For decades, students at North Canaan Elementary School had Mr. Glennon for seventh-grade science, including me. My daughter had him as a substitute and she would often come home with Mr. Glennon stories and quips, reminiscent of my own days in his class. I would find myself smiling with fond remembrance. To say he was unique would be an understatement. The highlight of seventh-grade science, during his tenure, were the gardens. At the beginning of the year, students teamed up, each team assigned a garden. We spent the fall preparing the beds for spring. In winter we sowed our seeds. In the spring we planted. It was not unusual for kids to meet up with him at the school on a Saturday morning or during vacation to work the gardens. Truth is, we couldn’t wait. Hauling soil and mulch, working with others, having a goal, giving back to your community — all the while learning the earth sciences. Extraordinary! I was in the seventh grade the year my dad died. Mr. Glennon wrote me a personal note assuring me that everything would be OK. He helped my classmates understand my loss. I was now in a single-parent home, unusual for those days, and not knowing how to react (most of us only 11 or 12), my friends and classmates held me at a distance. Mr. Glennon helped us all get through it, not by ignoring it, but by talking about it, through science, the cycle of life. Brilliant. His reassuring words of support and his acts of kindness made me feel safe at a very tough time in my young life. After all these years, I still have his note. If I were to describe him in one word, I guess it would have to be “jolly.” He was stout and round, smelled of cigars, was louder than most; he loved to sing; he walked with a shuffle; he had a prose like no other, always the advocate for kids and education. He made learning fun and we, his students, adored him.When I learned of his passing, and while attending a special tree planting ceremony at the school this past week in his honor (undertaken by the five North Canaan boys he took cross-country to Alaska in 1962), I could not help but recall the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better whether by a: Healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived This is to have succeeded.”— Susie Fracaro Clayton, North Canaan Elementary School Class of 1967
Latest News
Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
Provided
Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
