First Pennsylvania Home

Here's a shot of our family's first home in Pennsylvania, just after we moved from Detroit to West Conshohocken in 1949. I was four years old, and my two brothers had not yet been born -- although they came along pretty quickly after we got settled. The place was called "Stoney Creek Farm," and it was on River Road. That road is no more, having been superseded by the Schuylkill Expressway over the next several years; this was the prime reason we moved away from Stoney Creek Farm. If you're ever driving east on the Schuylkill Expressway (toward Philadelphia, for the compass-challenged), if you look to your right just before you come to the Conshohocken Curve, you can see this house nestled in the woods and overgrowth directly across the river from the old Lee Tire plant. So what, you say? I don't know. Maybe I'm getting to that age where my nostalgia becomes everyone else's burden.

Author for a Cause

You may recall a couple of blurbs on this blog back in March about the "Author for a Cause" book-signing event at the GoggleWorks in Reading. I took some pictures, which I offer here for your perusal. Being a certified Darkroom Dinosaur, it takes me a while to slosh everything around in those magic chemicals (especially if I'm not in any particular hurry to get it done), but here you go. Above: T.K. Marion (Kill the Devil) and Sue Lange (Tritcheon Hash; We, Robots). Above: Diana Mulligan, Sue Lange Above: Carol Haile and Admirer. Above: Carol Haile responding to bagpiper. Above: Carol Haile and T.K. Marion.

OLD MAUCH CHUNK

If you know me at all, you know the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region fascinates me; if you don't know me at all, now you know at least this much. I never actually lived there, but I have ancestors who did, and it seems the family ties keep calling me back. Following that call, I went on a little frolic yesterday 50 miles north into Carbon County, to the town of Jim Thorpe, which I prefer to know as Old Mauch Chunk, its former Indian-derived name. The name means "Bear Mountain". My ancestor Thomas Clemson North lived there for a time, and I understand he managed and operated a wire factory in the town. He married Harriet Belford, the daughter of a magisterial judge. Yesterday, I wandered several miles north along the railroad line that runs beside the Lehigh River on the western bank. Twenty miles north (no, I didn't walk that far) is the coal transshipment town of White Haven, named for Josiah White, one of the pioneers of the anthracite industry. A slight overcast tempered but did not extinguish the warmth of the sun; the river was running strong and flashed white rapids as it tumbled over the rocks in the Lehigh Gorge. I was trying to absorb the spirit of the place, because it figures highly in Book Two of my Up Home novel series. Mauch Chunk reeks history. Unbelievable as it may seem, in the golden era of the anthracite, railroad, canal and quarrying industries in Pennsylvania, the town rivaled Niagara Falls as a tourist destination and resort retreat. It sits in a valley among steep mountains, and has been called "Little Switzerland" by travel promoters perhaps given to a touch of hyperbole. Asa Packer, the founder of Lehigh University and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, made his home there -- a grand Victorian mansion overlooking the town -- and endowed one of the wealthiest parishes of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Bethlehem. I like the place.

GOUT

Just when you think things couldn't possibly get any worse, something comes along to take your mind clean off the troubles you thought you had. Yesterday, without warning, my left ankle puffed up to about twice its normal size, and began to feel as if it was full of broken glass. I hardly slept last night, limping from my bed to the medicine chest every hour from 3:00 to 7:00 for another colchicine tablet. It was a crippling attack of gout, which I always thought was an affliction of old Englishmen who ate too well and drank too much port. My doctor blamed it on a shrimp dinner I had on Sunday, and prescribed some wonder drugs which seem to have brought the monster under control -- at least for the time being. Thank God. I don't want to repeat that ordeal.

KVETCHING

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.

---Othello, III,iii,155 I learned recently that some miserable little piss-ant corporate Caesar in a position of power that enables him on a whim to ruin reputations and destroy careers has chucked me into outer darkness and declared my name anathema among the pathetic flunkies who must kowtow to him, lest they suffer the same fate. No one has favored me with a catalogue of my alleged offenses, nor am I in a position to request one. No, I must guess at the charges against me (so much for the right to confront one's accuser), and it's not a pleasant pastime. The affair has been most painful. In the dark hours between midnight and dawn, one tends to imagine scenarios of complete collapse and ruin. No, damn it, I’m not whining. Yes, yes, I might as well be barking at the moon, I know; instead, I'm barking in cyberspace. Please indulge me. A good irrational pissed-off rant (which certainly qualifies as looking foolish) is good for the soul (see above). This sort of development helps one understand how, in the more brutal days of yesteryear, palace intrigues and malicious lies often spawned murders of vengeance -- not that any such thing has crossed my mind, needless to say. Ah, well, rough with the smooth and all that, I suppose. I'll get over it. Like the contents of my colon, this too will pass. Have a nice day.