Berkshires-AARP Central
Aug 28th, 2015, 08:55 AM
#21
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Love the image of someone in a Hooters t-shirt at The Mount, priceless!
I've now vowed not to go near the Berkshires until I'm well past 55 and wearing offensive outerwear. I don't want my husband to offend anyone by ordering something as déclassé as a Coke, it might be safer that way. As for humor on Fodors I gave up about a decade ago, for me it just wasn't worth the hassle. However, I salute you for making an effort.
Two things struck me, after I stopped childishly sniggering about the Donner Party -
here in the Bay Area we find audiences at cultural events to be aging too and it does seem to have a lot to do with the price of tickets. At National Theatre in London they have a far more diverse crowd, particularly since they introduced their 15 pound Travelex sponsored tickets. When we go to smaller, cheaper venues the demographic changes too,
"do you think children under 12 are interested in the sensibilities of fin de siècle America." Well, we do know a precocious 11 year old who fits the bill but frankly I worry about her, I'm not sure it's normal but hopefully it's not contagious.
I've now vowed not to go near the Berkshires until I'm well past 55 and wearing offensive outerwear. I don't want my husband to offend anyone by ordering something as déclassé as a Coke, it might be safer that way. As for humor on Fodors I gave up about a decade ago, for me it just wasn't worth the hassle. However, I salute you for making an effort.
Two things struck me, after I stopped childishly sniggering about the Donner Party -
here in the Bay Area we find audiences at cultural events to be aging too and it does seem to have a lot to do with the price of tickets. At National Theatre in London they have a far more diverse crowd, particularly since they introduced their 15 pound Travelex sponsored tickets. When we go to smaller, cheaper venues the demographic changes too,
"do you think children under 12 are interested in the sensibilities of fin de siècle America." Well, we do know a precocious 11 year old who fits the bill but frankly I worry about her, I'm not sure it's normal but hopefully it's not contagious.
Aug 28th, 2015, 01:07 PM
#22
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living near the Berkshires as I do I can say that we brought our son to Tanglewood from about age two. Lawn tickets are great for kids,they can listen to the music or not need not be disruptive if the have stuff to do.
There are numerous child appropriate places to eat, many children live here.
That said, most tourists here are old.
My question is why do the Berkshires not attract more 40-60 year olds, people with older or grown children, with disposable income who could theoretically enjoy the many attractions?
There are numerous child appropriate places to eat, many children live here.
That said, most tourists here are old.
My question is why do the Berkshires not attract more 40-60 year olds, people with older or grown children, with disposable income who could theoretically enjoy the many attractions?
Aug 28th, 2015, 02:41 PM
#23
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Thank you Welltravel.
The attitude toward travel on Fodor's has changed from a sense of fun and adventure to that of the false and pretentious solemnity of an autodidactic oenophile.
So many are literalists or humorless editors.
I am sure there is more than one precocious pre-pubescent child out there who would enjoy Edith Wharton. But they would be the minority.
Many of the attractions are for adults. Many of the hotels require a three day stay. There are a number of more expensive restaurants. Put them all together and they spell grandmother.
The attitude toward travel on Fodor's has changed from a sense of fun and adventure to that of the false and pretentious solemnity of an autodidactic oenophile.
So many are literalists or humorless editors.
I am sure there is more than one precocious pre-pubescent child out there who would enjoy Edith Wharton. But they would be the minority.
Many of the attractions are for adults. Many of the hotels require a three day stay. There are a number of more expensive restaurants. Put them all together and they spell grandmother.
Aug 28th, 2015, 02:52 PM
#24
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Jubilada
As noted it is a beautiful corner of the world. And to its credit that don't seem to cater to the Carnival Cruise crowd. I am sure there are some places but Tanglewood, Jacob's Pillow, Clark Museum, Red Lion Inn, Edith Wharton, Chesterwood, etc, and the myriad of expensive shops that sell useless trinkets are for older people.
As noted it is a beautiful corner of the world. And to its credit that don't seem to cater to the Carnival Cruise crowd. I am sure there are some places but Tanglewood, Jacob's Pillow, Clark Museum, Red Lion Inn, Edith Wharton, Chesterwood, etc, and the myriad of expensive shops that sell useless trinkets are for older people.
Aug 28th, 2015, 04:38 PM
#25
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I think I know just the type of atmosphere you're talking about, in fact there seem to be an abundance of shops selling the same kind of useless stuff right at the end of our street. A few years ago we realized that the more we spent on places the less alive they sometimes felt. It isn't universally so, but places begin to have the same bourgeois familiarity regardless of where you are. Equally some people we knew were more interested in what and where we'd eaten than anything we'd learnt or felt. Or maybe I'm just getting cynical?
and pretty scary at that!
