Weird News: A little preholiday warning

Thanksgiving dinner put away? Good. Hitting the Black Friday sales? Be sure to be nice to the salespeople. Oh, and as you gear up for the holidays, take a lesson this Wilkes Barre family learned last year. Take a head count on your family. If it is one more than you remember it being, it might be time to call the cops.
From MSNBC:
"A family did not realize they had an unexpected Christmas guest until a man who had been in their attic for days emerged wearing their clothes, police said. Stanley Carter surrendered Friday after police took a dog to search the home in Plains Township, a suburb of Wilkes-Barre about 100 miles north of Philadelphia. He was charged with several counts of burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and criminal trespass."

But, you may ask, how long can a man be in your house without you noticing, and honestly, wouldn't there be any clues? The answer is SEVEN days and, well...

"Ferrance said she had heard noises but thought they were caused by her three children. She notified police on Christmas Day when cash, a laptop computer and an iPod disappeared, then called police again the next day when she found footprints in her bedroom closet, where the attic trap door is located.

Carter kept a list of everything he took, said Plains Township police Officer Michael Smith. "When we were going through the inventory of what he did take, we found a note labeled 'Stanley's Christmas List' of all the items he had removed from the residence and donated to himself," Smith said.... "When he came down from the attic, he was wearing my daughter's pants and my sweat shirt and sneakers," homeowner Stacy Ferrance said. "From what I gather, he was helping himself to my home, eating my food and stealing my clothes."

Well, now that we are all sufficiently creeped out, happy holidays.

Glen Onoko

Beautiful destination and tourist trap shouldn't go hand in hand, but sometimes that's how it goes. As a fan of hiking and nature, you take what you can get.

Glen Onoko is the name of a series of hiking trails located at the Lehigh River Gap, in a state park. All the way up at the top of the mountain, there's a freezing cold natural spring which feeds a river which spills over full waterfalls, tumbling little gushes and huge wide wading areas. Climbing the mountain, each section of the river is more gorgeous than the last, and the top falls are a full 75 feet high. Through the summer, the area puts up a great show of flowers and foliage, and the river at the bottom is full of people swimming, kayaking and white water rafting. Along the way up, you'll come to a lot of areas where people wade, picnic and take breaks. There's also some notable rock formations, like Pulpit Rock, which is a huge standing stone split in two down the middle. Over the years, it's become a popular place for people to leave their name behind, and buried among the garish, recent graffiti, you can find small chilseled areas with dates back to the turn of the century, along with faux "Indian" carvings.

Of course, the fact that there's an astounding natural phenomena hiding in the hills wasn't enough for some people, so in the early twentieth century a railroad tourist promoter dreamed up an "ancient Indian legend" to apply to the place. Love stricken Indian princess, Indian Brave thrown off a cliff, and the weeping girl turned into a waterfall, yaddah yaddah. It's been so locally repeated that it exists in some history books and has sort of been grandfathered in as a pseudofact.

What is true is that there used to be a fantastic, secluded palace of a hotel at the base of the mountain (think The Shining), named Hotel Wahnetah, which opened in 1886. It was once the vacation resort of the rich and elite looking to escape the city. It featured 56 rooms, tennis courts, manicured stone lined mountain paths, and a dance pavillion. Essentially, you could relax in regal style, but claim you were "roughing it". Back then, the trail was a much easier climb--it was maintained with bridges spanning the water, making it the climb of the elite. The hotel burned to the ground in 1911, and the tourist industry has only recently started to recover.

What is also true is that the area is positively deadly. The trails sometimes snake upwards at a vicious angle, and a lot of the danger comes from climbers ahead of you who dislodge rocks that come plummeting down the hill picking up deadly speed. Through some areas, you can even find yourself climbing more with your hands and knees through the eroded trail, overused trail. Depending on your path, you walk up narrow areas with sheer drops to one side, and sometimes slick rocks. Invariably, you'll see some poor person who was expecting a civilized walking trail completely unprepared for the hike. I've personally sat at the bottom of the hill and watched people coming in on buses with brand new work out gear on (complete with tiny little leg weights), or alternatively wearing shorts and flip flops. Suffice it to say, they usually give up halfway up the mountain.

Before I seem flippant, let me point out that I was actually up the mountain with a hiking companion who fell off a cliff and had to be carried down the hill by a medical team and evacuated by helicopter. (Yes, I took a picture) I also personally know the families of several people who have lost their lives hiking around there. A misstep is easy to make even for good hikers and can have life long ramifications. Still, I stood with the EMTs as they told stories of unprepared hikers and their grievous injuries even as people walked around us completely unprepared for the hike. I sort of blame the tourist promoters.

All color photos taken by my sister, the Little Photographer who Could.

