And now for something completely different: snow and Frost
A large swath of New England is expecting a big snowstorm this weekend, and that includes me. I’ve got a lot of food in the fridge, my place is warm, and I’m hoping for no power outage so that it stays warm.
I’m tired of politics right now. I’m not tired of snow, because we haven’t had much yet this year. This weekend may change that, but maybe not.
By the way, unlike that interviewer, I wouldn’t apply the adjective “charming” to the poem “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening.” It has a surface charm and simplicity, I suppose, but a much deeper meaning.
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Stay safe Neo!
I’m in the path of this storm too.
In the past I wasn’t too worried about power outages as I just learned to do without and see by candlelight; but, now I have an elderly relative who is on oxygen and in an electric hospital bed. If the power does go out I am hoping that the backups I’ve installed work!
Everyone stay safe!
Thanks for posting the Frost video. Yes, that poem is deceptively simple and carries an incredible weight of meaning. I teach it every year in my introduction to literature class (community college). Everyone can understand it, and then they can plumb the depths of it.
I appreciated your link to your experiences with having memorized poems in school. A few years ago I took it upon myself to memorize “Dulce and Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. Not sure why. But the effort in memorization was much harder than many years ago when I was in school. And it is not a long poem!
Yes.
In my youth I memorized a lot of poetry, and now in my dotage I can still reel a lot of it off, but I can’t tell you what I had for lunch.
In the winter of 1966-67 I was stationed at Ft. Devens, MA and my wife and I lived off post in a little lake cabin East of Ayer. We were about 25 miles from Walden Pond and in a beautiful wooded area, lots more snow than I had ever seen in my life and it was fun to walk in the woods in the evening after a heavy snow when sound was blanketed and it was quiet. I would recite ‘Stopping by the Woods On a Snowy Evening’. Those are still special memories.
The composer Randall Thompson set a few of Frost’s poems to music, arranged for choir. I had the honor as a teenager to perform them in our (quite good) high school choir, with the composer conducting. I still remember them vividly.
I hope the storm passes through with just enough snow for that unique, nearly-silent state of grace that comes after heavy snowfall, but without any undue hardship.
Another snow poem– “Velvet Shoes,” by Elinor Wylie:
Text: Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow
At a tranquil pace
Under veils of white lace
I shall go shod in silk
And you in wool
White as white cow’s milk
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull . . .
We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below
We shall walk in the snow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0k-4dRP-kQ&ab_channel=KarenBock
Memories of high school glee club from the 1960s, when I first heard Wylie’s poem set to music.
Apropos of memorizing poetry, my grandmother on my mother’s side of the family had been a schoolteacher back when memorizing dramatic or declamatory poetry was expected of kids (and their teachers). Nana could recite Shakespeare, Milton, Longfellow, and of course the Psalms and other portions of the Bible at length, not to mention some nineteenth-century standards like Felicia Hemans’ “Casabianca” (known to some as “The boy stood on the burning deck”) and Thomas Babington Macaulay’s “Horatius at the Bridge” (“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?”) Yes, and Nana expected me to memorize poetry as she had– though she did allow less formal works like Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat”– she was a Phillies fan like the rest of the clan, and anything that inculcated proper baseball values was more than acceptable.
I still miss Nana; I just wish she had lived to see the Phillies win their first World Series in 1980– she could easily have written a poem of her own to celebrate.
I can’t recall ever being required to memorize a poem. And though I’m probably the worse for it, I’m not especially good at memorization, so I can’t entirely regret it in my case. I suspect it might have been an exercise in frustration for me.
That said, over the past 20 years I’ve found myself compelled to save noteworthy quotes for reference and contemplation.
Yesterday, while browsing youtube I ran across an impressive collection of quotes by Pythagoras. It was an eye opener for me, as I’d thought him to simply be a great early mathematician.
I think it might greatly benefit children to be required to memorize quotes by notable personages.
“The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.” Abraham Lincoln
I had to memorize “ Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” in high school! I have long said that it is my favorite poem.
Do kids have to memorize poems anymore? Does that go against modern teaching methodology?
When I was teaching kids Bible study we would include group recitation of verses every week, then once a month or so we would have “Prize Night” where each kid had the opportunity to say a verse from memory for their pick from the prize box.
