ARTICLES, STORIES & POEMS - Page 3

New Town, Old Friends (2002)

Picture this. I am enjoying lunch on a crisp September day in a smartly dressed café near the largest center for contemporary art and performance in the United States. I can see the top of a 75-foot clock tower and the red and yellow foliage on the mountain behind it. At a table … [Read more...]

Uptown And Downtown (November 2002)

For several years, I have been making occasional visits to Turners Falls, Massachusetts. It’s a small, urban-like village on the Connecticut River, just east of Greenfield. Though it seems to be turning the corner now, it is still suffering from many of the problems familiar to … [Read more...]

Everybody’s At Shady Glen (2002)

Every morning, Rene, a hair salon owner from Gill, Massachusetts, walks across the bridge over the Connecticut River to get breakfast at her favorite place in Turners Falls. "I’ve been coming here for 35 years," she told me, shouting over the chatter and clatter. "It was the … [Read more...]

A Sense Of Belonging (December 2002)

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Dave Hamer, a North Adams native who lives in New Hampshire. After graduating from Drury High School in 1958, he attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and then joined the United States Air Force in 1962. Though he gets … [Read more...]

Then & Now, Part One (January 2003)

It was when I was standing in the middle of the road with my camera that I suddenly felt an eerie sense of history. On the pavement in front of me lay a loose-leaf notebook open to an 8 x 10 photo of North Adams, dated circa 1890. It was identified as, "South from Houghton … [Read more...]

Then & Now, Part Two (February 2003)

Carl Robare, my friend and constant companion at the Bean, worked in the Strong-Hewat woolen mill for a few years after World War II, before serving 30 years as a technician with the phone company. He likes to tell the story about the co-worker who had lots of hair all over his … [Read more...]

Celebrating Ourselves (March 2003)

"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now." -actress Sophia Loren Over the Christmas holidays, I learned to do … [Read more...]

Sitting In The Circle (April 2003)

It is the second Friday of the month, a time I always look forward to. About 9:45 a.m., I enter the First Baptist Church in North Adams through the side door on Eagle Street. I am greeted by Carolyn Leab, who is making coffee and setting out munchkins on the table in the basement … [Read more...]

Mass MoCA Interns Have ‘Incredible’ Experience (July 2003)

Sarah Sandler was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1981, 55 years after R.C. Sprague founded the Sprague Electric Company in the same city. A communications major at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she has been interning this summer in the development department at … [Read more...]

Mass MoCA Security Guard Experiences Museum With All Senses (August 2003)

Jim Daunais was born in Adams 58 years ago, and has lived there most of his life. For a time, his mother worked in the Berkshire Mills. He remembers the noise she had to put up with. "One time, my sister and I went to pick her up, and I was parked near the door. The noise was … [Read more...]

Before The Quietness Is Laid To Rest (August 2003)

On July 21, I celebrated the seventh anniversary of my first visit to North Adams. That was the Sunday that my wife and I drove up from Torrington, Connecticut, to look around and find out about a project called the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), which we … [Read more...]

In Praise Of Small Spaces (September 2003)

Last month’s annual Downtown Celebration was once again a lively display of community spirit and togetherness. For more than four hours, Main and Eagle Streets became the ultimate public space, a relatively sizeable area enclosed by tall, familiar buildings and the comforting … [Read more...]

Welcome Home To The Community Restaurant (2003)

The sign said, ‘Welcome Home,’ as we drove into Cortland, New York, a city of 20,000, just off Interstate 81, about 30 miles south of Syracuse. The sign seemed strangely appropriate. My wife and I spent our first year of marriage in a basement apartment near the State University … [Read more...]

Carrying On The Family Name (2003)

"Genealogy is an account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own." -Ambrose Bierce I was named after my late father Joseph Howard Manning, which makes me a junior. My mother was afraid that I might be called "Little Joe," so I was known as … [Read more...]

Planting Tulips (2003)

Since the late summer, I have been exploring the towns and small cities in the Connecticut River Valley in southern Vermont and New Hampshire. On a recent November morning in Claremont, New Hampshire, I was walking in a modest neighborhood that is bordered by three large mills, … [Read more...]

Reaching A Milestone (2003)

Last Christmas, with the help of my son-in-law, I learned how to use my computer to make CDs from my old record albums and cassette tapes. Since I was a teenager, I have been an ardent music fan with a wide variety of tastes (jazz, classical, rock, folk, Latin, film scores, … [Read more...]

Spruce Hill Lunch: A Farewell (2003)

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." -William Faulkner I grew up in Dowell, Maryland, a town so small that you didn’t need a phone very often, because everyone you knew (or needed to know) was within hollering distance. Dowell was just a few houses on one side of a … [Read more...]

Mom’s Hometown (2004)

My wife and I recently took up temporary residence for a month in my mother’s house, after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She spent her final weeks at a wonderful Hospice facility nearby. It was a sad and stressful time, but the friendly people and the comfortable … [Read more...]

Rethinking The Tourist Economy (March 2004)

A few years ago, I was headed toward the entrance to Mass MoCA when I passed two well-dressed women wearing the familiar museum stickers. They were apparently on their way out after visiting the galleries. One woman pointed to several of the buildings and exclaimed to her … [Read more...]

Returning To Greenbelt (2004)

I lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, from August 1948 to January 1951. My father and mother, Joe and Betty, married in 1939, but they saw little of each other for a while, thanks to the Army and World War II. When Dad came home in 1945, they moved to an apartment at Calvert Homes, … [Read more...]