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Wednesday

An office-kind-of-day

I have been working, today, on 23 pages of syllabi. That will cover two classes. Most of it makes sense, but I’ll revisit it on Friday and look for any errors or obvious landmines. That was the biggest part of the day, trying to make sense of schedules that will drive things through mid-December.

No big deal.

Also, I brought in some peaches. Just one basket worth today. We have about three baskets to do something with, plus an abundance of fruit still on the tree. It’s an incredibly bountiful crop.

Speaking of, I had to upgrade the bowl I’ve been using to harvest tomatoes, because the smaller bowl was obviously not up to the task today.

The only thing better than a peach still-warm from the sun might be a tomato you just twisted from the vine. Just sitting here, writing about it, I am counting the steps from my desk to the kitchen counter. Should I go back for more, at this late hour?

These are the questions of my day, and also “Is this too many reading assignments?”

This is the third installment in my tracking down the local historical markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a database with 115 markers in the county, so we’ll be at this for a good while.

You can find them all under the blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?

Here’s the local high school, which has a fine infographic-style marker out front. Their graduating class of 2012, who are all ancient now, sponsored the display, which was presented by the local historic commission. And there’s a lot of information because of it.

In May of 1922, President Warren Harding was passing through the area, on his way to Atlantic City. He stopped off briefly at the school and spoke briefly. The road that passes in front of the school had been named the Harding Highway, and part of the road was even paved. Big doings in 1922.

The school was still new at the time, having just opened in 1916. (The earliest local school house was nearby, and built in 1750.) A few years ago they opened a 1915 time capsule.

Inside the capsule included names of teachers and pupils in the school district; lead pencils; names of mayor and members of borough council; and a 1915 and 1905 Woodstown National Bank Almanac, to name a few.

No one told Harding about that in ’22. Seven years later it wasn’t forgotten, but it wasn’t top-of-mind.

Harding had a big May that year. There was a fire in the Treasury Building, he got the Soldier’s Bonus Bill — and vetoed it. He took that trip to Atlantic City, where he vacationed and spoke to the Women’s Club. He waded in on coal field prices, sat down with Big Steel over the matter of 12-hour workdays and haggled with the rail bosses. He also signed an important narcotics bill into law. At the end of the month he dedicated the Lincoln Memorial. May 1922.

His August 1923 wasn’t as good. He died, in office, 100 years ago this month.

I wonder how many schools there are in America that had that one visit by a president, and the story got passed down until it didn’t matter anymore. Harding probably barely shows up in the modern curriculum, right? Teapot Dome Scandal, his early death and, lately, his illegitimate daughter. Two of those might not even figure in to a high school class. It was a century ago and he was only in office for two-and-a-half years, after all. But, still.

Anyway, the school expanded in the 1930s, more floor space and a gymnasium. By the late-1950s the elementary school kids and the middle schoolers were in new, separate buildings. Another gym was built in the 1980s, the old one was turned into a library and additional classrooms. The last major renovations took place just a few years ago.

All of this modernity replaced eight one-room schoolhouses around the area. One of them still stands, as a period schoolhouse museum.

Here’s the next marker, which is also in front of the modern high school.

This bell, then, would have been in a school building that came to life in 1852, the second public school in the community. The first high school class graduated from there in 1885.

You wonder what other happy and sad news that belt might have rang about in its day. Maybe a few of the current students are interested in that bell. If their families have been here a long time, and they did the math, some student this year might realize that perhaps one of their a great-great-great-grandparents heard that bell.

You wonder what it sounded like.

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9
Aug 23

Is August too soon for ghost stories?

One of my former students, I learned yesterday, is beginning her new job as a reporter in Savannah. Great city, of course. The Yankee and I were married there. We visit often. And I’m excited for my young journalist friend. It should be a great market for her to start polishing her skills.

The day before yesterday I learned another former student has just begun a job reporting at NBC in Chicago. Her third stop in the business is number three in the Nielsen rankings. Only New York and Los Angeles are bigger markets, of course. In the media, the dues paying a young employee does sometimes means starting in smaller newsrooms, or in smaller markets, or both. Over time the successful worker bee moves up the ladder. Courtney, who is now in Chicago, started in market 138, moved to 35 and is now in market number three. To make it that high, that early in her career is a testament ~~to my innate ability~~ to her incredible talent and superior networking skills. Success stories are successful for a reason, and I’m always so proud to see my friends continue their success.