Of course, none of us teaching that class were teachers by trade. I think we looked back somewhat to how we were taught in the 60s and 70s as kids ourselves.
The Great Snow of 1943 by Morris Bishop
So in the midnight the great snow
Covered over the dark ground;
Feet were hobbled and wheels spun;
The hydrants smothered, sank, drowned.
The great snow bandaged the street lights,
And banked the doors of the bright shops,
And hid the hot little cars deep,
And mounded over the train tops.
Careless and pure, the snow fell.
This was the finish, we all knew.
So man expired in a white dream.
It seemed like a damned good idea, too.
After going through many of these storms. I’m thankful I don’t have to anymore.
We have relatives and friends in CT and we know they will be ok, but it can be stressful.
Stay warm and safe Neo
Me, having a conversation in a bar, circa 2007, after a muddy weekend of wild boar hunting, trying to warm up:
Them: “OMFG, can you believe how cold and wet it is? It must be climate change.”
Me: “It’s January.”
It might have been 2013. Or 2018. I’ve lost track of the times people have mistook January for climate change.
I was initially struck that Frost did not have a New England accent. More mid-western or western, I judged. Looking him up, I see that he was born in San Francisco and didn’t move to New England until he was 11. That explains that.
Frost seemed like a thoroughly decent, grounded fellow — much as one might deduce from his poems. I appreciated that he could recite his poems from memory and didn’t make any big deal about being a poet.
The interviewer’s notion that “Stopping By the Woods…” was a “charming poem” was to miss the poem’s intent entirely. I give the interviewer the benefit of the doubt that he was being vaguely complimentary.
I say that memorizing a poem can change your life a little bit or a lot. Very worthwhile.
It’s a shame the practice has fallen into disuse or disrepute. Here’s one I printed on a business card, carried in my wallet and memorized over time. I’ll have to get back to it. I still find it deep.
______________________________________
I dwell in Possibility – (466)
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
–Emily Dickinson
Would the Canadian poets, I wonder, have had a different view of snow in their works? I imagine the interaction between landscape and snowfall is part of what gives winter a slightly different personality in the different regions.
Aggie, that sounds neat!
I had to memorize this poem while in Jr High. I don’t remember it now, but might if I started reading it again. It is about Death.
Would the Canadian poets, I wonder, have had a different view of snow in their works?
Philip Sells:
Leonard Cohen, a Canadian and a poet, had a snowy ending to his first novel that jumped out at me and stuck:
____________________________________
Jesus! I just remembered what Lisa’s favorite game was. After a heavy snow we would go into a back yard with a few of our friends. The expanse of snow would be white and unbroken. Bertha was the spinner. You held her hands while she turned on her heels, you circled her until your feet left the ground. Then she let go and you flew over the snow. You remained still in whatever position you landed. When everyone had been flung in this fashion into the fresh snow, the beautiful part of the game began. You stood up carefully, taking great pains not to disturb the impression you had made. Now the comparisons. Of course you would have done your best to land in some crazy position, arms and legs sticking out. Then we walked away, leaving a lovely white field of blossom-like shapes with footprint stems.
–Leonard Cohen, “The Favorite Game”
____________________________________
What a great image! Cohen was too much of a poet to be a novelist.
In my youth, I backpacked and climbed with a friend who was far more into poetry than I. Many times, when we were trudging our way out of the mountains enroute to a trailhead or base camp, he would recite Frost’s lines,
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
It gave us both motivations to keep going even when the way was hard, and we were bone tired.
And now, in my dotage, those lines have taken on a new meaning.
Stay warm, Neo.
@Philip Sells 11:28 pm
The pieces were called ‘Frostiana’
Here is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRehXKXgxeA
“The Road Not Taken” and “Choose Something Like a Star” are others. Enjoy!
(And let us not forget that even Charles Bronson liked this poem)
Last year, during the week of the Texas Snowmageddon, I went every day into the snowy woods to cut pine*, cedar and privet hedge and drug them back to feed the pygmy goats. Standing there in those quiet and NOT usually snow covered woods, that poem came to mind. I had failed to get enough hay for such an unusually long and heavy snow for East Texas and the poor, part pygmy goats were up to their bellies in the snow. For several days they never ventured far from their shed. Those goats were accustomed to triple digit temperatures, not sub Arctic weather! That negative eight degrees we had one night, after days of freeze, were just so unusual for around here.
