The Morgantowner

Saturday, December 15, 2018

Clinton County, Ohio

I know. I was in Ohio last month, in Clermont County just southwest of Clinton County. Both counties are considered metropolitan Cincinnati, but in the case of Clinton, it's far from the city and more small town than suburban. The big city (population 12, 500) is Wilmington.

For me, 2018 is over, and yet, there are dozens of meetings and political events this week. The Morgantown Council is meeting all day Sunday to discuss priorities for next year, and Tuesday we will meet with local state legislators to talk about our priorities. I said "No!" to all the Wednesday and Thursday meetings, and with no precipitation and slightly warmer weather predicted, I took off in our newer car, our 2015 Honda, for my next alphabetical county.

Wilmington is west of Morgantown, about 260 miles. There is a scenic route US 50 from Clarksburg, then Ohio 28 west and a fast route, on the Interstates by way of Columbus I drove in on the scenic route and back on the fast route. The scenic route, through small towns and farmland, was interesting, but the Interstate saved an hour and a half in time. Wilmington is slightly south of us as well as west, but weather.com reports that Wilmington's high temperature for December 13 is, on average, three degrees cooler than Morgantown's.

The Regular Hotel Chain, where I earned Platinum status for next year, does not have an outlet in Clinton County. I found a 1928 hotel called the General Denver, in the middle of town, with parking, breakfast and internet at a reasonable price. I took that.The first floor has a restaurant that was mobbed when I came in. People were still waiting for tables when I came back at 8 P.M., after I walked to a chain coffee shop about a mile away for dinner.

I had looked over the National Register of Historic Places for Clinton County. There were eighteen, but two were no longer extant and several were Adena period (possibly very early in the common era) burial mounds, which are hard to find unless they are marked. I picked five places to see in Wilmington, including the original building on the campus of Wilmington College, a Quaker institution going back to the nineteenth century, and five in the countryside and other towns.

There are ten incorporated places in the County, including Wilmington, and I thought I would check out all of them. One is supposedly partly in Clinton County, but I only found the part that wasn't; another is in the next county south, but a piece of it is in Clinton. Wednesday weather ran from 36 to 46, warmer than usual. Much of the day was dark, but the sun broke through for a bit, which I appreciated.

I saw everything I intended to see between 9:40 and 5:05 P.M. Thursday. I had lunch at that chain sub place in one of the small towns and dinner at a different chain coffee shop in Wilmington. Wednesday, I stopped for lunch at Union St. Diner in Athens, along the scenic route; Friday, I had a slice of pizza and a salad at a place inside Ohio Valley Mall, across the river from Wheeling, off Interstate 70, on the way home.

Many people in Wilmington are scruffy: overweight, smoking, tattoos. I looked pretty scruffy myself, in a flannel shirts and jeans. The people eating at the hotel, however, were dressed up, coiffed and clean. It seemed like a Reagan Republican kind of crowd to me. The women who worked at the hotel, Brynne, Tristin and Jackie, chatted me up, and walking around, people all said "Hi" even though they don't know me. Seventy-three per cent of the voters in this county voted for the current President in 2016, so I was worried. I saw a few anti-abortion signs and some saying "I support religious freedom" (meaning "I hate gays") and someone still had a 2016 Trump campaign sign up, but that is the ugliest it got. One of the waitresses at the restaurant Thursday (not my waitress) a pretty blonde with lots of tattoos, told me she had moved to Wilmington from Columbus after a divorce. She said that people from big cities can adjust to living in small towns, but small town people panic at the thought of living in a big city. I guess that's true, although it helped me that we were in Crescent City for more than two years before moving to Morgantown. Coming directly from Los Angeles to Morgantown would have been harder.

Most of Clinton County is farmland, apparently corn, already harvested with big grain silos scattered throughout the countryside. Although the county wasn't settled by European-Americans until around 1810, there were many beautiful brick farmhouses that looked to be from an earlier era, perhaps styles borrowed from an earlier era in Virginia or Pennsylvania. Many of the small towns had public libraries, which shows there is some interest in education, and for me, a convenient public bathroom.

