SHEFFIELD, Mass. — Rene Wendell has been around the woods more than a few times. The 94-year-old Pittsfield native and former tracker and taxidermist is an avid collector of all things wild including flies and beetles and, of course, several decades of memories. 

"I grew up around Burbank Park," he said in a phone interview. "As a kid, the woods were my playground and I was obsessive about animals. That was 70 or 80 years ago, can you imagine? It's been very interesting, I've seen a lot of changes here over the

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SHEFFIELD, Mass. — While making the drive from Sheffield to Lee to cover a story, I noticed three Verizon trucks, one in Great Barrington, one in Stockbridge and one in Lee.

Each truck was cordoned off by bright orange cones and, of course, a police officer stood by to direct traffic around the trucks. Hard hat-wearing maintenance workers were situated in buckets, high above the traffic, working on the lines (for hours in the cold).

That's when it dawned on me — Verizon doesn't have a choice, not anymore. Back in December in a settlement agreement signed by Attorney General Martha

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — An old wood-frame building behind the Berkshire Cooperative Market on Bridge Street collapsed Sunday afternoon, apparently from the weight of the snow.

The collapse was reported at about 1:30 p.m. to police, who were at first concerned that it may have been occupied because utility lines led to the

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NEW MARLBOROUGH, Mass — Realtor Lance Vermeulen refused to name who purchased nearly 300 acres of land on Canaan Southfield Road for $4.3 million but iBerkshires has a guess.

Your new neighbors may be Amy Selinger and Mark Elefante – a young couple with ties to the former Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones and Co. It could also be one of the Bancrofts themselves – who inherited the Wall Street Journal and made $1.2 billion on its 2007 sale.

Here's how we came up with that.

The property listed at 2128 Canaan Southfield Road was sold to the holding company Vergelegen LLC, according to state land records. The Secretary of State's corporation database shows the

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — There are two things you need, and I mean need like a baby needs its momma, to get through a winter like this one.

The first thing is a good pair of boots (for a recommendation on winter gear see my recent gear blog).

The second is a good sense of humor, a very good sense of humor. Maybe even a little sick, too. The kind of humor that, when someone asks you in a blinding snowstorm how you're doing, you just smile and say, "I'm freakin' great. It's downright balmy out here. Love this weather."

Then you trudge down the street headed for the nearest

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