Route 7A in a small strip of Sunderland, just shy of the Manchester town line to the north and the Arlington line to the south, there are more than a dozen of them: Banners from foreign countries and a number of U.S. states.

Jerry Tarr, a trustee of the Equinox Foundation, the nonprofit that manages the mountain, said that each flag represents the home of a monk cloistered in the nearby Charterhouse of the Transfiguration. The monastery is the only Carthusian facility in all of North America.

“There are flags from all over,” Tarr said. “The mountain is a beautiful place and the Carthusian brothers want to share that natural beauty with the public.”

Founded in 1970 as a result of land willed to them from Dr. Joseph Davidson, former Union Carbide executive and board chairman, the monastery houses 13 monks with several more inbound in the near future, according to Father Lorenzo Maria de la Rosa Jr., who hails from the Philippines. He has been here since 1984 and was elected prior in 1999.

Lorenzo, who like other members of the Carthusian order has taken a vow of silence and eschews most non-vocational communications with the outside world, did note though an email (the only internet access the brothers allow themselves) that there are now 13 monks in the monastery and more slated to enter. There are currently no Carthusian Charterhouses in the U.S. for women.

The Foundation, established to run the business operations of the mountain, supports the Carthusians. Its greatest draw, the 5.2-mile journey up Skyline Drive to visit the summit of Mount Equinox, at 3,848 feet, is a favorite attraction for visitors and locals alike.

Sue Williams of West Arlington, who has been with the Foundation for two years, works at the Toll House, an attractive structure at the bottom of the mountain that doubles as a gift shop.

She welcomes visitors coming through the door and directs their attention to all the products therein as well an inforLEFT: The road to the summit of Mount Equinox. Photo: Telly Halkias

UpCountryOnline.com | 51

mative brochure about the journey up Skyline Drive “We have thousands of visitors each year who make the drive to the summit,” Williams said.

The Toll House and gift shop offer an extensive and interesting selection of religious and devotional books and gifts, including tracts published by the Vermont Carthusians on myriad subjects. The shop also carries rosaries made at the monastery as well as crucifixes hand-crafted by the monks from ash, beech, cherry and oak cut from trees found on Mount Equinox.

Also on the shelves are a variety of snacks and souvenirs, as well a selection of Vermont-made products, including the state’s world-famous maple syrup, and maple sugar candies, soy candles and pancake mixes made on a nearby Vermont farm.

Once a visitor buys a toll coin, they then can proceed in their vehicle through the gate and up the winding length of Skyline Drive, a salamander of a road which is billed as the longest paved private toll road in the nation. This is a journey for cars and trucks only, no buses, RVs, campers, pedestrians or cyclists are permitted on the pavement.

The road, finished in 1947 under the aegis of Davidson, who then owned the land, is very well maintained.

Except for the last mile to the summit where some year-long heaves from winter will almost always offer up gentle bumps, it’s a smooth ride, and safe the entire way, TOP: Flags on display at the base of Mount Equinox represent the home countries of monks cloistered in the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration RIGHT: Visitors browse religious gifts and Vermontmade products at the Toll House and gift shop.

Photos: Telly Halkias.

52 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

with guardrails lining the road where needed, and more than you would see on many similar public roads.

As you rise in elevation, there are a number of scenic pullovers, with tables and benches where a family and friends can break out the lunch for the day. Just one mile up the drive is a beautifully shaded multi-terraced picnic area perfect for a warm summer day. Along the way, there are also several interpretive signs that explain both the history of the sites as well as the background for much of the Carthusians’ connection to the land and their faith.

You’ll drive through a diverse hardwood forest where white-tailed deer, porcupine, black bear and bobcat roam, as well as numerous colorful species of birds filling the silence with song. And even in the presence of other visitors and cars coming and going from the summit parking lot, silence and solitude is the prevailing vibe.

It makes good sense, then, that the Carthusians chose this spot for visitors to share in their mountain in 2012, when they built the St. Bruno Scenic Viewing Center. It has spectacular views of panoramas from its north and south decks. From there, you can see Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and, on clear days, Montreal’s Mount Royal.

Inside, from interpretive exhibits and videos, you can learn more about the contemplative monastic order founded in France in 1084, their life at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration, and about the history of Mount Equinox.

