JUNE 22, 2025 – On Friday we drove from our base of operations in Connecticut to Lenox, Massachusetts in the heart of the Berkshires. Our ultimate destination was yesterday evening’s performance of A Prairie Home Companion at nearby Tanglewood.
The scenery in this part of the country is exquisite, featuring, of course, “the Berkshires.” If they don’t offer sufficient elevation for acrophilliacs, they provide a superb backdrop for a visual artist. What appeals to me most about this area, however, is the dominance of my arboreal favorite: the white pine. Royal “whites” don’t simply occupy the ridges overlooking the valleys or guard the smalltown commons or grace the yards of old Colonial homes along our winding backroad route. Mature white pine in this region are everywhere as thick as thieves. I’ve been to no other part of the country where the reign of the ruggedly asymmetrical pinus strobus is so unchallenged by other species of trees. Better yet, I saw none that was afflicted with the blister rust fungus or other malignancies.
Saturday morning we browsed our way in and out of myriad shops and galleries that line Church Street[1] of the old section of Lenox. In short order, I saw that this was a high-end destination for a well-heeled clientele. Appropriately attired in my color-coordinated REI trousers, buttoned-down seersucker shirt and “Big Mountain” (Montana) visor cap, I pretended to fit in, especially when considering that under the seersucker shirt, I was wearing a T-shirt from GK’s 17-show 2008 “Rhubarb Tour” across the United States (including Cohasset and Hyannis, Massachusetts). To extend my fantasy a step further, I imagined making off like a bandit by placing a hundred bucks on a 1,000 to one bet that none of the actual rich guys wandering the town was also wearing a 2008 “Rhubarb T” under his buttoned-down (or fancier) shirt.
As my sister observed about the shops, they were “nicely curated.” As my spouse observed about the wares, “I really like that” but sensibly realized that none of them would fit inside her luggage for the flight home. Our granddaughter was allowed to purchase some fancy nail polish, mainly because it came in a bottle bearing the label, “B-kind.”
Personally, I most enjoyed strolling through the multiple galleries, again, pretending . . . that I could afford prices with no fewer than three zeroes to the left of the decimal point. One gallery featured a collection of beautifully crafted wooden sculptures—stylized violins in various whimsical arrangements. Their detail revealed the artist’s sophisticated understanding of the instrument. I wondered if he was also an accomplished musician or perhaps a frustrated violin-maker, whose genius, as it were, was closer to Dali than to Stradivari.
The most amusing art, however, we discovered in an outdoor sculpture garden in the yard behind one of the “proper” shops. Most of it was concept art, conceived from wood scraps, junk metal and fresh paint, and cleverly executed by one Tom Fiorini, a local artist of some acclaim—at least according to the quirky narrative on his website (e.g. “[I have] gotten a lot of attention from the local press and an image of one of [my] metal chairs was selected to appear on the cover of a Canadian Text Book.”). Judging by the “About” page, the image of the artist with his extensive tattoos, and above all, by his works, Mr. Fiorini is an iconoclast with doubtless several notable stories in his background and an acerbic sense of humor in his foreground[2].
Beginning at noon, a dozen establishments participated in a collective effort to draw people to sample their wares. The magnet at each place was a modest offering of free and tastefully presented hors d’oeuvres. These plus delicious ice cream cones served out of a shiny little trailer became our lunch.
After a refreshing conversation with a Norwegian from Trondheim[3], we climbed into our parked car, which had turned into solar-powered oven, and headed out of town for the nearby Hancock Shaker Village Museum, where another corner of my abject ignorance was about to be displaced by a sliver of enlightenment. (Cont.)
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Despite having lived in Vermont for a year and Maine for four and having traveled extensively throughout New England, the Berkshires are the first area in which I noticed that nearly every town has a “Church Street.”
[3] The guy and his wife and a friend shared the shade with us under a canopy outside the ice cream trailer. He’d come to America a few years after WW II and settled in Lenox. A genial soul and lifelong skier before “a health issue closed out his ski days,” the Norwegian was an articulate conversationalist, and had time allowed, I would have enjoyed a much longer conversation. When mentioned the Resistance, his wife alluded to “trouble” that her husband and his young brother (around six and eight) caused the occupiers. Now there’s a story, I thought immediately, I wanted to hear it, but the subject quickly shifted, and I was unable to steer the conversation back. If the guy was as young as six before the war ended, he’d be at least 86 today.
1 Comment
Nice story !