As a recovering academic always struggling with my own "pretentious solemnity"
.
and pretty scary at that!
As a recovering academic always struggling with my own "pretentious solemnity"
.
Aug 28th, 2015, 07:38 PM
#27
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Sounds like a wonderful trip. Yes Guido's made me snicker..it wasn't the service, just the usual fare and prices to match ..Manhattan comes to the country.
Yes indeed the demographics is certainly older ... though you find younger people hiking the Appalachian Trail on... Mount Greylock
Seems like you missed an opportunity to go to the theater festival in Williamstown, where you could have bought a WTF t-shirt.
Yes indeed the demographics is certainly older ... though you find younger people hiking the Appalachian Trail on... Mount Greylock
Seems like you missed an opportunity to go to the theater festival in Williamstown, where you could have bought a WTF t-shirt.
Aug 28th, 2015, 08:11 PM
#28
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Thanks Maxima
We did not plan enough days. We wanted to go the Clark, but that will have to wait. When I was younger we did walk a small portion of the Appalachian Trail, canoe the Housatonic (and ride the rapids at the end of summer when the water is low), and play in tennis tournaments at Mt. Greylock. But as noted that was I younger and healed faster.
BTW, WTF is my favorite airport.
We did not plan enough days. We wanted to go the Clark, but that will have to wait. When I was younger we did walk a small portion of the Appalachian Trail, canoe the Housatonic (and ride the rapids at the end of summer when the water is low), and play in tennis tournaments at Mt. Greylock. But as noted that was I younger and healed faster.
BTW, WTF is my favorite airport.
Aug 29th, 2015, 10:43 AM
#29
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I spent all my summers as a child in the Berkshires at a camp which is still there. It was then that I got introduced to all of the sites listed above as only for old people.
I think that we have developed a false dichotomy about what kids and young adults can enjoy. I loved Both Tanglewood and Jacobs Pillow as a girl. My son grew up with summer weekends running around the lawn at Tanglewood.
I think that we have developed a false dichotomy about what kids and young adults can enjoy. I loved Both Tanglewood and Jacobs Pillow as a girl. My son grew up with summer weekends running around the lawn at Tanglewood.
Aug 31st, 2015, 01:45 PM
#30
Jubilada, I worked at Camp Taconic as a counselor one summer. It's still there too. Was that your camp by any chance?
I read this thread earlier and decided against commenting, but then we got an email this morning from our 40 something yr old daughter that reminded me of the thread, so thought I'd stick my neck out and resurrect it.
I did enjoy your TR, IMDonehere, loved the Donner Party line, but am not so sure about AARP Central moniker...perhaps that's the majority of tourists, but it need not be. As those who know me from the "other section" of Fodors know, I grew up in the Berkshires, and lived there until leaving for college, all of 50 miles away. The Yankee Inn was even around in those days. Hopefully they've had a few renovations since...but maybe not.
My parents lived there all their lives...their grocery store even became the Lenox Guidos when it went in just up the hill, and the closest grocery to our street. Every summer from the time the kids were newborns until they were in college with their own jobs, we went back for a couple of weeks visit with my parents. For kids who spent most of their growing up years in the Dallas area, it was heaven, and they loved it. Favorites that were visited every year of course were Greylock, Bash Bish Falls, and Tanglewood grounds (whether or not something was going on), drives around Pontoosuc, Onota, or Laurel Lake, miniature golf in Lanesboro, or just staying home with my parents. A brook ran through our backyard and for Dallas kids, it was pretty much heaven...and you can find those things all through the county if you look. Follow the brook up a ways and you come to my old schoolhouse, Morewood School, a one room school house built in the 1800's, still standing, including the slide and swings, and serving only our immediate neighborhood of the 3 streets behind it. Now privately owned, it was a county historical site and open most of the time we were there with the kids. For kids in a Metroplex school system where high schools resemble college campuses, the concept of 3 grades in one small room (there were 4 kids in my 3rd grade class) with an old wood stove and a hand rung bell to call you in for the start of the school day, or from recess, was unfathomable, as it was for me looking back in the windows.
