Stockbridge

STOCKBRIDGE -- The cranny in the linens store at the Red Lion Inn was crammed with Christmas items: holiday napkins, figurines, tiny trees. We were staying at this famous hotel at that time of year when yuletide symbols gladden hearts with the hope of peace on earth and good will to all. It was October. Next to the Christmas nook, yuletide morphed into ghoul-tide, in the form of a chair stuffed with embroidered haunted-house pillows. Outside, the inn's driveway was flecked with pumpkins.

Richard Clemens often said that Norman Rockwell had a gift for showing the world not as it was, but as it ought to be. But when the artist painted Clemens, a Massachusetts state trooper who posed for Rockwell's iconic illustration of a police officer helping a young runaway, he captured his true essence, his daughter said Monday. "I don't think Rockwell could have chosen a more appropriate model," said Mary Blaauboer. "It's a symbol of police officers and how they help people.

STOCKBRIDGE -- "The chief vice of gardens is to be merely pretty," landscape architect Fletcher Steele once said. At Naumkeag, the summer home of the Choate family here, Steele (1885-1971) soared straight through prettiness and entered a realm of giddy whimsicality. The result is one of the most endearingly eccentric landscapes open to the public. True, the shingle-style mansion, designed by the youthful Stanford White in 1885, is homey and quietly elegant, with its well-appointed interiors still intact.

A sidewalk approximately a half-mile long will be constructed on Stockbridge Road in the coming months to better connect 146 homes in the area with Jenkins Elementary School. The $228,961 project is being paid for partially with MBTA "mitigation" funding, and partially with the town's highway funds, and represents only a portion of the eight miles of sidewalks that town officials plan to build. The list of 25 streets to receive sidewalks comes from a 2008 study that assessed which gaps in the town's pedestrian network were a priority.

Richard Clemens often said that Norman Rockwell had a gift for showing the world not as it was, but as it ought to be. But when the artist painted Clemens, a Massachusetts state trooper who posed for Rockwell's iconic illustration of a police officer helping a young runaway, he captured his true essence, his daughter said Monday. "I don't think Rockwell could have chosen a more appropriate model," said Mary Blaauboer. "It's a symbol of police officers and how they help people.

Over the later decades of the 19th century some of the country's wealthiest families took up summer residence in the Berkshires. Society people from Boston and New York and literary and artistic luminaries were drawn to the clear mountain air and pristine hills, valleys and lakes. Equally alluring was that the area offered a less formal setting than Newport. It was the Gilded Age, the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era, and the nation was enjoying unprecedented prosperity.

Former state senator John "Jack" Fitzpatrick of Stockbridge and his wife, Jane, founded the nation's first mail-order curtain company on their dining room table in the 1950s. With the help of ruffled unbleached cotton muslin, they built Country Curtains into a small empire of Berkshires companies, including the Red Lion Inn on Main Street in Stockbridge. It was slated to make way for a gas station when the Fitzpatricks bought it in 1968. They later became renowned supporters of the arts and education in Western Massachusetts.

STOCKBRIDGE, Vt. - After huge amounts of rock were hauled out and tens of thousands of man-hours were spent, Vermont celebrated the completion of the biggest single engineering challenge following the flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Irene. Just in time for the new year and four months after the storm hit, Route 107 between Bethel and Stockbridge was reopened yesterday. The state highway, a major east-west thoroughfare, is the last to reopen after being closed by flooding.

STOCKBRIDGE - The Berkshires are known for the caliber of the artists who perform here, appearing at such high-profile venues as Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and Tanglewood. But not all of the talent is imported. Some of it pops up from unexpected places. An eclectic festival this month will showcase a wide range of home-grown work, including film, dance, poetry, even a drag queen musical set in Cuba. The inaugural "Made in the Berkshires" event, Oct. 14-16 and 21-23, will feature work by more than three dozen artists.

How to get there Events take place all along the river at various dates and times, but most festivities are concentrated in southern Berkshire County and northwest Connecticut. Take the Massachusetts Turnpike to exit 2 and go from there. What to do Housatonic River Summer 413-274-3809; 413-229-9977 www.housatonicriversummer.org A wide range of canoe trips, talks, walks, art shows, concerts, dance performances, film showings, auctions, picnics, and children's events are scheduled throughout the summer, culminating Aug. 22. Daylong...

STOCKBRIDGE, Vt. - After huge amounts of rock were hauled out and tens of thousands of man-hours were spent, Vermont celebrated the completion of the biggest single engineering challenge following the flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Irene. Just in time for the new year and four months after the storm hit, Route 107 between Bethel and Stockbridge was reopened yesterday. The state highway, a major east-west thoroughfare, is the last to reopen after being closed by flooding.

