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From Gayle O'Brien, Assistant Editor:

When I first moved back to Williamstown (yes, "back" to Williamstown — I'm a townie, I admit it) I remember thinking: "Six months. I'll last six months, then I'll probably run away screaming."

That was over two years ago. You do the math.

When I left Williamstown to go to college outside of New York City, I swore I'd never come back. Ever. I can't recall if my disdain for my hometown came from the town itself, or the fact that everyone is "supposed" to hate where they're from. Aren't you a total dweeb if you don't? You gotta move on out, see the world, and remember to send Mom and Dad the occasional postcard. I was truly in ex communicado for four years.

The bottom line is, that grand old feeling of isolation can set in at any time in Williamstown. For teenagers in this area, there really is nothing to do in the winter except ski or snowboard, and growing up here I couldn't afford either. I spent a lot of time hanging out in college dorms (not that I knew any students, but when the temperature hits 30 below, you get pretty desperate). You're at least an hour away from anything resembling a city. I had always heard about cool live shows in Northampton, but I didn't have a car. I watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, and broke into a lot of college buildings. End of childhood. Time to bust on out.

During my four year Billsville hiatus, I lived in Bronxville, New York (the richest square mile on the East Coast), and had brief stints in North Conway, New Hampshire (I waited tables at the Road Kill Caf�), Lenox, MA working at a theater company box office, ("What time is the noon show?"), on a boat in Santa Monica, and in Oxford, England. (Time to fess up. I did, in a drunken stupor, break the window of the Kings Arms pub, but it wasn't my fault. I was trying to get the attention of my friends inside the pub. I was pushed. I swear). When graduation came, instead of joining the migration to Manhattan with the rest of my classmates, I thought, "Hey, instead of paying $500 a month to sleep in the corner of a rat-infested living room, I'll pay $500 a month to live in a gorgeous Colonial with a bunch of hippies." I didn't think I'd last long, though.

So it's over two years later and I'm still here. Some days I think it's great to be back home and loving it, and other days I wonder if I could be any more of a loser for coming back to the mountain nest. One of the main reasons I expected my stay to be brief was that I thought, "what the HELL can you do in Williamstown?" I mean, yeah, now I'm over 21 and I can actually go to the only bar in town instead of hanging out in the Williams College snack bar, but who the HELL am I going to hang out with?

Luckily, the Billsville I came back to was a far cry from the Billsville I remembered. When I came back and was looking for jobs, my mother (always the voice of reason) said "Why don't you look into Tripod?" Yeah, right. Internet. I ran in the "sensible" direction. I did Social Work instead. During the year and a half I spent trying to save a herd of teenagers from sexual destruction ("You mean, drinking Mountain Dew after sex really DOESN'T make the sperm hyper from caffeine and forget about the egg?"), I ended up meeting a plethora of Tripodians (the benefit of the "one cool bar in town" phenomenon). Maybe working with them wouldn't be such a bad idea?

It still kinda amazes me — people my age, in my town, none of whom I went to high school with (although there are some of those here now, too, and I'm okay with that). Tripod has transformed Williamstown for us Gen-Xers. If Tripod weren't here, I don't think I'd still be here. One, I'd be out of a job, but two, for the first time in my life, there are a lot of people hanging out in Williamstown who aren't college students or soccer moms. Granted, there is no longer a Roller Rink (now Brook's Pharmacy), but the bowling alley still reigns (and is now home to the infamous Tripod Bowling League), and the sense of community is second to none. We all shop at the same grocery store, eat at the same restaurants, recommend books and music to each other. Yes, I admit it, I'm a sucker for this small town warm fuzzy community shlock. I tried the tough city girl act, and yeah, tromping around Manhattan in a biker jacket and combat boots was swell, but I'm a country girl at heart. No longer the embittered teen I once was, I can now appreciate and take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities Williamstown has to offer. I've seen more live shows in the past year that I have my whole life. I've taken up snowboarding, and for the first time ever I can't wait for the first snowfall. Life is good. (Really.)

Gayle (11/6/98)

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Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the archive.