looking back: 2020

A year of car parades and protests on town Greens

Although this was a year when large indoor gatherings were discouraged because of COVID-19, there were plenty of outdoor gatherings, including protests in all the area towns against injustice toward Black Americans.

The protests were often large and always peaceful. Everyone wore face masks.

Unusually, many of the protesters were teens and college students; unusual because, often in the Northwest Corner, protests are mostly attended by retirees, including many who participated in historic anti-war and civil rights protests of the mid and early 20th century.

Not all the gatherings last year were protests about police brutality and civil rights. There was also a protest in Salisbury related to proposed cuts to postal service; and there was a memorial service on the Salisbury Green led by state Rep. Maria Horn following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

A new wrinkle on group gatherings this year were car parades, which allowed groups to express strong feelings while remaining in the relative safety (from COVID-19) of their cars and trucks. There were memorial parades and birthday parades. Groups of teachers drove by the homes of students to wave and let the youngest among them know they weren’t forgotten. There were graduation parades in spring, including the ceremony at Lime Rock Park for the Class of 2020 at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

And there was a traditional Northwest Corner car parade: Lime Rock Park couldn’t hold its normal Labor Day weekend historic and vintage car festival, but car owners from the area turned out for the annual parade that normally kicks off the vintage festivities. 

Litchfield County residents came together on the Salisbury Green in front of The White Hart in May to protest police action following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed during an arrest in Minnesota on May 25, 2020. Photo by Alexander Wilburn

Photo by Alexander Wilburn

  
Litchfield County residents came together on the Salisbury Green in front of The White Hart in May to protest police action following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed during an arrest in Minnesota on May 25, 2020. Photo by Alexander Wilburn
looking back: 2020

Latest News

Walk-off win sends Pirates to championship

Walk-off win sends Pirates to championship

Milo Ellison sends a fly ball to left field, bringing home Brody Ohler and Sam Hahn in a walk-off win for the Canaan Pirates June 11.

Photo by Riley Klein

NORTH CANAAN — The Canaan Pirates advanced to the league championship after a comeback victory over the Tri-Town Red Sox Wednesday, June 11.

Down 3-2 with two outs and two on in the bottom of the 6th inning, "Mighty" Milo Ellison stepped up to the plate and launched a fly ball deep to left field. The single brought home Brody Ohler and Sam Hahn for a walk-off Pirates win.

Keep ReadingShow less
little league

Kevin Kelly’s After Hours

Kevin Kelly’s After Hours

Kevin Kelly

Photo by Christopher Delarosa
“I was exposed to that cutthroat, ‘Yes, chef’ culture. It’s not for me. I don’t want anyone apologizing for who they are or what they love.”— Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly doesn’t call himself a chef; he prefers “cook.” His business, After Hours, based in Great Barrington, operates as what Kelly calls “a restaurant without a home,” a pop-up dining concept that prioritizes collaboration over competition, flexibility over permanence, and accessibility over exclusivity.

Kelly grew up in Great Barrington and has roots in the Southern Berkshires that go back ten generations. He began working in restaurants at age 14. “I started at Allium and was hooked right off the bat,” he said. He worked across the region from Cantina 229 in New Marlborough to The Old Inn on the Green at Jacob’s Pillow before heading to Babson College in Boston to study business. After a few years in Boston kitchens, he returned home to open a restaurant. But the math didn’t work. “The traditional model just didn’t feel financially sustainable,” he said. “So, I took a step back and asked, ‘If that doesn’t work, then what does?’”

Keep ReadingShow less
restaurants

Books & Blooms’ tenth anniversary

Books & Blooms’ tenth anniversary

Dee Salomon on what makes a garden a garden.

hoto by Ngoc Minh Ngo for Architectural Digest

On June 20 and 21, the Cornwall Library will celebrate its 10th anniversary of Books & Blooms, the two-day celebration of gardens, art, and the rural beauty of Cornwall. This beloved annual benefit features a talk, reception, art exhibit, and self-guided tours of four extraordinary local gardens.

The first Library sponsored garden tour was in June 2010 and featured a talk by Page Dickey, an avid gardener and author. This year’s Books & Blooms will coincide with Ellen Moon’s exhibit “Thinking About Gardens,” a collection of watercolors capturing the quiet spirit of Cornwall’s private gardens. Moon, a weekly storyteller to the first grade at Cornwall Consolidated School and art curator for The Cornwall Library, paints en plein air. Her work investigates what constitutes a garden. In the description of the show, she writes: “there are many sorts...formal, botanical, cottage, vegetable, herb...even a path through the woods is a kind of garden. My current working definition of a garden is a human intervention in the landscape to enhance human appreciation of the landscape.” Also on display are two of her hand-embroidered jackets. One depicts spring’s flowering trees and pollinators. The other, a kimono, was inspired by Yeats’s “The Song of the Wandering Aengus.”

Keep ReadingShow less
cornwall library