I don't go to western Massachusetts

So, I'm back from the Berkshires. (Did I mention I was in the Berkshires this weekend?)

We spent a few days in the country surrounded by nature. It was awful.

The one day we went into the "city" it was even worse.

Driving was made very difficult because street signs are very difficult to find. The ones we did find were mislabeled, and, there was more traffic on "Main Street" (if you believe the sign) than on Comm Ave. during rush hour.

The traffic was probably due to the giant Arts festival at Tanglewood. The missing street signs were probably due to the general laziness associated with the rural people of this country.

And another thing: Why aren't any of these roads straight? Why don't any of these roads connect to each other?

In the city if you miss your turn you can go one block further and turn there, because cities are (mostly) laid out in grid fashion (with Boston's Back Bay being the notable local exception, but that contributes to the character of the city, so it gets a pass), but in the country, if you miss your turn you're screwed. Because there isn't another turn for two miles, and that road goes to some completely different, completely far-off place.

And why aren't the roads straight? All the corn in all the corn fields is planted in straight lines, it's not like "straight" is a foreign concept. I get that when there's a giant mountain you have to build the road around it or winding precipitiously up the side, that's fine, but when you're staring at a vast open plain of flat upon flat upon flat, tell me, what compels you to make your roads meander through the cornfields?

And another thing. There were rich people out there for the art festival and to go "antiquing," loads of them. Antiquing is every bit as loathesome as sitcom stereotypes make it out to be.

Stockbridge, though quaint-sounding in James Taylor's lyrics, and peaceful, quiet, and domestic in Norman Rockwell's memoirs, is now a place for the affluent to gather to flaunt their affluence. "There are others like us" they seem to say, "we should all pick a spot to gather so we may judge one another's worth based soley on the expensiveness of our luxury vehicles and SUVS, and the number and price of the antiques that have been laid out before us by the locals of this particular town to swindle our money from us (which, of course, is immaterial, for getting swindled can only illustrate how affluent we really are by trivializing the money spent over and above the true value for any item."

I was very tempted to run over a few Mercedes with my truck.

Also, in western Massachusetts everything closes at five o'clock. AND THERE ARE NO RESTURANTS OPEN ON SUNDAYS.

We ended up eating at the one place we could find that served food, the Barrington Brewery. The prices were outrageous (which, based on the yuppie culture mecca that we had come to understand Stockbridge to be, we should have anticipated), but the beer was good. I tried their light beer "Blonde" and was surprised at the tastiness, especially the finish. Great finish. And I also sampled the Barrington Brown Ale which was much darker than I had expected, much more of a Scotch Ale than a typical off-the-shelf brown ale, like Newcastle. Not bad, just much heavier than expected.

Again, though, prices were ridiculously expensive, and the food wasn't great.

Monday we drove home from the great wide western half of the state and settled back into the comfort of city-traffic and suburban summer heat.

Western Massachusetts might be a nice place to go for a week as long as you could be assured that you would have no contact with anyone for the whole time. I certainly couldn't live there. Not without a running tab with the local police for property damage to the tourists' luxury cars.

-t