I keep a map of where my former students are. They’ve spread out across the country, of course. But I know, from my map, that four of them are working in Chicago. A few are working abroad. The problem is that I’ve been doing this long enough that inevitability some people fall off my radar. I only catch so much on LinkedIn. (I updated four of those map locations last night, for example.) So please keep me updated with your success stories, my friends.

Someone I met 15 years ago in my first year on campus went out into the world, and then law school, and is now teaching classes at a law school. That’s the one that aged me.

Today’s errands put a few new lines on my face too, I’m sure of it. I took the garbage to the garbage taking place, because, again, no one picks up garbage in this neighborhood. Despite two companies which pick up garbage in the neighborhood. I have witnessed it and taken photographic proof. Monday, a truck stopped at the house across the street. A gentleman stepped off and grabbed our neighbors’ discarded materials and drove off to … wherever garbage trucks go when they’re through on your street.

We had a little chat with our neighbor yesterday. A wonderfully pleasant and cheerful man. The sort that knows everyone, and talks about them like they’re all old friends, and you are too. I should have asked him about the garbage truck. Probably he owned the company, or the person that does owes him some not insubstantial favor.

Anyway, in and out at the convenience center, as it is locally called. And, except for the location, it is convenient. Of course, if that isn’t too convenient, or at least upwind, that’s OK, too.

From there I went to the Tractor Supply to inquire about peach baskets. They have no tractors, a thin selection of supplies, and no peach baskets. The woman I spoke with there suggested I go to the Coal and Ice, which is a local hardware store that has kept it’s name, if not it’s original products. The Coal and Ice does not carry peach baskets. (I wonder if I can make a gag of renaming that store everything they don’t have. This would be unfair, it’s a small store. And it would become a long gag pretty quickly. For example, so far it would be the Coal and Ice, and Digital Deadbolt, Sliding Glass Door Lock and Peach Basket. They do carry, however, weather stripping for basement doors. I have to be fair about this inventory gag I won’t pursue.)

A nice lady at the Coal and Ice suggested a farm market. Produce stands on the side of the road. That was, actually, my next option. They’re ubiquitous, and that’s lovely. But most of them are all stocked and sold on an honor system, which is charming. I needed to talk with someone, but no dice.

So I set out for a distant grocery store to buy Milo’s. They did not have Milo’s. So I visited a sister store to try my luck again. I think maybe the delivery guy has been under the weather or something, because I went oh-for-two. I need that driver to get back on the road, quickly.

My next stop was a Lowe’s, but on the way there I ran across a place called Bloomer’s Garden Center. A big, sprawling, someone-has-to-water-all-of-these-plants-daily place. A place with a water garden wing, and another bird sanctuary wing. Everything smelled of rich nitrogen soil. These people are in the business of selling things to people who want to grow things. The woman there had no idea about peach baskets. I think they must appear from the very air.

So I went to Lowe’s. I looked there for peach baskets. No luck, of course, because that’s a pretty small, and obviously obscure, item for a box store. I did get two garbage cans, because see above, and a spool of weed eater string. You could purchase this in spools of one or three. I had the three-spool pack in my hand, considered my traditional weed eater habits and opted for the smaller, less expensive version. Rolled my two garbage cans to the self-checkout, and then out to the car.

Next to the Lowe’s there was a Dollar Tree. I walked in there. No peach baskets. But I did find small plastic baskets that are about the proper size, have a big breathable basket type pattern and a convenient handle. I got six of them. Paid eight bucks, which is probably close to how much gas I’ve spent on that search today.

Picked up some Chick-fil-A for a very late lunch and then drove it the 20-some minutes back to the house. Whereupon I learned that one of the two garbage cans I picked up … doesn’t have a lid.

So I’ll go back there tomorrow.

We went on a bike ride early this evening and it was obvious almost right away that I had no legs. My lovely bride waited on me twice, but finally I waved her on. No need for her to slow down if I can’t speed up. This is a training ride for her, anyway.

I just turned mine into a scenic experience. Here’s today’s barn by bike.

The last four miles on this route are uphill, which is to say, have a gentle, gradual slow ascent. There’s nothing bigger than a roller, but you gain the same 70 feet a few times over and over. Also, I was developing a soft rear wheel. I titled the ride “Slow leak, Slower legs.”

Tomorrow’s ride will be a bit better. But I have to allow for a few minutes to swap out that tube. Some first world problems feel insulting even to the concept of the first world problems meme.

For dinner, we took some of these tomatoes from the backyard …

And some of these peaches from the front yard …

And mixed them with some things we purchased at a nearby grocery store to make a tasty little peach salsa.