I walked Thursday morning from 9:20 to 11 to all five historic sites in Wilmington, then took off, heading from the northwest part of Clinton County, to the north, the northeast, east, south and southwest areas, before heading back to the hotel by way of Cowan Lake State Park. In addition to Wilmington, I visited Harveysburg, Port William, Sabina (sab-eye-na), New Vienna, Lynchburg, Martinsville, Blanchester and Clarksville. Most of them are rust-belt decaying towns. Blanchester, to the southwest and the closest to Cincinnati, seemed to be the largest and most happening, with a Kroger just outside town, a smaller grocery store in the middle of town, and a cinema, only open on weekends. The booming commercial area in Wilmington is at the east end of town off US 22 (the old way to Wheeling and Pittsburgh). Interstate 71 is now the "Three C" highway from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati. I drove that on the way home to Columbus to I-70 to Washington, PA, then home via I-79.

Wilmington is 34 miles southeast of Dayton, 52 miles northwest of Cincinnati and 62 miles southwest of Columbus. The radio stations came from Dayton mostly; cable television was from Cincinnati.

Here are the pics. Once again, my Galaxy 7 Android phone inexplicably erased some of my pictures.

Wednesday night at the Clinton County Court House. Separation of Church and State?

The General Denver Hotel, in the heart of Wilmington, where I stayed

Main Street, Wilmington, well kept up. The apartments on the upper floors looked like they might be expensive

Clinton County Courthouse, South Street (U.S. 68), Wilmington

South South Street Historic District

South South Street

grain elevators near downtown Wilmington

Doan House, originally 1840, remodeled after 1869

College Hall, Wilmington College, mid-19th century

Rombach Place, Wilmington, 1831, now a museum

Mural in downtown Wilmington

Bank building, downtown Wilmington

Beam and Sons Grannery, Port William

Port William, north of Wilmington

Commercial block, New Vienna, east of Wilmington

Lynchburg Covered Bridge, 1870 over the east fork of Little Miami River. The other side of the bridge is in Highland County

Downtown Blanchester, southwest of Wilmington

Pansy Methodist Church and School, near Martinsville, southwest of Wilmington

Lake Cowan State Park, near Martinsville

Martinsville Road covered bridge, 1871

Underwood Farm rural Historic District, Union Township, west of Wilmington

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Sixty-Nine and Six Weeks

It's been a strange week. Joe and I were in Memphis Wednesday to Sunday over Thanksgiving with his family. I wasn't feeling all that great, but I had no fever when we left Morgantown, so I figured it was no big deal. We flew via Pittsburgh and Atlanta. It's an eighty-five mile drive from our house to Pittsburgh airport. The weather was cold but clear, and traffic along that route is manageable. The plane rides were excruciating because my ears felt clogged, and all four landings were painful. I've been to Memphis many times with Joe, and I enjoy his family. We don't have political arguments with the relatives; all of us are on the same page.

I broke lots of rules in Memphis. I ate fried chicken, pie, pizza and ice cream. I shopped in the outlet mall in Mississippi, just outside Memphis. I try to avoid Mississippi. And it was Saturday, when I don't shop. I bought things at stores I don't like for political reasons. I like all the clothes I bought.

It was my intent to go to the gym Monday, the day after we got home, but instead I detoured to the walk-in clinic nearby. The doctor there said I had an ear infection common to children and prescribed an antibiotic. He said I would feel a lot better by Tuesday, but should take the rest of the day off. I did that, only I never felt really better. Maybe a little.

I'm on Morgantown's City Council, and we met at five Tuesday to interview applicants for city boards and commissions. It was cold out and had snowed overnight. The regular meeting started at seven, with several presentations, including one from our Municipal Utility Board, the water and sewer people, unhappy about a proposal to change things at the agency. I tuned out some of the discussion. We could have thrown out the proposal right then, but it was tabled. At eleven. Then we had speakers from the public. We left at 11:30. I was not feeling well, and it had snowed again. I went to bed as soon as I got home and stayed in all day Wednesday.

