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Highway haven
BY MARK FONTECCHIO
The Patriot Ledger
Published Dec. 17, 2003
Herb Winters has a home. Some may not see it that way, for when he wants to
go to sleep on cold nights, he has to first warm up the place because it's
20 degrees in his bedroom.
That's one of the consequences of the lifestyle he's accepted. He started
building his home 18 years ago in the state-owned woods of a cloverleaf on a
ramp from Route 24 to Route 139 in Stoughton, and has lived there ever
since.
Winters, 62, who said he grew up in Randolph, doesn't seek to romanticize
himself or where he lives. He is not a latter-day Henry David Thoreau
seeking to commune with nature. Transcendentalism doesn't exactly course
through his veins.
As his story goes, Winters was forced to live in the woods after his
girlfriend kicked him out of her place and someone set his car on fire.
"Some things you do because you want to, and some things you do because you
have to," he said.
It was in 1984 when he first walked into the woods. His shelter started off
as a simple lean-to against a stone wall, something that Winters thought
would be temporary until he could get a job in a few weeks. That job never
came, he said.
"He doesn't hurt anybody, so what are you going to do? He doesn't harm anyone. He minds his
own business."
State police trooper Michael Briggs
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Previously, he had been renting a room from his girlfriend at her place in
West Bridgewater and working as a caretaker there. But when she pressured
him for a more-serious relationship, he said no. An earlier marriage with
another woman that produced children hadn't worked out, and Winters didn't
think another one with his girlfriend would succeed. So she bid him
farewell.
"She got the bright idea that we should get married, and I got the bright
idea that we shouldn't," he recalls.
Now, almost two decades later, the place he sleeps in is a complex
conglomeration of tree branches, plastic tarp, blankets and staples. It has
a wood stove and a stone chimney, a few rooms, and is stocked with old
newspapers, broken clocks, long-expired canned goods and other items that
indicate he lives in no ordinary home. But he also has hordes of useful
stuff - scissors, tape measures, duct tape and a fire extinguisher -
indicating that he'd probably do OK on the television show "Survivor."
Winters said his 15 years of masonry construction experience helped him to
build the chimney, and going camping as a child taught him the basics of
living in the wilderness.
Though he says he sleeps there every night, Winters doesn't pay any taxes
for his makeshift home. He said state officials have tried to get him off
the land, but they usually leave him alone.
Doug Cope, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Highway Department, said there
are safety concerns with a man living near an on-ramp where hundreds of cars
speed by every day. But there haven't been any problems, he said.
"We are aware of that guy down there," he said. "I know he has been there
for some time. From what we can tell, he kind of keeps to himself."
That is Winters' philosophy. Dressed in layers of flannel shirts, ratty
jeans and old work boots, he spends his day riding on one of about a dozen
bicycles he owns. He travels from his shelter to local restaurants and to a
house in Randolph where his mother lived before she died in April from
Alzheimer's disease. The house now belongs to him and his four siblings, and
they rent it to his daughter and her family.
He's reluctant to talk about his past, though. He says only that he didn't
get along with his stepfather and won't move into his mother's house now
because it may get sold. His son, also named Herbie Winters and who lives in
New Hampshire, said he sees his father a few times a year.
"I think there's just a lot of pressure from past relationships and he
doesn't want the commitments," his son said.
If he resembles anyone famous, it would be Willie Nelson, mainly because of
the colored headband he wears and the long, white hair he keeps tied in the
back. His 18 years in the woods have spawned thick semi-circles under his
eyes. He has deep wrinkles and a penchant for wry humor. If he's outside,
you'll rarely see him without a tobacco pipe in his mouth.
Winters has held jobs. His son said that he worked in construction, as a
mechanic and even tried his hand as a jeweler. Nothing seemed to satisfy
him.
"He has the ability to do just about anything he wants," said his son. "He
just chooses not to."
And so Winters wakes up at about 6:30 every morning in the woods, hops on a
bike from his fleet and rides down to Honey Dew Donuts on Route 139 in
Randolph. He orders a cup of coffee, intending to pay for it with money he
saved up doing odd jobs, such as cleaning the grounds at Honey Dew or at ID
Graphics. The workers at Honey Dew usually wave off his money, and so he
drops it in the tip jar.
"He comes in and sits here quietly," said Amanda Collins. She has been
working at Honey Dew for five years, and said Winters comes in every day.
"He chills out for a little bit and then he takes off," she said.
Winters usually makes his way to his mother's house on West Street, which
runs parallel to Route 139. He bathes and relaxes there, often resting on
the recliner. He said he often reads or talks with his daughter and
grandchildren.
His 18 years in the woods have spawned thick semi-circles under his
eyes. He has deep wrinkles and a penchant for wry humor. If he's outside,
you'll rarely see him without a tobacco pipe in his mouth.
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But by 8 or 9 p.m., he has left to go to Rick's Cafe on Route 139, where he
has "three to five" beers every night. He dismisses claims that he's an
alcoholic, saying he drinks there to pass the time.
Then he rides his bike back into the woods, dark and deep. When he gets to
the highway on-ramp, he doesn't have miles to go before he sleeps. He's
already home.
This time of year, he settles into a bedroom whose temperature transforms
water into ice. The next day, he starts all over again.
"He doesn't hurt anybody, so what are you going to do?" said Michael Briggs,
a state trooper who has met Winters. "He doesn't harm anyone. He minds his
own business."
Briggs, a Holbrook native, said State Police occasionally get a call from
someone who saw Winters' place in the woods or saw him riding his bike on
the on-ramp.
"I don't need any enemies," Winters said. "Especially living in there."
"There" is the shack in the woods he calls his home, at an address he
invented: 1984 Greenwood Circle.
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