MILLERTON — On July 13, 2024, 75-year-old Paul Perkins of Millerton won the USA National American Drug Free Powerlifting Federation competition in Boston, Massachusetts.
Perkins wants others to know that they can be active and fit at any age. “I am living proof that it can be done because I am 75 and still going strong,” he said.
Whatever exercise you choose, the key is to “make yourself do it every day,” Perkins said. “Even if you don’t feel like it. It has to become part of your lifestyle, like brushing your teeth.”
Paul Perkins became interested in powerlifting when he was looking for something to change his own routine. He also runs and loves to surf.
“Powerlifting has introduced me to a whole new set of exercises,” Perkins said.
Perkins belongs to Gold’s Gym, but during the COVID-19 pandemic Perkins converted a bay of his three-car garage into a gym.
Perkins has a routine that he follows every day. He begins with an hour of warm-ups. “Warming up is especially important as you age,” he said. He favors “dynamic stretching” which takes muscles and joints through their full range of motion. He goes on to interval training, in which for example, he might run for four minutes and then walk four minutes, and train with weights.
He points to Dr. Jeffery Life who wrote “Mastering Life Plan,” Bill Phillips who wrote “Body for Life,” Chris Heria of YouTube, and Dr. Mike Israetel, author of “Scientific Principles of Strength Training” as inspiration.
Perkins eats a few small meals a day beginning with a breakfast of Greek yogurt and fruit, then a lunch of egg whites for protein and rice. Dinner is usually a salad and at least once a week salmon for Omega-3’s, with small snacks like an apple between.
He said of the powerlifting competition where he won in the 150-pound deadlift category, “It was one of the best experiences in life.” He “still gets goosebumps thinking about it.” Not only did he have his family cheering him on, but other competitors and spectators cheered too. “The comradery is stunning.”
The rules are strict in powerlifting. Each competitor must compete in the “Squat,” holding a weighted barbell across the shoulders, squatting with it, and returning to standing position; “Bench Press,” lifting the weights while laying down on a bench; and “Dead Lifting,” picking the weights off the floor to a standing position. Competitors are weighed in and judges look at your clothes, “even your underwear,” said Perkins. Competitors can win a category or have the best score in all three for the overall win. Judges are on all sides watching each competitor as they lift the weights.
For Paul Perkins, his message is one of “health and longevity.” He stresses there are “no magic pills” and that “they simply don’t exist and do not take the place of boring, daily, consistent hard work and common sense.”
Perkins points to what research has found as “five fundamental lifestyle behaviors” to achieve longevity: “1. Exercise regularly. 2. Eat a nutritious diet. 3. Avoid cigarettes and limit alcohol consumption. 4. Sleep eight hours a night regularly 5. Nurture meaningful relationships.”
Perkins has set his sights on the World Drug Free Powerlifting Federation Competition which takes place in November in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
In Boston Corners, 74-year-old powerlifter Mike Burch has been busy breaking records. In fact, he has broken twelve for his age group in three years. He has his sights set on the World Powerlifting Associations World Championship on Sept. 28. in Oakville, Conn.
Mike Burch, now 74, of Boston Corners, competing at the American Powerlifting Competition. Mike has been lifting since he was six years old and has never stopped. Photo provided
Burch has been powerlifting since the 1950’s. He began weight lifting as a child to help with his lung capacity when he was diagnosed with asthma. He has continued ever since and was top ranked in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s.
“I’m the only one still out there of all I lifted against in the 60’s and 70’s.” Burch commented. Burch has never stopped lifting weights although he did stop competing for a while. He began again when his grandson, Eli, encouraged him to get back into it. His grandson now competes and trains with his grandfather.
On one floor of her barn are yoga mats and the steady rhythm of breath. On the other are computer screens, market charts and conversations about retirement plans and portfolio diversification. For Reisfeld, founder of Berkshire Wealth Group in Great Barrington, these are two sides of a single practice.
“At the end of the day, you’re just dealing with people,” she said. “Whether we’re talking about financial stability or mental stability, it’s kind of all the same thing.”
