FALLS VILLAGE — Squeaking sneakers could be heard in Ed Tyburski Gym the first week of December as athletes hit the hardwood for basketball practice at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
Part performance and part style, shoes say a lot about a player. Ahead of the coming season in the Berkshire League, the Mountaineers’ varsity and junior varsity squads shared insight into the footwear that connects them to the court.
Girls
Senior captain Olivia Brooks, a 5-foot 1-inch point guard, will be playing this season in a pair of Nike LeBron 20s. She said she was drawn to the “violet frost” colorway and the double swoosh.
Her sister and fellow captain Victoria Brooks, 4-11 guard, was also wearing a pair of LeBron 20s that “didn’t fit my twin sister’s feet.”
Senior captain Maddy Johnson, 5-7 center, laced up her Nike LeBron NXXT Genisus shoes. She chose them for both fashion and function: they’re lightweight and she liked the white and Aegean storm colorway.
Hayden Bachman, junior 5-3 guard, was wearing Nike Sabrina 3s, the official shoe of Sabrina Ionescu, in the summit white, iron grey and photon dust colorway.
Carmela Egan, junior 5-7 forward/center, wore blue Puma x LaMelo Ball basketball shoes.
Grace Graney, junior 5-5 guard/forward, was in a pair of purple Steph Currys by Under Armor.
Selena Black, junior 4-11 guard, wore high top CL Bangs in a purple and white style.
Lily Gold, sophomore 5-3 guard, had white Under Armor shoes on.
Noell Laurry, freshman 5-7 center, wore Giannis Immortality 4s in the wolf grey, luminous green and metallic silver colorway.
Aubrey Funk, freshman 5-2 point guard, was wearing pink custom Nike KDs.
Mya Weed, 5-5 freshman guard, also wore Nike KDs, the official shoe of Kevin Durant.
Keely Malone, freshman 5-3 guard/forward, had Nike Sabrina 3s in the summit white, iron grey and photon dust colorway.
Autumn McKone, freshman 5-4 guard/forward, was wearing Nike Luka Doncic 4s in flash crimson and sunset pulse.
Olivia Simonds, freshman 5-4 guard/forward, had white and pure platinum Nike A’Ones. She liked the A’ja Wilson shoes for their clean look, plus “they’re comfy and bouncy.”
From left, Rhys Culbreth, Anthony Labbadia, Owen Riemer, Timothy Coon, Henry Berry, Wyatt Bayer, Anthony Foley, Wes Allyn, Simon Markow, Nick Crodelle, Tyler Roberts, Peyton Bushnell, Jaxon Visockis, Bryce Salmon and Jasper Oyanadel. (Not pictured: Ryan Segalla)Riley Klein
Boys
Simon Markow, senior 6-2 forward, chose his SpongeBob-esque Way of Wade Shadow 6 V2 “Road to Finals” sneakers because they match the Mountaineer yellow and “Dwyane Wade was a big dunker, and that’s what I plan to be doing this season.”
Anthony Foley, senior 6-3 forward, had Nike Sabrina 3s in the “Radiant” colorway, which is described as a mix of grape, magic ember and bright peach. He liked the flashy colors and said they are “rated one of the best grip shoes.”
Owen Riemer, senior 6-2 shooting guard, wore teal Nike G.T. Cuts. He said the shoes have VKTRY insoles and are “really light with a lot of spring.”
Nick Crodelle, senior 6-0 point guard, was in black and white Curry 11s that he described as durable and comfortable. While he chose them for function, he noted, “They look good though.”
Tyler Roberts, senior 5-8 guard, also had on Ja 3s. His pair was black and blue in the “Scratch 3.0” colorway. He noted they have good cushion and traction.
Anthony Labbadia, senior 6-1 guard, wore Nike Ja 3s. In the “Hustle & Flow” style, each shoe is unique: one yellow and one purple. “They looked really light and Ja [Morant] loves to dunk.”
Henry Berry, senior 5-10 guard, wore ANTA KAIs, Kyrie Irving’s official shoe, in a blue and red design. The shoes, he said, have great cushion and help him move easily.
Wyatt Bayer, junior 5-11 guard, had Curry 12s in the “fire and ice” style. One shoe was blue Atlantis color, the other dark orange. He liked the the look and support of the dual colored shoes.
Ryan Segalla, junior 6-2 forward, will be playing in a pair of pink Nike KD 18s.
Rhys Culbreth, junior 6-0 guard, was wearing nightmare red Nike Ja 2s, which he described as “really comfortable” with great traction.
Jasper Oyanadel, junior 6-0 center, wore wolf gray Nike Giannis Immortality 4s. “They’re reliable,” he said. “Won’t tear on the sides, good grip.”
Peyton Bushnell, sophomore 5-10 point guard, was in Nike Sabrina 2s for their functionality. He chose based on ratings for best traction and ankle support.
Jaxon Visockis, freshman 5-2 guard, wore white and turquoise Nike G.T. Cut 3s. He said they are “durable with good grip. I can stop quick and get to where I want to be.”
