That night, we went up to our rooms in hopes of a restful sleep. The rooms were freezing cold. We explored this fact to find that because of the inn’s policy to save money, very little heat was circulated through the bedrooms. The owner of the inn, Mr. Matthias, assured us that the cold night air would be healthy. Too tired to complain, each of us took an extra blanket and retired. Another fact of the inn is that there is not enough electricity to keep the heat and light on at the same time, so to experience any slight warmth at all one must keep the lights off.
The next morning, upon rising, I proceeded to take a shower (the shower consisting of a spicket and a drain hole in the corner of the bathroom floor surrounded by a curtain) when to my great annoyance the water suddenly turned off. Apparently, only a very limited amount of water can be used each morning and the earlier risers had used most of it.
Putting the inn’s minor inconvenience aside, we sat down to a nice, hearty breakfast cooked by Mr. Matthias. It was at this point that it dawned on me that Mr. Matthias made up the entire inn staff including manager, clerk, cook, and entertainment director. The latter was a pretty easy job considering the only entertainment was a twelve inch black and white TV and a dartboard.
After breakfast, we drove out into the countryside a little to see the homes of some famous, late 19th century artists, whose names I can’t quite recall. One name I do recall is that of the sculptor Daniel Chester French, whose small house is now a museum.
At the door, we were given our customary tickets and quietly pushed along through the house. Several guides were posted at certain rooms throughout the house. All the rooms were decorated in absurd Mexican colors apparently for the holiday. We asked one of the guides why this was. She replied, “Well, Daniel French was never home for Christmas, but had he been, we think this is the way he would have decorated his house.” We contemplated the crazy bright decorations for a moment and moved on.
We came to the end of the museum and I proceeded to out the back door. My mother and aunt wanted to examine some artifacts of the great sculptor more closely and they forced the rest to stay and learn, but I unwittingly continued out the back way. When a couple minutes had passed, I decided to go back in to see what was keeping them. However, I was rather rudely stopped at the back door by a bulky half-witted man.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Inside,” I replied. “I’m just going to get my-.”
“Do you have a ticket?”
I reached for my ticket when I came to the realization that I had given it to my mother. “Well, I don’t have it on me. It’s with my ---.”
“I thought so. You’re trying to sneak in. I know your kind, you young hoodlums. You think you can get something for nothing. You should be in school studying.”
Dumfounded, I pondered his words for a moment. If I was a young hoodlum playing hooky, I don’t think I would be interested in sneaking into a museum. (Besides, there’s no school on Saturday.) Without further adieu however, the rest came out, and I thought nothing more of the incident.
Our next stop was the house of the great painter, Norman Rockwell. It was interesting in it’s historical aspect. We saw the room where he slept, the room where he ate, and the room where he entertained guests. The real exciting part would be seeing his studio located about a hundred yards from the house. When we were finished looking through the house, the tour guide raved on about what we could see in the studio.
“The studio is where Norman Rockwell created all his paintings. The studio still contains the original furniture and everything is set up just the way he had it.” Then came the clincher. “Unfortunately, Norman Rockwell’s studio is not open to the public at this time of the year. Be sure to come back in May.”
That night, we went out for dinner. Walking through the streets of Stockbridge, we came to the only restaurant in town and prepared for a pleasant evening.
My brother and I ordered the veil Parmesan. Other orders included spaghetti, muscles, and scrod. The time was seven o’clock. We waited quietly for our meal to come. When it didn’t come, we waited some more. Finally, we confronted the waitress as to why our meal was not yet prepared. “Well, the cook is very busy at the bar. We can’t remember when we’ve been this busy,” she answered gesturing toward another room.
I took a peep at the bar to find a grand total of three men sipping drinks and swapping stories with the cook/bartender.
Our meals finally came. The time was eight thirty. It didn’t take me long to see that while my brother Jay and I ordered the same thing, we were not served the same thing. Jay was served some miserable excuse for veil. It was rather hard to tell what my black goo was supposed to be. I don’t believe that anyone else enjoyed the look or taste of their meals either.
That night, we slept as well as can be expected in our freezing rooms. The next day we departed for home with a feeling of relief that this…interesting…vacation had come to an end.