*Pine. These were not Ponderosa pines, which are supposedly poisonous to goats. Subsequently I have read that goats should not get pine every day as it may upset their system and also could cause miscarriage in pregnant goats. Also, I have seen some warning against privet hedge and milk goats, as well.
huxley:
That is an old school New England accent that Frost has. Very different from a Boston accent, for example, but New England nonetheless.
I talked about that in this post from 2011. Unfortunately, only some of the videos still work properly; perhaps they were taken down at YouTube. But the text of the post explains about the accent.
You can sing that Emily Post poem, to the tune of Gilligan’s Island.
Stopping by Woods, on a Snowy Evening is my favorite Frost poem. Badgers taste in poetry tends to run more to Kipling.
Stay safe neo and all who are in the storm’s path!
Regarding Frost’s “old school accent”. I vaguely recognize it and am a bit amazed that I do even in the slightest. I was born in Oct. of 48 in Middletown, CT. We left Framingham, Mass. in my seventh winter moving to Fla. in hopes that my Dad might recover from a bad case of Pleurisy. (He did).
Apparently, despite no conscious memory of it, that first 7 years had a considerable impact on the deepest of memories.
huxley,
Emily Dickenson’s poem “Wild Nights! Wild Nights!” written down by me on a gift card, won me the hand of the dearest of lovers.
Those propane lanterns one uses for camping ? Three or four will keep a house *warm enough* for the night. Need to crack a window if used longer than an hour (CO2). At 7000 feet in Wyoming at 0° three kept our 2300 sq foot house close to 60° for the time for them to fix the problem. Use the 16 oz size rather than the 14 oz taller size.
Aggie, that was quite interesting – I tried the first link. One of the comments on that video mentioned the very Russian feel of the music, and thinking on it, I quite agree. (Said commenter thought the music overpowered the words, but Frost himself might not have agreed.) I wonder what Rachmaninoff, for example, would have thought of this arrangement.
@ Aggie > “The composer Randall Thompson set a few of Frost’s poems to music, arranged for choir. I had the honor as a teenager to perform them in our (quite good) high school choir, with the composer conducting. I still remember them vividly.”
Our choir also sang some of the songs from “Frostiana,” although not under Thompson’s baton (lucky you!), and I find it nearly impossible to recite “The Road Not Taken” rather than singing it, although I don’t remember “Stopping by Woods” at all anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostiana
The full cycle, nearly 30 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqotLc73va0
Did you sing Thompson’s “Alleluia?” That was easily my favorite piece from his works.
@ PA Cat > ““Velvet Shoes,” by Elinor Wylie:”
A lovely poem.
“Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow
At a tranquil pace
Under veils of white lace”
This seems appropriate as an accompaniment.
https://notthebee.com/article/this-video-of-a-cat-walking-in-his-own-footsteps-is-so-smooth-that-it-will-cure-your-ocd-forever
@ ScottTheBadger > ” You can sing that Emily Post poem, to the tune of Gilligan’s Island.”
You didn’t have to do that.
If you aren’t familiar with Thompson’s “Alleluia” — the second link includes a performance video.
https://www.wrti.org/arts-desk/2015-07-06/a-quiet-alleluia-famous-for-75-years
https://www.debisimons.com/why-is-randall-thompsons-alleluia-so-mournful/
I’ll be sick of snow in a few hours when I have to clear off the car and get first my son then my wife to work in the middle of the worst of it
Would the Canadian poets, I wonder, have had a different view of snow in their works
Song by Gilles Vigneault:
Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver
Mon jardin, ce n’est pas un jardin, c’est la plaine
Mon chemin, ce n’est pas un chemin, c’est la neige
Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver
Hoping to hear Neo has power!
And, even more urgently, I hope commenter charles has power.