It complimented everything nicely, but the cilantro and the onion muted the peaches just a bit. Anyway, we’ll have plenty more opportunities to try this concept. We might also soon be eating peaches as an entree. I mean, aside from breakfast and midday snacks.

And I have those baskets now, so we’re now important produce power players, locally speaking.

I have started tracking down the local historical markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a site that lists 115 markers in this county, so there’s a ton of easy content!

This is the second installment. You can find them all under this brand new blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?

This is a place called Seven Stars. Built in 1762 by a man named Peter Lauterbach, it is architecturally significant, and there are important bits of social and military history inside those brick walls as well. The side features Flemish patterned brickwork, which was once a common thing here, and will come up again in a later post. In this case, the pattern carries the initials “P-L-E” for Peter and Elizabeth Lauterbach.

Their son John Louderback changed his name and lived in the tavern during the Revolutionary War. The British came through and raided the tavern, looking for him. He had a price on his head because he was thought to be giving food to the Americans. Louderback and his family hid in the woods. And, a few years later, he marched with a unit out of Pennsylvania. Earlier he’d served under Casimir Pulaski.

Peter, the father, died in 1780. John lived to see the country independent, and died in 1802. His mother lived until at least 1806, which is where historians find her name on a church roll. She also voted in 1800, presumably because of the property she held, inherited from her husband or otherwise. During that period, depending on where you were, it is estimated that between seven and 25 percent of the tallied votes were cast by women. (A state law that was billed as progressive at the time disenfranchised women and Blacks in 1807.)

Seven Stars has a lot of ghost stories attached to it, as well. In the early 20th century, the residents claimed seeing figures on horseback riding up to the tavern window, that small one to the left of the door, which was where people got their orders. Someone is said to have seen a ghostly figure checking on a baby. Supposedly Peter roams the ground looking for valuables he buried during the Revolution. Another spirit is said to be a spy for the British who found his end at the end of a rope in the attic. A Halloween-type site says loud footsteps and scuffle sounds can sometimes be heard in the attic. A pirate is thought to be a frequent haunter, as well. Be as skeptical as you like, but someone also needs to go camp out and see if the ghostly ghosts and their ghostly horses trot up to the tavern window.

It is now a private residence.

In the center of town you’ll find this wonderful bit of signage. There’s a lot going on there, because, for a small town, a lot has gone on there.

I’m sure we’ll pick up on some of those themes again in future installments. For now, here’s the door to that bank, which is still standing, sturdy and beautiful as ever.

Some day, I’ll go back and photograph the whole of the building. When I was there for this, it was small-town rush hour, and people have to get where people want to go.

(Update: A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to improve on the shot. Here’s the First National Bank.)

Which is what you should do, right now. Go to the next place. But come back here tomorrow. There’s going to be a lot more fun to discuss here tomorrow.

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2
Aug 23

A new Wednesday feature? A new Wednesday feature

Out bright and early this morning running errands. I got stuck in traffic, but I did not get lost a single time. It’s still a little unsettling to not know where you’re going most of the time, but that will pass with time and driving around.

There are two creature-of-habit things I’m dealing with driving around here. Going into the city, requires a mental adjustment. Fortunately, high-speed highway driving is as second nature a feeling as I can have in a car. Growing up around amateur hour at Talladega will do that for you. But the ebbs and flows, the changing of lanes and the many distracted drivers, it reminds you to take a deep breath and re-grip. The other thing are the intersections around us. Owing, I am sure, to historical property lines and what not, there are a great many intersections that don’t meet at neat right angles. It just requires a weird craning of the neck, is all. And, like any new input, it is new.

But, errands safely run. All things achieved. The maps app was 100 percent successful. I didn’t even break a sweat, owing to the milder, seasonally appropriate temperatures.

I forgot to share these photos yesterday, just glimpses of the season. We have some tomato vines out back. And these are delicious.

In fact, I’m behind on eating tomatoes. Hang on one sec.

…

OK, five small, delicious, tomatoes eaten as a late night snack. I’ll have more to pull out of the miniature garden tomorrow, I’m sure. (And they are so, so, good.)

We have a wonderful array of black-eyed Susans.

And this hydrangea, I decided this afternoon, just looks more impressively beautiful by the day.

How hydrangeas didn’t get some mystic lore attached to them is an enduring mystery. This one is tall and fairly glows.

