DEERFIELD — Distraught over the tumultuous times facing the world as it deals with the coronavirus outbreak, Deerfield resident Paul Olszewski made a decision: Let there be lights.
The 61-year-old belongs to a six-man group informally known as the Mount Sugarloaf Lighting Crew, which is tasked with stringing and lighting the popular Christmas tree on the mountain each year, and he read an online news article at work about communities around the country turning on holiday lights to spread some cheer during the global pandemic. He called one of his colleagues, who flipped the lights back on.
“I’m ecstatic,” Olszewski said. “I said, ‘My god, we need light, we need hope, we need normalcy.’”
The tree is at the summit of Mount Sugarloaf, on state land. It is lit with LED bulbs, which had not yet been taken down after Christmas. Olszewski said there has been some tradition of community tree lighting in Deerfield since around World War II, and the former Rotary Club started the current tradition in the 1960s or ’70s. He took to Facebook to playfully suggest the “Ghosts of the old Summit House” must have turned on the lights.
Deerfield Selectboard member Carolyn Shores Ness was unfamiliar with those responsible for relighting the tree in these uncertain times, but said she cannot thank them enough.
“It’s lovely. It’s wonderful in this time of trying to band together, it really is,” she said adding that she had heard several positive comments about it. “It lifts people’s spirits, it really does.”
Patricia Jablonski grew up admiring the lights from her home in Whately. Now, she can see them from the window of her King Philip Avenue abode in Deerfield.
“It’s very nice,” she said. “I’m very glad that he did that.”
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.