One of our summertime jaunts was to the small town of Eagles Mere in the Endless Mountains region, north of the Poconos. Growing up in western Pennsylvania, I often heard of the mysterious Poconos out east, and now that we live just south of them in the Lehigh Valley, they are weekend-getawayable. As are points north. Eagles Mere was an early resort town built on the second highest natural lake (“mere”) in Pennsylvania. In the early days it was accessible mainly by a slow moving train that took visitors up the mountain. Today, of course, everyone drives. It’s a town of about 150 people but the population increases to 3,000 in the summer. It’s also known for its winter sporting opportunities. It’s fully dependent on tourism. I got the sense from walking around that it’s the kind of place you need to stay in to appreciate fully. Once there were four major historic hotels, all of them gone now, so visitors stay in more modest accommodations, or like us, far enough away to be affordable.
I often wonder what it must be like to live full-time in such a place. I mean, the rest of us slog away at daily jobs until we can get away for a few days, perhaps to Eagles Mere. I can’t imagine having to draw in your entire income during a summer with lesser business in the winter, and a smattering of visitors in the fall. What must life be like in the off-season? Is it better than the 9-2-5 sitting in front of a computer screen? At least they have a beautiful, clear lake. And peace and quiet. One of the things that struck me—we were there on a drizzly, somewhat chilly August day—is just how silent things can be when we get away from the sounds of civilization. Perhaps this is the pay-off to not getting year-long pay.
Such places exist because the rest of us need to escape what is it we normally do. Work, at times, seems mainly to be dealing with other people’s frustrations. These build up over time until we need to forget about it for a while. In other words, getaways are interludes of fantasy. Imagining how it must be to live with so much money that you could afford not to work, but just to paddle out on the lake, watching for eagles, and listening to silence. Every time I visit a resort town I wonder what it must be like to live in one. The docent at the museum said many of the 150 are descendants of those who ran the grand hotels. Even in, perhaps especially in, the off-season this is home to dreamers.
