Now that the official eulogies have been paid to the late actor Peter Falk, it’s time to clear up one serious matter: the signature schlumpy raincoat he wore when playing the off-beat detective, Columbo.In the past few years I have heard several people claim it was their raincoat that inspired him to adopt it as his never-ending article of clothing when tracking down bad guys — and an occasional female.Not true. As anyone who knows me can testify, I am a paragon of un-neatness.I wear sneakers that are two decades old with holes in the front; my pants rarely fit my expanding tum tum; I get a haircut every six months whether I need it or not.But this is about raincoats. Let’s cut to the quick.Many years ago, give or take 60, after college and the Army, I got a job as a reporter on the late lamented Hartford Times, at the time the biggest and most important newspaper in Connecticut.But in my last year at the University of Michigan I took a course in playwriting—and got an A! That set me thinking that maybe dramatics, not newspapering, should and/or would become my life’s work.But I married a beautiful freckled-faced co-ed with auburn hair after I returned to Ann Arbor on the GI Bill. When we graduated together, sitting in a garret writing a Tony Award-winning play wasn’t going to feed my new wife.I put off playwriting for the nonce but not my interest in the live theater. In an abandoned building in Hartford a lively group of actors had formed the Mark Twain Masquers. (Why not Mark Twain? When he came to live in Hartford, he called it “The most beautiful city I have ever seen.”)I joined the Masquers and while I was never chosen for the lead role, I and a worker in the state capitol who was managing the finances had fun playing character roles.My salary at the Times is not worth discussing. After all I was a reporter; I had a glamour job.But there was hardly enough extra money to buy clothes. So I worked the schlumpy raincoat I had brought back with me from Ann Arbor.Aha, are you getting the message? I wore that raincoat to the Mark Twain Masquers as a raincoat, but just as often as my topcoat.One of the most memorable plays I appeared in was Thornton Wilders’ “Our Town,” later made into a movie and still staged annually throughout the country by amateur groups like the Masquers.In “Our Town,” I played the drunken Methodist minister. I forget Peter Falk’s role, but he sat next to me in the final cemetery scene, a scene that to this day brings tears to my eyes.Falk acted in a number of other important plays we put on, “The Caine Mutiny,” the “Crucible” et al. Then he left Hartford and started acting in theaters in Fairfield County which segued to New York and then Hollywood and the TV show, “Columbo,” the detective with the schlumpy raincoat that ran for 30 years plus or minus.I contend to his dying day he would agree that the inspiration for his famous raincoat, which should be hung in the Smithsonian Museum, was inspired by the old rag that I wore to the popular Masquer’s group that has passed into oblivion. Prove me wrong. Freelance writer Barnett Laschever lives in Simsbury and is working on a play about Joshua and the walls of Jericho.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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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.
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