VIDEO: Pan-Mass Challenge There are people who possess a gift they don’t really know they have, until something unexpected happens and their life takes a turn, and then their gift becomes the life itself. For instance, Billy Starr. In the summer of 1973 he had just graduated from college. He’d grown up in suburban Boston, […]
While growing up, I shared a room with my very neat and organized sister. I was the bane of her existence. Artsy and disheveled, I provided the perfect foil to her tirade of tidiness. “A place for everything, and everything all over the place” was my motto. I favored pretty; she liked practical. I liked […]
For fans of music and food, there’s no more enchanting outing than a Tanglewood picnic in the summer. For more than seven decades, the members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (and a host of friends) have been switching to white summer tuxes and creating beautiful music in the dreamy surroundings of the Berkshire Hills in […]
On Bruce Ware’s porch above the shores of Lake Champlain, I lower myself into a deep wooden chair and lean back. “The way you’ll know a real one is the height of the chair off the ground, and where your knees come up to,” Ware tells me. “In some, where the angle is wrong, they’ll […]
Sally Snowman is the 70th keeper of Boston Light, a post that dates back to 1716. She’s the last of her kind; every other Coast Guard light station in the country has long since reassigned its full-time keepers in the wake of automation. Secluded on Little Brewster Island for weeks at a time, she’s one […]
We romanticize them, but what makes New England lighthouses quintessential icons is their simple, sturdy practicality. They weren’t built to be the stuff of tourist brochures, postcards, and collectibles. They were built to mark the rocky shore for ships. At the end of the road on the tiny burr of the prickly Maine coast where […]
Yesterday, friends came over for supper. Our main course was to be strawberry shortcake. It’s strawberry season here and, even though we’ve had way too much rain to make it a good year for berries, there are still wonderful berries to be had. At this time of year, we all have our favorite berry patches. […]
The largest lighthouse museum in the United States is right here in New England, thanks to the 2007 merger of Rockland’s Maine Lighthouse Museum with the collections of the American Lighthouse Foundation, an advocacy and preservation organization, formerly based in Wells, Maine. Paintings, photographs, artifacts, lectures and presentations, and more. 1 Park Drive Rockland, ME […]
Once you climb the 55-step winding staircase to the top of Rear Range Light in Newburyport, Massachusetts, you won’t really care what you eat or drink. You’ll be filled with the view from your glass-paneled private dining room. The 365-degree vista follows the Merrimack River to the Atlantic Ocean and Plum Island, then back to […]
Yankee Classic from July/August 2001 In a three-acre sandpit in front of Steve Pelkey, 11,000 live fireworks shells poke out of the grit like land mines. Most are stuffed into mortars, racks of them bolted onto flatbed trailers or strung together on the ground with wooden strapping in sets of three, four, six, and ten. […]
There are times when being there beats getting there by a long shot. We want our foliage vistas, and we want them now — so, onward and upward, in our cars. Herewith, a rundown of nine New England mountain summits attainable by auto road. Some are among the region’s loftiest and most majestic mountains; others […]
ATTRACTIONS Best Children’s Clothing:THE RED WAGON, Boston Find well-made outfits in fun colors that won’t break the bank or fall apart after washing. Accessories are functional and irresistible, plus there’s a thoughtful selection of books and toys. 69 Charles St. 617-523-9402; theredwagon.com Best Furnishings Store:BLISS HOME, Boston Tastes may vary from century to century, but […]
