By Mickey Friedman
June 24, 2011
I’m not really a news man. I’ve written a non-fiction book, am writing a mystery novel, and have made films. And I write a quirky column every other week for The Berkshire Record about my own slightly eccentric take on life. But Thursday morning, June 23, I found myself in the midst of news. It seems to me that news is different in a small town; it swirls around us and sometimes lands at our feet. It is most often not the anonymous story of strangers, but the story of someone we know, someone we’ve seen around town.
So this is a story about an alleged arsonist and a few of those who have crossed paths with him recently.
Like many, I’m often to be found at the Fuel Coffee Shop. My mornings begin there, and my afternoons end there. David Pixley, our alleged arsonist, was one of those who spent hours at Fuel.
By now most Great Barrington folks know about the arson attempt of early Wednesday morning. Using a tire and gasoline, someone set a fire in the parking lot behind Barrington Outfitters. A storage area behind the store was soon in flames, and an another fire was set behind the Lee Bank Branch. Luckily a fire alarm went off at 1:38 a.m.





