Vandals aren’t out of the woods yet

Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost’s former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.

Using “The Road Not Taken” as one jumping-off point, Frost biographer Jay Parini hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways -- and the redemptive power of poetry.

Prosecutor John Quinn explained: “I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people’s property in the future and would also learn something from the experience.”

Frost, who died in 1963, spent more than 20 summers at the Homer Noble Farm in Ripton. It’s on a dead-end road and is used occasionally by its owner, Middlebury College. Unheated, it’s open in the warmer months.

On Dec. 28, a 17-year-old former Middlebury College employee decided to hold a party and gave a friend $100 to buy beer. Word spread. Up to 50 people descended on the farm.

A chair broke and someone threw it into the fireplace, unleashing a wave of destructiveness. When it was over, windows, antique furniture and china had been broken, fire extinguishers discharged, and carpeting soiled with vomit and urine.

Empty beer cans and drug paraphernalia were left behind.

The damage was put at $10,600.

Twenty-eight people -- all but two of them teenagers -- were charged, mostly with trespassing.

About 25 ultimately entered pleas -- or were accepted into a program that allows them to wipe their records clean -- provided they underwent the Frost instruction. Some will also have to pay for some of the damage, and most were ordered to perform community service in addition to the classroom sessions. The man who bought the beer got three days behind bars.

Parini, 60, a Middlebury College professor who has stayed at the house, donated his time for the two sessions.

Eleven turned out for the first session, with Parini giving a line-by-line interpretation of “The Road Not Taken,” seizing on parts with particular relevance to their case.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” he thundered, reciting the opening line.

“This is where Frost is relevant. This is the irony of this whole thing. You come to a path in the woods where you can say, ‘Shall I go to this party and get drunk out of my mind?’ ” he said. “Everything in life is choices.”

Even the setting had parallels, he said: “Believe me, if you’re a teenager, you’re always in the damned woods. Literally, you’re in the woods -- probably too much you’re in the woods. And metaphorically you’re in the woods, in your life. Look at you here, in court diversion! If that isn’t in the woods, what the hell is in the woods? You’re in the woods!”

The young people listened and answered questions when Parini pressed. Then a court official asked them to describe how their arrests and the publicity had affected them.

“I was worried about my family,” said one boy. (The program is confidential.) “I’ll be carrying on the family name and all that. And with this kind of thing tied to me, it doesn’t look very good.”

Another said: “After this, I’m thinking about staying out of trouble, because this is my last chance.”

“My parents’ business in town was affected,” said a girl.

When the session ended, the vandals went straight for the door, several declining comment as they walked out of the building.

“It’s a lesson learned, that’s for sure,” said one of them, 22-year-old Ryan Kenyon, whose grandmother worked as a hairdresser in the 1960s and knew Frost. “It did bring some insight. People do many things that they don’t realize the consequences of. It shined a light, at least to me.”