Jim Shulman '66 & Mike Buckler '96
Horse Power
Jim Shulman '66
When Jim Shulman was growing up, the only carousel in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was the miniature pedaled merry-go-round toy in his family's shoe store. Decades later, that symbol of his childhood sparked a $1 million community art project. In 2007, Shulman launched a grassroots effort to build a Victorian-style carousel in downtown Pittsfield, a fading industrial city in the state's westernmost county. Upon its planned completion in spring 2013, the Berkshire Carousel will be the first handcarved wooden merry-go-round to be constructed in New England in more than a century and one of only a few ever to be built solely by volunteers.
A retired psychologist and hospital administrator, Shulman conceived the idea of the Berkshire Carousel as a way of giving back to his hometown. "Pittsfield was a flourishing area during my childhood, but over the last twenty-five to fifty years the town has experienced considerable hardship," Shulman says. But he wasn't sure if the project was even feasible until he carved his first horse. "It took me five months," recalls Shulman, who coordinates the project from his home in Ohio. "It was a lot of trial and error, but I was able to do it. When I realized that I could finish the work, I figured anybody could."
Local residents quickly rallied behind Shulman's idea. Working in teams, volunteers spend 500 to 1,000 hours carving and sanding each horse by hand; then local artists paint it in Victorian style. Much of the artwork depicts Pittsfield's colorful history and culture, as the home of one of the first General Electric facilities and the birthplace of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The effort is primarily financed by individual sponsorship of the horses, but funds have also been raised through corporate donations and state grants. "The project empowers people to create," Shulman says. "It gives members of the community an opportunity to come together and do something artistic. It's a project of the people, by the people, and for the people."
Corps Values
Mike Buckler '96
As a patent litigator whose firm served as outside counsel for Microsoft, Mike Buckler had a successful career, but he felt something was missing. "I was spending a lot of time working on cases that basically involved companies fighting over money," Buckler recalls. "I had always envisioned myself trying to make a positive difference in the world, and I just didn't see myself doing that there." In 2006, Buckler made a radical change: he joined the Peace Corps and moved from Portland, Oregon, to rural Malawi. "I had a good job and a lucrative salary," Buckler says. "I was on the fast track, and that was a scary thing to give up. But I realized that I wasn't actually giving up all that much. The most important things in life are cheap."
For two years, Buckler worked as a high school teacher in the village of Khwalala, sharing a house with three Malawian students. In addition to teaching, he started a student environmental club whose members planted trees, learning and educating others about the dangers of deforestation. He also helped plan a girls' boarding school in the village and organized a two-week summer camp offering intensive instruction to promising students. "Everything is difficult in Malawi in terms of daily living, finding food and water, moving from one place to the other," says the former electrical engineering major. "When you live there, you realize that you take a lot for granted in the United States."
The experience inspired Buckler to write From Microsoft to Malawi: Learning on the Front Lines as a Peace Corps Volunteer, published in November 2010 by Hamilton Books. Proceeds from sales of the memoir, as well as donations collected through his website (www.From MicrosoftToMalawi.com), go toward college tuition for the three students with whom he lived. "I'm trying to promote a re-conception of the Peace Corps," says Buckler, who now works for the National Parks Service in Washington, D.C. "Thanks to technology, you can stay in touch with your village after you come home."