Archives for the Benton News
for the Month of August 2011
Tuesday, August 30, and Wednesday, August 31, 2011. Daily temperatures should be in the low 80s this week, with evening temperatures ranging from 52° to 60°.
Irene washed out a Lopez bridge Sunday in the center of the community. Residents of Dushore were sent scrambling for emergency shelter. Penelec had difficulty in getting to customers due to all the flooding. At the height of the storm, there were about 1,300 people without power in Sullivan County. The company plans to work around the clock to restore service.
Pennsylvania’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.8% in July, below the federal rate of 9.1 % for the same period. The Commonwealth's unemployment rate was up from 7.6% in June. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate has a long history of being below the U.S. rate.
Didja know that there are 67 counties in Pennsylvania with the first Pennsylvania counties formed in 1682? The incorporation of Columbia County took place March 22, 1813, after it dissolved its relationship with Northumberland County. There will certainly be big "doings" to celebrate throughout the county. To help remember what took place when the county celebrated the sesquicentennial of the incorporation of the town of Bloomsburg, we would appreciate any articles or pictures that you might have.
About 20 girls signed up Monday night to join the Girl Scout troops that are forming in the upper Fishing Creek area. Amber Cotterman, 317-6253, can provide complete details. The scouts will meet in the Benton United Methodist Church.
August 29, 2011, the birthday of Allen Roberts, Dean Marshall (who received an "early birthday gift of oak firewood sufficient for the entire winter" deposited on his house roof!) and SuAnn Wech Zenzel. It is the wedding anniversary of Amy and Chris Vincent and Jeff and Jody Andrysick. Becky Westover has a book signing at The Center today from 9:30 to 11:30 AM and 3:30 to 5:30 PM.
Local newspapers did an excellent job of reporting the damage caused by Tropical Storm Irene as it punched northern Columbia and Luzerne Counties Sunday. For local coverage of trees down, roofs ripped off, cars and homes and garages flattened, read Monday's Press Enterprise or the newspaper closest to your area of interest. Roofs were especially hard hit as the rear barn roof on Bob Conner's property North of Benton, a side roof on the former Benton Roller Mills and a garage of Phyllis Young Harrison which houses two motorcycles was flattened from a large pine tree. Borough streets were closed at Third and Market when a tree on the property of Phillip and Susan Shultz crossed Third Street. Damage was especially devastating in the Cambra and Waller areas. The Press Enterprise estimated 5,000 lost power in the local area.
Route 118 is closed in both directions between the intersections of PA 29 in LakeTownship to the Northern end of Route 118 because of utilities and shoulder washing out. Route 487is closed in both directions between the intersection of Route 118 and Ricketts Glen State Park in Colley Township. A bridge is out in Lopez. Route 239 East of Benton is closed near Jerry's Engine Repair in Luzerne County. A detour through Cambra is necessary. The Old Tioga Turnpike from Cambra to Red Rock has a number of trees blocking at least one lane of travel.
This is a reminder to try out the Benton News Bulletin Board on the center of the opening screen. It is a hyperlink--simply click it to open. Try it here. A number of people have reported upcoming events through the bulletin board.
No time for news today. Back tomorrow.
August 28, 2011, the birthday of Jamie Wood and Donalyn Minkiewicz (Donalyn Clark Minkiewicz), Dylan Edson, Jamie Wood and the wedding anniversary of Rachel and John A. Kaminski, Sr., Harold and Jane Ackerman, Dan and Cathy Hartman. Expect heavy rain early this morning with clear skies and cooler temperatures overnight, followed by at least three days of sunny weather. Please keep Leonard Mott in your prayers. Continued prayer is needed for Chase Stewart, son of Carey Stoneham Stewart. He has another surgery on September 13. His bone "knitting" is not going as fast as the doctors would hope. They are going to be removing his fixator and putting on a walking cast. He will wear it for over a month and then go to a brace. The family hopes that his bone knits enough so that he will be done with surgeries. However, if his tibia isn't at a safe stage at the end of the cast period, other options will be considered.
Today's break from hard work comes from a dance routine between James Cagney and Bob Hope, featured here.
Friday and Saturday, August 26 & 27, 2011.
Sunday is expected to be wet and windy because of Hurricane Irene with a potential for heavy rainfall and high winds. Irene is expected to pass over parts of northeast Pennsylvania between Saturday night and Monday morning. Projections at press time were for winds from 75 to 110 miles per hour Sunday. Do you have your bottled water, non-perishable foods, light sources and tools that can run without electricity in case of an outage, a first aid kit, blankets, pillows, and pet supplies?
We note the passing of Anthony Joseph Cerminaro, 68, who leaves two sons, one in Unityville, and a wife. Tony was a landowner in Jackson Township and owned Walkers Jewelers, Berwick.
When we get back together in a day or two, I'll tell you about a couple of World War II veterans you probably know. Two of the men are very humble. As I looked at some of the medals that one of the men had, I noticed a Purple Heart with three Oak Clusters. His response: "No, it must have been someone else. I think I was only hit once."
When the attack ended 13 hours later, not a single American or Afghan troop was killed or injured. About 270 Taliban lay dead.
The May 25 attack near the village of Do Ab in Nuristan province demonstrates the role that air power can play when a ground force is badly outnumbered and isolated from backup troops. It also shows how two tactical air-control party airmen can turn the tide of a battle.
Tech. Sgt. Tavis Delaney and Senior Airman Mike McCaffrey of the Washington Air National Guard’s 116th Air Support Operations Squadron called in 18 bomb strikes in a battle that used 14 airframes from all four services. Delaney’s actions that day earned him a nomination for a Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest honor for valor in seven hours of "rounds-smacking-right-over-your-head battle.”
Troops at Combat Outpost Kalagush heard about fighters gathering near Do Ab with the possibility of the local Afghan National Police being overrun by the fighters. American troops worried that the insurgents would be in striking distance of Kalagush if they overran Do Ab. On May 25, the airmen joined a scout platoon from 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment and about 20 Afghan soldiers on a three-day reconnaissance mission of Do Ab.
Helicopters ferried the troops while two F-15Es provided close-air support overhead until they were called away to provide support to other troops in a firefight with the Taliban. The CH-47s landed in the valley and dropped off the troops. Minutes after they pulled away, the ambush began by fighters in the mountains using AK47s, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. Soldiers hit the ground and returned fire--but bullets were coming from all directions. The mortars landed closer to the troops with each shot. Only a few nearby rocks provided cover.
With rounds coming from all directions, close-air support was called for and provided in the form of two Navy F/A-18s. Delaney and McCaffrey were not able to use their line-of-sight communications because of the mountainous terrain. They had to pass firing coordinates via the MC-12 crew to the Navy fighters. A Super Hornet dropped a bomb, but the enemy firing continued. AH-64 Apaches and OH-58 Kiowas arrived on scene and began firing on enemy positions. Troops trading intermittent fire dove into Afghan mud huts with brick-walled animal pens. Two F-15Es arrived to replace the Navy fighters.
The Taliban began rearming in a cave in the mountains preparing for a second attack. McCaffrey calculated the coordinates for an airstrike. The cave entrance sat behind a protective ridgeline, making it a tough target. Pilots made several approaches until they found the perfect angle. The 2,000-pound bomb demolished the cave.
The ground troops continued to receive incoming fire from all directions. Sorenson banked his Strike Eagle into the valley and roared directly over the Taliban positions. The angles at which the jet dove, buzzed the ground and climbed again later led the troops to nickname it the “Death Star run.”
Taliban fighters continued firing on the troops and the airmen continued to call in airstrikes. The F-15s eventually dropped all 12 bombs it carried while the Taliban fighters continued to close in. Ground troops began running out of water and ammunition and an attempt by two Black Hawks to drop off supplies was curtailed by gunfire. The Taliban pushed forward toward the ground troops. Permission was given to drop two "danger-close" bombs at targets about 200 yards away. American troops could die if Delaney and McCaffrey's calculations were off. Troops on the ground took cover. One of the F-16s released its bomb payload. As rocks and dust flew another danger-close strike took place several minutes later.