Even as kids they enjoyed drives around the two lane county roads, discovering what was to be discovered. The area is like no other they had ever lived in, and they grew to love our times there, as did husband, who was raised in another world in the deep deep south. As teens they actually did enjoy Stockbridge and Lenox, watching the strangeness pass while sitting on the porch of the Red Lion, enjoyed the Mission House, the Mount as well. Our backyard actually had fireflies...something they hadn't seen before or since. Furthermore, Vermont is an easy day trip..Hildene, the Equinox Inn, and gorgeous scenery all the way up and back. Those don't have to be AARP only activities. LOL
And this brings me to our daughter's email this morning (yes, there really was a point to all this!) We were talking about certain smells or qualities of light triggering very very old pleasant memories, and she wrote:
"Many times it seems to be tied to a light or a smell for me. I remember finding a gallery in New England when we were there for a family visit, stumbling upon this gallery in the rain. It was a stone building with stucco finish and the roof looked like an old thatched medieval roof – big and vaulted inside with thick wood beams. It was in a forested area and because of the rain it was gray and misty so it really seemed like we had gone through a time warp to medieval times. But that memory was likely due to the light. Don’t remember much of inside though!"
I knew instantly what she meant, and where we were that day, well over 30 years ago. She's recalling the Tyringham "gingerbread house". What child wouldn't delight in finding that place, especially in the rain! It's almost an unbelievable vision, right off the pages of some story book. At the time it was an art gallery. Now it's an event venue evidently. Google santarella.us/ It's an amazing spot, for her, a memory captured decades ago, but meaningful enough to still be triggered today in someone whose trips since have taken her to places such as South Africa and Machu Picchu--not exactly a provincial soul
Anyway, her memory triggered mine of this thread, and I decided to say something after all. Peace. I'm not looking for a battle. Its just that the area need not be AARP Central (aside from tourists who know the word Berkshires and head there in droves thinking only of the Tanglewoods, Jacobs Pillows, Williamstown Theaters and the like.). It takes digging, forgetting zip lines at Jiminy Peak, to find the things that that are so unusual or special to this area, appealing to all ages, things such as you and jubilada, then jubilada and her son found, we found, and yk is creating now--long lasting family memories we all look back on fondly many years later. AARPness is hardly the fault of the Berkshires. It's all still there.
I read this thread earlier and decided against commenting, but then we got an email this morning from our 40 something yr old daughter that reminded me of the thread, so thought I'd stick my neck out and resurrect it.
I did enjoy your TR, IMDonehere, loved the Donner Party line, but am not so sure about AARP Central moniker...perhaps that's the majority of tourists, but it need not be. As those who know me from the "other section" of Fodors know, I grew up in the Berkshires, and lived there until leaving for college, all of 50 miles away. The Yankee Inn was even around in those days. Hopefully they've had a few renovations since...but maybe not.
My parents lived there all their lives...their grocery store even became the Lenox Guidos when it went in just up the hill, and the closest grocery to our street. Every summer from the time the kids were newborns until they were in college with their own jobs, we went back for a couple of weeks visit with my parents. For kids who spent most of their growing up years in the Dallas area, it was heaven, and they loved it. Favorites that were visited every year of course were Greylock, Bash Bish Falls, and Tanglewood grounds (whether or not something was going on), drives around Pontoosuc, Onota, or Laurel Lake, miniature golf in Lanesboro, or just staying home with my parents. A brook ran through our backyard and for Dallas kids, it was pretty much heaven...and you can find those things all through the county if you look. Follow the brook up a ways and you come to my old schoolhouse, Morewood School, a one room school house built in the 1800's, still standing, including the slide and swings, and serving only our immediate neighborhood of the 3 streets behind it. Now privately owned, it was a county historical site and open most of the time we were there with the kids. For kids in a Metroplex school system where high schools resemble college campuses, the concept of 3 grades in one small room (there were 4 kids in my 3rd grade class) with an old wood stove and a hand rung bell to call you in for the start of the school day, or from recess, was unfathomable, as it was for me looking back in the windows.
Even as kids they enjoyed drives around the two lane county roads, discovering what was to be discovered. The area is like no other they had ever lived in, and they grew to love our times there, as did husband, who was raised in another world in the deep deep south. As teens they actually did enjoy Stockbridge and Lenox, watching the strangeness pass while sitting on the porch of the Red Lion, enjoyed the Mission House, the Mount as well. Our backyard actually had fireflies...something they hadn't seen before or since. Furthermore, Vermont is an easy day trip..Hildene, the Equinox Inn, and gorgeous scenery all the way up and back. Those don't have to be AARP only activities. LOL
And this brings me to our daughter's email this morning (yes, there really was a point to all this!) We were talking about certain smells or qualities of light triggering very very old pleasant memories, and she wrote:
"Many times it seems to be tied to a light or a smell for me. I remember finding a gallery in New England when we were there for a family visit, stumbling upon this gallery in the rain. It was a stone building with stucco finish and the roof looked like an old thatched medieval roof – big and vaulted inside with thick wood beams. It was in a forested area and because of the rain it was gray and misty so it really seemed like we had gone through a time warp to medieval times. But that memory was likely due to the light. Don’t remember much of inside though!"
