Poconos!

This summer, my family and I went on a real vacation. It wasn’t a research-trip-disguised-as-a-vacation, although my youngest son did ask me if we’d come to the Poconos because I was setting a book there. What a skeptical child, to think his mother cannot take a real vacation. When I’d told my daughter and her friend about the destination the rest of us were headed for (she’s out of the nest) I later found out after that chat ended she and her friend turned to each other and said: So where are the Poconos, anyway? One said, the Carolinas? Dakotas? Who knew? *See below for the answer.

They’re obviously too young to remember the Poconos for its various heydays. Personally, I recall it as not only one of the most popular honeymoon capitols in the States, but the hottest resort town for New York celebrities. There was actually a heyday before that, which I didn’t know about, in the last half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. The whole Pocono Mountain area attracted some of New York and Philadelphia’s wealthiest families for the summer season. Natural beauty, fresh air and scores of fancy resorts drew the elites first by stagecoach and then by train.

Then the Great Depression hit. The area went into its first decline. Resorts closed, many of them burned down in the off-season so the cash-strapped owners could collect insurance money. It wasn’t until a man named Fred Waring purchased one of the few remaining resorts in 1943 that the area saw another revival. I only barely remembered the Waring name, but when the tour guide said the “Waring Blendor” I vaguely recalled from my childhood the commercials for his famous blender.

Waring wasn’t the inventor of the blender, just an effective promoter. He was a radio personality and a bandleader who knew lots of New York celebrities—whom he invited out to the Poconos. Soon the area was known for its beauty and fresh air again, and the east coast stars were attracted to the posh resorts. Honeymooners from all directions came, too, including the best known “honeymooner,” Jackie Gleason.

It was an exclusive area right up until around the mid-1970s when air travel became more common than train travel. Wealthy vacationers decided to go to more exotic locales for their getaways—although while we were there, we did take advantage of a “Honeymoon Special”: 2 hot dogs and 2 slices of pie for a nominal price. You might not automatically think of joining hot dogs and pie. It’s not exactly peanut butter and jelly, eggs and bacon, or cake and ice cream, but I can personally vouch for it as a tasty meal.

So since the mid-70s the area has been declining again, mainly because the train line was converted to freight only. But since 9/11 a lot of city folk have decided it would be safer to live in the country, so it’s becoming a bedroom community for New Yorkers. They’re trying to get a commuter train stop back to Tinker Town (the Pocono stop that was built by the Irish, called “tinkers”) but it’s currently hung up in legal arguments among all the towns between New York and the Poconos.

After learning about the area’s history I decided it might be a good setting for a book, after all. You know, you just can’t take a writer anywhere without wondering if she’ll use it for creative fodder…

I wanted to see a small waterfall near our resort (Buttermilk Falls) and had to cross this uneven bridge to get there. I was careful, though, since I didn’t want to break my other ankle…

*I’d been hoping to hike at least a little of the Pennsylvanian Appalachian Trail that runs through the Poconos, but I was still recovering from my broken ankle. (Which, after five weeks now, is almost perfectly fine!)