New acquaintances often ask, “How long have you been here?” a question presuming that I came here from elsewhere. My answer—“Since 1972, when I was born”—is a bit misleading, since my parents had only just moved from New York. Long-time Monument Mountain Regional High School social studies teacher Gordy Soule, on the other hand, is one of those locals whose ancestors have been settled in southern Berkshire County so long that no living family member is quite sure which great-great-grandparent came over from where, or when.
We ended up talking partly in the car, as I had to drop mine off at the shop, so on routes 102, 7, and 41, I got an unexpected history tour. I heard about the stretch of now-busy road that once served as a quarter-mile-long, nocturnal race track, of the house built into a hillside on the site of an old blast furnace that produced pig iron, of the very old track that predates Route 7 that used to run parallel, about half a mile to its east. On the day we talked, Gordy was preparing for a backpacking trip—not for himself, but for the students who take his unorthodox class.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
GORDY SOULE
When I was in eighth grade, like 1979, Great Barrington was so quiet that when we were doing the window painting [for Halloween] you could just be in the street. You would lay your sheet out and sit on the sidewalk, and paint directly onto the store windows.
SHEELA CLARY
You mean Railroad Street?
SOULE
No, I mean Main Street.
There was no traffic. There was the decline in dairy, decline of the manufacturing. The other thing is there were no traffic lights. No light at the brown bridge. No light at Belcher Square. You could drive from the high school to Sheffield without a light. We sat right in the street.
CLARY
Tell me where you were born and grew up?
SOULE
I was born in Pittsfield, I think at Pittsfield General, which is not a hospital anymore. This was 1966. My mother was 19. My parents were both graduates of Williams High school, one of the last classes in the high school [at the site of the present-day Town Offices in Stockbridge]. He was in his early 20s, in the Marines; she was 19, pregnant with me. My father was out of Vietnam by then, my uncles were in. My mother’s brother saw significant combat in Vietnam. My father had trained the Vietnamese and was part of the Bay of Pigs. He was on the ship that was tailing the Russian ship, but I’m not sure he knew it at the time.
My mother was one of the first employees of Nancy and Jack Fitzpatrick. She used to work out of their house when they first started Country Curtains. She used to go to the Fitzpatricks, wrap the curtains, tag ’em, send them out, and then bring their mail to them. She became personal assistant to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. My maternal grandfather, Pilling, goes way back in Stockbridge. He used to talk about a selectman taking him for a one-horse open sleigh ride. He talked about sledding down Prospect Hill from the top all the way down to Stockbridge Fuel and Grain. Back then it wouldn’t have been all graded out like this, right? I would imagine they paved this road [Route 7] in the 50s. My dad remembers when Route 102 was a dirt road.
My grandparents lived on Pine Street in Stockbridge, and I remember sitting out on their porch. They used to smoke cigarettes. I remember them talking about the traffic. Someone would say it was Tanglewood letting out, and somebody else would say, ‘No, that’s Music Inn.’ They would just sit out here and talk about what traffic was going by.
CLARY
Did anyone in your family pose for Norman Rockwell?
SOULE
Yes. My father and my uncle, and my mother took drawing lessons from him. Norman Rockwell most likely would have known my parents by name. And I’m pretty sure that my grandfather would have known Mabel Choate, because she walked around town.
CLARY
What can you tell me about growing up in this area?
SOULE
It was wonderful. My grandmother used to work for the Town of Stockbridge information booth. I would go there and see her during the day. I’d walk through the Red Lion. My grandfather was a butcher at Elm Street Market, and I used to go there, and I’d charge a soda or whatever.
I went to the elementary school in West Stockbridge through sixth grade and then Searles [in Great Barrington, on Bridge Street]. When I think about Searles in those days, I think of my buddies walking from Mechanic Street and stopping to buy gum at Betros Market, and then you’d slowly collect your friends as you went closer to school. It was idyllic, you know?
My parents had a small apartment in downtown West Stockbridge across from what is now Stonehouse Realty, but it used to be Aggie’s. They lived in the one in the middle, and then they moved up. Then, if you’re going towards New York state, you go up the hill, and the camp’s on the right, and on the left, that’s the house my parents bought for $10,000 in the early 1970s. It was like 1,500 square feet. It had a barn and five acres. Used to be a farm. It used to connect to Maple Hill before the turnpike. My dad had a wood lot on the other side. I used to ride my snowmobile down to Troy’s garage, and they would mix my gasoline down there. Troy’s garage had pumps then. We would ride up on Maple Hill, because there were no houses. They used to close it off. Maple Hill, when I was growing up, was just a big open hill, no houses, nothing. We’d just ride our snowmobiles out there.
We used to swim in the quarries. There were really no restrictions on where you could go or where you could swim.
CLARY
What sports did you do in high school?
SOULE
I wrestled and played football, played baseball. We had success. I think I got a little spoiled.
CLARY
What do you mean? Assuming everything would be easy?
SOULE
I worked really hard to be a good athlete. I got a lot of attention for it. Eventually, I moved away from here, so I was judged more on what I was capable of and not my reputation and the reputation of my family. That’s why I moved.
