An evening in the Berkshires

The Column: 06.24.25

I did a show at Tanglewood in the Berkshires Saturday night, a big crowd on a beautiful day, and just before intermission someone told me that we had gone to war against Iran — and without mentioning the news, I asked the crowd to do me a favor — we live in feverish and fearful times, I said, and are a divided people and we need to hang onto the things we have in common such as our neglected national anthem, and they sang it, all four thousand of them, without accompaniment. It’s a magnificent song and they sang it from the heart and on “the land of the free” the sopranos sailed above us and it gave everybody something to think about.

I wish that General Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had stood behind the lectern and delivered the news of the B-2s hitting Iran with 14 thirty-thousand-pound bombs. If he had declared it a success and said that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated,” it would’ve been more convincing than hearing it from the real-estate developer from Queens. He posted, “A full payload of BOMBS was dropped” and a general wouldn’t have capitalized the word as if he were fond of the sound of it. You sort of felt Don was taking personal credit and hoped to build hotels in the craters. And when he said, “There’s no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close,” it was weird, coming from a draft dodger. General Eisenhower, after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, did not say, “No other military could’ve done what we did on Omaha Beach, not even close.” People who have seen battle are less likely to boast about it.

Like most Americans, I wasn’t enthused about joining a war in the Middle East. Nobody ever provided evidence that Iran was close to producing a bomb. China is a vastly more advanced military power but China is a business and businesses avoid bombing because the outcome is so unpredictable. Like most Americans, I am wary of Don’s ability to focus, listen to other opinions, and make long-term plans. There is not the confidence one would want in wartime. I live in a city of tall buildings crowded together on narrow streets and a Muslim theocracy bent on terror could cause great suffering in that city whenever it might choose. A president who is uncomfortable with liberal democracy and civil rights and religious tolerance might welcome an attack so as to declare martial law and cancel the midterm elections. I hear sensible people discussing this lunatic idea and it is troubling.

It is, however, good for my line of work, which is amusement and it was a fine evening at Tanglewood. People spread blankets on the grass and drank wine and laughed at most of the jokes (The old man walks into the Mermaid Lounge and sits at the bar next to a handsome young woman and says, “Do I often come in here?”) and they sang I Saw Her Standing There and You Are My Sunshine and some of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and listened to opera and Bach played on harmonica and Calling My Children Home —

Those lives were mine to love and cherish,
To guard and guide along life’s way.
Oh, God forbid that one should perish,
That one alas should go astray.

And after three hours, everybody went home. I admired the young families who brought little kids and sat out on the grass, and though I didn’t hand out questionnaires I had the feeling they wanted the kids to experience the pleasure of being in an audience, surrounded by humanity, enjoying things in common, an experience you cannot get from a screen.

Down the road from Tanglewood is Stockbridge, hometown of the liberal idealist Norman Rockwell, site of the Rockwell Museum and the paintings of the America we dearly want to believe in, the girl in the hall outside the principal’s office, who’s been roughed up in a fight, black eye, grinning — the cop and the runaway kid at the soda fountain — the Thanksgiving turkey — the working man standing up at a public meeting and speaking — the mother and her boy praying over their meal in a restaurant as other patrons look on. His art was snubbed by critics as sentimental, but so what — we’re a sentimental people, and we love these images and want them to be true. This is not a country that drops bombs for no good reason.

In Cheerfulness, beloved storyteller Garrison Keillor explores how embracing a light-hearted, resilient spirit can brighten even the darkest times. He shows us that choosing cheerfulness is not denial — it’s defiance against despair.

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