Quaker Meeting...and a surprise of Rockwellian proportions

It's Sunday and we look forward to attending Quaker meeting at South Berkshire Friends Meeting in Great Barrington. The meetinghouse (which we passed the day before on our continued trek to become lost as much as possible) is set on a wooded piece of land that includes a pond with a beaver lodge. We can't quite place what that deep moaning sound is (see Day Seven). The South Berkshire Friends give us a warm welcome and invite us to their potluck, even though we didn't bring anything. We talk about our families and Elisabeth shares that her grandmother's family came from Richmond, Indiana and her grandfather's from Moorestown, NJ. Really? Says a gentleman named Larry Tuttle. My family is from Moorestown. Mine are Richies and Robertes, says E. Oh, I've got Robertes all the way back, Larry says. A few more connections later and they find they are second cousins. How nice!

 We, of course, ask for a good breakfast place and they, without hesitation, send us to Martin's. We always want to know where the locals eat. Sitting over our pancakes, we can imagine living here. Of course, it is June and there is no snow. Michael often chides Elisabeth for falling in love with towns while visiting in fair weather.

Another outstanding reason to visit the Berkshires--the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. Even though it is late in the day, we ask the lady at the counter if we can see everything in 3 hours. Oh my yes, she says. We remain skeptical--we are the folks who did, after all, once spend no less than six hours at the Civil War Museum at the Tredeger Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia.

The lady recommends we start in the basement--that's where all the Boy's Life, Look and of course Saturday Evening Post magazine covers are. But our focus is diverted almost immediately to the original oil of "Marriage License" hanging just inside the first gallery. The colors are even more remarkable here--the yellow of the girl's dress, the rich wood of the walls, the light coming in through the window and how did Rockwell get that blend of light and dirty dust on the floor? Then we both stop stone still and we both take a quick breath in at the same time. The date on the calendar in Rockwell's painting is June 11--the same day we applied for our marriage license. What a smile!

The cover room is indeed a don't-miss. We're lucky the summer season hasn't fully hit yet and we only have to climb over a few people to get close to the art. It's just not a museum where you can sit on a soft bench a distance away from the paintings to get an appreciation. You've got to get close because it's all about the detail, of course. The only place where that isn't true is the small rotunda where the Four Freedoms are, and there's a comfortable round bench there so you can spend as much time as you like.

In Lenox, we have trouble finding a restaurant that looks even remotely affordable.  We settle on the venerable Rumplestiltskin's or Rumpy's as the summer theatre and concert crowd affectionately calls it. The locals are all talking about James Taylor and Carole King, who will start the Tanglewood season in another week before the Boston Symphony gets rolling.

Even though the summer season is week off, it is the Berkshires and we need a theatre fix so we head over to Shakespeare and Co. for an intern production of Julius Caesar. Well-done with a six-actor cast in a black box space. It's fun seeing a woman play Casca.