An AC-130, an airborne forward air controller and two more TACPs arrived. Gunfire again erupted as a quick-response force of special operations forces and Afghan commandos arrived in a Chinook. Two F-15s replaced the two that had used all their bombs. The replacement Strike Eagles dropped two more bombs. Ground troops placed infrared strobes, and the Spooky pounded a ridgeline with its 105mm cannons. The Americans were now on offense and began hunting down Taliban trying to escape. A second AC-130 locked onto Taliban hiding in the mountains and opened fire. Thirteen hours after the ambush began, planes could find no more enemies. The battle was over. A counterattack never came.
Wednesday, August 24, and Thursday, August 25, 2011. Expect another sunny and nice day Wednesday, with thundershowers possible Thursday. Sunday night seems to be what we have to worry about. Track Hurricane Irene by going here. The storm is expected to grow to a category 3 by this afternoon.
In the local area, the shake was felt from Geisinger Hospital to North of Benton--with reports of the shake coming from 22 states. Sharon Remphrey was on the second floor of her house and felt the house "shake back and forth." She raced to the attic thinking that the roof had blown off. There was no damage to the house.
President Obama confirmed that the DC earthquake occurred on a rare and obscure fault-line, apparently known as "Bush's Fault." President Obama announced that the Secret Service and Maxine Waters continue an investigation of the quake's suspicious ties to the Tea Party. Conservatives maintain that it was caused by the founding fathers rolling over in their graves.
Congratulations to the Clinton County Little League Team in its win Tuesday night 7-5 over Georgia. The Little League World Series is helping to bring Pennsylvanians together, averaging more than 33,000 people per game at their four games in South Williamsport.
Mayor Jan Swan: term expires January 2014
Grant Little: term expires January 2012. Write-in seat will be available
Jan Jankowski: term expires January 2014
Huber Kline: term expires January 2014
Bryan Hart: term expires January 2012. Write-in seat will be available.
Dan Jankowski: term expires January 2012 (Registered. Name will be on ballot)
Diane Laubach: term expires January 2014
Edward Hartman: term expires January 2014 (Registered. Name will be on ballot)
Stories of government programs that don't accomplish what they set out to do seem to be commonplace, at both the state and national levels. Look at the duplicate functions on something as simple as wetlands which a herd of federal and state public agencies have responsibility: the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Resources Conservation Service, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
Wilton E. "Wilt" Dangler (March 31, 1921-August 22, 2011), a former member of the Guernsey Breeders Association, died Monday at the Bonham Nursing Center, Register, where he resided for two years. He was 90. He was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, a son of Stewart and Minnie (Wyckhoff) Dangler. He graduated from Asbury Park High School in 1939 and attended Rutgers University and Iowa State University.
Mr. Dangler lived at New Columbus where he owned and operated a farm from 1961 until his retirement from farming in 1977. He moved to Huntington Mills in 1977, residing there until 2005 when he moved to Riverwoods, Lewisburg. He worked as a crop adjuster for several farm-insurance companies from 1977 to 2000. He served several terms as a member of the Northwest Area School Board in the 1980s and as a member of the Berwick Hospital Board of Directors.
He was preceded in death by his wife, the former Ruth M. West, on August 26, 2008, and by a brother, Weston Dangler.
Surviving are three daughters: Jane, wife of Dr. Harold C. Ackerman, Berwick; Susan Stone, Lansdowne; Deborah Moir, New Columbus; a son, Charles "Chuck" Dangler (Susan), Shickshinny; seven grandchildren: Eric Ackerman (Amy); Christopher Ackerman (Erin), Sara Stone, Benjamin Stone, Michael Moir, Jr. (Rachel), Jaime Moir (wife of Colby Clugston), Angela Dangler, and great-grandchildren Logan Ackerman, Clayton Ackerman, Collin Ackerman and Clara Clugston.
Funeral services will be held in the Orangeville United Methodist Church, Pine Street, Orangeville on Thursday at 1 PM. Interment in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Orangeville. Friends may call at the church on Thursday from 11:30 AM to 1 PM with Masonic memorial services at 11:30 AM by Oriental Lodge 460, Orangeville. The family will provide flowers. Memorials may be sent to Bonham Nursing Center (for Activities Fund), 477 Bonnieville Road, Stillwater, Pa 17878; Peaceful Crossings Adventure Ministries, P. O. Box 76, Huntington Mills, PA 18622 or Lansdowne Friends School, 110 N. Lansdowne Ave., Lansdowne, PA 19050.
Monday, August 22, and Tuesday, August, 23, 2011. Expect a high about 78° Monday and Tuesday, with evening lows in the lower 50s.
• Black Moshannon
• Canoe Creek
• Cherry Springs
• Cook Forest
• Delaware Canal
• Greenwood Furnace
• Hickory Run
• Hyner View
• Jennings
• Kinzua Bridge
• Leonard Harrison and Colton Point (Grand Canyon)
• McConnells Mill
• Ohiopyle
• Oil Creek
• Presque Isle
• Pymatuning
• Raccoon Creek
• Ricketts Glen
• Trough Creek
• Worlds End
Get details on all the state parks by going here and about state forests here.
I have a 50th college reunion September 23-25 at Wilkes University. My 50th college reunion! I am not pleased. I am going, but it isn't my cup of tea to sit around with a bunch of people I don't recognize and who don't know me from Adam, people in their 70s and half senile, telling stories of embarrassing situations we would all love to forget. We won't remember the finer events in our college days, just the ones that we should forget--and which most of us have forgotten.
I attended one other college reunion, something I'll never forget. Dr. Eugene Farley, a fine Quaker educator and at the time the president of the university, took me under his wing when he spotted me. He personally walked me to several points of interests on campus as if we were long-lost friends. Which we were. Dr. Farley was a friend of all his former students. A later president of the University, Bob Capin, an accounting professor when I was a student, attended my wedding to Alice Powell, Leraysville, and later paid me back by getting me to donate a student's room in one of the dorms.
As far as classmates were concerned, there just isn't much in common any more. (Not true of my former professors, but they must all be gone by now.) One fellow who still had hair got a prize the last time we got together because a couple of women chose him as having aged the least. Another fellow raked in a prize for driving the greatest distance. A class picture was taken and what a collection of bellies and thighs it was! The women talked about their children and grandchildren and the men went outside and smoked their cigars in front of the "No Smoking" signs and talked about politics and their cars.
From what I hear, things in the science department have changed a lot, but things in other departments have fresh coats of paint and new faces, but are pretty much unchanged. The works of William Shakespeare read today about the same as they did when he died in 1616 and his works are taught about the same as when I walked down the aisle with a diploma in my hand. It was a pleasure to walk away with a college degree and not owe my soul to the company store, so to speak. Tuition, room and board cost about $1,500 then, and about the same as a moderately priced Lincoln today. The average college student goes through about 200 books in four years. About ten percent aren't bank books. Money may not be everything, but it sure keeps your college kid writing to you.
While many of my college friends went on to do great and wonderful things, I simply cut the lawn of life with cuticle scissors. If I could live my life over again, I'd make the same mistakes, but I would make them earlier in life. Now that I have learned how to live life, most of it is gone.
Which reminds me of the seven stages of man:
First stage: He sees the world.
Second stage: He wants the earth.
Third stage: He hustles to get it.
Fourth stage: He decides that half will do just fine.
Fifth stage: He becomes even less demanding.
Sixth stage: He'd be thrilled to get a six-by-two strip of it.
Seventh stage: He gets the strip!
I figure this reunion will be more normal than the last one I attended. We will have all forgotten what we ate for breakfast, we've all gone to pot, wearing blue jeans is fine now and a hamburgers from the grill is living as long as we have a slice of onion on it. We won't stay up all night like we once did. We'll need to get home by 9 so we can take our pills and recharge our hearing aids.
