Editor’s note: In Tara Kelly’s “Consider This” column published March 10, titled “Helicopter Mom,” she described her anxiety in seeing her teenage son, Jack, go off with his buddy for a hike on the southern arm of the Appalachian Trail. She promised us that Jack would share his journal with us upon his return, in hopes that her worry would have been for naught. It apparently was, as evidenced below. Here is Jack’s condensed hiking journal, and it is just the tonic to prepare us all for some bracing spring walks, long or short, on the trail. Day One, March 7, 2011Everything is a go! This morning, 7:20 a.m., everything was packed and my uncle, who was driving us to the drop-off point, was downstairs. Said goodbyes to Noah’s parents and headed off. The trip to Front Royal, Va., was pretty straightforward. Things got a bit tricky when it came to the trailhead. Spent an hour to an hour-and-a-half trying to find it. Found two trail heads. About a mile-and-a-half in, we realized we’d passed our first campsite by miles; we’ll stay at Dick’s Dome tonight. The hike was around 8 miles, but didn’t seem that long. Got to the shelter around 5:45 p.m. and met Scott: a drummer in a Christian rock band, a recently quit 30-year smoker and avid hiker. He showed us some topo maps. It looks like the next two days will be rough. Dinner is lentils and rice. Made a little too much, but tasty. Sleep will be easy. There is a funny anti-bear device outside the shelter: a 12-foot metal pole with hooks.Day Two, March 8, 2011A long day. Today would’ve been 9 miles and the next two days would each be 14, or something of that nature. However, in order to break up the “roller coaster,” an arduous section of trail, we decided today would be a 15-mile day. Started hiking at 8 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m., at Sam Moore shelter. Exhausted by the end, but besides that, a great day. Day Three, March 9, 2011Today was hard. Began at the usual 6:30 a.m. Yet another change in plans made today 14 miles, not 10. The last 4 miles, however, felt good. It started raining around 1 p.m. and went on a few hours. When we had hiked 10 miles we had a choice to hike 4 more to a shelter or stay at Black Burn campsite. Although a bit sore, we ate some gorp, peanut butter and Fig Newtons and headed off. It was a relatively flat ridge, which made hiking easy. Getting to the shelter was terrific. Feet hurt a bit, but a fresh pair of socks solved that. Dinner was ramen, lentils and rice with lots of cheese and sausage with a Snickers bar for dessert. Tomorrow will be cold and wet but we should be in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., so it shouldn’t be a worry. Day Four, March 10, 2011Turns out we’re not hiking. Throughout the night it rained continually. Nothing got soaked in the shelter but everything is wet. The plan is to sit around and just enjoy the view for a bit.It’s 2 p.m. and it’s too late to start hiking. At around 8 in the evening it started pouring. Time for sleep, unfortunately in a wet sleeping bag, but I’ll be toasty no matter. Day Five, March 11,2011Had a horrible time getting to sleep because I was so energized, woke up four or five times. At 2 in the morning, the clouds disappeared and the air became fresh and dry. The stars were bright and lights from the cars, cities, town, really whatever was below us, glimmered. Hopped out of bed at 6 a.m. We arrived at the ATC headquarters around noon. The people were all really friendly. Getting into the HQ and seeing lots of photos of thru-hikers only made me want to hike the whole thing, Georgia to Maine, as soon as possible. We hiked around the town of Harpers Ferry, W.Va. Lunch at Cannonball’s was tasty and a refreshing change from lentils and rice. The outfitter is pretty cool, has a natural spring that runs through the solid rock of the first floor. Most of the town is a mixture of oddball museums about John Brown’s raid in the 1850s. It’s all pretty cool but when looking for lip balm it makes life mighty hard. On the side of the town facing Maryland there is a whole slew of pubs and a great, real, general store, where the guy was kind and chatted us up.Heading back to the ATC, that sort of concludes our trip. Noah’s parents came at 7 as expected and we threw our stuff in the dryer that night. Sleep is easy after a great trip, hopefully I’ll get back out soon. Jack Kelly-Willis, a junior in high school, is also known as Sunflower, the trail name given to him by his classmate and hiking buddy, Noah Wertheimer.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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