For those with more reTOP: A multi-terraced picnic area is one of a number of scenic pullovers alon the drive to the summit.

LEFT: The summit is also accebsible by hiking trails.

Photos: Telly Halkias.

UpCountryOnline.com | 53

flection of their own in mind, the meditation room is open to sit in silence, much like the brothers at the monastery. And of course, picnic tables abound on the greens around the viewing center.

Another point of interest at the summit is the trailhead end of the Equinox hiking trails that lead to the summit. The trails, according to Williams, do not belong to the Foundation, and are maintained by the Equinox Preservation Trust.

“Starting access to the trails can be found at two trailheads just a bit north [of the Toll House], by Equinox Pond and behind the Equinox Hotel in Manchester,” Williams said.

If you are anywhere along Historic Route 7A this summer, this is one trip worth the drive and the toll.

While the views from the top of Mount Equinox are breathtaking, especially on clear days with low haze, one can’t help thinking how impressive is the devotion of the Carthusians monks, who are far more stewards of these surroundings than actual landlords and owners.

The commitment and dedication to make their home in the shadow of this mountain, and what a visit here can offer visitors, can perhaps best be captured in the words of Lorenzo, who noted that it was providence that brought the Order of the Carthusians to Vermont: “Natural surroundings have a direct connection with the pursuit of our spirituality.

Our monasteries were from the beginning of our Order (11th century France) located in solitary and remote areas, on mountains or in valleys. This safeguards our silence and solitude which are at the center of our spirituality. … The rugged or austere beauty of the place in founding a monastery has its role as well. Beauty elevates the soul to its Creator.” • 54 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

If you go …

The Skyline Drive Toll House is located on Vermont Historic Route 7A to your left driving north and to your right driving south.

GPS address: 6369 Skyline Drive, Sunderland, Vermont.

Mailing address: Mount Equinox, 1A Saint Bruno Drive, Arlington, VT 05250 Toll House/info: 802-362-1114 Hours: Open Memorial Day to October 31, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, weather permitting Toll: Car and driver, $20.

Children under 10, free.

Motorcycles: $12, for driver and rider.

LEFT: A Carthusian monk’s habit on display at the St. Bruno Scenic Viewing Center.

BELOW: The monastery as seen from the Viewing Center.

Photos: Telly Halkias.

Ken Farabaugh, coowner of Vermont Woods Studios, uses a planer on a two-sided taper table leg at his home workshop. Photo: Kristopher Radder.

Looking for fine Vermont-made furniture?

Look to the craftspeople of Vermont Woods Studios

By Bob Audette For a woodworker like Alex Dunklee, Peggy and Ken Farabaugh are a godsend.

“I am terrible at marketing,” he said. “I like to build, not market.”

And build he does — his handcrafted “Wrought ‘N Wood” furniture is made from “found” materials he stumbles upon during his day job, as a bridge builder with Renaud Brothers Construction in Vernon, Vt. A table he recently created used metal from a wroughtiron bridge in Wilder and wood from a bridge in Townshend.

But Dunklee doesn't totally rework the materials; though he finely crafts them for everyday use, he leaves the marks, blemishes and engravings left by the original craftsmen, nature and even young lovers with a pocket knife.

“This table was handcrafted as a testimony to the quality craftsmen from an era that has long gone by,” said Dunklee.

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58 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

“Working with Vermont Woods has brought exposure to Woodruff Custom Furniture that we would have otherwise not seen. Not only have they been a great asset to our business, but we have become great friends along the way.”

— Chad Woodruff THIS SPREAD: Vermont-made furniture on display at Vermont Woods. Photos: Kristopher Radder.

UpCountryOnline.com | 59

“The components of this table have carried many loads for many years, and has been repurposed to carry the memories and stories of your home or office.”

Finding a market for his lovingly created furniture however, proved an almost impossible obstacle to overcome.

Enter Peggy and Ken Farabaugh.

“Everyone we represent at Vermont Woods Studios has a second job,” said Peggy. “Some of them have kids and their families, as well. For many, woodworking is a hobby.”

But, stopping in the official showroom — Stonehurst in Vernon — you would never make the casual assumption that the fine furniture on display is just a hobby for anyone.

“We started building our business around the Alexes of the world,” said Peggy. “And who could be more fun to work with? These craftspeople are the salt of the earth.”