History: Bloodshed Between the States... No Not Those States

For as quiet of a state as Pennsylvania seems, there has been a fair share of bloodshed. Gettysburg is the classic favorite, with tales of brother fighting brother, but today’s history lesson is about a more obscure battle between the ancestors of the United States.

I’m talking, of course, about the Pennamite-Yankee wars, that great series of battles between Connecticut and Pennsylvania.... As I’m sure there’s only one person nodding her head and understanding, allow me to explain how these two current states came to battle it out.Jump in time all the way to the reign of Charles II, who could use a paragraph of English-history-type background himself. Charlie was an interesting king, as he wasn’t crowned King of England instantly after the execution of his father Charles I (due to the whole issue with Oliver Cromwell at the time). He was instead crowned King of Scots, and summarily had his ass handed to him in battle by the Oliver and his Parliamentarians (which, incidentally, would make a great 50s band name). After some time in exile, England brought him back upon the death of Cromwell, and finally crowned him in 1661. Apparently the English forgave him, as they forged dates on documents so that Charles immediately succeeded his father, clearing up that whole messy incident. As an additional apparent “sorry for the Civil War” moment, the church of England canonized his father Charles I. He still is the only person ever venerated by the Anglican Church. Charles II’s reign was marked by hedonism in the church, and contrarily an attempt to restore the church of England to its former stature, in other words more the actions the throne was used to.

More pertinently, Charles was around during the time that land was first being snatched up in the New World, and he was fond of giving out land grants. Most Pennsylvanians had a side note on him in their grade school books as he was the person who gave, in particular, the grant of land to William Penn in 1681. To refresh your memory, he appealed to the King that persecuted members of his religion , the Quakers, should move en masse to America. He ended up being made the holder of the largest area of land that any person owned in the New World. In a famous egotistical moment, he called this “Penn’s Woods” or Pennsylvania. The area of land encompassed far more than the present day state, and Penn worked hard to bring new settlers to live in his new paradise. (Today, we honor him with a giant statue on top of City Hall of him peeing down onto the state he helped found.)

There was, however, a problem. Part of the same land given to Penn had previously been given to Connecticut in 1662, this grant also by Charles II. Whether re-gifting the same tracts of land was a slight to the Connecticut-ians (Connecticut-oids?) or just a massive clerical error, we’ll never know. But, for years it wasn’t that big of an issue. Both Connecticut and Penn’s Quakers and other settlers made treaties for the overlapping land with the local Native Americans, farmed and seemingly went about their business.
Then, at some point along the way, Connecticut decided that it wanted that land it had been initially promised back, and NOW. Ignoring the fact that even the colonies weren't even contiguous, they sent settlers to the top of the Susquehanna River, (the Wyoming Valley) in 1754. These settlers then founded the town of Wilkes-Barre not long after. Pennsylvanians were outraged at the squatters, and decided to kick them out in 1769. Militia, most of which had just returned from fighting the French and Indian War, headed up to the area, and a small series of battles began which extended over the next few years. The name for the conflict came from the opposing sides, Pennamite being the nickname for Pennsylvanians and Yankee that for Connecticut-ids. In this “first” war, not much was accomplished. There wasn’t even much bloodshed on either side, with deaths you could count on your fingers.

As America was still under British rule, King George III stepped in to help clear up the mess that his predecessor created. After much thought and consulting the maps, the Wyoming Valley, he decided, was definitely the property of Connecticut. Jubilant, the Connecticut-iads engaged in what was apparently their local pastime - founding towns, this one Westmoreland.

This whole decision just made the Pennsylvanians cranky, and they refused to leave the newly declared Connecticut land. Eventually, Northumberland County attacked some Connecticut settlers in 1775--which didn’t work out very well for them.

It was about this time that both sides of the issue found themselves distracted by the more encompassing American Revolution. The area, in fact found itself in the midst of some of the most vicious fighting, namely the Battle of Wyoming (aka the Wyoming Massacre), which occurred after the British Army surrendered. Angry loyalists, along with Native Americans, took their aggression out on the local Patriots and it erupted in a huge battle in the 1778. The Loyalists won, killing over 300 in battle and massacring and torturing others afterward.

Despite this brush with the horrors of war, after the Revolution ended, the Wyoming Valley remembered that they were Pennamites and Yankees, and began to fight again. By all accounts, the fighting had degraded to bar fights and Matfield/McCoy like battles of small groups attacking and sniping at each other. Finally, to give end to the issue, the Continental Congress stepped in to look at the issue in 1782. As these were people who had just spent the last decade fighting England and King George, it’s probably not surprising that they decided they did not agree with his decision, and decided that the area most definitely was the property of Pennsylvania.

Of course, those from Connecticut are resilient type, and they didn’t take the decision that they had lost a twenty year argument sitting down. When told to leave, they once again took arms and refused. This time, they brought recruits, both from Connecticut itself and Vermont, mostly hardened veterans of the Revolution to fight off anyone who would try to remove them back to their northern homes. Small fights and attacks continued.

