Get outside and play

A popular children’s television cartoon features a boy-cow named Otis, with udders. About a year ago, there was a movie about bees, and the boy bees left the hive in search of pollen for honey.
In rural Adams County, I’m guessing most kids pretty much know how to tell a bull from a cow, and probably [...]

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Let’s vote, already!

Be done with it already!
What are any of the candidates going to say in the next week that will a) change minds, or b) not get them in trouble? Which could change some minds.
I am amazed that anyone can remain undecided at this point. I believe some voters have not made up their minds; I [...]

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Green space, white space

I was raised in the country. Real country. My folks owned 50 acres of woodland in the middle of several thousand acres of woodland in a part of the state that was mostly trees and big rocks.
Imagine Gettysburg, with nothing but a few scattered houses between Gettysburg and, say, Arendtsville. Then make believe I lived [...]

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Here we go again

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in south central Pennsylvania. Hummingbirds visit the feeder hanging from the pergola over the back deck. Grass will need mowing in a couple of days, grown up from recent rain — but not today. Tomorrow, we will head out to a Jimmy Buffett concert, maybe stop at a winery or [...]

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Where are the buses?

Another set of traffic lights are about to be installed at Hanover and Sixth streets, on the eastern edge of Gettysburg.
New traffic signals also are planned for Carlisle Street and West Middle Street.
Rural is a state of mind difficult to maintain when you’re sitting at traffic light after traffic light, burning gasoline that could easily [...]

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Connections in the rubble of a collapsed building

A piece of Gettysburg history collapsed to the ground last week, only a few days ahead of the bulldozer’s blade. It had been a factory, and a major employer in its area. A big brick building at the side of the main highway through Gettysburg.
Ohio.
The factory, built in the 1920s, was slated to be torn [...]

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Bring water, and they will drink

Soon, it appears, the Susquehanna River will have a branch running down Route 30. There’s water in that-there creek, and there’s folks arriving in Straban and several townships west of Gettysburg who are going to be mighty thirsty.
More than 80 percent of the water Adams Countians drink comes out of the ground. The problem is, [...]

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Obesity and bulldozed apple trees

I have a picture in my collection of a map depicting the layout of the housing development in which the map is posted. It’s one of those maps one can drive up to and, from the comfort of the family chariot, see the geometric patterns in which the streets are laid out, sweeping curves among [...]

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Times they are a-changin’

I marked my 60th birthday this week, which caused me to think of some significant changes of the past half dozen decades.
When I was 15, I had lots of woods in which to run around. I regularly rode a bicycle over most of the county in which I was raised. I thought that was pretty [...]

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How many barns remain?

I took a trip last week. I drove the first 180 miles — 150 of them along the Pennsylvania Turnpike — in about six and-a-half hours.
The problem was not traffic. In fact, there was no problem at all. I’ve started a photographic collection of Mail Pouch barns and roadside farms, so it was drive a [...]

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