Category: The Best Small Town in America

Let’s Park

By Mickey Friedman August 7, 2017 Margaret came to Fuel to talk about my last column about Great Barrington. She wanted to know more about how I would solve the problems. So let me first suggest a solution to the…

They Come and Go

By Mickey Friedman July 24, 2017 Friends say they increasingly avoid Great Barrington. There’s less and less for them here. Losing Martin’s reminds me when folks gathered there, at Melvin’s, or ordered breakfast from Ruth at The Cricket. Once Frankie…

Ongoing insult to longstanding injury

By Bill Shein October 6, 2016 Way back in March, 2006, I wrote a newspaper column commenting on the turnover in storefronts in downtown Great Barrington. As old, longtime stores closed up, many of the new ones, I wrote, could…

Better Than Best

June 22, 1916 By Mickey Friedman With great recognition comes great responsibility. Living in Smithsonian Magazine’s The Best Small Town in America is an honor, and Great Barrington and its people have done a bang-up job serving as a sterling…

#WE2BGB

By Mickey Friedman August 27, 2015 The tweedysphere has been blowing up with hashtag wetoocanbeGB. Or as the kids tweed, #WE2BGB. You can’t go anywhere in Berkshire County without hearing about it. People gathering in clumps in Lenox and Lee,…

Allez

June 22, 2015 By Mickey Friedman 2003. It seems like a lifetime ago when Republican Bob Ney renamed French fries because the French didn’t want to invade Iraq. We showed those Frenchies. Freedom fries not only tasted better but were…

Before Yoga

By Mickey Friedman February 12, 2015 You know you’re headed for your last rodeo when you can remember a time before yoga. I see the barber shops on Railroad Street, two saloons and the car parts store. The donut shop…

Care

By Mickey Friedman August 30, 2014 When I was a kid I hated the hospital. And in the throes of youthful fear, I wasn’t too crazy about doctors. Seems I was allergic to dust, dirt, grass, just about everything. And…

The G Word

By Mickey Friedman July 4, 2014 I got my first real job at twelve. I had tried shining shoes outside the Jerome Avenue subway station, and sold my share of Kool-Aid but wasn’t very good at either. So, after school,…

The Bear on The Hill

By Mickey Friedman May 13, 2014 I’ve got mice. A friend’s got rats. Congressman Bill Shein just lost a duck to a fox. Mice, rats, tigers, lions, and bears. Everywhere it’s war. Congressman Bill, the most nonviolent of men, had…

Thanksgiving Thursday

By Mickey Friedman May 7, 2014 We of The Best Small Town in America are more than lucky. Because, for us, Thanksgiving comes not just once each year but once a week. That is, if you make your way to…

Me and My Yo-Yo Ma

By Mickey Friedman April 8, 2014 I have a thing for purple. And pigtails. Hers were reddish-blonde. It was like I was in a movie. With a halo of light about her. And even though I was making my way…