Someone had to do it. – That Guy
Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson: two poets with a connection to Amherst, Massachusetts. Here’s a tip of the hat to Dickinson from Richard Wilbur, another Amherst poet:
Altitudes
I
Look up into the dome:
It is a great salon, a brilliant place,
Yet not too splendid for the race
Whom we imagine there, wholly at home
With the gold-rosetted white
Wainscot, the oval windows, and the fault-
Less figures of the painted vault.
Strolling, conversing in that precious light,
They chat no doubt of love,
The pleasant burden of their courtesy
Borne down at times to you and me
Where, in this dark, we stand and gaze above.
For all they cannot share,
All that the world cannot in fact afford,
Their lofty premises are floored
With the massed voices of continual prayer.
II
How far it is from here
To Emily Dickinson’s father’s house in America;
Think of her climbing a spiral stair
Up to the little cupola with its clear
Small panes, its room for one.
Like the dark house below, so full of eyes
In mirrors and of shut-in flies,
This chamber furnished only with the sun
Is she and she alone,
A mood to which she rises, in which she sees
Bird-choristers in all the trees
And a wild shining of the pure unknown
On Amherst. This is caught
In the dormers of a neighbor, who, no doubt,
Will before long be coming out
To pace about his garden, lost in thought.
(1956)
“This chamber furnished only with the sun”. Wilbur served in the 36th Infantry Division (Texas) in WWII. He described his military service and how he got on and then off the Army’s shitlist in this 2005 interview:
https://tinyurl.com/4fevx8fn
“I was lucky to find myself amongst Texans”.
P.S. Wilbur also has an old-school New England/northeastern accent.
“The giraffe is disappearing from the world
Without a sound
Who are we to judge
That it runs like a rocking chair
Floating in a dream?
Think of a girl
With six fingers on one hand
You must let that strange hand
Touch you.”
-A poem I tried to memorize and probably did a very poor job of it; can’t remember the poet, but it struck me as wonderful.
AesopFan–
Thank you for the link to the video of the cat retracing its paw-steps in the snow. The snow is coming down hard where I am (coastal CT, but west of New London, which has blizzard warnings!), and the wind is blustery– my kitties aren’t keen on walking in snow, velvet shoes or otherwise. I have known them to sit on the window seat in the living room, watching the neighborhood dog owners walking their dogs outside to “do the necessary,” and thanking their good luck in being indoor cats with nicely kept litter boxes and a human slave to meet their every need.
I’m glad you liked the Wylie poem; I’m also glad I found a video version illustrated with actual snow. Now I’m just going to keep my paws crossed that I don’t lose my Internet connection!
Hubert:
I’ve visited the Dickinson house in Amherst. You can go upstairs to the room in which she wrote. It’s worth a visit if you’re ever in the area.
As a 4th grader had it memorized from the teacher having us had it recital at end of every day. Can’t do it anymore.
Always wondered if it was the easy desire to quit but something inside tells us we must continue on in spite of wanting to give up.
I have a fair amount of Lewis Carrol’s “Jaberwocky” memorized. Could likely recite the whole thing if my life depended on it. Also, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” and Carrol’s “Father William” (I went through a big, Lewis Carrol phase when I was about 13).
I remember encountering this poem in 3rd grade and I have no idea why, but I set it to memory then. I didn’t even understand what it meant, until years later, when I read more about American politics:
I also memorized the U.S. Presidents when I was in 5th grade. I felt it was something good citizens can do. I can still recite them, and I’ve even added on the 9 new guys! To keep distracted on long training runs I would recite them forwards and backwards.
About 45 years ago I read there is a State University in a Muslim country (Saudi Arabia?) where all entrants must recite the entire Quran from memory.
Speaking of giraffe’s…
Skip:
To give up, to quit, or even suicide.
There are some similar moments in Keats’ “Ode to A Nightingale,” such as for example (on hearing a nightingale sing):
For those of you curious about Ted Geisel’s (Dr. Seuss) adult artwork, search on: “The rather odd myopic woman.” (Content warning, features an interesting, artistic nude female figure.)
This page, http://www.artnet.com/artists/theodor-seuss-geisel/
has a small photo of it and some of his other works.