Come to think of it, maybe I'll just stay home and watch television instead of going. Sounds like too much work to go...
Rain held off Sunday evening for the concert by the True Heart Quartet at the Benton Park. The quartet of Christian men--Tenor Mike Bordner, Lead Scott Bordner, Baritone Joe Kantz and Bass Todd Keeley--and their musical ministry, was very well received. Pictures of many of those watching the concert are available for viewing as a slideshow here and here for viewing where they can be downloaded, emailed or printed. The event was part of a corn roast and concert in the park primarily sponsored by the Benton Christian Church.
The Welcome to Benton Borough sign at the southern entrance to Benton was destroyed Saturday night between 11:30 and midnight when a 1989 Jeep Wrangler driven by Kyle Keeler, 19, Red Rock Road, Benton, sideswiped a guide rail on Route 487 and blew a tire, then veered off the highway on the right and into the stone planter, flowerbed and sign.
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This is the way the Welcome to Benton Borough sign looked when it was erected in 2005. |
August 20, 2011 |
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The sign was erected in late May 2005 using funds provided by the Benton Lions Club and Mayor Jan Swan.
Saturday and Sunday, August 20 and 21, 2011. Thunderstorms could be severe Sunday afternoon. Look for cooling weather into the high 70s as the week moves on.
August 21, the birthday of Matt McHenry and Debbie Karpinski Young. It is the wedding anniversary of Ken and Lynn Dressler. Endless Mountain Zendo, 104 Hollow Road, Stillwater, from 8 to 11. To attend, call 925-5077. The Southern Gospel group, "True Heart Quartet," will be in concert at the Benton Park at 6 PM. Bring lawn chairs and your family and friends. A free-will offering will be received. In the event of rain, the concert will be held in the Benton High School Auditorium. Concert is sponsored by the Benton Christian Church and Living Word Baptist Church. The top 11 contestants from season 10 of American Idol will heat up when AMERICAN IDOL LIVE! returns for another summer jaunt at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, 255 Highland Park Boulevard, Wilkes-Barre.
The boys from Clinton County who love the game of baseball and played their hearts out Thursday night get a mighty bravo from their many newly found fans in the Commonwealth. They are the first Pennsylvania team to appear at the World Series in Williamsport since 1990. And thanks to all in the local area who watched the special game the boys played. The Keystone Little League traveled just 29 miles to Williamsport to play. The team lost 1-0 to the Kentucky team. Great Lakes pitcher Griffin McClarty had a solo home run in the bottom of the first inning and then struck out 12 Keystone batters as he pitched the shutout. Keystone had several scoring chances but double plays in the fifth and sixth inning kept them off the board.
The Columbia County Historical & Genealogical Society. 784-1600, has an interesting trip coming up, especially for those interested in the Fishing Creek Confederacy and Fort Mifflin. For the bargain price of $45 for members and $55 for non-members this bus trip will steep the passengers in the history of Fort Mifflin and provide an opportunity to visit historic Philadelphia. Historian George Turner will be traveling along providing insight into the events that dominated Columbia County during the Civil War. This trip begins Wednesday, September 7, at 7 PM at the Wesley Methodist Church multi-purpose room where George Turner will be giving a presentation on the Fishing Creek Prisoners Held at Fort Mifflin. The presentation is open to the public and is free. George will provide an excellent historic perspective that will make the bus trip more meaningful.
Didja hear about the two surgeons talking? One was feeling a little inadequate. He had just lost a patient and he wondered out loud if he was cut out to be a surgeon."You're a fine surgeon.""I'm not even going to send them a bill.""Maybe you weren't cut out to be a surgeon!"
If you need to do some of the searches described above, but didn't understand my explanation, try going to google.com, then to "advanced searches."
Thursday, August 18, and Friday, August 19, 2011. Look for thunderstorms both Thursday and Friday.
August 18, the birthday of Sara Elizabeth Osborne, Malisa Crane, Karen Edwards and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. The Benton Area School Board of Directors will hold a special meeting tonight at 7 PM in the Middle/HS cafeteria for personnel matters. Ag Progress Days ends today in Rock Springs, Centre County. The show is the largest outdoor agriculture expo in Pennsylvania. The Columbia County Traveling Library stops at Rohrsburg at the Korner Mini Mart from 3 to 4 PM and in Millville on Chestnut Street by the park from 4:30 to 6 PM.
August 19, the birthday of Kathy Mac Donald Iwuji, Diane Hartman Neary, Tara Goode, Michelle Rappaport Stone, Connie Shaffer, Ed Cole, Ginger Kitchen, Joann Heimbach and Betty McCahan. It's the birthday of former president Bill Clinton, born in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946, and of Ogden Nash, born in Rye, New York, in 1902. Today is National Aviation Day and the birthday of Orville Wright, who piloted the first recorded flight of a powered heavier-than-air machine on December 17, 1903. Orville was born in Dayton, Ohio, while his partner and older brother, Wilbur Wright, was born on a farm near Millville, Indiana. Jo Laubach will host her first karaoke show tonight at the Benton VFW from 8 to midnight.
Pictures of the activity at the Martin gas well Wednesday are available for downloading, copying and emailing here and are viewable as a slideshow by going here. The strange odor reported in Wednesday's Benton News could have been methane or the consequences of a very strong acid injection to stimulate, dissolve or dislodge areas of cementation of the well bore. The next indication of the health of the well could come with flaring of the well which will be very visible and very much heard, followed by construction of a connection to the transmission line 150 yards south of the well pad.
The Benton Borough Council minutes of July 11, 2011, have been approved and distributed by Borough Secretary Kay Yankovich. Questions from members of the community at the July 11 meeting concerned drug enforcement, park playground equipment and surveillance cameras, fire-company carnival, vandalism in the park and planned Borough improvements. Council is looking at the question of using a microphone at future council meetings. Mayor Swan reported that surveillance cameras are in place throughout the fire hall. George Remphrey was named as a 2011 member of the Hearing and Zoning Board, and Dan Hess named as the 2011 Alternate Member of the Hearing and Zoning Board. The annual Halloween parade will be held on Tuesday, October 25, from 7-10 PM.
Four vandals were observed, identified, and reported to the State Police by a Borough resident. A $100 reward check and letter of appreciation will be sent to this resident. The persons involved with the vandalism must complete 500 hours of community service supervised by Bryan Getz. Job Corps will be asked to do the stage repairs.
Bids for Benton Park water lines will go out in the near future. A bike rack has been ordered. The "wide slide" construction is in progress. The merry-go-round is being refurbished. The stage and picnic tables will be painted.
Council increased the part-time police officer pay rate from $11.69 per hour to $14.75 per hour. The hiring process for Ric Dieterick for the position of part-time police at the hourly rate of $14.75 was approved.
Hubie Kline contacted Representative Karen Boback regarding House Bill 1228. This bill is still in Judicial Committee. If passed, the State Police will charge municipalities for coverage. If the bill passes, it will become necessary to approach the surrounding townships to discuss a regional police force. Mayor Swan requested that the $15,000 grant awarded by USDA to purchase a new police cruiser be accepted, with the Borough’s share of $13,334 being taken from the Police Budget. Grant referred this request to the Finance Committee for review.
In Wednesday's Benton News, we began telling about the planned community of Celestia in Sullivan County. The story was based on Dr. Wilson Ferguson's talk Monday at the Brass Pelican Restaurant to the History Buffs. Other sources are mentioned at the end of this article.
