Adams Free Library Hosting "The Places You'll Go" Summer Reading Celebration July 19

ADAMS Mass. – Adams Free Library is hosting “The Places You’ll Go” A Summer Reading Celebration by Davis Bates on July 19 at 6 p.m. as part of the 2022 Summer Reading Challenge “Read Beyond the Beaten Path.

Join the library in a participatory program with singing along and movement. Davis Bates’ performances are a mixture of family, Native American, international and regional songs and stories and speak of empowerment, history, spirit and the environment.

Bates has been telling stories for over thirty-eight years, in schools, libraries, and community settings around New York & New England and across the country. His recording Family Stories won a prestigious Parents Choice Magazine Gold Award, and received a starred review by the American Library Association’s Booklist magazine.

Davis lives in a small hilltown village in western Massachusetts, and when he isn't performing or collecting and learning songs and stories he spends his time gardening and working on various pollinator preservation projects.

“Read Beyond the Beaten Path” is sponsored by the Adams Free Library, the Massachusetts Library System, the Boston Bruins, and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.  Funding is provided by the Friends of the Adams Free Library.

Families and children of all ages are invited to join the Adams Free Library for this presentation. An adult must accompany children under 8 years of age. Library events are free and open to the public. Attendance at library programs constitutes consent to be photographed; photos may be used in print or electronic publicity for the Adams Free Library. Questions? Call the Adams Free Library at (413)743-8345 or visit the library’s website www.adamslibraryma.org for more information.

Common Table Brings Modern Comfort Food to Cheshire

By Daniel MatziBerkshires Staff
05:20AM / Monday, June 24, 2024

Marcus Lyon mixes his Taylor Swift inspired cocktail, the Tortured Poet.

 

CHESHIRE, Mass. — Common Table is a transportation device. Walking into the month-old restaurant on South Street in Cheshire, surrounded by the quiet of the sleepy church across the street and the still trees all around, one might feel a shock of displacement on discovering a packed dining room, buzzing with the  energy and life of a city several orders of magnitude larger.

 

Nevertheless, partners CJ Garner and Marcus Lyon hope locals and visitors alike will feel at home here, where their take on "modern American comfort food" has already found a solid base of regulars in its five weeks of operation.

 

The 40-odd seat room, with tall white wainscoting against gray walls, and a bold white-tiled bar, has a streamlined farmhouse feel that complements the simple yet inventive menu Garner and his kitchen crew present each week.

 

A curated mix of pop tracks and classic rock songs lays a backdrop for the many conversations mingling throughout the space.

 

At the beginning of the year this room bore no resemblance to the sleek, welcoming restaurant it is today. Serving as a makeshift storage space for its owner after the last in a string of pizza joints closed here in 2017, the space had to be completely updated and renovated to be usable, let alone attractive.

 

Garner and Lyon, accompanied by Garner's father and friend Bob, installed new plumbing, new heating and cooling, new electrical, and a lot of new kitchen equipment. A wall was built to serve as the bar's backdrop, the drop ceiling was removed and raised, and the ceiling was vaulted over half of the dining room.

 

Windows all along the dining room let in beautiful daylight during lunch, and at night the darkened space is cozy and intimate.