Walking around North Adams, Mass. on our delayed anniversary celebration Friday, Maria and I came across preparations for “Beach Day,” an annual North Adams event in which the town fills up a street with plastic pools and beach sand – lots of beach sand – and families with kids come out in the evening by the hundreds and swim an play. This struck me as ironic in a state with lots of world famous beaches just a few hours down the road, but it is a huge hit in North Adams, we came by at night and every inch of sand was filled with happy kids and their beaming parents. I love this merchant who was helping out by filling up the pools, moving his chair from one to the other.

North Adams is the home of the huge museum Mass MOCA and is being gentrified, but is still in those awkward stages between one kind of community ethos and another. Neat place.