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Peter Armstrong wanted to build a building--a temple--as the "centerpiece" of the community. The temple would be a gathering place for Christ's return, a place where Armageddon would take place rather than in some valley in Israel. This is where Jesus would come because this was the place where people lived pure Christian lives. It was never built, but the plans were there. |
Drawing from the Philadelphia Inquirer
in its edition of March 10, 1901
Armstrong's location was a mile and a half west of Laporte on Route 42 toward Eagles Mere. If you go there, look for the historical marker. Park and walk around. This is the place where Armstrong bought 181 acres in 1850 for $450 and later expanded it to 600 acres. He sold lots according to a plan of the city which mirrored the street names in Philadelphia. The design of the settlement was a perfect square with the proposed temple in the middle. Lots were 20 feet by 120 feet, hardly large enough for a present-day structure, but many bought more than one lot. By 1853, Armstrong had sold more than 300 lots, but nothing was ever built there. Nine or ten buildings were built nearby and a large house was occupied by the Armstrong family.
Dr. Ferguson estimated the peak population at "less than a hundred." All residents had to have a sincere faith in heart and spirit. "Love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind" was the centerpiece of the community and the type of person that Armstrong wanted to live there. The problem was that there were not as many people who exactly fit that description as he thought. Many came for economic reasons. Life in Celestia was hard work and required a strong wife and a number of hard-working children. Many came because it was free room and board and for those on hard times in Philadelphia the appeal was that it would be a good place for a free ride. Farming was the chief means of support, with wool and maple products at the top of the list. As in all rural communities, apple trees were planted. Armstrong continued to sell lots and contributions to the welfare of the community occasionally were received. The community continued with its "stay pure and stay remote" philosophy. Armstrong kept a workshop, schoolhouse and printing plant near Celestia.
Armstrong advertised for people to buy land and live in Celestia by publishing a monthly newspaper in Philadelphia and later in Celestia which he called the "Day Star of Zion." The paper was sent to his faithful followers. His message was simple: on the last day on earth, which he said was near, when all the other people on earth would perish, the people of Celestia would be saved.
In 1864, one of the followers got drafted to serve in the Civil War. This didn't fit in with the objectives of the community--there was no worldly obligation to serve in the military. Armstrong talked to everyone from leaders in Harrisburg to President Lincoln asking that the follower be exempted from serving; after all, serving in the military would destroy his faith and his opportunity to serve this glorious opportunity. Armstrong actually had a face-to-face with President Lincoln. Lincoln was sympathetic and exempted everyone living in Celestia from serving in the military. He extended the same privilege to the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, known as the Shakers, .
Armstrong believed that he really was in God's County in Sullivan County and that the settlement should not be a part of our Commonwealth. He wanted an act of the legislature declaring that residents of Celestia were not part of Pennsylvania. The Grand Poobahs in Harrisburg told Armstrong that he was a property owner and a part of Pennsylvania. He could either give up his land or give up his faith. Armstrong’s dream that the property would remain in the "eternal care and possession of God" was dashed.
Armstrong's response was to deed his Zion city to "Almighty God." The deed was recorded in the court house June 14, 1864, but did not provide for a plan for the paying of taxes to Sullivan County. When asked for the tax money, Armstrong's response was that the tax collector should ask the owner of the land for the money. The deeding of his sacred ground known as the "city of God" became distinct from all other ground in Sullivan County and the nation.
Armstrong felt that since the land was deeded to God and not owned as a worldly property, taxes should not have to be paid. Property taxes continued to build up year after year on the 600 acres, but Armstrong simply ignored the notices. Authorities didn't ignore the fact that taxes were not paid. After a few years, the tax authority came to the property to demand the tax money. They decided to take Armstrong's sheep in lieu of money in order that some revenue to pay the taxes would be paid. Armstrong was indignant and maintained that the sheep were God's sheep and would never leave Celestia via the bridge leading from the property.
The sheep hadn't received that message and easily walked across the bridge and followed the tax collector. Dr. Ferguson pointed out to his audience that there are other accounts of this incident, but that this story "should have been true whether it was or not." The story was greeted with disdain by Armstrong's followers who realized that he did not have the power that he claimed that he had. Some followers left the settlement immediately. Around 1876, the property was sold at a tax sale to A. T. Armstrong, a son of Peter and Hannah Armstrong.
For a senior project, D. Wayne Bender, a former student at Lebanon Valley, wrote a paper on the subject of Celestia. It was later expanded into the booklet "From Wilderness to Wilderness: Celestia." If you would like to continue studying the history of Celestia, copies are available from the Sullivan Museum for $10. Other references are the Wilkes-Barre Times in its edition of November 5, 1907, and the Philadelphia Inquirer in its edition of March 10, 1901. Thanks go to Dr. Ferguson for his telling of the story of Celestia
August 17, 2011, the day Ron Hontz turns 65 and the wedding anniversary of John and Beth McMichael. Expect some fog this morning, then sunny with a high in the very low 80s.
Up the Creek...
• A former Sports Center owner, a recognized authority on fishing and hunting, went fishing on the river at Shickshinny recently. It is a known fact that a fisherman can't be successful if his worm isn't trying, and the same applies to a fisherman's jig. This unnamed person cast his jig and hooked a piece of driftwood. He nearly bent his rod in half trying to get the wood back to the boat when suddenly the jig tore loose from its mooring and shot into his finger burying itself under his nail seven-sixteenths of an inch. The pain was excruciating and the jig would not dislodge. The hapless fisherman sat on a stool in the boat and worked to get the jig dislodged until he passed out in pain. He fell to the bottom of the boat, hit his head and knocked himself out. When he came to, the sight of blood made him pass out again. He finally made it back to Divide where he solicited the aid of his son. The younger fisherman looked at the mess and said that if he carved the jig out of his father's finger, he would pass out in one direction and his father would pass out in the other. The emergency room was the next course of action. After what seemed like a three-hour wait, a needle to numb the pain was inserted under the fingernail--the most painful of everything that happened--and in another five minutes the jig was extracted.
• You are well on your way to winning a case if your opening argument makes a member of the jury faint while listening to medical details in a bus accident negligence case! That is what happened in Philadelphia when a prosecutor described injuries to a man whose leg was amputated because of an accident caused by a Port Authority Transit Corporation driver who went through a red light. The jury came to a quick decision, arriving at a $10 million settlement figure twice what PATCO offered before trial. Read more here..
Didja know that a lawyer is a man who prevents somebody else from getting your money?
The Monday meeting of the History Buffs at the Brass Pelican Restaurant in Elk Grove was chaired by Dr. J. Wilson Ferguson, Recording Secretary of the Sullivan County Historical Society. His talk was about an event which took place in the southwestern part of Sullivan County not far from Eagles Mere where in 1864 Peter Armstrong began a building program and hundreds of people dreamed of the day when they could climb into heaven from that location high in the mountains.
The timeframe for this happening was in the 19th century when new ideas came about involving women's suffrage and the right to vote for women, prohibition and religion. Utopian communities were established. This was the era of Joseph Smith (1805-1844) and Mormonism. A style of existence, which we later came to know as communism, came along, and communities sprang up with a socialist bent that held that Christians could exist through cooperative rather than competitive activities.
Armstrong, like the followers of William Miller known as Millerites, preached the coming Second Advent of Jesus Christ. These men believed that the end was approaching, that the rapture was coming. It didn't happen as either predicted. The people who sold their houses and stood on hilltops in white robes awaiting the arrival of Jesus Christ were appeased by being told there was an error in arithmetic. Dates were recalculated and people again primed--but again it did not happen. When Jesus did not appear, October 22, 1844, became known as the Great Disappointment. Miller disappeared, but many continued to believe that the end was coming and continued to lead Christian lives.
One of those people that truly believed that the advent would take place was Peter Armstrong, the subject of Dr. Ferguson's talk. Armstrong was born in 1818. He lived in Philadelphia, had a small store, collected rags, sold tinware and odds and ends as a peddler and had saved some money. He was convinced that something went wrong with the advent that should have happened in 1844. Armstrong developed his own theology. He felt that nothing had happened previously because the earthly kingdom was not ready. People were not prepared. He thought that what was needed was a gathering of people leading pure Christian lives to witness his return in a prayerful way to await His return. He felt that if people believed this, it would happen.
Armstrong was not seminary educated, but read and believed the Bible, especially Isaiah 43:19...
