Parks and recreation

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, Sept. 22, 2024 outing – With friends Kelley and Eddie, I splashed and paddled around lower Cheshire Lake, the section between Berkshire village and the causeway that runs between Rt. 8 and Cheshire/Lanesborough Rd. It was somewhat of a trip down cinder-strewn memory alley, since I lived next to the lake for a few wild and crazy years of the first Raygun Admin.!

It was the first day of fall, and even though our annual leaf-borne extravaganza of color remains to be seen, what came into view from the vantage point of a canoe was as subtly beautiful as what soon will explode all around us. (click an image to slide through them all)

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, Sept. 5, 2024 visit – Hancock Shaker Village stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Tanglewood in the first rank of places that must be visited on a rare trip to the Berkshires, and no less than annually if you live within a couple hour’s drive. Here’s hoping these casual phonesnaps pique your curiosity enough to make a visit.

There are docents and curators who blend right in; ask a question of two and you will learn marvelous things about the Shakers and their mode of living. A few years ago, the place hosted a fiddler’s convention – a perfect fit.

(click any images to scroll through them all)

Four hours in a kayak paddling (and drifting!) on the celebrated Housatonic River in the Berkshires, between the Decker boat launch on New Lenox Rd. and Wood’s Pond, is as good a way to spend four hours on the Fourth of July. Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with coining the exclamation, There’s no tonic like the Housatonic. Our marvelously meandering stream also won the affection of the great Charles Ives, who composed a piece titled, The housatonic at Stockbridge. And today I learned that some Lily Pods are pink!