The Farabaughs founded Vermont Woods Studios in 2005, not only to feature the fine furniture being created in small workshops around the Green Mountain State, but also in response to the degradation of rainforests around the world.

“Rainforest land is often clear cut for timber that's used to make furniture, destroying precious animal habitats around the globe — and we knew we had to do something about it,” said Peggy. “So we created a new kind of furniture company — one that sells quality wood furniture made exclusively

Company has wings, too Peggy Farabaugh, who owns Vermont Woods Studios with her husband Ken, says their business success is because “We are driven by our passion for the craft.”

Peggy Farabaugh also also has a passion for the monarch butterfly.

Over the past 20 years, the monarch population has declined by 90 percent. During the winter of 1996-97, scientists estimated there were a billion monarchs wintering over in Mexico. An estimate from last year found only about 35 million, a number so low that several environmental organizations are petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to classify monarch butterflies as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Peggy Farabaugh has been pushing efforts to replant milkweed and nectar plants around the region to help sustain the monarchs.

In addition to the company’s efforts to restore rainforests in the Amazon, Vermont Woods Studios is allied with the La Cruz Habitat Protection Program in an effort to plant 1 million trees every year in the monarch butterfly’s overwintering area in Michoacan, Mexico.

from sustainably sourced, natural hardwoods. Over the years, we’ve planted more than 55,000 trees to reforest the Amazon and other forests where our competitors still choose to remove trees illegally.”

While some craftspeople — such as Dunklee — work with repurposed materials, others use wood sourced from well-managed North American forests.

“The wood is harvested in a manner that protects animal habitats and takes into consideration the long term health of the forests,” said Peggy. “All of our wood furniture is made from abundant North American hardwoods such as cherry, maple, oak and walnut.”

Both in the showroom and online — vermontwoodsstudios.com — Vermont Woods Studios showcases “the world's largest selection of beautiful, eco-friendly Vermont-made furniture.” The physical showroom and the centralized online portal give exposure to craftspeople who might otherwise struggle in a world dominated by online behemoths.

“Working with Vermont Woods has brought exposure to Woodruff Custom Furniture that we would have otherwise not seen,” said Chad Woodruff, who also lives and works in Vernon. “Not only have they been a great asset to our RIGHT: Alex Dunklee, of Vernon, uses a wood lathe on a bracket holder that he is making from old wood from the Scott Bridge in Townshend, Vt. Photo: Kristopher Radder.

60 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

business, but we have become great friends along the way.”

“Without the internet, we would not be able to do this,” said Peggy.

While Vermont Woods Studios features many affordable pieces online, the showroom in Vernon has high-quality furniture in a setting that allows customers to meet with the craftspeople and learn how a piece was made and from what materials. Customers can also work with Vermont Woods Studios to customize a piece of furniture for their homes.

“We are very sensitive to the needs of our online shoppers, because the market is very competitive,” said Farabaugh. “Some of that stuff sells very well, but the pieces that our craftspeople spend a long time on you have to see in the showroom. It helps our customers understand the value of our expertise. These are pieces that can be passed down in a family. You can't convey the story of the furniture unless they come in and learn the story, understand their provenance.”

Vermont is home to nearly 2,000 small, custom-furniture makers as well as several mid-size, high-end furniture manufacturers.

Other craftspeople Vermont Woods Studios works with include, but are not limited to, Robin Chase's Maple Corner Woodworkers, Rob Bachand's Vermont Furniture Designs, Dan Mosheim's Dorset Custom Furniture and David Holzapfel's Applewood Gallery. •

OUR NEW ENGLAND LIFE

ABOVE: Members of the Elks Lodge carries a large American Flag down Canal Street in Bennington, Vt., during the annual Fourth of July parade.

Step by step The secrets behind a small-town parade

By Kevin O’Connor When I first volunteered to help with Vermont’s annual By the People: Brattleboro Goes Fourth Independence Day parade, I knew our citizens committee would have to secure a few tuba players and twirlers.

But a $600 liability insurance policy?

Or an $850 federal nonprofit status number?

Or rules like, “Because of concerns expressed by local environmental and energy-conservation groups, we request all units limit themselves to one vehicle”?

As fellow march organiz-

ers throughout New England can attest, before you can strut down a small-town Main Street, you have to clear some big-time hurdles.

