LAKEVILLE — Summers in the Northwest Corner have always drawn crowds from the city. After all, since the late 1800s, there have been summer camps scattered throughout the Berkshire hills for the children of urbanites and there have been second homes here for centuries. There’s not much missing from our trails and lakes and there is little one could ask for in the way of summertime amenities. Unless you’re Lee Minoff, a psychotherapist who lives and practices in New York City and Sharon and who has a penchant for some wholesome competition. He and a few other city professionals started a Sunday softball game in the summer of 1983, at the field behind Patco in Lakeville.There are no practices and the only schedule is one that starts on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and ends the Sunday of Labor Day. Some ball players show up in cars and on bicycles, others on motorcycles or in pick-ups. Bill Riiska, a lawyer in town, walks from his office with his own bat. It’s simple. You show up. Take batting practice and throw the ball around. “The Commissioner,” as Minoff is known, picks the teams, assigns the positions and the batting order. There’s no choosing and there are no choices. If Big Jack is around, he’s the umpire and if he’s not then the catcher or someone else calls it.There were games early on where so many people showed up, they had to play two games. The game has always allowed for everyone who wanted to play to play. Largely based on seniority, newcomers waited until the later innings but always got in the game. Men, women and some children have played. As some of the veterans have gotten older, the kids who showed up would pinch run or shag fouls. Folding chairs line the third base line. Dogs run on and off the field. Kids have a catch with their dads. It’s real American pie.As if the competition wasn’t a good enough reason to show up at 10 a.m. on a lazy Sunday, the roster of past alumni reads like a who’s who. Tom Brokaw played for years, even brought a film crew out to do a piece on American leisure. CNN’s writer/journalist/newsman Jeffrey Greenfield, Micky Kramer from Time magazine and director/writer Andrew Bergman have played for many a Sunday. The owner of the Colorado Rockies, Dick Monfort, usually plays shortstop. Even the guy who wrote the “Baseball Encyclopedia,” Jim Charlton, has played on the hallowed Community Field in Lakeville.And then there’s the rest of the guys. Real estate developers. Real estate managers and real estate speculators. Jim, with tape measure in hand and a stogie pinched between his index and middle finger, is sure that the bases are properly situated. He’s even played ball at Yankee stadium. We have a bunch of lawyers. And a few doctors — specializing from head to toe. And then there’s Gary, a Miami Beach hotel owner, and Duke Moore, our resident architect (in case we need to build a stadium). We’ve also played an esteemed professor at New York University. Authors, writers, wrestling state champions traveling from Millbrook, N.Y., to Norfolk. Coming down from Great Barrington, Mass., and over from Ancramdale, N.Y. And from Lakeville and Salisbury.There were summers when some of the local teams from North Canaan would come by and play the older guys. It was competition with all the flavor, wit and humor that can only be imported. There are tempers and tactics but never at the expense of goodwill. And in the end, it’s always a good game and it doesn’t matter because we’ll do it again next Sunday.We get rained out now and then, and some of the guys get injured and some of them get old. But when they show up, they show up to play. There are some good father/son combos who play, and with Cathy at third and her son at short, well, that’s a good combo, too.There are many places to see and dozens of things for families to do when it comes to the most venerable of all American vacations. And the summertime sure is easy with The Commissioner and the cast of thousands playing ball over at Community Field. If you’re like many, filling up at the service station or heading to the Grove for a swim, and if it just happens to be around 10 on a Sunday morning and you feel like getting in the game and maybe buying some real estate, stop by and bring a friend, because after almost 30 years of summer Sundays, we could sure use a few new recruits.
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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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