The weather was better Thursday and I ran a few errands out of the house. I had my last lesson with an ADD coach. I like him, and he helped me, but his solutions to organizational problems are complex and I need everything to be as simple as possible. My default mode is closer to catatonic than hyperactive, and complexity, especially involving apps, confuses me. Still, he made me see how to list things that must get done, and set a time to stop doing the off-the-wall stuff that I find really interesting, in my case involving lists of cities, or pop music albums.

Joe had asked me to come with him Friday to a funeral for an elderly gentleman, an old-fashioned haberdasher by trade, who had passed away at ninety-three in a nursing home. We hadn't seen the sun in a few days, and it was chilly and damp out. I felt I knew the man after I heard Joe's eulogy. A son-in-law also spoke about how the deceased man had years ago found him a suit in another store that was just right for him. He wore that suit to the funeral. I had noticed that it was a nice suit, somewhat out of style but not horribly so. We went to lunch with the family at a tattooed granddaughter's house, which took us about an hour to find. We got home late afternoon and still had services that night at our temple.

I again stayed in bed most of Saturday, feeling weak more than anything, still with no fever. I walked for a half hour in a cool drizzle. I'm always afraid to not exercise. My heart is weak, and I fear it will stop if I don't use it. Joe and I went out at five to a memorial for Jarred Parrot, who was involved politically in town, running a successful campaign for an outsider candidate for the state legislature. Jarred was hospitalized just before Election Day and diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, at thirty-seven. He died the Monday before Thanksgiving. I knew him, and would have attended the funeral, but it was Friday, when we were in Memphis. This was an informal gathering of friends at a restaurant. People were invited to speak about Jarred, but few did. I don't think most people knew him well. He stayed in the political background. I didn't get a chance to greet everyone, although I know most of them. We left to dine at another restaurant, and were home early.

I ate too much (again) at dinner. Joe left half his enormous meal. I had to eat all of mine. The weather had warmed up some, and our cat, Tappuz, wanted to go out. We couldn't convince her to come in when we went to bed. I got up to go the bathroom at three, and by then she was waiting at the door. I brought her to our bedroom and hoped she would sleep with us, but she was awake, and wanted to play. Eventually, she jumped off the bed. I couldn't get back to sleep. Although it was cool in the room, I was sweating, probably dehydrated and overstuffed, awake because I drank iced tea at eight at the restaurant.

Saturday was also World AIDS Day, and we learned of the death of George H.W. Bush, the former president. Some praised him as a President who knew what he was doing and was faithful to his wife. Obama was all that, too, but of course, he's still alive and he's, well, Black. The counter narrative was that Bush deliberately ignored the AIDS crisis, refused to allocate money for research, and allowed anti-gay Evangelical Christians to take over much of the Republican Party.

My take-away from World AIDS Day is more personal. It's about my friends who perished: Scott Stamford, Rue Starr, Hal Wakker, Fred Shuldiner, Art Horowitz, Avram Chill, and David Fyffe. There were others who put me off when I suggested we date, hurting my feelings, until I found out a month or two later that they had died. I was in a performance art group in Santa Monica in the early 90s, and several young men in the group died. I was taken back to those times, and the heartlessness of the Republican Party, despite the kindly faces and the jokes, especially Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. I know of no one my age who is still alive and HIV+. Everyone I knew who was infected has died.

Today, Sunday December 2, was warm and sunny. I slept late after being up much of the night. I got to the grocery store, and walked in the warm sunshine. We had to be at temple early for the five P.M. Chanukah Party, so I didn't nap, like I usually do.

Today I am sixty-nine years and six weeks old. That is, to the day, the age my father was when he died. I've been obsessing about this for a long time. I have most of the same ailments my father had, particularly a damaged and failing heart. What's different for me is the advance of medical technology. When I had a heart attack in 2003, a surgeon inserted a camera into my veins and found the blockage that caused the heart attack, placing a spring in the clogged artery to reopen it. In 2015, the cardiologist I see here in Morgantown, unhappy with my swollen ankles and some poor test results, sent me to the hospital, where three more stents went in. My father didn't have that technology.