Timothy Coon, freshman 5-9 guard/forward, wore Nike Giannis 4s in the white and sky-blue style. “They’re the first ones I saw.”
Bryce Salmon, freshman 5-7.5 guard, had gray and light blue Nike G.T. Cuts.
Wes Allyn, senior 6-4.5 center, was rocking a leg brace and a crutch as he recovered from knee surgery due to a football injury. He said he plans to be back on the court in February, at which point he will be wearing Jordan Why Not 0.6s, the Russel Westbrook shoe, in a bright red colorway with green accents. “They’re really roomy for bigger insoles with a larger toe box.”
These Way of Wade Shadow 6 V2 “Road to Finals” sneakers will be worn by Simon Markow, forward, in the coming basketball season.Simon Markow
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Marge Parkhurst with a collection of historic nails recovered from wall cavities during restoration work.
“At first it just looked like old paint,” said Parkhurst, who has been painting and restoring historic homes in Litchfield County for decades. “Until I realized it was a stencil, a beautiful pattern that repeated.”
She kept going carefully — a wet sponge, hot water, a little fabric softener — peeling back until she could see it clearly. A climbing vine emerged, applied in vertical runs to give the wall the look of wallpaper. Someone had signed it. The signature was faint, tucked above the baseboard in the corner, not fully legible. But the date was clear: 1870.
Parkhurst, owner of Cottage & Country Painting Co., has worked in enough old houses to develop a practiced eye for what they conceal — understanding that layers of paint, paper and plaster in a 19th-century New England home form a kind of compressed archive of the people who lived there.
The stencil bore a strong resemblance to what historians call Moses Eaton-type stenciling — a tradition of itinerant craftsmen who traveled New England in the early 1800s with portable kits of cut-pattern stencils. Their trade flourished because imported wallpaper was expensive. Stenciling offered the same visual effect at a fraction of the cost.
“These stencilers typically worked for a combination of cash, food and lodging,” Parkhurst said. “Their compensation was modest by any standard.” She paused, “He was a tradesman. But the work he left behind — that’s art.”
The vine pattern was dull with age but still legible. One section had survived intact beneath the layers of paper. The homeowners chose not to paint over it — instead building a wooden frame around it, a small window into 1870.
“Preservation means protecting something to prevent further deterioration,” she said. “Restoration means returning something to a previous state. In that room, we preserved what was there.”
This bottle is from the Hartmann Brewing Company of Bridgeport, CT, found inside a wall of a former railroad outbuilding relocated from Canaan to Colebrook CT. The bottle was sealed with a glass stopper held by a wire, inside was a grocery list written on the back of an envelope postmarked 1915. Photo courtesy of Marge Parkhurst/Cottage & Country Painting Company
A Station’s Secrets
Not every discovery is decorative. Some are written into the bones of a building.
Parkhurst’s own home in Colebrook is a former railroad outbuilding moved from Canaan in 1920. Scraping the trim revealed it had once been sage green — and beneath that, a warm orange-brown soaked into the wood grain. “Old paint was made more like a stain back in the 1800s,” she said. “It penetrated the wood rather than sitting on top of it — so there’s never a shine.”
Up in the attic, eye bolts still anchored in the framing mark where cables stabilized the building during its move a century ago.
The most memorable find came by accident. Cutting open a wall under the stairs, she found a clear glass bottle sealed with a glass stopper held by a rusted wire. The label read: Hartmann Brewing Co., Bridgeport, Conn. It took days of careful oiling to free the stopper. Inside: a handwritten list of sandwiches and drinks, a postage stamp still attached. Not treasure. But a treasure just the same.
“I worked for days to get that thing open — and it was just somebody’s lunch order.”
Newspapers stuffed into wall cavities, hand-wrought nails, paint layers thin as stain — over 50 years, Parkhurst has cataloged the details that tell a trained eye when a house was built and by whom. Litchfield County’s architecture is unusually varied: Georgian and Federal-style houses on Litchfield’s Main Street, industrial buildings along the rivers in Torrington and Winsted. “Each town has its own fingerprint,” she said.
The most consequential mistake she sees is changing a home’s character. “When you paint over stained woodwork, you hide the details. You can’t get them back.” She has talked more than a few owners out of it. Some have listened.
Not long ago, Parkhurst and her grandchildren gathered a few small objects, wrote a letter and tucked it into a wall of her Colebrook home. Someone will find it — a record of people who were once here.
“Walls still surprise me,” she said. “If you look hard enough, you can find buried treasure.”
In a county full of houses whose walls hold untold stories — stenciled by traveling tradesmen, nailed together by farmers, papered over by housewives following the fashions — Marge Parkhurst has spent a lifetime reminding us that history doesn’t only live in museums. Sometimes it’s hiding just behind the wallpaper.
Marge Parkhurst is the owner of Cottage & Country Painting Co. She can be reached at marge@cottageandcountryct.com or 860-379-4748.
Sarah Belzer is a writer, editor and creative director whose career has crossed journalism, advertising, film and cultural commentary. Managing Editor of The American Rant and founder of Jump Advertising, she has spent three decades shaping narratives for media and national and global brands.
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