Neo: I know Amherst well. It’s my hometown. Born across the Connecticut River in Hamp (Northampton), grew up in Amherst. Spent the first eighteen years of my life there. I’ve walked past the Dickinson House scores if not hundreds of times, but never set foot in it! Kind of like native New Yorkers who’ve never been to the top of the Empire State Building. I did, however, play hooky from high school in West Cemetery on Triangle Street, where she is buried.
Rufus: you probably know this, but there’s a big Dr. Seuss sculpture garden in Museum Square in Springfield, Massachusetts, which was *his* hometown:
https://www.seussinspringfield.org/
If you go, you might also consider a visit to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site (https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm — DNW, take note) and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (https://www.hoophall.com). There’s also a good German restaurant in Springfield: The Student Prince and the Fort (https://www.studentprince.com/). By the way, “Happy Birthday To You!” was my older brother’s and my favorite Dr. Seuss book when we were kids.
Thanks to everyone for putting some more spots on my map of places I intend to visit when we quit performing in the Kovid Kabuki theater.
Also thanks for sharing the poems.
@ Rufus > “I have a fair amount of Lewis Carrol’s “Jaberwocky” memorized. Could likely recite the whole thing if my life depended on it. Also, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” and Carrol’s “Father William” –”
Those are the three I still have some remnants of, and can in fact still recite the whole of Jabberwocky, having done a mime of it quite recently (although the narration was in Welsh, a language which fits the subject quite nicely).
Carroll’s works were my childhood introduction to the joy of satire and parody.
And his poems rhyme AND scan properly, unlike many (mostly modern) efforts which seem to me to be primarily prose paragraphs with line breaks and carriage returns.
I’m a fan of Robert Graves, although not fond of all of his works.
This is an interesting one. I can’t copy it; the bonus is, if you backtrack to the home page, you will find links to many of his poems, and then to other poets.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=25850
“The Foreboding”
Hubert
Wilbur served in the 36th Infantry Division (Texas) in WWII. He described his military service and how he got on and then off the Army’s shitlist in this 2005 interview
Thanks for the link[s]. Enjoyed one, and will partake of more. Wilbur- quite the raconteur – talks of viewing “indoctrination” film from Capra (?) about why we were fighting. “We should have stopped them in Spain,” Capra told Wilbur and other Army indoctrinates.
I once looked at things that way. When I found out that the Republicans killed about 7,000 Roman Catholic priests and nuns in the beginning weeks of the Civil War, I decided that any side that slaughters clerics is the side that deserves to lose. (Disclaimer: I am not a churchgoer, and my ancestry is Protestant.) Sorry Capra, the good guys won in Spain. Better said, the least bad guys won.
@ tcrosse > “Song by Gilles Vigneault:”
A very economical poem, yet evocative of the subject.
I hope Google translate got it right.
BTW, we haven’t yet mentioned the latter part of the interview, after Frost reads his Snowy Woods poem, in which he gives a firm statement of his personal philosophy of freedom.
That begins about 1:20, and then he recites a poem on the subject – “A Drumlin Woodchuck” – although he does not use that title, and skips the first verse.
The text appears here, as does that of “Stopping by Woods,” in an analysis of poetic types. Use CTRL-F to search for it; it’s a long post covering a lot of poets and poems.
https://poemshape.wordpress.com/category/frost-poems-discussed/a-drumlin-woodchuck/
My DDG search also turned up several hits by bloggers using it as a foundation for musing on the pandemic; this was the “top” pick.
https://www.pacingaround.com/post/a-drumlin-woodchuck
About the blogger, FWIW: “..this blog is about stories, essays, poems, books, songs, photos and interviews; touching on health, healthcare, religion, nature, science, psychology, history, social issues, and politics… from my own views…informed by my everyday life and professional experiences…or whatever I think of as I look out my window..”
I enjoyed the critique in the link to poemshape, and read another by the author, Patrick Gillespie. I did not know this poem by Frost, and some who do may differ in interpretation, but I was entertained and somewhat enlightened.
https://poemshape.wordpress.com/category/frost-poems-discussed/for-once-then-something-frost-poems-discussed/
I was entertained, and thoroughly amused, by the author’s sidebar biography.
(paragraphing added — which makes it into as good a modern poem as many I have read)
Now, that’s something completely different!
Gringo: “Sorry Capra, the good guys won in Spain. Better said, the least bad guys won.”