I went to Springfield College and wrestled there, and that was a challenge. I struggled. I was homesick. I spent a lot of time coming back to the Berkshires. But I did get a varsity letter. I did graduate on time. Then I came back and I lived with this guy named Bill Morrow, a really good guy. We lived at, I think it was 12 Manville Street on the first floor of this four-flat apartment. It was big, and we paid like 500 bucks a month, with everything included. Three bedrooms, dining room, living room, kitchen, washer, dryer, and all utilities. I think we used to help his mom by mowing the lawn. This was at the end of the ’90s. That’s when you could feel the gentrification coming.
Working for Williams’ Construction, that was a big-time job. I was making $8.50 an hour. Big money. I remember going down into Litchfield County and seeing that development, the pattern, where there’d be an estate, and then open space, and then a spate of second homes. And I remember thinking, ‘That is what the Berkshires is going to look like.’ It used to be very rural, more like North County, when I was growing up, and now it looks more like Litchfield County.
CLARY
How would you characterize southern Berkshire County now, in terms of development?
SOULE
Well, there’s, like, 35, 40 percent of the land in some sort of preservation. You got the state land, Fish and Wildlife, BNRC [Berkshire Natural Resources Council], which is big, Trustees of Reservation, all the land trusts, and then you have Chapter 61, the agricultural stuff.
CLARY
How did you come to teach at Monument?
SOULE
When I was in college, I would come back and help the high school wrestling team. I worked with the two younger kids, David and Jason St. Peter. Their father was director of pupil services at the time. So when I graduated from college, he invited me over to dinner, and he was quizzing me about what I wanted to do. He said, ‘There’s going to be a paraprofessional job at Searles. I want you to apply for that.’ I got it. That’s how I ended up getting into teaching, because he took an interest in me.
Then I wanted to challenge myself, so he wrote me a letter of recommendation for the University of Northern Colorado, and that’s where I got my teaching credentials. I started out in Greeley, then Fort Collins., and then I got a job at Eagle County Public Schools and lived outside of Vail for four years. Came back here in 1999, and I taught in Peabody Public Schools for two years.
I was hiking up here with my future wife and I ran into Don Hagberg, who had been my coach in high school. He’s a man of integrity, just a really great guy. He said, ‘There’s a job at the high school you should apply for.’ Marianne Young was the principal, and I got the job as a special education teacher. But I wanted to be a classroom teacher. Terry Flynn is still alive, and he’s responsible for that. A position opened up, and I went for it, and they hired me. I’ve been there ever since. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, 25 at Monument. In the same classroom, H20, for 20 years.
CLARY
Explain the ‘People and the Environment’ class. When did it start?
SOULE
It was called ‘Man and the Environment’ when Ray Shepherdson and Don Hagberg started the class. I have the old-fashioned carousel slides from 1973, the pictures of trips they took. It ran right up until Don retired, was dropped for a couple years, then picked up again. A few years after that, Mike Powell [head of the Guidance Department] got involved.
‘People and the Environment’ is a natural history and outdoor leadership class. We do units on navigation and map and compass. We use the AMC mountain guidebook and a lot of Tom Wessels’ stuff about the forest and landscape. I talk about the charcoaling history and the iron industry because when we walk in the woods there’s the charcoal pits. I talk about how to date forests. Sometimes in the spring, we’ll do a unit on edible plants.
It’s a semester course, and each semester we do one one-day trip, a two-night, three-day trip, and then a three-night, four-day trip. The day trip is at Beartown. They drop us off at Benedict Pond and we hike all day. We walk towards Lee, where the old ski place is, and we set a compass bearing 278 degrees, and we walk all the way back to the high school.
CLARY
Have you already done that one this semester?
SOULE
Yeah. It was great. The kids love it. You usually get an influx of seniors who have already done their commitments. The three-day trip is usually at Mount Greylock. We hike from Route 8 in Cheshire to the Stony Ledge camp. This is the traditional trip to Stony Ledge. We set up a base camp. On the second day, we summit and come back to base camp. And then on the third day, we hike down to the Greylock Glen ski area, the old ski club, and then we get picked up at Route 7 in Williamstown.
The last one we do is in Mount Washington, where we’re looking at the iron industry in the Berkshires and deforestation. It’s a backpacking trip, and it starts on West Avenue, and we hike all the way to Berkshire School in four days. It’s about 25 miles. We camp at Ashley Hill campground, and then we camp, and Race Brook Falls, and then we camp over by Gilder Pond, and then we hike the Elbow Trail through Berkshire School. We get picked up there. That’s the culminating trip.
CLARY
When are you doing that one?
SOULE
Tomorrow. We’re doing prep work today. The kids are responsible for the food, and we have the tents, the sleeping bags, and the stoves. Jack Curletti and Kayleigh Selino are going. She’s a phys ed teacher. [Jack is the high school’s early childhood education teacher.]
CLARY
Here we’re coming up on the high school. How do you feel about the history that’s contained inside the school, and how to carry it over to the new building?
SOULE
Lots of people will take bricks, I know that. I know it’ll always be in my heart. I’m gonna take a GPS reading in the middle of my room, H20, so that when they tear it down, I can always go back to the spot.