Reisfeld has spent nearly 30 years in finance, building a client-centered advisory practice that eventually led her to go independent. But her relationship with money began long before her career.
When her mother became ill during Reisfeld’s childhood, finances tightened. It wasn’t poverty, she said, but it was constrained enough to teach her how money — or its lack — can dictate the terms of one’s life. That lesson took on a deeper meaning as she watched her mother remain in a difficult marriage without full financial independence. “Money represented autonomy,” she said. “Freedom.”
In college, Reisfeld initially majored in physics, drawn to systems and structure. But an economics class shifted her direction. Markets, she realized, were systems too — not only mathematical, but deeply human.
After graduating, she landed an internship with a financial adviser and gradually discovered a profession that combined curiosity, problem-solving and relationship-building.
“The more I learned, the more I kind of wanted to get involved,” she said.
Over time, she realized she wasn’t interested in chasing predictions; she was interested in guiding people through uncertainty.
Over nearly three decades, she has watched the industry evolve. It has moved, she believes, from selling products to offering advice — a shift toward aligning compensation with clients’ best interests.
She’s candid about the stereotypes that cling to finance: that it’s driven by greed and full of money-hungry people. Those people exist, she said, but they aren’t the majority.
“It’s kind of like the few bad apples ruining it for everyone.”
At its best, she believes, the work is quieter and more meaningful than its reputation suggests.
Kathy Reisfeld practicing yoga.Elena Spellman
Yoga entered her life in 2001, when she was living in New York City and training as a marathon runner.
“I was, like, very anti-yoga,” she admitted with a laugh.
But once she tried it, something shifted. A workshop with Nancy Gilgoff, the first American woman to travel to India to study Ashtanga yoga, “blew my mind open,” she said, revealing yoga as something far larger than poses or stretching.
What began as a physical complement to her running became a doorway into something deeper.
“Ashtanga means eight limbs,” Reisfeld explained. “The physical practice is just the entry point.”
The overlap she sees between yoga and investing is patience. Both practices demand discipline through fluctuation — the ups and downs, the good days and bad days, and the willingness to keep showing up.
In yoga philosophy, she points to the stilling of the mind. In investing, that becomes tuning out the noise — the headlines that spike fear or euphoria, the endless predictions that feel authoritative and rarely land cleanly.
After almost three decades in a traditionally male-dominated industry, Reisfeld has learned to move comfortably in rooms where she was often one of the few women present.
Asked what it was like starting out as a woman in finance, she smiled.
“The lines for the restroom were shorter.”
The humor reflects her temperament. She began her career at 21, and mentorship was not always easy to find. But finance, like yoga, rewards consistency. Ultimately, she built her business through steady growth.
For Reisfeld, yoga is fundamentally about integration. Money is no exception. It shapes how we live, the choices we make and the freedoms we have. Ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. It only makes it harder.
Now rooted in the Berkshires, advising clients and teaching yoga classes from the same barn, Reisfeld’s work feels less like two careers and more like one philosophy.
When asked what she hopes people feel after spending time with her — whether reviewing a portfolio or finishing a yoga session — her answer is immediate.
“More confident,” she said. “Less stressed. More optimistic about their future.”
For more information or to book an appointment, visit berkshirewealthgroup.com
Kathy Reisfeld, Branch Owner
250 Maple Ave, Great Barrington, MA 01230
845-263-3996
Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC.
Berkshire Wealth Group is not a registered broker/dealer and is independent of Raymond James Financial Services, Inc.
Investment advisory services offered through Raymond James Financial Services Advisors, Inc.
Elena Spellman is a Client Service Associate at Berkshire Wealth Group
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
Playwright Cinzi Lavin, left, poses with Kathleen Kelly, director of ‘A Goodnight Kiss.’
When Lavin inquired about staging the production there, “they were very excited about it,” she said.
The performance, to take place April 1, is being sponsored by the Connecticut League of Women Voters. Organizers said the Capitol setting offers a fitting backdrop for a story rooted in American history and civic life.