I agree. But remember who we were allied with in WWII. At that time, rooting for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War seemed like a no-brainer. And yes, Frank Capra was the director of the movie Wilbur saw. It would have been one of Capra’s “Why We Fight” movies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight
There were seven of them. They’re excellent, by the way–you can watch them on YouTube. I believe “indoctrination films” was the Army’s term, not Wilbur’s. Zaphod posted links to a couple of other movies in the same vein that were written by Theodore Geisel before he became Dr. Seuss.
Wilbur leaned left as a young man and remained sympathetic to left-wing causes throughout his life. Like a lot of people in his generation, he was deeply affected by the Great Depression. He spent his summers riding the rails and hobo-ing around the country while at Amherst and originally wanted to be a newspaperman.
Returning to the starting point of this thread, there’s an interesting connection between Wilbur and Frost. Wilbur married Mary Charlotte Hayes Ward–“Charlee”–in 1942, right before going into the Army. He had just graduated from Amherst; she was at Smith. Charlee came from a New England literary family. If I recall correctly, her great-grandfather was the editor of The New York Independent. The Independent published Robert Frost’s poem “My Butterfly: An Elegy” in 1894. It was Frost’s first published work. Frost reminded Wilbur of the connection when their paths crossed at Harvard in the late 1940s-early 1950s. More on Wilbur and Charlee at:
https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2017/10/the-most-perfect-poet-in-the-english-language-richard-wilbur-is-dead-at-96/
https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2017/11/07/
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/12/to-imagine-excellence
I saw Wilbur’s gravestone sitting on the lot of the memorial firm in Amherst that I used for my parents’ gravestones. It was awaiting transport to the small hill town cemetery where his wife was buried. It was winter, and the country roads in that part of Massachusetts were still snowed in.
Hubert,
I did know Seuss was from Springfield, Mass, but did not know about the museum and sculpture garden. I have been to art studios featuring his work in Sausalito, La Jolla and Saint Augustine and have been many, many times to Seuss Landing at Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure.
Thanks for the heads up!
AesopFan, “… which seem to me to be primarily prose paragraphs with line breaks and carriage returns.”
My opinion also.
I can see Jabberwocky sounding better in Welsh. I’m sure Americans unfamiliar with it would believe it was actual Welsh if told that upon first hearing. Some medieval blacksmith in Wales ought to have forged a vorpal blade.
Rufus: you’re welcome. Hope you can make it there sometime. Your Seuss checklist wouldn’t be complete without a visit to his birthplace–and Mulberry Street!
But will the vorpal blade best the vorpal bunny (rabbit)?
Hubert, I’ve driven through the outskirts of Springfield from time to time, passed it on the ‘Pike a number of occasions, but never found enough of a reason to truly visit the place. Your recommendation of the Student Prince might tip the balance.
I doubt it. That rabbit’s dynamite! I mean… look at the bones!
Philip Sells: there’s also an Austrian restaurant–the Haflinger Haus–in Adams, Massachusetts:
https://haflingerhaus.com/
That one’s on my list. Better wait until spring, however–Adams is in the hills and the drive there, while beautiful, can be dangerous in winter (black ice).
In case it isn’t clear yet, I’m a Jewish Germanophile. Loved the country, loved the food, and came away with a deep respect for the people and the culture. One of my fondest memories is of taking the train from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the weekends, hiking up the Wank (no smirking there in the back row, Zaphod), and relaxing at the top with a beer and a plate of Polish sausage, roasted potatoes, and sauerkraut.
Hubert, how neat! I passed through Garmisch once, stayed there briefly, but it was mostly a waypoint on the way to Schloss Linderhof. But even though I failed to take in the town itself that time, I’d gladly go back. Your mention of the Wank caused me to take a look at the surrounding terrain, in which it seems there are lots of little goodies tucked away.
The Haflinger Haus looks like it could be interesting. What’s the deal with those glass or plastic huts, though? Is that related to Everybody’s Favorite Pathogen?
Philip: yup, those look like COVID cabins. Probably from 2020. Other indoor photos don’t show them. And the place has a beer garden, so you could eat outside if the weather is warm enough. Should be possible by May.