There are two things I always forget about Pennsylvania. The
first is that it is really green and the second is that the fireflies come out
in droves in the summer. I grew up—well, since I was 10—living in Pennsylvania,
but I’ve lived in South Carolina for the past 12 years. And I live in the
middle of South Carolina right where the Coastal Plain meets the Piedmont. That
means it’s pretty flat and vegetation is dominated by scrubby oaks and various
pines. Those trees create a different kind of green. It isn’t as deep of a
green, and it certainly isn’t as cool of a green. It’s somehow more brown,
faded, and dry. And sure, South Carolina has fireflies, but there just aren’t
as many somehow. In Pennsylvania it’s like the stars descend each evening to
put on a show.
Yesterday we embarked on a grand family adventure. Our plan will
take us some 1800 miles from South Carolina, across Pennsylvania west to east,
to New York City, and then back to Columbia via rural Virginia. We made the
first leg yesterday, starting at 7am. Well, I got up at 5 to load the family
truckster, but we didn’t get on the road until 7. Compared to past efforts, we
did pretty good this time around. Our first destination was Irwin, PA just east
of Pittsburgh (Mark Twain’s hell with the lid off) where some friends live. The
drive took us about 10 hours, but it wasn’t that bad at all. I put the back
seat down so the kids could sleep and play in the back of the van—probably
illegal and immoral because it endangers my kids, but travel rage caused by miserable,
bored kids also is a danger to them as well. As a parent, I get to choose the
dangers to which I subject my kids…it is in the Constitution somewhere.
We spent a lot of time in West Virginia and I had forgotten
that there isn’t a flat stretch of ground to be found anywhere in West
Virginia. We drove up and down mountains all afternoon. It is pretty but people
must get sick of hiking up and stumbling down hills their entire lives. I
wonder how that affects their posture. Anyway, one fun thing we found in West
Virginia was that a big chunk of the state was without power (due to storms
last week) and so most traffic lights were out. That made driving through areas
with lots of cross roads on Highway 19 really exciting. We stopped at a rest
stop only to find that we couldn’t use the bathrooms because of the lack of
power. I walked my daughter to the woods and we found—from the smell and
scatter of used toilet paper— that lots of people had done the same thing. We
left the woods with my daughter singing, “Daddy is my human toilet.”
I found the people of West Virginia charming as well. We
stopped to get gas and I got to catch the end of a local convenience store
conversation that ranged from the weather to gas prices. It ended with a patron
informing the clerk that we no longer have a Whitehouse, we have a blackhouse.
First of all, I am not sure the President controls the weather—I thought the
Russians did that back in the Cold War. Second of all, wasn’t that “joke”
played out long ago? I mean, come on. Is that the best you’ve got? This the end
of his term and all you’ve got is that? Haven’t you been listening to the talk
radio or cable news rants? Can’t you call him a Muslim, a foreigner, a
socialist? That’s what you’ve got? Anyway, I am sure not all West Virginians
are so clever and erudite and probably have more interesting and less offensive
things to say. At least I left the state hoping that is the case.
We entered Pennsylvania near a town I knew only from the
lore told by the two guys who lived next door to me on the third floor of
Sproul Hall when I was an undergraduate at Penn State—Smokey Mahokey and
Bonecrusher Lepore (BC)—two sons of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. It took me back to
the days when Smokey used to tell me all he wanted was a job where he could
kill people and BC introduced me to the deeper meanings of Bruce Springsteen
songs and the importance of labor studies. Those guys were two of the biggest
characters and best friends I met in college.
Now I sit in the screened porch of a 150 year old house
hidden in a small patch of woods just outside the sprawl of Irwin on the 4th
of July preparing to celebrate the birthday of our great democratic experiment.
It is pouring down rain and my kids and their friends are having a proper
summer vacation. They are running madly to and fro in the torrent, screaming
like maniacs. Later they will have grilled burgers, go see fireworks, come home
and make ‘smores and light their own fireworks, and go to sleep happy and secure.
0 comments:
Post a Comment