Less beautiful, in a traditional sense, but no less attractive for it, is this water tower I found today. The way this was situated, I think it might have been in service to a private business rather than a community. And, as water towers go, it is fairly small one. It is in the of a small, closed down ice cream facility.

I saw a store, just yesterday, advertising this ice cream brand. Having put these things together, I might stay away from that altogether. I would not want any water that comes from that tower today, but I hope it stands there blazed in deep rich tones of rust, for a long time.

Anyway, I saw that water tower after a left turn on today’s bike ride. I rode 36 miles this afternoon, because my mileage needs to make some big jumps. But the weather was good, the roads were generally in great condition and I saw only two regrettable drivers, despite finding myself on two different busy roads.

Mostly, it was just beautiful agricultural countryside.

I also found myself on a lot of empty roads. On quite a few, in fact, I didn’t encounter any cars at all. Like this one. There’s marsh to the left, a canal on the right, and the river a little farther off. And for the entire seven minutes I was on this road, I was entirely alone.

Later, I found myself on a sleepy road that was covered by a dense tree canopy. That particular bit of road was riddled with potholes. It was just warm enough, and the katydids were singing their late afternoon chorus and some boggy water somewhere nearby was giving off just a hint of a fragrance. It felt almost like being in some of my favorite places back home.

There was another point to today’s ride. I figure I may as well start tracking down the markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a site that lists 115 markers in this county, so we will likely be at this for a while. Easy content!

The last two times I did this, I used a separate microsite. It was extra work and never drew a lot of traffic, so I’ll just put them here. And we’ll use a slightly different premise. Previously, it was just the photos. But, as I find interesting information that compliments the markers, I’ll add them here.

So, let’s look at the first two, and perhaps we’ll learn something interesting as we do.

There’s nothing in this patch of grass, nestled in a fork in the road, except this marker and a flagpole that, today, was flying no flag.

I haven’t found a lot, on my first pass, about how many local boys joined the AEF for the Great War, but I did just learn that the home front was mightily changed during that era.

Industry boomed at the DuPont Powder Works once World War I broke out, and Salem County changed forever. DuPont opened the Powder Works at Carneys Point just south of Penns Grove in 1893 to create smokeless gunpowder for the Spanish-American War, but World War I dramatically increased the need for munitions. Workers from around the United States, as well as immigrants from Italy, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Germany, and other countries, flooded into Carneys Point, Penns Grove, and Pennsville to work at DuPont. Between 1910 and 1920, Salem County’s population increased by about ten thousand, compared to a typical increase of one thousand in prior decades. Carneys Point’s population jumped from 744 to 6,259, while neighboring Penns Grove’s population increased from 2,118 to 6,060. During World War I, the plant employed a high of over twenty thousand people. To accommodate the influx of workers, DuPont built temporary housing, barracks, and bungalows, and even put up tents to house the workers. With dramatic increases of students, Penns Grove and Carneys Point expanded and built new schools.

In 1917, DuPont started the Dye Works (renamed Chambers Works in 1945) at Deepwater in Pennsville Township, initially focusing on creating dyes, an industry previously dominated by war-torn Germany. The Chambers Works became a worldwide leader in organic chemicals by discovering and creating materials such as Teflon, nylon, and Freon. DuPont remained a major employer for the rest of the century, with high wages that continued to draw both locals and new residents to Salem County.

I found a museum site that listed 19 men who served in the Army Air Corps in World War II. Perhaps there were more. Surely the other services had local boys amidst their ranks, too. And, owing to the proximity of the coast, and the river, I’m sure I’ll eventually run across some home front defense force mentions, as well.

On the other end of the same road, there was this marker.

In the background, the local high school. This marker is on the high school’s front lawn. I imagine that’s both boring and horrifying to the kids going to school there, if they ever notice it at all. But, perhaps it is also an appropriate place for such a marker.

There’s at least one other Vietnam memorial nearby (at a middle school, which … ) and from that I gather that 11 local soldiers were killed in that country. There’s a Facebook group for that particular display, and someone has uploaded photos of some of those men. But they’re boys. Even in fatigues they look young.

As we go along, and as we discover markers devoted to more specific people and places, our details here will no doubt improve. Possibly as early as next Wednesday! I have already mapped a route for the next dozen or so markers. At this rate I can wrap them all up by sometime in 2025. Unless something else historic happens around here.

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26
Jul 23

Ray Stevens was an overdue mention anyway

We started this morning with a bike ride. OK, I started this morning with a PB&J, and then we went on a bike ride. The first 10 miles felt great, just following my lovely bride, jumping ahead on the little hills because I can, but sitting up and waiting for a second or two for the red flash to come through.