Pack a lunch and some lawn chairs this summer and fall and you can snag a frontrow seat at a half-dozen local parades straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Southern Vermont hosts Brattleboro’s parade July 4, Dover’s Blueberry Festival Parade July 28 and Bennington’s Battle Day Parade Aug. 19, while Western Massachusetts will hold Pittsfield’s Independence Day Parade July 4, Lee’s Founders Weekend

64 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

Hometown Parade Sept. 15 and the Northern Berkshire Fall Foliage Parade Sept. 30.

Local marches may not draw Macy’s coast-to-coast television coverage, but they nonetheless can lasso national attention.

Last year’s Brattleboro event saw the stars of the Discovery Channel’s “Road Trip Masters” film the crowd from a 1968 Cadillac DeVille convertible while a Japanese television crew making a documentary about the late Windham County illustrator Tasha Tudor pointed its cameras right back.

Pittsfield, for its part, has

seen itself in USA Today: “Once billed as ‘Your Hometown America Parade,’ the Pittsfield Fourth of July Parade dates back to 1824, when the procession consisted of Revolutionary War veterans and politicians riding in horsedrawn carriages,” the paper reported. “Today’s modern parade has floats, balloons and marching bands, but still retains the small-town, patriotic flavor of its roots.”

And North Adams, host of the Northern Berkshire Fall Foliage Festival and Parade for the past 62 years, has garnered the attention of national papers and websites alike. Most

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Hoosac Valley High School Marching Band walks down Main Street in North Adams, Mass., for the 61st annual Fall Foliage Parade. Photo: Gillian Jones.

People line the main drag in Dover, Vt., to watch the parade during the annual Blueberry Festival. Photo: Kristopher Radder.

A Smurf balloon wows the crowd during the Fourth of July Parade on North Street in Pittsfield, Mass.

Photo: Gillian Jones.

UpCountryOnline.com | 65

recently, Travelchannel.com included the city and festival as the place to stop in Massachusetts in its “New England Fall Foliage Road Trips” listing. The website states, “The artsy town of North Adams alights with fall fever each year during the Fall Foliage Festival in early October, a celebration of the leaves with a parade and family fun.”

But such perennials don’t sprout organically, I’ve learned firsthand. As a journalist, I shun petitions and bumper stickers in the interest of objectivity.

Then again, lines blur in a small town. A decade ago, my father showed me a draft letter to the editor seeking parade helpers and asked if I could donate a little writing polish.

“The annual march,” the letter eventually read, “unites our community while showcasing our diverse citizenry, be it children on bikes, foot or floats; civic and church groups; police, firefighters and rescue workers, artists and activists; and veterans and social-service volunteers.”

Soon I was contributing other skills. The Internal Revenue Service, I discovered, required $850 to confirm that we nights-and-weekends volunteers aren’t an international money-making syndicate but instead an officially sanctioned local nonprofit.

Make that an officially sanctioned local nonprofit $850 in the red before we could legally raise a tax-exempt dime.

A liability insurance agent then insisted we couldn’t celebrate Independence Day without a $600 policy with such freedom-restraining prohibitions as “floats can’t be higher than 12 feet so not to snap overhead wires” and “riders can’t throw candy, flags, balloons or other family-friendly items from moving vehicles so not to hit spectators or encourage them to get too close to turning wheels.”

Since Brattleboro has made national news in the past by shedding its clothes and polit-

ical inhibitions, the committee also stipulates of its participants, “no graphic depictions of sex, nudity, violence or inflammatory statements.”

The only thing more challenging than getting ready is the rollout itself. To register, participants are required to sign the statement, “you and everyone in your unit agree to adhere to all our rules.” But that doesn’t stop many of the arriving marchers from trying to enter at the exit, rearrange the lineup to their liking or, in one extreme case, light a theatrical smoke bomb mid-march.

That’s why you now can read the new rule, “Absolutely no unofficial sirens, flashing lights, smoke, flames, real or simulated explosives or weaponry, related special effects, costumes or conduct that could cause a spectator and/or safety official to believe there’s an emergency.”

Local police, for their part, are ready to recall how they fined the latter offenders nearly $400 and five driver’s license points for failing to obey safety orders.