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
His preaching was "In the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord." He felt God wanted him to lead the preparation and thought that he could collect a gathering of Christian people far away from Philadelphia. High on a mountain in Sullivan County, far from the sins of the city, would work just fine. He wanted a united society of believers. He believed that if the society had money, the individual members would not need money, but could live together in common with common property.
When the Benton News returns Thursday, we'll tell you about his dream of a building as the centerpiece of the community. We'll also tell you about what Armstrong did which raised the eyebrows of the religious community and didn't exactly please the tax authorities in Sullivan County.
One of the joys of living Back Home in Benton, PA, in August is the accessibility to the Little League World Series and the wonderful baseball it presents. Teams from all over the world come to Pennsylvania for the World Series, but since 2006 only one Pennsylvania team has participated in the Little League World Series (Council Rock Newtown of the suburban Philadelphia area).
Monday morning, Keystone Little League, from the Lock Haven area in Clinton County, defeated Paramus, New Jersey, 5-2 in the championship game of the Mid-Atlantic Region played in Bristol, Connecticut. The Pennsylvania team will now play in the Little League World Series. Keystone will face North Oldham Little League, La Grange, Kentucky, in its first game of the World Series at South Williamsport's Lamade Stadium. The game will be televised live Friday night on ESPN at 8. Channel 16 is covering the series and the Pennsylvania team extensively.
Landon Breon, 12, is one of the stars of the Keystone team. In Monday's game he pitched the fourth inning and most of the fifth inning for Keystone, while a teammate socked a homer with two men on in the bottom of the inning for a 3-0 lead. The final score was 5-2 with Keystone playing a great game. Landon Breon is the nephew of Scott and Dori Doty, Benton (Dori grew up in the Lock Haven area). Landon is the son of Dori's sister, Amy Breon, Castanea, a village near Lock Haven. On Dori's birthday, August 8, she made a request to Landon for the next game. She asked her nephew "to hit your Aunt Dori a home run for her birthday. That is all I want." Dori couldn't believe it when he made her birthday wish come true and hit a home run.
Saturday, August 19, is his Aunt Niki's birthday and the request was already made for him to hit a home run on Friday for her birthday. Let’s all hope she gets her birthday wish.
The Lock Haven community has had fundraisers to come up with enough money to send the team on its way, pay for hotels and buses and pay for expenses for ten days while the team made Pennsylvania proud in Bristol to win the Mid-Atlantic title.
Facebook has a connection for the "Keystone Little League." The team was greeted when it arrived back in Pennsylvania Monday by numerous people lining the road with signs in support of the team. The team was taken to the Williamsport Mall and greeted by police and fire trucks. The team's bus and parents of the players were given a long parade to S. Williamsport. Facebook has pictures of a few of the people who lined up on the South Williamsport bridge to welcome them back home. There are also pictures of the team getting off the bus.
A state team has not won the United States championship since Shippensburg Area Little League claimed the title in 1990. Keystone is carrying the banner for the Mid-Atlantic area this year which represents six states (NY, NJ, DC, MD DE and PA)! You can see the Keystone team play in the Mid-Atlantic vs. Great Lakes game at 8 PM Friday at Lamade Stadium, live on ESPN. Let's give a Benton cheer for the team. Go Keystone, go!
The Local Red Hats Group met August 15 in the Tea Room of the Benton Antique Shop.
From Left: Zane Unbewust, Dottie Rabb, Charlote Sibly, Jeanette Hartman, Diane Laubach, Becky Green, Maralee Yost, Jessie Whitenight, Marlene Harvey, Carol Vance, Eleanor Klementik, Geraldine Yost, Louise Root (and her great-daughter), and Mary Meyers.
"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me."
Monday and Tuesday, August 15 & 16, 2011. The daytime high Monday should only be about 73° with thundershowers possible. Tuesday should be about ten degrees warmer.
August 15, the birthday of Donna Wickham, Roberta Irwin, Ronald F. Beckman, Karen Neese, Allen Kocher and Sydney Baker. This morning at 8 is the monthly speaker series at the Brass Pelican with speaker Dr. Wilson Ferguson on the subject of the village which was deeded to God. The subject is "Celestia: God's Village in Sullivan County." At 1 PM the local Red Hat ladies will meet at 1 PM for lunch and browsing in the completely charming Tea Room at the Benton Antiques Market. The Montour-Delong Community Fair begins at 10 AM at the Montour DeLong Fairgrounds, Route 254, Washingtonville.
August 16, the birthday of Floyd Goss, Gary Strauch, Larnie Painter, Mary Whitman and Willard "Bill" Hiscox. It is the wedding anniversary of Bernie and Janice Shultz. Today is Plant-A-Row donation day for the Benton Food Bank. Most gardeners are awash in fresh veggies this time of year, yet prices of fresh food are high in groceries and markets and thus out of reach for many low-income households who can’t grow their own food. So help pair abundance with need, and bring your extras to the Community Center Tuesday morning after 8. Eggs are also welcome, an important source of protein in meal planning. Ag Progress Days begins today in Rock Springs and runs through August 18.
Didja ever wonder what it would be like to go up against a pit bull? Go here to see for yourself.
Didja hear about the two businessmen talking about how bad business was? One said he lost "ten thousand two months ago. Last month I lost fifteen thousand." The other asked him why he didn't close up shop. His response was "how would I make a living?" Times seem to be on a downhill slide.
With one eye half open, I watched the Republican debate in Iowa last week as I watch all politicians when they gather in front of an audience to explain why they should be in office or why no one can do the job they do. With my one eye open, the other eye shut, approach to life, it is hard to sort out what is truth and what is not false but is non-truth. It is generally hard to prove a lie. A resounding "Oh, come on now!" is about the best I can do. Truth may not be stranger than fiction, but in a politician's mouth it is much scarcer. There are some things that are evident...
Both sides of the political fence have their share of useless human beings. Both sides claim the other side to be unable to deal with America's problems while withholding specifics of how they would be better. These guys spend their time ringing the fire alarm and no time putting out the fire. The debt-ceiling debate is an example.
The United States has run out of money. When we as individuals run out of money, we stop spending. When I bought my first house in Arlington, Virginia, it took a full year before I had a stick of furniture in the living room.
We can't turn to big banks to solve the problems. Banks that the President and Congress bailed out become role models for reckless banks that continued taking risks. Bank of America, trading at $7.14 Friday, a company that holds 12.2% of all U.S. deposits, is moments from falling over the edge. If a bank takes a risk and succeeds, it keeps the profits. If it fails, it can count of the government rushing up to save it. Have I mentioned that the United States if out of money? What happens if BOA fails to stay solvent? Are we in for another Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and government intervention?
Politicians are interested in the short-term, what they can do to get reelected. What happens to our grandchildren seems to be of less concern. While most of us want to be judged by the amount of good we do, they strive to be known by the bacon they bring home to the voters.
Elected officials are scrambling as markets continue to fall, the economy sputters and unemployment is rampant to bolster their campaign coffers.
Standard & Poor’s cited “the difficulties of bridging the gulf between the political parties” on a deficit-reduction plan.
Our immigration system doesn't work very well. We are unwilling to take control of our national borders.
If you think that these problems are confined to our country, look at Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain--all of which are close to collapse along with the European banks that loaned them money. If these countries fail, keep your eyes on the European Union.
Didja ever notice that patience is often simply the inability to make decisions?
Sunday's choral concert as part of the Shickshinny Area Community Choirfest included music, poetry and stories highlighting the history of Shickshinny, 15 miles east of Benton. Shickshinny celebrates the sesquicentennial of its incorporation this year. Nothing is more common to us, yet more foreign to visitors, than the profusion of Indian names, such as Shickshinny, in our area. There is Muncy, Lycoming, Towanda, Kittaning, Swatara, Mahanoy, Allegheny, Wyalusing, Tunkhannock, Lackawanna, Wyoming, Nanticoke, Catawissa, Nescopeck, Mahoning, Shamokin, Chillisquaque, to name some of them.