“A Goodnight Kiss” is a dramatic reading drawn from letters exchanged between Sgt. Maj. Frederick Lucas (David Macharelli) and Sarah Jane “Jennie” Wadhams (Olivia Wadsworth). Fred wrote from battlefields, while Jennie wrote from the peaceful confines of Goshen. Together, their letters trace a gradually deepening romance and how the couple overcame objections by Jennie’s father, John Marsh Wadhams, and finally married in 1867.
“I just found it adorable that (Jennie’s father) was going to make sure she got the right kind of husband, which is why Fred had such a hard time,” Kelly said.
BroadwayWorld reviewer Sean Fallon called the play “the most romantic love story I have ever seen acted out on stage.”
The letters were first brought to light in the 2002 book “Fred and Jennie: A Civil War Love Story” by the late Ernest B. Barker, a Goshen resident and descendant of both the Lucas and Wadhams families. The Barker family discovered Fred’s letters in the Wadhams homestead and Jennie’s letters in a house once owned by a Lucas family member. The correspondence is now housed at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History in Hartford.
Capitol atriumSubmitted by Kathleen Kelly
Kelly said presenting the story through letters poses a challenge because the actors rarely interact onstage. During rehearsals, she had the performers face one another while reading their letters aloud. “It was just like magic happened,” she said.
Lavin said the play “tells the story of what truly makes America great, what made America great then, and what still makes it great, which is devotion to duty, service to others, integrity and treasuring freedom.”
David Macharelli, who portrays Fred, said, “Charting (Fred’s) course from enthusiastic young recruit gushing with admiration for the new technology of 19th-century warfare to a man crashing into the reality of war is a reminder that even the noblest of causes demand sacrifice, and that sacrifice is often borne by innocents.”
Olivia Wadsworth said of portraying Jennie, “It’s actually a little dizzying to think about. Two people, more than a hundred years ago, sent private letters to one another, and now their love story is being shared in a performance at the state Capitol.”
The performance will take place April 1 at 2 p.m. in Room 310 of the Capitol at 210 Capitol Ave., Hartford. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration at https://bit.ly/4usa9b7. Arrangements for guests with special requirements may be made by emailing Lisa Del Sesto at admin@lwvct.org or calling 203-288-7996. Parking on Capitol grounds is limited, but additional parking is available nearby at the Legislative Office Building, 300 Capitol Ave.
Yonah Sadeh, Falls Village filmmaker and curator of David M. Hunt Library’s new VideoWall.
After the screening of the two films, “Mail Myself to You” and “Circle, Circle Square,” Pranger and Sadeh will discuss filmmaking and answer questions.
Of Pranger, Sadeh said, “She has a strong visual voice as a director, and both of these films are great examples of a blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking.”
Imogen Pranger, first filmmaker of the new VideoWall.Provided
Pranger described her approach to filmmaking. “I have always approached the visual arts from an interdisciplinary, multimedia perspective.” This approach was a reason why animation was particularly appealing to Pranger as she began exploring the possibilities of filmmaking.
“I particularly fell in love with the tactility of hand-drawn and painted animation and the ways in which it can be used in tandem with analog 16-millimeter film. Stop-motion animation holds the unique power to bring inanimate objects to life, something that became crucial to my practice of archival documentary filmmaking. I appreciate the sense of play that is encouraged in the medium of animation and find great joy in exploring new avenues and possibilities within the medium,” she continued.
At the core of Pranger’s films, she hopes to capture the joy and intimacy of human connection that blossoms through engagement with material and creative process.
After the opening event, the films will remain available to view at any time on the VideoWall screen in the library stacks. “The screen will always be on and ready for anyone to use,” Sadeh said. The installations will last three to four months.
Sadeh added, “Each installation will begin with a public screening at the library, followed by a talkback with the filmmaker.”
Filmmakers can contact Sadeh at huntartwall@gmail.com for information about submitting films for consideration. Visit huntlibrary.org/art-wall for a schedule of ArtWall and VideoWall events, which are free and open to the public.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