I can still walk up steps, ride a bike, dance, drive long distances, not without a certain degree of fatigue, but I think no more than average men my age. I can't delude myself into thinking I am anywhere other than the last stage of my life, however long that may be. Rabbi Joe, my spouse, who is seven years younger than I am, asks me where we should retire to in five or ten years. I'm being realistic, not morbid, when I suggest he may have to do that with his next husband.

The Chanukah party tonight was great. I felt energized and I won the 50-50 raffle. I ate a lot of forbidden (diet-wise) foods. It took my mind off my father, my friend Jarred, my friends who died from AIDS, George H.W. Bush, and my still somewhat clogged ears.

Time to move on to the rest of my life.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Clermont County, Ohio

With my class at Life-Long Learning over Thursday, meetings and yet another medical appointment this week, a bar mitzvah at our synagogue Saturday, and then Thanksgiving, I thought that if I were going exploring this month, it should be this weekend. There were a few problems. Our Suzuki wouldn't start Thursday morning, and we had someone come and jump start it. It works now, but it always sounds like it doesn't want to start, so we are worried. And there was a threat of snow and cold weather. Fool that I am, I booked my regular chain motel in Union Township, Clermont County. Morgantown to the county seat, Batavia, is 280 miles. Clermont County is just east of Cincinnati and runs from the suburbs south to the Ohio River and out into farmland and small towns.

It was pouring down rain most of the way, and when I got to Batavia around 4 P.M. (from 10 A.M.) it already looked dark out, although I had checked that sunset wasn't until 5:28. Although all of Ohio is in the Eastern time zone, much of the state is far enough west to be in Central. I looked around Batavia, then headed to the motel for a much-needed nap. I couldn't find the place. It's in Union Township, adjacent to Hamilton County (where Cincinnati is located) amidst a jumble of shops, a crazy interchange and three streets named "Eastgate." I finally figured it out, and a Russian-accented young woman checked me in.

I probably didn't sleep more than a few minutes. I ate at Bob Evans, a chain diner based in Ohio. I sat at the counter with a few chatty single men, and a waitress who called the men "honey." I liked her. The advantage of that place was that I only had to cross one street, then walk through a shopping center parking lot. I didn't see crosswalks or pedestrian signals anywhere.

I was back early to the room, where I plotted out where I would go Saturday. There are 28 places on the National Register, but many of them are Native American burial mounds, which, if not identified by a sign, are easy to miss. I had a brochure from the library with a map and the locations of ten branches. I figured visiting all of them would give me a view of the towns in the county, with the added bonus of a public bathroom in each one. From what I had seen near the motel, I figured the rural areas, far from Cincinnati, and especially along the Ohio River, would be more interesting than the malls and shopping centers in the more urban areas. As I went to sleep, the forecast was for cold, windy weather and snow.

It was 21 F. in the morning, but bright sunshine and no frost on the car window. My first stop was a nearby Kroger (based in Cincinnati, but with stores in Morgantown) for gas and a pair of gloves, the one thing I forgot to pack. I had mapped out the order for the libraries, and a few historic sites, plus a giant park with a reservoir used as a recreational lake. I was on the road early, but the idea that I could visit all these places in a day seemed far-fetched, especially with the car sounding like it didn't want to start.

I had looked for a synagogue in Clermont County, but apparently there never was one. Cincinnati is heavily Jewish, with the original headquarters of the Reform movement, plus many other synagogues. It also has a large African-American population. Clermont is the third county I've visited bordering Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located. I was in Butler County to the north in May 2016, and Campbell County, Kentucky, a short walk across the Ohio river from downtown in December of that year. Both counties are nearly all white, and aside from a small Conservative congregation in the city of Hamilton in Butler County, almost free of Jews. In Baltimore and Washington, Jews and African-Americans live in large numbers outside the two cities. I was also surprised that there are 1950s-style suburbs like where I grew up in Baltimore, but not much newer building. The small towns that are relatively close-in seem untouched in fifty years.

