KIOSK HELLO

Lee, Mass­a­chu­setts, a beau­ti­ful town and to an out­sider, a patri­otic one of sorts at that. It’s mas­sive white Romanesque style church built in 1857, Main Street and Joe’s Diner gives it an All-American touch, in a good way. Rock­well, the most Amer­i­can of Amer­i­can painters we all know and some pos­si­bly love, was buzzing around Lee and in 1958 he painted “The Run­away” at Joe’s for the cover of “The Sat­ur­day Evening Post”. (If you are in the area it’s inter­est­ing to spend an hour or so at the Rock­well Museum in Stock­bridge) Hun­gry around the same time we were in Lee we detoured into Joe’s and had that rel­a­tively unknown in my book but who the heck knows the real story dish called “Grapenut Pud­ding” ( a New Eng­land favorite accord­ing to “Yan­kee” mag­a­zine among oth­ers) and we shared a cof­fee milk­shake, it was a beau­ti­ful moment and reminded me of why I love this coun­try deep down under the MANY lay­ers of our cur­rent quag­mire. Mass­a­chu­setts is chock full of Amer­i­can his­tory, we all need a lit­tle pride in our place of ori­gin to make things hap­pen, let’s hope the next elec­tion goes well. Happy July 4th from the heart of New York City!