But that’s the exception. In

See for yourself …

Southern Vermont, for its part, will hold three popular marches: July 4: Brattleboro’s Independence Day parade, 10 a.m., facebook.com/BrattleboroGoesFourth July 28: Dover’s Blueberry Festival Parade, 11 a.m., vermontblueberry.com Aug. 19: Bennington’s Battle Day Parade, 12:30 p.m., betterbennington.org The Berkshires are set to host three wellknown parades this summer and fall: July 4: Pittsfield’s Independence Day Parade, 10 a.m., pittsfieldparade.com Sept. 15: Lee’s Founders Weekend Hometown Parade, 10 a.m., leechamber.org/festivals Sept. 30: Northern Berkshire Fall Foliage Parade, 1 p.m., 1berkshire.com/calendar/fall-foliage-parade/

the end, the rest comes together — the Little Leaguers and nursing home residents and everyone else marching in between. It’s not the initial vision of the naive newcomer who, dreaming of 76 trombones and 10,000 individually affixed gladiola petals, exclaimed at our first organizing meeting: “No more Sousa marches on

car stereos or pickups strung with crepe paper!”

Then again, anything can happen. One year, after finally dialing down expectations from Rose Parade heights, I sent a press release to the local paper, only to see it unexpectedly and inexplicably reprinted on the website of a sister publication: the Pasadena Star-News. •

BELOW: The Mount Everett marching band gets involved with the crowd during the Lee Founders Weekend parade in Lee, Mass. Photo: Stephanie Zollshan

66 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

UP CLOSE

A place called Hildene A brief history of Robert Todd Lincoln’s home in Manchester

By Jennifer Huberdeau During the summer of 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln, then 20, accompanied his mother, Mary Todd Lincoln, and his younger brother, Tad, on a trip to Manchester, Vt., and stayed at the Equinox Hotel. It is told that during this trip, he fell in love with the rolling green hills surrounding him.

We can't be certain that it was on this particular visit that Manchester won the heart of President Abraham Lincoln's eldest and only surviving son.

The trio made a similar trip the next summer and had previously stayed at the Bardwell House in Rutland in 1861.

It would be some time before Lincoln returned to the village — nearly 40 years — staying first as a guest of his Chicago law partner, Edward Isham, and then buying 412 acres to build his Georgian Revival summer estate, Hildene.

Isham, a native of Manchester, attended Burr and Burton Academy before attending Harvard Law School. A partner of Isham, Lincoln and Beal in Chicago, he purchased his own summer home in Manchester in the late 1800s, which he named Ormsby Hill. It was here that Isham entertained Lincoln

and their good friend, President William Howard Taft.

It is reported that when Lincoln asked his law partner to sell him some of his land in Manchester, Isham replied, “You're my best friend and law partner; you're not going to be my nextdoor neighbor.”

Regardless if there is any truth behind the tale of law partners' conversation, it wasn't until after Isham's death that Lincoln bought the 412-acre property behind Ormsby Hill.

After purchasing the land in 1902, Lincoln began plans for the 24-room summer home he would name Hildene.

The house, completed in 1905, included a private observatory. He and his wife, Mary Harlan Lincoln, would entertain here and he would run the Pullman Co., which he became president of in 1897 and chairman of the board in 1911, from his first-floor office while in town.

Although only intended as a summer home, the estate would become a part-time residence for the former U.S. secretary of war and ambassador to the United Kingdom. Eventually, he would come to call it his ancestral home. He died at Hildene, at the age of 82, in 1926.

Following the death of Mary Har-

ABOVE: Robert Todd Lincoln’s Manchester estate, Hildene, features Georgian Revival architecture and elaborate landscaping. Photo: Jennifer Huberdeau.

lan Lincoln in 1937, the home passed to her granddaughter, Mary “Peggy” Lincoln Beckwith. Peggy, who lived there until her death in 1975, was often joined at the estate in the summers by her mother, Jessie Harlan Lincoln Beckwith.

Upon Peggy’s death, Hildene passed to the Church of Christ, Scientist, as was stipulated in her grandmother’s will, which also included the requirement that the church maintain the estate as a memorial to the Lincoln family.

Unfortunately, the church was not in the position to maintain the estate and put forth plans to sell it. Learning of that, a group of friends and neighbors of the Lincolns fought the sale in court over the course of the next three years. In 1978, the group, now known as Friends of Hildene, raised the money to buy the property and set about restoring the house, gardens and estate.