I ended up late afternoon in Miami Township, at the library, and in the nearby city of Milford, the county's largest, and although the signs say "Historic Milford" I noted lots of big-box stores and a cinema. I made it the Cincinnati Nature Preserve near Milford just after 4:30. It closed at five, and though I offered to pay the $6.00 fee to look around for twenty minutes until closing, the man in the kiosk said "No." By five, I was at the hotel, looking for a nap. The weather had remained sunny and pretty, the temperature had gone up to 36 F.

I thought I should hit the mall near the hotel, so I was there about 7 P.M. I got a plate of teriyaki with rice and vegetables, and got to explain, in Spanish, to the worker that I wanted less rice and more vegetables. Eastgate is a pretty mall, not doing well, like most of the malls I visit. Still, their Sears looks like it will stay open, They have Penney's and Kohl, and Dillard, although that closed early. Lots of people were out shopping in the evening. I was in the room by 8, and asleep early.

Sunday was warmer, and still sunny. I had a relatively easy drive home.

Clermont County is 95.9% white according to the 2010 census, and 67.5% of the voters went for Trump in 2016. It's not generally a wealthy county. I saw lots of dollar stores and pizza parlors. Usually I see fast food Asian restaurants, but not here. I had lunch at a pizza place in Williamsburg, a pretty little town. My eight-inch pizza with mushrooms was only $5, but I had to go the grocery up the street for a 50 cent can of "pop." I chatted up the proprietress who said she avoided the Eastgate area where I was staying because it was so confusing, and in a refrain I hear often from small-town and rural people, she said "I can't imagine living in a big city. It must be terrifying, " I had told her about Morgantown and I think she considered a city of 30,000, with an additional 30,000 students, to be a big city. Yet Williamburg is only 37 miles from Cincinnati, which must seem like another world. Still, there were Mexican workers at the mall, African-Americans working in the hotel, Russians at the front desk, and when I told the manager of the hotel that I was going to West Virginia, she said "Oh! The Golden Temple!" So she knew about the Hindu temple in Moundsville. I think she is from India, as many of the hotel managers are. I suggest that change is on the way. Maybe Cincinnati isn't growing as fast as other cities, and is less of a magnet than those places, but there is an internationalism that is bound to spread. More description follows with the pictures.

Older part of the Clermont County Courthouse, Batavia

Newer (but older looking) part of Clermont County Courthouse

A collection of ceramic bells displayed at the library in Batavia

Main St., Batavia

A collection of Western figures from the library in Amelia

Ross-Gowdy House, early 19th century, New Richmond

Along the Ohio River in New Richmond

Front Street along the river, New Richmond

Birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant

Williams House, Williamsburg

Bethel Methodist Church, after 1810, now used for community events, East Fork State Park

The lake, a reservoir, in East Fork State Park

Elk Lick Mound, a burial mound from the Adena people, from the first millennium of the common era. I felt a vibration from the mound, as if these ancient people still had a presence.

Stonelick Covered Bridge, Stonelick Township, 1878

Promont, near Milford, now a museum, 1865

The food court at Eastgate Mall, probably 1990s

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Tree of Life Pittsburgh

I am the spouse of the rabbi here in Morgantown, West Virginia, Joseph Hample, "Rabbi Joe." Our congregation is called "Tree of Life"; we are eighty miles south, an hour and a half drive, from Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. The news tonight is that eleven people were murdered by a man at this morning's service in Pittsburgh.

I was at a meeting today with City Councilors and other local officials and the three men on the Monongalia County Commission. I am on Morgantown's City Council. Rabbi Joe has Torah study every Saturday, which I don't attend. I got the news from one of the Commissioners about the shooting.I stepped out of my meeting and called Joe to tell him the news. I tried to concentrate on the meeting, but I was too freaked, and left early to be home with my husband.

