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The Williamstown Youth Center celebrates the nation's birthday with a cake.
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The Williamstown American Legion leads the town's annual Fourth of July parade.
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The Williamstown League of Women Voters clad in suffragette white recognizes the coming centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.
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The Williamstown Theatre Festival brings colorful costumes and enthusiasm to the parade.
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Always a crowd favorite,the equestrians from Bonnie Lea Farm mark the parade's end.
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Spectators try to beat the heat by seeking shade and utilizing fans distributed by the Williams College Museum of Art.
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Activities up and down Spring Street helped spectators pass the time while waiting for the parade.
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Williams College students help youngsters learn the Rubik's Cube as one of the pre-parade activities on Spring Street.

Parade, Pyrotechnics, Pies Mark Williamstown's Fourth

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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Emily Bourguignon poses with her winning pie.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Village Beautiful held its annual birthday party Thursday morning for the United States of America, which turned 243 this July 4. (Just 11 years younger than Williamstown.)
 
The Williamstown Youth Center brought the cake. Seventeen amateur chefs brought the pie.
 
The former, a float that rolled down Spring Street in the annual town parade, was inedible. The pies were entered in an inaugural contest that was added this year to a full day of activities organized by the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce.
 
The day began with the fourth annual Fun Run for Independence 5K at 8 a.m. and was scheduled to conclude with fireworks at Taconic Golf Course.
 
In between, there were to be short films at Images Cinema, a dramatic reading of founding documents at Williams College's Stetson Library and, of course, pies.
 
Emily Bourguignon came out on top in the inaugural contest, which was appropriate for the first-time competitor.
 
"I have never entered a pie-baking contest before, but this seemed like so much fun,"  Bourguignon said. "I'm the co-chair for the Williamstown Theatre Festival Guild, and I was helping out with the parade. [WTF director of audience engagement Antonello Di Benedetto] was like, 'There's a pie baking contest,' and I said, 'OK, I can fit in one more thing this morning."
 
Bourguignon's "Cherry in Strawberry Shrub Sauce with Amaretti Cookie Crust" edged out runner-rup Jason McDowell-Green and Maya Davis' rhubarb cardamom cream and third-place winner Venetia Greenhalgh's strawberry pie.
 
For Bourguignon, contests may be a new experience, but creating new pies is very familiar.
 
"This is one that I've been working on a new recipe for, so this is it's debut," she said. "Pretty good debut.
 
"I'm very bad at following recipes, so it's not so much that I should get a pat on the back for coming up with something new. It's more that I'm just very bad at thinking anybody else knows better than I do. I don't measure things. I just sort of throw it together."
 
Her instincts paid off according to the panel of judges that had the arduous task of spending their morning sampling pies in the air-conditioned comfort of the Williams Bookstore while most of the town baked in the sun as either spectators or marchers in the 11 a.m. parade.
 
And as much as Bourguignon may claim to be bad at following others' recipes, her Independence Day triumph inspired her to join their ranks.
 
"I didn't write it down, but I totally will now," she said with a laugh.

Tags: 4th of July,   celebration,   holiday event,   parade,   

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Letter: Vote for Someone Other Than Trump

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

I urge my Republican friends to vote for someone other than Donald Trump in November. His rallies are getting embarrassingly sparse and his speeches more hostile and confused. He's looking desperately for money, now selling poor-quality gold sneakers for $399. While Trump's online fans embrace him more tightly, more and more of the people who actually worked with Trump have broken with him, often issuing statements denouncing his motives, intellect, and patriotism.

Mike Pence is the most recent, but the list now includes William Barr, former attorney general (who compared him to a 9-year-old); former NSC Chairs Bolton and McMaster; former Defense Secretaries Mattis and Esper; former Chiefs of Staff Kelly and Mulvaney; former Secretary of State Tillerson; former Homeland Security chief Bossert; and former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who referred to Trump as a "wannabe dictator." This level of rejection by former colleagues is unprecedented in American politics.

Are these people just cozying up to the Establishment "Uniparty," as his fans would have it? No. Most of them are retired from politics. It's just that they see the danger most clearly. General Milley is right. Trump's most constant refrain is his desire to hurt his critics, including traditional conservatives. Although Liz Cheney lost her Wyoming seat in Congress, he now wants her jailed for investigating him.

This man should not be president of the USA.

Jim Mahon
Williamstown, Mass.

 

 

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