Today, Hildene continues to celebrate the Lincoln family, with tours of the house, complete with original furniture and a historic exhibit which includes one of Abraham Lincoln's three existing stovepipe hats and his oval dressing mirror from the White House, along with other family heirlooms. A 1903 Pullman Sunbeam railroad car is also available for tours, as well as small working farm and 12 miles of hiking and walking trails. • UpCountryOnline.com | 69

Abraham Lincoln’s Stovepipe Hat Conjure up an image of our 16th president and most likely, the visage of Abraham Lincoln includes his stovepipe hat. Although the president owned more than one iconic hat — which he used to carry his paperwork as a young attorney, only three exist today. One, worn to Ford’s Theatre on the night of his assassination, is part of the Smithsonian Museum of American History’s permanent collection.

A second is found in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. The third is part of the permanent collection at Hildene in Manchester.

Passed down through the Lincoln family to the president’s great-grandson, Lincoln Isham gifted the hat to Frederick Whittemore, owner of the Barrows House Inn in Dorset, Vt. Whittemore loaned the hat to the Hildene for years before donating it to the nonprofit in 1984.

According to the Fall 2014 issue of Art Conservator, a publication of the Williamstown Conservation Center, Hildene’s stovepipe hat is a “black, narrow-brimmed top hat with columnar crown, trimmed with black grosgrain ribbon at the base and along the brim.

“Maker’s label inside crown depicts an eagle over a wreath above the inscription, ‘Siger & Nichols /88 Maiden Lane/New York.’ The hat is made from glossy black pile textile that covers a paper card support. The appearance of the textile suggests it is silk, with a looped, uncut pile reminiscent of fur. The textile is seamed diagonally along the rise of the hat and is likely seamed around the top and brim.”

PHOTOS:Stephanie Zollshan 70 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | July/August 2018

Abraham Lincoln’s King James Bible After reading the president-elect’s Farewell Address — delivered as he boarded the inaugural train in Springfield, Ill. — in the Feb. 12, 1861, edition of the Illinois State Journal, Amos King, a resident of Port Byron, Ill., sent a copy of the King James Bible to Lincoln.

It is believed the Bible, which King inscribed, was presented on March 4, 1861, the day of Lincoln’s inauguration. The bible should not be confused with the Bible used by Lincoln at his inauguration. The bible gifted by King remained in the Lincoln family. It is presently on display with an inscription written by Amos King and a letter from Lincoln’s secretary, John Nicolay, thanking King for the bible.

The inscription page, written by Amos S. King and dated March 4, 1861, reads: “The donor of this humble gift having read the farewell remarks of the President elect on his departure from his home in the West, to take upon himself the high responsibility of the most important task of this great people in which speech he desired his friends to pray for him that he might have divine assistance in the execution of that trust therefore the donor begs leave to present to his Excellency, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, this bible as a small token of the high esteem and kind regard in which the giver holds the honored recipient.”

UpCountryOnline.com | 71

PHOTOS:Stephanie Zollshan

Abraham Lincoln life mask from the Lincoln family collection The original cast was created in April 1860, just two months after the Cooper Union speech, by Leonard Volk, a one-time resident of Pittsfield, Mass. Life masks were made as references for artists and sculptors to work from. A limited number of replicas were produced from one of the two original plaster castings in 1866.

Volk’s son donated one of the two original plaster casts to the Berkshire Museum.

“Psalms and Hymns adapted to social private and public worship in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America” (1843) and four additional books that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln These books were part of the Robert Todd Lincoln book collection found at Hildene in 1978 following the death of Peggy Beckwith, the great-granddaughter of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, the last Lincoln descendant to reside at Hildene.

The cover of “Psalms and Hymns” is embossed with the name Mary Lincoln.

The four additional books, all written by Anna Brownell Jameson in the mid-1800s are considered to be works of literature that contributed to the first wave of the feminist movement.

All of the books were printed in 1858 and have the signature of Mary Lincoln and the year 1859 on the inside cover.

The books are: “Characteristics of Women. Moral, Political and Historical. Vol. I” “Characteristics of Women. Moral, Political and Historical. Vol. II” “Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns, Vol. I” “Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns, Vol. II” 72