spring cleaning

I've been thinking about changing things up for a while. I finally got around to it.

There are still some kinks to be worked out (ie. "links to nowhere" at the top of the page...)

Whaddya think?

PS - New photos added to rollin' on the river.

paperboys

Every afternoon, my youngest sister heads into town to pick up a bundle of newspapers. Sixteen people await her arrival each day with the local news, printed and delivered from the county seat.

She is the last remaining member of an informal guild that has been operating in my hometown for over fifty years: the paperboys.

I can remember delivering newspapers with cousins, sometimes on their backs, sometimes by their sides. I often accompanied a friend in junior high on my bike. The paper route once seemed to be a right of passage for kids in town: everyday they headed into the streets in force, crisscrossing along the avenues and sidewalks with their trademark delivery bags with the blaze orange strap. Living outside of town, I sometimes felt excluded from my peers and once tried to get a route for myself. The newspaper denied me one, due to the lack of customers in my neck of the woods.

A few years later, my ambitious little brother made the same request and backed it up with five new subscribers. He inherited an already-existing route, just on the edge of town and his five new patrons were tacked on to the end of it. After a few years of service and garnering even more subscribers, he passed the route on to our younger sister, who likewise bequeathed it to the last sister.

Over the last ten or eleven years, the route has lost some customers and changed shape. Along with it, the number of paper carriers in the town diminished until only one was left. And she delivers only two papers within the town proper. The rest of the peddlers have been replaced with coin-operated boxes placed on a few corners and circulation of the newspaper in Houtzdale has dropped to a couple hundred.

I can’t believe that such a quintessential small-town institution has become a novelty in my hometown. Where are the kids going to get their pocket money? How will they be able to afford penny candy and comic books? And more importantly, who is going to raise the town’s collective blood pressure?! There’s no longer a reason for the elderly to save their pennies, or sit expectantly on their porches at 3:30 awaiting the arrival of news that is “stale by now, for crying out loud!”

Soon, my sister will grow out of her paper route, too. Those customers out here on the outskirts that don’t just fall off will revert to getting a delivery by truck, which will throw their orange-bagged, rolled-up paper along the street. People will have their news and kids will have their afternoons free, but one more vestige of small-town community life will be cast to the shoulder of the highway, just like the newspaper.

rollin' on the river

Last weekend my father, uncle, and I went to watch an annual canoe race on the Red Moshannon Creek. The Moshannon Creek (in Central Pennsylvanian dialect: ‘crick’) runs through several small towns on its way to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, which flows east until it merges with the Susquehanna, finally flowing south and draining into the Chesapeake Bay.

Although not a huge affair, the event attracts quite a number of people. Spectators and participants alike inundate the creek’s banks at the Peal Bridge in the hamlet of Grassflat, where the race begins. The racers range from the serious kayaker to the “weekend warrior.”
Some come decked out in dry suits and helmets, with long sleek vessels, or stubby, maneuverable kayaks to see how many seconds they can shave off of last year’s time. Others come for a casual float, with plenty of beer weighing down the canoe and a planned pit stop on an island at the entrance to minor rapids.

The drive took us through classic mountain territory. We were lost, of course, and wound up on unmarked dirt roads many times. When looking for the Peal Bridge, we tried following the flow of the stream through the hills and woods, flanked by sagging wooden houses emblazoned with black and orange “BEWARE OF DOG” and “NO TRESPASSING” signs. My dad suggested stopping to ask for directions, to which my uncle involuntarily jerked the wheel and replied, “Haven’t you ever seen Deliverance?!” Finally, after crossing the county line for the fourth time, we pulled into a driveway. My dad was elected to approach the bearded, bandana-ed man who was wiping down his truck. He returned with directions from the amused man that included landmarks such as ‘Old Schoolhouse Road’ and ‘Cooney’s Bar.’ We joked the rest of the way about the wild goose chase we were probably just sent on.


But we made it in time for the start of the race. There were no reasonable parking spaces along the dirt lane that wound downhill to the bridge, so we shoe-horned our way into a cubby between two SUVs, our nose half-pointing into the road. The ground was covered in a brilliant array of canoes and kayaks and it was rough picking our way down to the bank. The bridge above us was out of the question, a wall of flesh pressed against its crumbling cement rail. As each heat took off, the banks cleared of boats and the audience trickled downstream to the finish line.

Eventually we, too, headed for the end of the race, just at the Snowshoe town border. There was considerably less excitement here and we spent the rest of the time gazing with waning interest at the racers pulling one-by-one out of the creek. I ran into the father of an old friend, and the distraction was enough to clinch the end of my race experience. The four of us had a pleasant chat and then it was back into the car for the return home. As we drove back to Houtzdale, I spent the time daydreaming about a kayak and a backpack....

life (and death) in a small town

Two weeks ago a woman was brutally murdered in my hometown. She was beaten about the face, then slit across the throat and wrists before being left to bleed to death in her apartment.

Details of the murder, as well as the name of the suspect were rapidly made public by that indispensable tool of communication, the small town gossip mill. It must have been churning madly that day, as I heard about the deed before even getting out of bed. The murder was discovered just before sunrise.