The Shickshinny name came from the centering of five mountains--River, Knob, Rocky, Lee and Newport--on the Susquehanna river. The Indian name was Shick-a-shinna, later modernized into Shickshinny by Yankee settlers. The name means "where five mountains meet."
The first white settlers of Shickshinny were Ralph Austin and the Crossley family. They came from Connecticut and captured the area in the name of the Nutmeg State (Since 1959, the official nickname of Connecticut has been the Constitution State).
The Wyoming massacre compelled the Connecticut settlers to flee from their homes to escape scalping knives of the roving bands of red men who were bent upon driving the whites from the land. The mouth of Shickshinny creek was a regular camping ground for the Indians which made it a decidedly unhealthy place for "foreigners." The Austins didn't stay long in Connecticut where they had taken refuge. They returned as soon as hostilities had to some extent ceased and reclaimed what they called the "goodly land." They built a log cabin and travelers passing through the area were entertained there. The flat land was cleared for the purpose of farming. Before the blazing fire on the hearth of Hotel Austin, hair-raising Indian stories were told by travelers as they ate scraped turnip and doughnuts, the only luxuries of that early day.
Across the Susquehanna River from Shickshinny is Mocanaqua, another town with an Indian name. This name comes from Frances Slocum who was stolen from Wyoming Valley during the struggles of the early settlers. The Indians called their little captive "Mocanaqua," which means "Little Bear."
Wapwallopen, a jaw breaker to the uninitiated, is of Indian origin, its English equivalent being "The place where the messengers were murdered." I haven't a clue who the messengers were or who murdered them.
Nescopeck, in the Indian language, is "deep black water." The township and borough get their name from the creek and the creek got its name from the color of the water. The town occupies the site of the village of the Delaware Indians.
Koonsville was once known as "Arch Bridge." The stone-arch bridge that crossed Shickshinny creek was the only one of its kind in this area at one time. The bridge was very narrow. If a driver of a wagon had his load shift while crossing, the wagon could easily go into the creek. The narrowness of the bridge became a problem serious enough for the Legislature to enact laws to have Union Township widen the bridge. The Legislature failed to put any "teeth" in what they passed. As a result, the bridge was not widened until the Union Turnpike came along and used that section of the road. The bridge was then doubled in width. When the post office was established, the settlement became known as Koonsville, named for the first postmaster, William Koons.
Town Line is just what the name indicates. The place is located on the township line dividing Huntington and Union.
Ross was formed in 1842 from Lehman and Union and named for General William S. Ross, one of the judges of Luzerne.
Salem was the town in Windham County, Connecticut, from which the Salem settlers came. They gave their home this name.
When paper mills were built at Hublerville by Koons Brothers, the name was changed to Huntington Mills. J. K. Hubler owned the store and the mill for several years and the place bore his name. .
Waterton was named by the Watson Brothers who bought out Jared Harrison in the mercantile business at that location. In order to get a post office to service the community, H. D. Watson carried mail for several years from Shickshinny without charging for the service. When the route was finally extended to Forks, compensation to the carrier began.
James G. Jones gave his name to Jonestown, the place where he opened a store near the junction of Huntington and Fishingcreek. The post office was called Fishingcreek.
Residents of New Columbus wanted to honor the man who discovered America, but were told that the name "Columbus" had been taken by a settlement in Warren County. The post office assigned the prefix "New" and the name New Columbus was born.
Cambra appears to have been a contraction of the word "cranberry," which were found in the area in various swamps.
Register was selected as a name by the post office. Pine Creek, Westover and other names had been recommended by residents, but the post office department had none of it.
Reyburn bears the name of one of the late President Garfield's physicians. The post office came into being about the time of Garfield's death. Residents didn't have a suitable name so the department gave the name of Reyburn to the post office.
Beach Haven was named in honor of Nathan Beach, one of the Connecticut settlers, who came to Salem in 1773 and lived in Beach Haven before the township was organized at Windham, Connecticut.
Conyngham Township came from from Hollenback in 1865 and bears the name of Judge John N. Conygham.
Fairmount Springs was first known as Fairmount Township post office but afterward assumed the present name because of a spring on the property of Justice B. P. Smith.
Hollenback was taken from Nescopeck in 1845 and named for Matthias Hollenback.
Hunlock's Creek took its name from Jonathan Hunlock, who located at the mouth of the stream and was driven out by the Indians in 1778. He returned three years later and from his family name came the name of the settlement.
Huntington Township bears the name of Samuel Huntington, of Windham, Connecticut, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Huntington is one of the "seventeen certified townships" laid out by the Susquehanna Company and previous to 1776 was known as Bloomingdale Township.
Hardpan is another one of the "didn't know it was loaded" cases. Several appropriate names were sent to the department when the post office was asked for, among them Dodson Chapel by which the area had been known for some time. Hardpan was tacked on the tail end and partially as a joke. When the papers for the new office came the least desirable of all--Hardpan--was the name of the new office.
August 12, 13 and 14, 2011. Busy weekend coming up: Catawissa Firemen's Carnival from 4 to 11 PM daily sponsored by the Catawissa Fire Company on the carnival grounds, Creek Road & Third Streets. The Masonic Fun Fair and Flea Market runs all day Friday and Saturday on the Masonic lodge grounds, Route 487, Orangeville. This is one big flea market! At the fairgrounds, 620 West Third Street, Route 11 South, Bloomsburg, the annual Rod & Custom Cruise-In, www.rodandcustomcruisein.com . Friday should be a nice day with afternoon temperatures about 80°.
Upcoming...
• Monday, August 15. The History Buffs meet at the Brass Pelican restaurant for a breakfast meeting to hear Dr. Wilson Ferguson, retired college history teacher and Secretary of the Sullivan county Historical Society speak on the subject of "Celestia: God's Village in Sullivan County." In 1850, Peter Armstrong of Philadelphia purchased 181 acres of land in an unsettled part of Sullivan County to establish a village in which committed Christians could lead lives of pure spirituality which would prepare them to witness Christ's return to earth. By 1860, Armstrong's holdings had expanded to 600 acres, and an active but small community had been established. Dr. Ferguson will discuss in some detail the origins, history and outcome of this holy experiment, including Peter Armstrong's transfer of the title for the land to God. Breakfast at the Brass Pelican is available from 7 AM and the presentation will begin about 9 AM.
Tuesday through Thursday, August 16-18. Ag Progress Days in Rock Springs, PA.
Victims of the Libyan conflict since February are assisted by medical teams working in Libya, along the Tunisia-Libya border, in Italy (Lampedusa) and in Niger.
August 11, 2011, the birthday of Carolyn Beech, Esther McMichael Franklin, Trina Miller, Victoria Krisanits, Linda Cragle and the wedding anniversary of Jay and Susan McHenry. Today and Friday should be wonderful days--low humidity, coolish temperatures, no rain. Sunday will have thundershowers, with a possibility for some Saturday. The 34th Fun Fair begins today in Orangeville.
Part of these months are known as dog days because that is when days once coincided with the heliacal (at sunrise) rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. Ancient civilizations felt that the extra heat of summer came from that brilliant reddish star. For the ancient Egyptians, Sirius appeared just before the season of the Nile's flooding so they used the star as a "watchdog" for that event. Since its rising also coincided with a time of extreme heat, the connection with hot, sultry weather was also made and has remained.
A reader commented that he had never met me, but assumed that I was built like a turnip from my writing about eating and preparing food. His suggestion was that instead of talking about food that I say something about the expressions from a bygone day. Today is an excellent day to do that and with a little help from our Bichon Frize dogs, Buster and Chloe, I'll begin with the dog days of summer.
Father loved to take a "cat nap." He often said that someone was "dog-eared," although that wasn't a complimentary expression. Until sometime around the middle of the 18th century, "hair of the dog that bit you" meant exactly that. At that time, that phrase was based on the commonly held belief that your chances of recovery from the bite of a rabid dog were better if a hair of that animal was bound around the place where the bite took place.