BIRTHDAY BOY Play by Chris Newbound Directed by Wes Grantom. Set, Kenneth Grady Barker. Lights, Derek Wright. Costumes, Charles Schoonmaker. Sound, Phil Pickens. Presented by Berkshire Theatre Group. At: Unicorn Theatre, Stockbridge, through Oct. 16. Tickets: $39. 413-298-5576. www.berkshiretheatre.org STOCKBRIDGE - Every office has one: a sardonic, passive-aggressive malcontent who gripes covertly about how dull the work is and how boring he finds his fellow employees.

all it the Mohawk art trail. Every two or three months, as part of my job as the Globe's art critic, I drive out Route 2 headed for North Adams and Williamstown, two towns that, although just five minutes apart, couldn't be more different in character but share a role as cornerstones in a part of the state rich with cultural treasures. My destination in the former industrial center of North Adams is the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which occupies a campus that used to be Sprague Electric Co. headquarters, and before that, the...

STOCKBRIDGE - The Berkshires are known for the caliber of the artists who perform here, appearing at such high-profile venues as Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and Tanglewood. But not all of the talent is imported. Some of it pops up from unexpected places. An eclectic festival this month will showcase a wide range of home-grown work, including film, dance, poetry, even a drag queen musical set in Cuba. The inaugural "Made in the Berkshires" event, Oct. 14-16 and 21-23, will feature work by more than three dozen artists.

PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT Play by Tennessee Williams Directed by: David Auburn. Set, R. Michael Miller. Lights, Mary Louise Geiger. Costumes, Wade Laboissonniere. Sound, Scott Killian. Presented by Berkshire Theatre Group. At: Fitzpatrick Main Stage, Stockbridge, through Sept. 3. Tickets: $42-$49. 413-298-5576, www.berkshiretheatre.org STOCKBRIDGE - At first glance, Tennessee Williams's "Period of Adjustment" plays like a formulaic domestic comedy: On Christmas Eve, unhappy newlyweds land on the suburban Memphis doorstep of the groom's...

DUTCH MASTERS Play by Greg Keller Directed by: Brian Roff. Set, Jason Simms. Lights, Japhy Weidemen. Costumes, Laurie Churba Kohn. Sound, Bray Poor. Presented by Berkshire Theatre Group. At: Unicorn Theatre, Stockbridge, through Aug. 6. Tickets: $15-$39. 413-298-5576, www.berkshiretheatre.org STOCKBRIDGE - You're sitting on the subway, minding your own business, maybe buried in a book, when someone agitated and off-kilter initiates a conversation.

LENOX — “In the summer New York was the only place in which one could escape from New Yorkers,’’ Edith Wharton once quipped. Wharton would have known: She was one of the wealthy New Yorkers who took to the hills and the shores of New England in summer, probably bumping into city friends at every stylish soirée. Like other well-heeled members of her generation at the turn of the 20th century, the author transplanted her lifestyle to her country retreat. In Lenox, overlooking Laurel Lake, she built an elaborate mansion and gardens, all cared for by a staff.

AZTEC, N.M. - A man who modeled for one of artist Norman Rockwell's iconic Boy Scout paintings during World War II has died. Arthur Robert Hamilton died July 28 in Aztec at age 82. His daughter, Alison H.H. King of Chandler, Ariz., said he was "very much defined by being a Boy Scout. " Mr. Hamilton became an Eagle Scout at age 15, and scouting became his career. After serving in the US Navy and graduating with an accounting degree from the University of Maryland, he worked for the Boy Scouts of America as a fund-raiser until he retired...

Former state senator John "Jack" Fitzpatrick of Stockbridge and his wife, Jane, founded the nation's first mail-order curtain company on their dining room table in the 1950s. With the help of ruffled unbleached cotton muslin, they built Country Curtains into a small empire of Berkshires companies, including the Red Lion Inn on Main Street in Stockbridge. It was slated to make way for a gas station when the Fitzpatricks bought it in 1968. They later became renowned supporters of the arts and education in Western Massachusetts.

Celebrating its 16th season, the Nantucket Film Festival (Wednesday through next Sunday) has carved out its niche among area summer film events as a writer’s festival. This year’s annual Screenwriters Tribute (Saturday) honors Academy Award-winning writer-director Paul Haggis (“Crash,’’ “Million Dollar Baby’’). Also featured at the tribute will be Disney/Pixar’s “Cars 2’’ scripter Ben Queen , honored with the NFF’s New Voices in Screenwriting Award.