The victim, who incidentally graduated with my father, was killed in her apartment building that was once my mother’s elementary school—a drive of less than two minutes from my parents’ front door. Her alleged murderer, her son, was in my sister’s high school class. He was later apprehended in a housing complex to which my other sister delivers the daily newspaper.

I later heard a rumor that the account had made the national news. It may have featured in the thin marquee running beneath a commentator’s head during campaign analysis on CNN. But Anderson Cooper could not have run the stories that were circulating for the next several days. Townsfolk mused over the dead woman’s failed marriage, relationships, and son who “wasn’t quite right.” My parents and siblings recalled the killer’s childhood involvement in my father’s t-ball team and my sister’s wrestling team. Everybody remembered his stint in the juvenile detention center. Even the handling of the report and ensuing investigation were under town discussion. Nobody could get enough of the accounts of the authorities asking the victim’s mother after her whereabouts before actually investigating the scene, where her dead body was reported to have been left. Nor could they be sated with one telling of the tale of the suspect’s girlfriend, throwing his bloodstained clothing in her complex’s dumpster just after the murder and then telling folk at the corner convenience store the next day how the victim deserved her fate. An interesting note: she has still not been tied to the event by the police.

I couldn’t escape, no matter where I went that day. Upon walking into a shop for a haircut, I was greeted not with a wide smile and hearty, “how are you?” but with more speculation. The grocery store aisles were lined with murmurs that evening and the phone line was buzzing with more details when I arrived at home.

Two weeks, and the upheaval has settled. Mostly. The townsfolk have moved on to other topics of conversation, but the family of the victim and her killer may never heal.

*chatter, chatter*

Merry Chris-- er, Happy Easter from Frozen Central Pennsylvania.

Holy Saturday greeted us with 5 inches of snow. As I type, I'm shielding my eyes from the glare through the windows, fearing snow blindness by proxy.

If I were Jesus, I DEFINITELY would not have been interested in waking up to rock-hard ground and snow cover as far as the eye could see. Everybody would have to wait 'til Spring for their salvation, thankyouverymuch.

However, how better to spend a day snowed-in than to be curled up with a good book and a baking project? Can't you just smell those cinnamon rolls?

collect the whole set!

The Catholic Church has recently “released” a new set of mortal sins—those that not only endanger one’s relationship with God, but basically destroy it. They join their brothers, the original seven deadlies of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

While the original seven relate to sins of an individual, personal nature, these have to do with sinful actions and behaviors that reach into the social sphere, affecting the communities in which we live as well as the world at large. They include pollution, genetic modification, human experimentation, social injustice, poverty, obscene wealth, and drug use.

Although the media has exaggerated the novelty of these transgressions the Church has just “made public,” socially responsible people (Catholic and otherwise) have known their evil for ages. Even the Church’s social teachings regarding stewardship of the earth and love of neighbor have made these offenses quite plain.

This does make for an interesting confessional situation, however. Three ‘Our Fathers’ and two ‘Hail Marys’ may do for cheating on your taxes, but what kind of penance would suit contributing to climate change, cancer research, or supporting a sweatshop full of Indonesian children?

I’m all for living responsibly, and I think this is an important step. Perhaps we will begin to think more about how our daily lives can build up or tear down the world we don’t see. But it will continue to be difficult in this age of globalization and middlemen. How much can we know about the products we support and the conveniences we rely on? How many people will think twice about biting into a genetically altered seedless watermelon or anything made with U.S.-grown soybeans? Even my new hikers (the makers of which provide a portion of their profits to environmental programs and promote socially responsible business practices) surprised me. I opened the 100% post-consumer-materials box, labeled with eight ways it’s environmentally friendly, to discover shoes made in China.

Now, if only the Church would pick up on that ‘original blessing’ thing.

worn out

I need a new pair of shoes.  My trusty travelin' shoes are about to bite the dust.  I broke them in wandering the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, and they've been reliably waterproof, odorproof, and comfortable ever since.  Until now.

After carrying me to the West Coast, and then across the Atlantic; tramping through Southern Spain, France, to the German Alps, and back to Spain; strolling the halls and gardens of the Alhambra to slogging through corrals; hiking in and out of olive groves to climbing the mountains of the Serrania the seams are giving way and the Gore-Tex has given up the ghost.  My wonderful Merrell Passages are struggling to survive in the face of tired adhesive and New England winter.

The search is on for a new pair of kicks that can match the green wonders I must now give up.  I've already begun scouring adventure outfitters, shoe outlets, and online retailers for a pair of light-weight hikers that fit like a glove and hold up to anything.

I offer a challenge:  send me ideas for a new shoe.  All I ask is for something firm and supportive, yet flexible enough to fit my foot like skin.  Something waterproof but highly breathable that can stand up to long wear without smelling like carrion.  Something light, but strong.  Something that can carry me wherever my circumstances take me without complaint.

Bonus points to suggestions below $100.

Ah, goodbye, my lovelies.