There are other expressions, too. "Calling off the dogs" and "barking up the wrong tree" relates to the behavior of hounds. The term "raining cats and dogs" came along in 1763, but no one remembers what it meant back then. And the term "hot dog" originated in the early 1900s, but we don't know how that term originated either. "Leading a dog's life" is often an unhappy existence and "going to the dogs" is nothing that most of us want to do. "Letting sleeping dogs lie" might also come from about the same time. All this chatter has made me "dog-tired," so let's move on to something else.
Didja ever notice that the Administration living within its income is a fate worse that debt?
A reader suggested a way of having all politicians take a test to see if everything said is truthful. The test is illustrated in the clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKgmScYcK6g&feature=related .
It is hard not to notice as you enter Benton from the south that there are a number of houses for sale on Mill and Main Streets. Let's take a leisurely drive and look at what is available.
70 & 72 Mill Street: Double home and an excellent investment opportunity. The house sold in one week.
15 Mill Street: Unique and unusual opportunity to own the historic "Benton Roller Mill." The huge structure can be reopened as a feed mill and retail area, or you can get creative!. Read the history of the mill . $199,900
The beautiful Benton Dam is on the right as you cross Fishing Creek. No, it isn't for sale, but the view is worth a million dollars to everyone in the upper Fishing Creek valley.
150 Main Street: Great opportunity for contractor or handy-person! Commercial/residential two story with updated exterior is ready for interior renovations! Owner financing possible. $$74,900
480 Main Street: Nicely kept and improved 5 bedroom, 2-bath home with a new kitchen, first-floor laundry and more! $159,900
325 Main Street: The former Horace Harrison’s IGA includes house and grocery, plus the adjacent home of Arley and Myrtle Meeker and a brick building behind. SOLD!
355 Main Street: Three bedroom home with a one-bedroom apartment for in-laws or income! $98,500
440 Main Street: Two story with a newer roof, siding, windows and furnace. Needs some cosmetics and tender loving care, but has lots of potential! $99,000
475 Main Street: Flexibility in this two story floor plan makes it easy to suit your needs. Well maintained. $119,900
525 Main Street: Charm, character and curb appeal! This brick Tudor style home has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths, a fenced backyard and more! $189,900
535 Main Street: Charm radiates from this sweet Dutch Colonial which went under contract in 12 days.
And don't forget the "over-55 community where "It's a Wonderful Life!" Of course, it is Bailey Park. Lots range from $35,000 to $45,000 with home packages starting at $179,900.
There are other properties available in Benton where it is a great time to buy with low interest rates and money available to qualified buyers! Century 21 Covered Bridges Realty, Inc., 570 925-0210, has a professional realtor who can help buy or sell today.
The Goschenhoppen Folk Festival is Friday and Saturday of this week. This year's celebration is about a subject most of us know little about.
There is a section of property at Painter Den which for as long as I can remember has been known as the "bake oven." There isn't a person alive who can accurately remember why it is called the "bake oven," but that is its name and that is what we call it. The name conjures up visions of lumber camps during the final years of the 1800s when "woodhicks" covered the mountains in Sullivan County girdling the hemlock trees to make a tanning solution in the tanneries and cutting down the hardwoods to feed the insatiable appetite of the expanding building trades.
Visions of the bake oven in a forest of trees come to mind long before we had modern conveniences of convection ovens and the "set it and forget it" society in which we now live. Our fore-mothers spent an entire day devoted to providing the week’s baked goods for her family and we assume that is the derivation of the term as applied in the wilds of Sullivan County.
The few bake ovens that exist today have walls at least a foot thick and the pile of masonry which forms the base had to be several feet above the ground and built with a strong foundation. The ovens I have seen have a grate so that it can be heated from underneath with wood. Earlier versions had the fire built directly on the oven bottom.
The function of the bake oven was the prepare the week's supply of rye bread, make the fruit pies and dry the seasonal fruit for the upcoming winter. Bread was mixed and set to rise in large round loaves. Yeast-raised pastries, known within the Dutch community as "Kuchen," were mixed, pies were put together and fruit sliced to go into drying trays. After the bread had risen, the baking began. The coals from the wood fire were gathered from the oven, the hearth scrubbed clean and the loaves and pies set to bake. When baking finished, the drying trays would be set in the oven to dry in the last of the heat.
Pastrys took a strong heat and were the first in the oven. The bread was baked after the pastry and then came the beans and the puddings and anything that required a long, slow heat. The brick oven was perfect for this purpose because it took a long time to cool off. The bake oven was often outside and so the house didn't get heated up in the hot months of the summer.
The historians at the Goschenhoppen will highlight the bake oven at the annual Folk Festival on Friday, August 12, and Saturday, August 13. A traditional bake oven has been restored at the Henry Antes Plantation, 318 Colonial Road, Perkiomenville. See it Friday noon to 8 PM and Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM. Admission for adults is $10 and children 6 to 15 is $2.
Becky Westover is excited. The time for selling her now book--The Fireplace--is almost here. The book is available on line through Tate Publishing.com. The release date to the book stores will be in November, but sales will begin August 29 at The Center. Becky will be there from 9:30 to 11:30 AM and 3:30 to 5:30 PM for sales and signing. After submitting the manuscript to only one publishing company--Tate--it took six weeks to get the good news that they wanted to publish it. The whole process has taken a year to get to this point. "The story," Becky says, "was inspired by God, our grandkids and a unique wooden fireplace in the home of good friends. It starts out with the kids playing “hide and seek” in their grandparents basement which has a huge wooden fireplace. They discover a mystery. In searching for answers, the family learns about the history of the house and previous owners. It follows that family’s adventures with the Underground Railroad and searching for gold in Alaska and then comes back up through time to 1975 when the mystery was discovered.
Didja ever realize that "take-home pay" is named that because there is no other place you can afford to go with it?
The series on the events in the life of Michael Mastroianni continues. Michael is a graduate of University of Pittsburgh in English Writing and has two Masters degrees. His MA in political science is from the New School for Social Research. His MS in Psychology is from Columbia University.
August 10, 2011, the birthday of Erika Lenbergs, Jermey Griffith, Ken Sutton, Elizabeth Christian, Ann Morrocu and John Haines. Today is the birthday of Herbert Hoover, born in Iowa in 1874, son of a Quaker blacksmith. He ran for president in 1928 and within the year the 1929 stock market crash sent the country into an economic collapse. Sandy Lehet is making "good progress" following her knee-replacement surgery. George Snider and Larry Hess could use some prayers.
Quickies...• The Pennsylvania Department of Health offers free potassium iodide pills to residents who live within a 10-mile radius of the state’s five nuclear power plants. Potassium iodide helps protect against harmful radiation in the event of an emergency situation. Public-health workers will issue two tablets for each person plus for family members and those unable to pick them up on their own. Residents also can pick up KI tablets weekdays from 8 AM to 4:30 PM at the Department of Health Northeast District Office, 665 Carey Avenue, Wilkes-Barre. For additional information, call the Department of Health at 1-877-PA-HEALTH.• A Berwick native will have three book signings this week. Kurt Sivilich will sign copies on Thursday, August 11. He will be signing copies of his book, "Guardian Angel," at The Cloak and Dragon (12 E. Main Street, Bloomsburg), from 6 to 8 PM. On Friday, August 12, Sivilich will sign his books at the McBride Library, Berwick, from 1 to 3:30 PM, and at the Wilkes-Barre Arena Barnes and Noble from 6 to 8 PM. Sivilich is the son of Richard and Carolyn Sivilich, Orangeville. He is a 1987 graduate of Berwick Area High School and Kansas State University’s architecture program in 1998. Guardian Angel is the story of Michael, a businessman and father who suffers a fatal heart attack but reaps the unpleasant reward of living a lukewarm life. He is denied entrance into heaven and forced to forfeit his old life and become an unwilling guardian angel. Guardian Angel received the Editor’s Choice award from iUniverse Publishing. The book is available in hardcover, paperback and e-book formats.• The Bloomsburg Hospital sponsors its annual Rod and Custom Cruise-In at the Bloomsburg Fairgrounds this weekend. There is free admission Friday for scouts and seniors. The parade down Main Street is Saturday.• The Community Relations Committee of First Columbia Bank and Trust Co. held a bake sale on Friday, July 22, in front of the Main Office at 232 East Street, Bloomsburg, and inside the Benton Community Office at 200 Market Street. Employees from all thirteen branches of First Columbia Bank & Trust donated and sold homemade treats. A total of $965 was collected and donated to area public libraries and the library at the Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center. The Benton Branch raised $215 for The Center.• Congratulations to Matilde Kathleen Moros Laubach, recently named assistant dean at New Jersey's New Brunswick Theological Seminary. She is writing her doctoral thesis at Drew University. Her area is the sociology of religion. Mati is the daughter of Dr. Donna (Laubach) and Dr. Edgar Moros. who are today getting a quick vacation high atop the snow-capped Andes Mountains.News from The Center...
