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(Originally published in the Berkshire Eagle, 1996) Like some giant, mutant plant burst full-blown overnight, Altresco dominates the newspaper, as it does the Allendale neighborhood of Pittsfield. Now that its foreboding ugliness is plain to see, the people are saying they’ve seen enough; thye want it stopped before it becomes something they can see smell and hear as well.

What happened to the people’s watchdogs, those elected and those appointed by the elected to guard what’s left of our environment against such monstrosities? Did someone throw them a hindquarter of meat while the burglar snuck in? The littlest dog is yelping now, calling for the big dog, the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act unit, to come back and do what it pretended to do two years ago.

Since GE has had the run of that yard for so long, it wouldn’t seem the residents have much hope in their attempt ro reclaim their turf. Especially since the damn thing;s nearly finished. Remember Pyramid. These big guys build first and beg for permission later – and they get it.

All of which was on my mind as I drove through Lenox the other day. I went past Canyon Ranch and then the Kripalu Center, down by Tanglewood. It occured to me that those outfits represent a new kind of industry, one that already has a strong foothold in this part of the county. I guess you could call it the Lifestyle Repair Industry.

Approaching the ranch, I was made to move into the eastbound lane to avoid hitting four chubby folks in fur parkas. They were walking side-by-side, taking up as much of the road as a Range Rover would, glaring at me as if I were a trespasser. Maybe they think their grand-a-week de-fatting fee entitles them…

It was such a different scene down by Kripalu. I encountered walkers there too, but they were strung out along the shoulder, wearing smiles and natural fibers.

Canyon Ranch and Kripalu Center are like great service stations – one promises to rid its customers of adipose tissue, the other specializes in exorcising bad karma.

The question is: Are these industries environmentally sound? I’m not sure they are, and I wonder if we need to deputize a new watchdog to protect us. Obviously all that fat has got to go somewhere. Not onto the water table, I hope. And what safeguards can be set to ensure that all those exorcised karmas aren’t left to haunt the area, ready to possess some unsuspecting soul after a visit to Tanglewood?

After all, it’s not unusual for one to experience an unpleasant feeling, a tinge of sadness, when a concert’s over. Next time you’re driving away from Tanglewood, on one of those lovely moonlit evenings, there may be another factor, not post-concert blues, not the crowd shouldering its way onto Rt. 183, but something more eerie. Maybe it’s time to bring your karma in for a check-up.

(Originally published in the Berkshire Eagle, 1996) I’d like to weigh in on the new issue that is growing in popularity in the Berkshires and may go on to replace the north-south connector question as impetus for most letters to the editor. I refer to the question of whether or not Berkshire County ought to secede from the Commonwealth.

It is conceded that suffiient grounds for such radical surgery have long existed. The wound is worsened by the beaneater’s failure to show adequate gratitude for Berkshireites; after all, wasn’t it Lenox’s own Col. John Peterson and his Berkshire regiment, including a company of Stockbridge Indians who marched east within hours of the first shots fired at Lexington and caused the British to cease their naval bombardment of Boston?

My observation of this nascent campaign, particularly as propagated in the pages of The Eagle, indicates that the popular idea is to effect a union with Vermont. Though various good reasons have been proffered for such action, they presuppose the acquiesence of our charming, but fiercely independent, neighbors to the north.

Vermonters enjoy a well-deserved reputation for hospitality. They regularly welcome the clogging of their highways and byways by cars full of flatlanders eager to exchange cash money for jugs of maple syrup, chunky ice cream, any and all Holstein-stencilled thingamajig, and ski lift tickets. However, the observant interloper will notice an even more enthusiastic wave of the hand from the otherwise stoical Vermonter as he heads back to whence he came.

It ought to be noted that the state of Vermont came into being only because a small group of large landholders managed to manipulate the secession of their territory from New York state. The political chicanery employed by Vermont’s founding fathers would merit at least a segment on “60 Minutes” today.