I knew instantly what she meant, and where we were that day, well over 30 years ago. She's recalling the Tyringham "gingerbread house". What child wouldn't delight in finding that place, especially in the rain! It's almost an unbelievable vision, right off the pages of some story book. At the time it was an art gallery. Now it's an event venue evidently. Google santarella.us/ It's an amazing spot, for her, a memory captured decades ago, but meaningful enough to still be triggered today in someone whose trips since have taken her to places such as South Africa and Machu Picchu--not exactly a provincial soul
Anyway, her memory triggered mine of this thread, and I decided to say something after all. Peace. I'm not looking for a battle. Its just that the area need not be AARP Central (aside from tourists who know the word Berkshires and head there in droves thinking only of the Tanglewoods, Jacobs Pillows, Williamstown Theaters and the like.). It takes digging, forgetting zip lines at Jiminy Peak, to find the things that that are so unusual or special to this area, appealing to all ages, things such as you and jubilada, then jubilada and her son found, we found, and yk is creating now--long lasting family memories we all look back on fondly many years later. AARPness is hardly the fault of the Berkshires. It's all still there.
Aug 31st, 2015, 06:18 PM
#31
OO, I loved reading about where you grew up and especially your tiny school. Loved your daughter's description of the building coming out of the mist. It reminded me of a similar experience, exploring the Ryan Gainey garden in the mist and leaving the treehouse and stumbling on a stone cottage that looked like it was straight out of Goldilocks - just as the skies opened up. I'll try to find photos - but that moment of discovery was a magical moment in time.
AARPtime = P'town in late morning on October days when the tour bus doors open and hordes of retirees emerge for a few hours. VERY different from a summer's day.
AARPtime = P'town in late morning on October days when the tour bus doors open and hordes of retirees emerge for a few hours. VERY different from a summer's day.
Aug 31st, 2015, 07:05 PM
#32
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As noted I spent my summers in Berkshires and have great affection for the area. As noted I canoed on the Housatonic, played in tennis tournaments at Mt. Greylock, walked the Appalachian trail and hiked throughout the region. When I was older I returned as a waiter and counselor.
When we there 1,000 years ago the milkshake at Friendly's was called an Awful-Awful. When Hershey's bought it, the marketing geniuses changed the name to Fribble. There was a favorite of mine in Great Barrington called Spudnuts, which were store made donuts.
My TR, does not denigrate the Berkshires. In fact, it shows an enthusiasm for the area. But the activities in which we engaged and the places where we shopped were overwhelmingly patronized by older people
The entire tone of the TR was one of fun and honest observation. I am devoid of sentimentality and like a balanced view of all things including travel. And also as noted, people here forget that travel should be fun and there should be a place for TR's that eschew minutiae.
When we there 1,000 years ago the milkshake at Friendly's was called an Awful-Awful. When Hershey's bought it, the marketing geniuses changed the name to Fribble. There was a favorite of mine in Great Barrington called Spudnuts, which were store made donuts.
My TR, does not denigrate the Berkshires. In fact, it shows an enthusiasm for the area. But the activities in which we engaged and the places where we shopped were overwhelmingly patronized by older people
The entire tone of the TR was one of fun and honest observation. I am devoid of sentimentality and like a balanced view of all things including travel. And also as noted, people here forget that travel should be fun and there should be a place for TR's that eschew minutiae.
Sep 1st, 2015, 05:08 AM
#34
"OO, that is really beautiful. It is really fine writing by any standard . . . "
Agree.
"The entire tone of the TR was one of fun and honest observation. I am devoid of sentimentality and like a balanced view of all things including travel. And also as noted, people here forget that travel should be fun and there should be a place for TR's that eschew minutiae."
Also agree.
Agree.
"The entire tone of the TR was one of fun and honest observation. I am devoid of sentimentality and like a balanced view of all things including travel. And also as noted, people here forget that travel should be fun and there should be a place for TR's that eschew minutiae."
Also agree.
Sep 1st, 2015, 05:24 AM
#35
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Why are people defensive? It is funny. And how does one compare high summer season in the Berkshires being blue haired with off off season of a small town on Cape Cod daytrippers being blue haired? That was quite a lame leap.
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