The Invasion of the Summer People

Just in time for the sweaty peak of the summer travel season, Vela’s Amanda Giracca has a lovely essay about growing up in the Berkshires. Here’s a taste:

They arrive as the first dogwood trees are flowering. They trickle in at first, so few you don’t even notice. They come for the trees, the wide-open spaces, for the first hints of fresh spring air billowing down from the hilltops. You might notice one on the roadside snapping a photo, or another stopped dead in the middle of the road observing wild turkeys scratching at gravel. You don’t think much of it at first. Their arrival can be as gradual as the greening of the hills.

Then one day it’s clear: They’re here. In full force. You’ll be sitting in traffic in high summer heat, at a dead stop, burning your arm on the metal edge of your open window, watching the string of BMW’s, Mercedes, and Audi SUVs inch along in the opposite direction. You’ll notice their windows are closed, the people inside clean and smiling against their air-conditioned white leather seats. They are so happy, you realize, to be stuck in your minor traffic jam. This is nothing to them.

Soon you can’t get a seat at your favorite restaurant, nor a camping spot at the State Forest campground. You wait in line for everything—movies, groceries, the bank. For ice cream, the library, the bathroom. These people who’ve come here to get away from it all don’t realize that they’ve brought it all here. What started as a few innocent nature-rubberneckers holding up traffic has turned into a constricted throughway, a plaque filled artery, your small town aching like a congested heart.

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