Please join us on Tuesday, November 19th at 7 pm in the Library Meeting Room for a discussion and screening of Alice’s Ordinary People with documentary filmmaker Craig Dudnick.

Alice Tregay and her husband James met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966. They marched with him, often at great personal risk, and worked closley with Reverend Jesse Jackson to fight for human rights. 

The program is free and open to the public. No registration is necessary.
This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library. 

Please join us on Monday, November 18th at 7 pm in the Library meeting room to hear author Ted Reinstein talk about his book, New England’s General Stores: Exploring an American Classic.

The general store is literally as old as America itself.
It harkens back to a simpler time and a more innocent and rural nation. It conjures a country-like place where kids come in to by penny candy, and adults to buy everything from swaths of fabric, to fresh vegetables, to four-penny nails. It was a place to pick up mail, the newspaper, and perhaps tarry a bit on a cold, winter’s morning to chat over a cup of coffee and a warm wood stove. Long before “Cheers,” the general store was the
vital and inviting heart of a community, where everyone not only knew your name, but how you took that coffee, how many kids you had, and how’s your dad doing, anyway? And in tough times, it was a place that often treated customers like family, extending credit when no one else would. In short, the general store was real-life Norman Rockwell—deeply woven into America’s cultural identity, an integral part of the nation’s self-portrait from its earliest days. But over the last 50 years, many of New England’s
general stores, competing with behemoths like Wal-Mart and Target, began to disappear. But then a funny thing happened: people really missed them. And in many towns, decided to hold onto them.

In talking about New England’s General Stores: Exploring an American Classic, broadcast journalist Ted Reinstein shares the rich and colorful history of this iconic institution, how they figured in the rise of early American commerce, why they began to fade, and why—like another New England icon, the diner—they have begun to come back and even be re-invented and re-imagined for a new era. Told with anecdotes from
a variety of local landmark stores across the region, the presentation is accompanied by the award-winning photography of Art Donahue.

Since 1995, Ted Reinstein has been a reporter for Boston’s WCVB-TV’s “Chronicle,” the nation’s longest-running locally-produced nightly newsmagazine. He also provides reports and commentary on Sunday mornings for the station’s political roundtable show, “On The Record.” 

His first book, New England Notebook: One Reporter, Six States, Uncommon Stories, was released in May, 2013 by Globe-Pequot Press. The book recounts many of Ted’s favorite people and stories from his travels all around New England. National Geographic Traveler named it one of its “Best Picks,” and the book is now in its third-printing. In April, 2016, Globe Pequot Press released Ted’s second book, Wicked Pissed: New England’s Most Famous Feuds. His newest book, written in collaboration with his wife, Anne-Marie, is New England’s General Stores: Exploring an American
Classic.
Ted is a native of Winthrop, Massachusetts, and lives just west of Boston with his wife and two daughters.

This program is free and open to the public. No registration is necessary.
This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library. 

Tuesday, October 29th 7-8:30 pm. A special performance by PEKING and THE MYSTICS, an all a capella group.

Boston’s premiere a cappella group has an eclectic repertoire, comprising original arrangements by PATM members themselves, featuring swing, jazz, doo-wop, and pop music of every decade from the 1890s to the 2000s.

Gene Blake (tenor 2), Andrew Cranin (low tenor), Chris Parker (bass), David Pratt (tenor 1), and Tim Vaill (baritone) were all members – in different years, with no overlap – of the Tufts acclaimed singing group, the Beelzebubs. PATM has toured both nationally and internationally, recorded numerous CDs, appeared on TV and radio and been featured in local and national print media. This is their first time at the Library here in Bedford.

This special musical performance is supported by the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library.