So perhaps we’re better off looking at this issue without thinking about the Green Mountain state. Why do we need to unite with another political entity anyway? Maybe we don’t, but it does make for more interesting speculation than just going it alone. furthermore, why limit ourselves to consideration only of contiguous places? If it’s true that we’re in the age of the global village, and if so much depends now on traveling the information superhighway, why not consider joining with an entity somewhat removed from our own pastoral home?

Certainly, it would make sense to look to make common cause with a similarly aggreived group of citizens. Staten Island comes readily to mind. Those poor folk are fed up with the shabby treatment they receive from the despots of Manhattan. Why, we Berkshireites, especially south county denizens, already share kindred feelings with Staten Islanders. Who among us isn’t irked by the haughty attitude flaunted by the flocks of Manhattanites who usurp our rustic preserve every summer?

Whereas hooking up with Vermont would add nothing but more of what we’ve already got, union with Staten Island would give the Berkshires the one thing that keeps it from being the most fabulous place on earth – the ocean. Think also of the literary implications. If Melville was able to write Moby-Dick by hallucinating Mount Greylock into his mystical leviathan, just think what some present day scribe could conjure from his seaside Berkshire cottage.

Best of all, we could put to rest once and for all the annoying question of which neighborhood to raze to build a toll booth. After all, once we bolt the Commonwealth, the Turnpike will terminate at Blanford. Once union with Staten Island is effected, creating a population of just over a half million, we’ll pool our funds and dig a canal from Park Square to the Hudson River and establish the Berkshire-Staten Island Ferry. Manhattanites can paddle their own canoe.

Berkshire Eagle, February 14, 1996

Article updated May 12, 2018 by Dave Read

The Steepletop Reserve, near New Marlboro, MA is the largest property of the Berkshire Natural Resource Council, comprising more than 1,200 acres. It contains miles of wood road, and expanses of wetland, mature forest, and young forest, including a small patch of old growth forest (it’s not virgin forest but it is unusually old).

At the center is Harmon Brook flowing from south to north through more than 100 acres of scattered wetland. Crisscrossing the Reserve are 5 miles of marked/maintained trail and an additional 3 miles of un-marked wood road. At the far southeast is a matrix of young forest and mature forest, managed for wildlife that depend on young forest habitat.

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Property overview: PDF-view/download

Aerial photo: PDF- view/download

Trail map: PDF- view/download

Directions:
From Great Barrington, take Route 23 east to Monterey. Just after the Monterey line, bear right onto Route 57/183 into New Marlborough. Just before the Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough, turn left onto New Marlborough-Monterey Road; follow for 1.6 miles. Turn right at the steep, inclining driveway marked “684”. Bear right into our gravel parking lot at the top of the little hill. The trails begin right at the trailhead parking; there is a kiosk just beyond the gate.

Steepletop was donated by the Devine family, long-time owners of this and adjacent lands. To Berkshire Natural Resources Council they donated the Steepletop Reserve that you see on the attached maps; to the New Marlborough Land Trust and The Trustees of Reservations they gave a conservation restriction over Berkshire Natural Resources Council property and other land that the family retained. With Steepletop and adjacent land, a block of nearly 5,000 contiguous acres of land is permanently conserved.

Previous to landing a poem in the What Rough Beast series, my last score was an Honorable Mention! on Only A Game’s annual super bowl haiku contest. The show comes from WBUR – played touch football on the lawn outside the School of Communications when I was at BU.

For these to make any sense, you have to remember the big Deflategate kerfuffle – it has its own wikipedia page – surely another sign of the apocalypse! My entries, the first got the Honorable Mention reading on the air:

Hey Super Bowl Balls,
Welcome Hans & Franz, Who Have
Come To Pump You Up!

It’s Only A Game,
Relax Already, Let’s Don’t
Overinflate It!

Ed. note: just occurred to me that the 2nd one would make a viable epigram if we had the balls to rebel against the strictures of a form borrowed from an alien dna pool and worked in what just now seems the best way out of this entire fiasco: blow things out of proportion – but it has 2 syllables too many, so overinflate is safe, even though no godfearin american talks like that.

Photos of the Oswego River taken Oct. 1, 2017 by Dave Conlin Read.

Photos taken out “around the loop” along the Lake Ontario shore near Rudy’s, Oswego NY.