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From Randy Williams, Editor and Traveling Fool:

These letters often rhapsodize about the colloquial charms and splendid sights of Williamstown and Berkshire County -- as well they should. But, truth be told, life around here can be a trifle slow-paced for my blood. No matter how much my colleagues may like to tease me about being a small-town Southern boy, I actually grew up overseas and have been something of a globetrotter since I was a young kid. Perhaps that is why I frequently suffer from acute bouts of wanderlust -- a condition loosely defined as having the uncontrollable urge to get the hell out of Dodge. Which, oddly enough, brings up another great thing about Williamstown -- this particular Dodge is strategically located for some pretty cool getting the hell out of. With apologies to Emma, our peerless Living & Travel editor, please allow me to share my favorite getaways for New England and the East Coast.

About ten minutes due north from Tripod World Headquarters is the Vermont state line. Vermont seems nice and is, I'm quite sure, renowned for something or other. I mean, our lovely and talented Administrative Assistant Colleen lives there, so it must be alright. I can personally vouch only for the Rattlesnake Cafe, a Mexican restaurant in Bennington that CE-Bo and I checked out. I guess that wasn't a terribly New England place to eat, but the food was "muy bueno" (that two years of college Spanish is really paying off, huh?) and the black bean burritos, in particular, continued to give me a warm feeling for hours -- as only the very best South of the Border cuisine can. That makes Vermont okay in my book -- it's a Randy Recommendation!

Travel about three hours due east on State Route 2 and you'll hit the outskirts of Boston. This is a gorgeous drive, and parts of Route 2 are known as "the historic Mohawk Trail" (the trail was, I'm nearly certain, named for the hairstyle of a guy who works at the Mobil station just outside the town of Florida, Massachusetts). Our Production Editor Janet is a Beantown woman, and she swears that the city has many wonderful historic buildings and delightful chowder houses or whatever. I have to admit I haven't had time to check this place out too thoroughly. I drove over for the day with Margaret Ann Gould Stewart, our Creative Director and official Person With Too Many Names, to cover the MacWorld Expo for Tripod. I was there for one day and really only saw the insides of a train (the natives call these "The T"), some buses (oddly enough, these are not known as "The B"), and two different convention centers. My train did, however, travel directly beneath Harvard Square, and I swore I could sense history and tradition oozing from the ground itself. I might have just been smelling the wino on the seat next to me, though, so I should probably make at least one more visit to Boston before definitely making it a pick hit.

Drive west along Route 2 from Williamstown for about fifteen minutes and you'll cross the New York state line. Upstate New York offers many attractions -- the state capitol at Albany, the horse races at Saratoga, the magnificent Adirondack Mountains of Franklin and Essex counties. The Adirondacks represent one of the largest nature reserves in the United States. I spent a four-day weekend there -- hiking, rock climbing, canoeing, and swimming at Lake Clear and driving through the mist-shrouded peaks above Lakes Placid and Saranac. There, seemingly at the top of the world, nestled in clouds, near to heaven and Creation, I had an epiphany and spoke it aloud: "I live in the shadow of Mount Greylock, for God's sake! Why am I blowing my holiday weekend driving around upstate New York looking at a bunch of mountains?"

For me, the real excitement is to be found two and a half hours south -- in New York City. Ah...the Big Apple. Downtown U.S.A. The Capitol of the World. The Center of the Universe. It's huge, smelly, filthy, and liable to erupt into violence at any given moment -- but my Sunday School teacher always said the same of me, so I feel right at home there. It helps that I have an excellent friend and native tour guide in the wilds of Manhattan -- Work & Money columnist Harry Goldstein.

Harry and I are two of a kind. Okay, he's a short, long-haired Jew with a pirate earring and I'm an absurdly oversized WASP goofball with a silly goatee. Still, we have much in common. For example, the two pictures on this page prove that we each have one standard pose for photographs. And these riveting action shots of Times Square and 9th Avenue are just the tip of a huge, smoggy cement iceberg -- think of the places where we could have struck those poses! Broadway! Chinatown! Little Italy! Central Park! Wall Street! Hell's Kitchen! Satan's Water Closet! Although I made that last one up to see if you were still paying attention, there is never a shortage of amazing sights or urban adventures. I simply can't get enough, I tell you -- and now that Tripod has opened an office on Park Avenue (Jodi> and Matty G were getting tired of working out of a booth at The Excellent Dumpling House), I am suddenly aware of many pressing concerns and business matters that I simply must attend to in the city.

Sigh! Despite the ceaseless noise and grime and squalor, I have fallen prey to the decadent charms of The City That Never Sleeps. Something in me wants to move there and lead the romantic life of the aspiring writer -- rent a walk-up apartment, drink cheap Scotch, listen incessantly to Coltrane and Sinatra, suffer for my art as I huddle in ratty blankets at my keyboard, dream at night of beautiful and brilliant women who do not know I exist.

Then again, that pretty much describes my life here in Western Mass -- except that my rent is two or three times cheaper.

All kidding aside, I love to explore but it's always nice to come back to the quiet splendor of the Berkshires. The more I think about it, perhaps I had it backwards when I said that Williamstown is strategically located for travel to exciting places. It may just be that all roads lead here, to the Village Beautiful.

Happy trails!
Randy (9/27/96)

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