The Morgantowner: Bradford County, Pennsylvania

This, once again, seemed like a bad time to go on a trip. I try to be home for shabbat with Joe, Rosh Hashana is Sunday night, I'm chanting Torah on Yom Kippur and need to prepare, and I'm teaching a class about The Beach Boys starting the day after that. And it was supposed to rain Thursday and Saturday, my two travel days.

So it did rain Thursday, and it is supposed to rain again Saturday, tomorrow, when I drive back. Today, however, the weather was drop dead beautiful, and I was out from 8:45 this morning until eight tonight, with breaks for lunch and dinner, and an hour return to my room for my trademark nap late in the afternoon.

What I like about Pennsylvania is how you always know where you are. Bradford County has thirty-seven Townships, fourteen Boroughs (towns) and countless Villages, all named and marked. The largest waterway is the Susquehanna River, the estuary of which, as I learned in Maryland history in sixth grade, is Chesapeake Bay. But up here, in Northern Pennsylvania on the New York border, it's just a stream.

I set out today to see all of the Boroughs and all thirteen National Register of Historic Places listings, in the county. I got to ten of the fourteen Boroughs, and found eleven of the historic places.

Although Bradford County is in the far north, it is as Appalachian as anywhere in West Virginia. The region is called Endless Mountains. The mountains are bigger than those in most of West Virginia. The County Courthouse has statues of Union soldiers who fought "The War of Rebellion" but I still saw Confederate and "Don't Tread On Me" Flags.The population here is overwhelmingly European-American. There is mining, for stone, not coal, drilling for gas, cornfields (most with signs bragging that the corn has been genetically engineered). DuPont has a factory in Towanda, the county seat. There is nothing to indicate what DuPont does at this facility.

South Waverly, Sayre and Athens are three boroughs next to each other creating the most urbanized part of the county just south of New York State. The town of Waverly, an easy walk from South Waverly, is in New York. Signs on the streets say "Aggressive Driver Alert." I was almost hit while driving in Sayre by a big woman in a pickup with New York plates, driving much too fast while talking on her phone. Maybe that is what they meant by the signs. Towanda is in the center of the county, on the west side of the Susquehanna. The other boroughs are spread out at the eastern, western and southern edges of the county.

Usually I eat at family-run Chinese restaurants, but I saw not one Asian person and no Asian restaurants of any stripe. Other than fast food, there is pizza, and Dandy's, a gas station/convenience store/ sandwich place like Sheetz, but with corporate headquarters in Athens. I only saw two supermarkets, an IGA by my motel just outside of Towanda, and a Tops in Troy. There is a J.C. Penney store in Bradford Town Center, across the Susquehanna from Towanda.

Stiil, with bright sunshine today and temperatures in the mid-seventies, it was great to be out exploring. Almost nothing looks like it was built in the last fifty years, which makes it look authentic, and the leaves on the trees are just beginning to turn color. Some are still all green.

I was glad to have the energy to run around all day (two hundred miles of driving) and eat pizza and spaghetti, after a waffle in the motel with a banana and yogurt, purchased at IGA last night, for breakfast. I'll be home tomorrow afternoon. One can get from Towanda to Morgantown in less than three hundred miles, but it takes an hour longer than the more distant ways. It's fun to take back roads. It's more fun to have rest stops and familiar chain restaurants.

I have forty-eight pics. I'll post many fewer than that.