Kathryn Boughton

Canaan

Freelance Journalist at Republican-American

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Articles

Humble and Virtuous

1 week ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

The Clothesline Role Seventy-one years ago this month, my father and mother bought a house. It was definitely not my mother’s dream house. It was big and old and had been abandoned for 17 years. It creaked and groaned in the night and, because she was five months pregnant, the musty smell literally nauseated her. It needed just about everything but the bank wanted it off their books and made my Dad an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Stars at Tanglewood

1 week ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

For nearly 60 years there has been handwringing in some quarters about the apparent decline in the popularity of classical music. In December 1968, a New York Times headline proclaimed Dip in Concert Audiences Troubles Impresarios. Tanglewood, that elegant bastion of elite musical expression, was not immune to this concern.
Boffo BIFF 2025

2 weeks ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

GREAT BARRINGTON, MA—Seventy-five films have been selected for this year’s Berkshire International Film Festival, slated for May 29 through June 1. "You would think that, after 20 years, it would get easier,” sighed Kelley Vickery, founder and artistic director of the Berkshire International Film Festival, who had just released the schedule for this year’s festival. “It takes a herculean effort and is totally stressful and nail-biting and then I can breathe a sigh of relief.”But not for long.
Graydon Carter

3 weeks ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

Sponsored by Hickory Stick Bookstore It is no secret that print journalism is in dire straits. Rising production costs and decreasing readership have shrunk the number and size of once venerable publications. But there were once rich and plummy days—days of expansive expense accounts, travel, stories about celebrities written by equally celebrated authors and long-form articles illustrated by fabulous photography.
Railroad Street Canaan

3 weeks ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

A photo, probably dating to the second decade of the 20th century, shows the southwest end of Railroad Street in Canaan sometime after 1914. It can be dated by the presence of Decker and Beebe’s storefront on the right side the picture. The plumbing and home appliance business was established by William Decker and J H Alvord in 1907 and became Decker & Beebe in 1914 when Alvord withdrew from the business and Decker partnered with Hiram Beebe.
The Pleasure Of Buying Books

4 weeks ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

Thirty years ago, the demise of the printed book was predicted with some certainty. The rise of digital media and e-readers was supposed to sound the death knell of books and bookstores. But, as with Mark Twain’s response to his premature obituary in 1897, reports of the death of books were “greatly exaggerated.” Three decades later, approximately 2.2 million new book titles are published globally each year, both traditionally and independently.
Libraries face defunding of services

1 month ago | kentdispatch.org | Kathryn Boughton

KENT, Conn.—The effects of federal cutbacks are beginning to trickle down to the local level. Last week, area librarians were alarmed to learn that programs important to rural populations, such as the interlibrary loan service provided through Connecticut State Library, were abruptly defunded effective April 1. The Connecticut State Library was notified by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, which oversees grants to states, that its 2024-25 federal grant awarded was terminated.
Trade Secret Gardens

1 month ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

If you planned on a sun-kissed day of touring exemplars of the garden arts during Trade Secrets annual gardening extravaganza Saturday, May 17, you had better hurry up. Tickets went on sale April 1 and two of the gardens are already sold out. Wait lists have been created for Bunny William’s gorgeous property in Falls Village and for Douglas Dockery Thomas’ property with its impressive vistas in Salisbury.
Berkshire Mountain Bakery

1 month ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

“Listen to that,” Richard Bourdon says as he squeezes a freshly baked loaf of bread in Michael Pollan’s beautiful 2016 Netflix series, Cook. “You can hear it crack, like walking on crispy snow. You crack it a little bit and the smell comes out. It is one of those little pleasures a baker might get.”Bourdon must have experienced that pleasure countless times at his Housatonic MA-based Berkshire Mountain Bakery since its opening in 1986.
Farms as Entertainment

1 month ago | berkshirestyle.com | Kathryn Boughton

Farmers had barely cleared and tilled the bony ridges of New England’s landscape before they began to pack up and move on to more fertile lands in the Midwest. Those that remained behind continued to scratch out their subsistence from stony fields ringed by the rocks they had painstakingly stacked into walls that traced the boundaries of their holdings.