Although the issue seemed to be gearing up for a bigger issue, it more or less finally petered itself out over time, finally coming to when the various land titles were looked into individually. Those Yankees left in the area either licked their wounds and retreated to the new founded Constitution State, or shrugged, looked at the bloody history of the last two generations, and quietly took on the mantle of being a Pennsylvania citizen.

The series incident was mostly lost to history due partially to the more important battles of the immediate period. If the area is mentioned in history books at all, it’s usually in reference to the particularly brutal Battle of Wyoming, and the name "Yankee Pennamite War" is honestly something of a misnomer. Still, the descendants of Quakers taking arms against the founders of Hartford for control of Wilkes Barre is bizarre enough that it shouldn't be forgotten.

NAH NAH nah nah na na nah nah naah---

Every now and again I worry about my decision to try to do a daily blog featuring Pennsylvania oddities. Can I keep up with this for any period of time? I think.

And then the heavens open, the gods smile and I drive past Batman Road.

Here it is in Google Maps, in case you don't believe me. The best part is, Batman Road become Batman Drive further down.

This was literally the only sign for this street along the length--otherwise its unmarked because the signs were a high risk for theft. Definitely a sign I can see hanging over some college frat boys bed.

Sadly, Batman Road is mostly occupied by ranch houses, empty fields that have seen better days and citizens who don't appreciate 'why so serious' jokes. You know someone along there is so touchy about it they try to mispronounce the name when they give out their address. "Oh no, it's Batmin"

I recently found out about the existence of this archival picture, and I'm now obsessed with it. See if you can blame me:
That would be Superman, one of the REAL Supermans (Reeves of the George variety) serving what appears to be a huge portion of mashed potatoes to excited, hairbowed lunch ladies with paper collars. Yeah. Look at his expression, he's so congenial, isn't he? So not seeming like the kind of guy who would kill himself. And I love the hand reaching in from the front from an off-camera woman who apparently doesn't care so much about being starstuck as getting her lunch in a side dish already, dammit.

The women are obviously workers at Hess's, which was an old Grand Dame department store which existed until 1994. My memories of it are from its last days, but pretty much anyone from the Allentown area will instantly recognize the logo on those scalloped collars instantly.

From what I can tell, George Reeves made two appearances at Hess's, once in March of 1955 and once in August of 1956. This would have probably been the flagship store in Allentown, as it was the only location at the time. He was on a publicity spree at the height of the show's popularity. Whoever planned his outings relied heavily on the shopping locations, but it was one of his sprees at Hess's that ended with him posing for pictures for a promotional article which appeared in People Today.
I'm not sure if the mashed potato picture is from this same visit, but it has its own fabulous pictures, and a delightfully fifties style write-up to go with. Apparently, in addition to selling shoes, they made him heft around piles of empty boxes in a show of faux strength, and push racks of clothing really fast. He's described as wearing "super clothes" and his appearance is said to have "enchanted mothers and moppets alike". Cue your favorite episode of Mad Men to see the type who came up with that line read.

Then, to really mess with the minds of the public, they had him do the deliveries for the day, fulfilling both the necessities of degrading publicity work and cheap manual labor for a while.
The day apparently ended suddenly when "Supe" (yes, they actually call him Supe) trips over a tricycle and skins his knee. If you know Allentown I'm not surprised its Superman was brought down by mere children's toys..

Weird News: The Best Defense

I'm quite fond of watching court cases unfold. The forensics, drama, testimony--I could watch Court TV (er... TruTV, whatever) like it was my job if left to my own devices. So a recent crime spree ended in arrest and I was horribly upset that there was a confession rather than a trial. I wanted to see this one battle it out in the courtroom.

The case: It seems that in Penn Forest, a fire started in a house belonging to a man named Joe Mesa. Oddly enough, the cops arrived to find a simultaneous fire raging in a Pontiac parked out in the driveway. Both members of the family, along with their dog escaped any harm.
A little bit of research found that there were three points of origin, the aforementioned car being set ablaze at about the same time as two different start points on opposite sides of the house. There was clear indication that something had been poured to start the fire, and this ended up being a large quantity of rubbing alcohol. Moreover, Mesa's house had been foreclosed, and he had taken out two insurance policies, which he attempted to cash in after the fire.

This would be where the prosecution would rest, and the defense would pick up the proceedings. And, had Mesa stuck with his initial response, that defense was as follows: "a ghost lives in the basement and he thinks the ghost is responsible for these fires." I'd love to see the idiots the defense would bring in to bolster the claim. Or, if this were a movie scenario, the ghost actually taking the stand and defending itself. Sadly, though, Mesa eventually admitted he had done the deed, pointing out the obvious, and leaving my expectations in the dust.