This wasn't the first time I was upset about an event in another Jewish community. Last summer, Nazis carrying swastika flags and guns demonstrated in front of the synagogue in Charlottesville, Virginia, about 230 miles from Morgantown, over the mountains. They have a small synagogue on a main street in the middle of a college town, just as we have. I was already on the City Council and suggested we have a plan in case something like what happened in Charlottesville happened in Morgantown. I couldn't get anyone excited about "doing something" including the rabbi.

Two bouquets of flowers were left at the door of our synagogue today and both Rabbi Joe and I have gotten notes of support on social media and concerns for our safety and well-being. I was in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, the neighborhood where the shooting occurred, just this past Wednesday, and posted about my trip on Facebook.

I've heard lots of cries of "How can this happen here?" People who go to Europe are always surprised that synagogues are often unmarked, that someone has to vouch for you to be allowed in. Here in the United States, synagogues sit boldly on main streets with little or no protection.

Of course, it has already happened here. People were murdered at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in South Carolina by a white supremacist in 2015. Someone with a grudge shot up a high school in Parkland, Florida last year. And in just the past week, pipe bombs were discovered mailed to figures in the Democratic Party, and another white supremacist killed two people at a Kroger near Louisville, Kentucky, because the African-American church he originally targeted was locked, and he couldn't get in.

The shock is that this could happen to us, to Jews, as if we were somehow on a different plane than African-Americans and high school students. We are not exempt, not even in the United States, and despite our wealth and the relatively conservative political bent of many Jews in Pittsburgh, we are not "better than" any other religious or racial minority.

Even though there are still many Jews in this administration, there is a prejudice against anyone who is not "white" and "Christian" pushed by the right-wing ideologues who are now in power, and despite their denials, anyone who is a Republican has signed on to that. And we still need sensible regulation of firearms, desperately.

Thoughts and prayers are something we, as religious people, can do. We can also call out prejudice, not just against Jews, but against Muslims, African-Americans, immigrants, and certainly against gay and trans people. There is an election coming up. I've already voted here in West Virginia. It might help, but we need to form alliances and be out on the street with all people of good will. There will be a vigil on WVU's downtown campus, at Woodburn Circle, Monday, October 29, at 7. I will be there.

Rabbi Joe at Tree of Life Morgantown, with flowers left at the door on Sunday after the shooting in Pittsburgh

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Clearfield County, Pennsylvania

I was burned out by the whole Brett Kavanaugh thing and by politics in general. I thought I would get away from here over Columbus Day, Sunday and Monday. Clearfield County is about 150 miles north and a bit east of Morgantown. It's been way too hot here in Morgantown, while climate change is still "debated." I thought maybe I'd see some leaves changing color.

There is one city, Dubois, in the county, and the county seat, Clearfield, a borough, which typically means "City" in Pennsylvania. I decided to stay one night in DuBois, the bigger of the two places, and a more-or-less straight shot from Morgantown on US 119 north, where it ends at US 219, the most interesting, but not the fastest way to go. It was about 145 miles to DuBois. I booked The Usual Chain, in this case next to a country club, on a little lake. It looked like an old wood-frame hotel, but it is actually of newish vintage, built when the clubhouse from the country club burned down, and they decided to make it a destination resort for weddings and such.

I left Morgantown at 8:20, and arrived in town just about noon. I decided to start at the mall, east of town on PA 255, the main road to I-80, which runs through the county at the top of the Allegheny Mountains. The mall was half-dead, but still has a Sear's and Penney's as well as a chain bookstore, a Ross Dress-For Less, and a consignment store with CDs and records, although nothing I wanted to add to my vast collection. The restaurant is a stir-fry place, where you put ingredients and sauce in a bowl, pick a meat, and they stir-fry it for you. I would do less sauce and more vegetables next time, but I like the idea.