The corn is nice and tall. The sun is high. The roads are quiet. Everything is going great.

Somewhere around mile 13 my legs reminded me that they have been underused of late, and they stopped pedaling well in protest. It was squares from there on in, and I have to ride more, I know it, and my legs do, too. But the views were lovely.

And even though my ride was feeling clunky, I did remember to take a photo of this sign which surely means … something.

I think it’s recounting the local legend of the bird that celebrated the building as a deity, and brought it fish sacrifices, in the hopes that the building would give plentiful thermals in return. Silly bird.

Around mile 18 my legs rallied, if only for a moment, and then they stopped being productive at all. There was no more hanging on the wheel. No more catching up, not even on the gentle rollers. I was merely dropped. I managed to set four PRs on Strava. She set PRs on five Strava segments.

After that, The Yankee went for a run.

I sat in the shade.

Today was, I think, the first day I didn’t do anything involved with house settling. That’s about the tasks, not the mentality. That may take a while, I guess. But I did make a list of things to do tomorrow. And a long term list of things we might want to do, one day. Also, I did some paperwork for work, but there’s not really a good tale emerging from paperwork. Not one like this …

Late this afternoon we took some garbage to the garbage taking place.

The waste people decided they don’t manage service in this neighborhood anymore, despite having just closed a contract with the previous owners. And despite evidence — actual garbage cans that will go out tomorrow — of all of our nice neighbors receiving said service. We called this company twice on different days and times, just to see if that was a fluke, but it was not. Not sure what’s going on with that company, but I invoked Smith’s First Rule of Economics.

Don’t make it hard for me to spend my money with you.

So I found another company. Feeling very proud of myself, I shared this information. I didn’t know what the relative rates were, but it turns out this contract will save us a few bucks. They’ll start pickup next week, and deliver one of those giant cans later this week, supposedly. Which meant we took a few bags and some recycling to the transfer station today.

Transfer station being a term that sounds better, but isn’t necessarily an improvement in the olfactory region.

Being a warm summer day, we enjoyed our evening outdoors, and then had a fine steak dinner. It was a wonderful day, thanks for asking. I also introduced my lovely bride to Ray Stevens today. It was a topic that just evolved from a regular conversation. To my great relief, she found him funny, too.

I don’t know what comedy track we’ll get into, but tomorrow could be even better!

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19
Jul 23

Another installment of the Last Summer on Earth tour

Somehow the day passed quickly. It doesn’t seem like I got a lot down, and, on a Wednesday in July, that’s as it should be. I did get some things vacuumed. Moved a few more boxes and straightened up that sort of thing. Stuff that needed to be done, some which was past due, but nothing big, and nothing which should have filled the day, but there I was, 4 p.m., getting ready to call it a day.

Why, you ask? Because it was a Wednesday in July, that’s why. And also because we had tickets to see a show in Philadelphia.

So we had an early dinner at a place called Marathon and then walked over to The Metropolitan Opera House.

We did not watch an opera. But we did hear an operatic song.

I think it was 2000 when I last saw John Ondrasik. It was at Five Points. Was he opening for Guster? Edwin McCain? Train? Probably someone else. This was right about the time Five for Fighting was getting a lot of airplay off that second record and I saw a lot of bands in those days. Anyway, that was a great venue. They existed at a time when the local Birmingham radio play was helping set the tone, and the people that book shows put those things together and you could see all manner of up-and-coming acts and an eclectic mix of true artists with their share of road miles in there. Five Points South Music Hall existed from 1994 to 2003. Then it became a night club, and then the shooting happened. That joint had been around for five years by then, but late on July night a fight turned deadly. Two killed, two wounded and the neighbors and the city had enough. That club folded. But the next year, 2009, it opened as Five Points Music Hall again. New owners. It last for less than a year. No one seemed to figure out why they shut it down. It got torn down in 2015. (I was in town, but not in town.) A hotel is in that spot these days.

Someone is probably singing Bohemian Rhapsody in there right now, but I bet they’re doing it un-ironically.

Anyway, tonight’s headliner was Barenaked Ladies. And it was a singalong kind of night.

And Kevin Heard serenaded us. This is, I guess, the fourth time I’ve heard this live. They’ve been using that multimedia show for the song for several years. They should keep it up. It works and the synch is pretty great.

I’ve got nine or 10 of those to consider doling out over the coming days. It was, as ever, a fine, fun show from BNL.