I visited S.B. Elliott State Park, where there are buildings built by the W.P.A. in the 1930s on the National Register. Penn State DuBois campus, just a few buildings for commuters, is on 255, the same road as the mall, on the way back to town from the park. I looked around in town, which has a downtown historic district. There wasn't a lot going on, but there were anti-abortion protestors lining the streets just north of downtown, waving signs like "Abortion is bad for women" and "Jesus will forgive you." So much for avoiding politics. I should have known. Clearfield is a classic rust belt county, overwhelmingly white, older, with decaying factories and a declining population. Seventy-three percent of voters went for the current president in 2016. The county population peaked in the 1920 census with over 120,000 people; now it's under 80,000.

I checked into the hotel, not expensive, but comfortable and quiet, with views of the golf course. I felt better after a nap. There was still time before dark, so I headed back south where there are a number of sites on the National Register. I had divided my one afternoon and one morning by West (DuBois) and east (Clearfield).The two towns are in the northern part of the county, but there are many historic places in the southern part of the county. I made it only to one before dark, the McGees Mills covered bridge, in Bell Township, built in 1873. There is a little park there along the west branch of the Susquehanna River.

It looked like most of the restaurants were on State Road 255, the route out of the city to I-80. I was going to eat at Eat 'n' Park, a chain diner out of Pittsburgh, with a branch in Morgantown,when I saw a sign at a strip mall for Napoli's, and stopped in there for chicken parmigiana, delicious, although with spaghetti and bread, not exactly on my diet.

In the morning, I started out to Parker Dam State Park, northeast of S.B. Elliott along the same road. The morning was cool, and there is a lake with a boardwalk around part of it. I thought I could walk all the way around it, but a spillway prevented that. There is a W.P.A. museum, and an octagonal cabin that was damaged by a tornado in 1985 and rebuilt. Walking back to my car after checking out the dam, four kids came by on bikes, two with training wheels attached. Two moms were walking behind them. I was in jeans and a purple Ralph Lauren t-shirt of many years wear. One of the training wheel kids said "I like your shirt" as he rode by. That made my day. I said "Thanks! I like your bike." It was emerald green and sparkly. Leaves were turning color uphill in the park. A sign pointed out that the W.P.A. men had planted most of the trees in the park, as the area had been logged over by that time. I thought about those men planting those trees, and how they were not likely around to see the beautiful forest they had created. I related that to the politics of our day- how we have to work for justice, even if we don't live to see it come to fruition. I know leaders of the civil rights movement, like Dr. King, talked about that often, but seeing the forest, started eighty years ago, reminded me. I went looking for, and found, St. Severin's, a wooden church farther east off I-80 and past a sign that said "Highest Point on I-80 East Of The Mississippi," built by German settlers in 1851 and a National Historic Landmark

I ended my tour in Clearfield Borough, a somewhat smaller but more fixed-up town than DuBois. I figured a fast look around, then lunch. There was once a synagogue in town, in a former telephone company building, now owned by a community theater. The synagogue merged with the one in State College, over the next hill to the east. I found the courthouse with the ten commandments in stone in front, and a district of historic homes along the west branch of the Susquehanna, then headed to lunch at a restaurant on Main Street. I ordered a salad, which took so long that I had to go out and put money in my parking meter, which was only a quarter for an hour. So I left town at 1:20 and arrived home after five, driving courthouse to courthouse on the recommended route, less scenic, $3.40 in tolls, but faster.

The temperature both days reached well into the 80s, warm for Morgantown, even more so for north central Pennsylvania. I also noted, traveling over hills and winding roads, that I want a nicer car than the Suzuki SX 4 I've been driving the last six years and 98,000 miles. I want more power and a quieter ride. This week, I talked Joe into buying a used Honda Civic, 2015. We're keeping the Suzuki, but traded our 2001 Civic, which I typically do not take on trips. Other than being banged up, nothing was wrong with our old Honda;, and the Suzuki, as it approaches 100,000 miles, drives as it always has. I just wanted something else.

I did get away, but for once I enjoyed the open spaces and parks more than the towns.This week is already cooler, and the leaves may reach peak color in a week or two. People I spoke to in Pennsylvania were annoyed that most of the leaves were still green and the temperature twenty degrees above normal for October 7th and 8th, but I don't think anyone put a political spin on it, as I did.