• The North Mountain Art League will feature shows in the library/museum during the months of September and October. Larry Ney will coordinate showing works from all Art League members during that period. Barbara Henne will display her oil paintings during the months of November and December.• There is a space for military/historical newspapers and pamphlets in the library at The Center. There is a lot of interesting reading in this section.
• The library of The Center will have a book sale at Heritage Days.
• There will be an Out Among the Stars (O.A.T.S.) Prefest November 19 at 7 PM in the gymnasium. Three groups will participate: Al Lumpkin and the Susquehanna String Theory, Stained Grass Window and Raven Creek (The Feola family and friends). A jam session will follow. All pickers are invited and urged to attend. Raffle tickets will be sold with an excellent slate of prizes. Tickets are $5 each or five for $20. A 50/50 drawing will also be available that evening. The Center kitchen will be open.
• September 28, 2011, 7 PM, Carlton (Butch) Young will speak on his trip to Ireland.
• The Center's Thrift Shop on Mill Street is having a sale of hard-cover books--three books for a dollar.
Didja ever think that the only way we'll ever be able
to balance the federal budget
is to tax people what they think they are worth,
not what they actually earn?We often mention what is happening to Michael Mastroianni as he travels around the world on dangerous assignments that nations and companies have selected for him. At the moment, he is in Tunisia, the northernmost country in Africa, at the behest of the European Union. He is with others teaching battlefield-emergency medicine to rebels in Libya southeast of the capital of Tunis. Two of the other teachers are Australians, "two Brits, and a very confused-looking Israeli" who "insists on never disclosing anything about himself." Their group is heading for Tatouine, the city nearest the refugee camp hosting them. The city is known for being the site where the "Tatooine" scenes of Star Wars were filmed.
A water-purification plant had been air-dropped to the refugee camp. Unfortunately, because the filters are made of a ceramic material, they broke on landing and after multiple failures the effort was abandoned. On his own initiative, Michael carried with him two water filtration canisters--all 160 pounds of them--but without the caps (which the airlines turned down because they were made of a hazardous material).
In his last email to his parents, Michael reported that they were attempting a battle-field fix by trying to weld metal plates to the tops of the canisters to replace those left behind in New York. One canister can provide water for 15,000 people for a week. His last email was sent Sunday, 36 hours before the expiration of the existing canister. Michael's job is to install them and purify the water at the camp before the existing canister expires in 36 hours. Tuesday night about 8 PM, word filtered back to Peter Mastroianni, Michael's father, that the water system had been "McGivered" and it was working.
Michael reported that as he was writing the weather was clear and there was no reported fighting near the border. The rebels have the border near the camp secured so the group can safely go there to teach. With Ramadan coming, only two students were confirmed (they were expecting 16) and the rest may not show up. "We will have a lot to do regardless," Michael said, "and the teaching materials we brought can always be used by the Tunisian team, some of which had to suffer through my training seven years ago when I was here last."
We'll continue with Michael's current assignment in tomorrow's edition.
Didja ever think that voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money?
They are sent there to bring home the bacon to their home state.There was considerable blame going around the halls of Congress following the United States losing its coveted AAA credit rating because of the ineptitude of the entire Washington establishment. The debt-ceiling increase enables the government to keep financing its operations with borrowed money until it runs through another $900 billion and keeps the dreaded word "default" out of mind until after the 2012 elections. If an election took place tomorrow and I could vote for each and every member of the Executive and Legislative Branches of the government, I would boot them all onto the street. The problem would then be who could we elect who could get us out of the mess we are in...
Dave Ramsey, the talkshow host who focuses on how to get families out of debt, put the situation in perspective. He compared the federal spending and deficit situation to the average American household. His point was that an increase in revenue (taxes) cannot come close to addressing the problem. His analysis was that if the US Government was an American family, they would be making $58,000 a year. They would spend $75,000 a year. They would have $327,000 in credit-card debt. The family would solve their problem by making cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year...
For those of you who watched the blame-throwing on CSPAN but did not understand the meaning of the words, here is a primer from the Senate side:
• When members were in complete agreement, they addressed the other member with the words, "The Senator from such and such a state."
• When members were not quite sure if another member actually agreed with him, the other Senator was addressed as "The Able Senator From..."
• If a member from one party was addressing a member from another party, he was addressed as "The able and distinguished Senator, my friend from..."
It was interesting how Senators who were unable to answer a question, simply answered another one.
The Administration fielded a number of problems, too. The newspapers quoted both "informed Administration sources" and "high Administration sources," the only difference being the number of martinis the person had at lunch.
Expect a lot of discussion soon in Washington about a new drink called "Foreignaid." It's the refreshment that never pauses.
Didja hear about the amendment to the farm bill
so that the total number of employees in the Department of Agriculture
at no time exceeds the number of farmers in America?Krysten Ritter is "switching gears for her new TV show Apartment 23 in which she plays the part of Chloe. MTV just bought one of the TV shows Krysten has been developing and she now has the rights to a book set in the country music world to develop it into a movie. A movie Krysten wrote, now called "Life Happens," is having a New York city premier August 15.
Monday and Tuesday, August 8 and 9, 2011. More than four inches of rain fell in the borough of Benton Saturday. Thunderstorms are possible locally through Thursday.
August 8, the birthday of Allison "Allie" Carswell, Dori Doty, Shawn Becker, William Mather, Scott Maguire and Janet Beishline. Keep Sandy Lehet in your prayers as she braces for her knee-replacement operation today in the Geisinger Hospital.August 9, the birthday of Doug Deitrick, Dyland Balliet, Minette Albertson Meyer, Abigail Ritchie and Landon Shires. It is the 88th birthday of Harry Angle, a resident of Lehet Park, Route 487.If you are a Benton Area Schools graduate and have changed your name or address, please send the information change to the Benton Area School District, Attention: Brady Hess, 600 Green Acres Road, Benton, Pa 17814. Brady will update the Alumni Association.The Wall Street Journal called it another "moment in the decline of U.S. economic strength" following rating agency Standard & Poor's lowering of its rating on U.S. debt to AA+ from AAA late Friday, ending the nation's 94-year streak as a triple-A borrower. S&P hinted that it could have dropped the rating to that of junk status based on competence of its policy makers to address long-term challenges. Congressional reaction was a typical "Who? Us? No..."U.S. stock futures were trading sharply lower Sunday night in Asian trading. Global financial markets are likely to remain quite volatile in the short term and this latest piece of bad news will add to the fears regarding the growth outlook of the US as well as the European sovereign debt crisis. Europe continues to struggle to contain its sovereign debt woes and is working to calm markets. Gold at press time was trading at $1,687.30 an ounce. Interest rates are likely to rise somewhat over the near term.
This will be a quick edition. I haven't been anywhere where I could read what is happening in the world and so I have nothing to report. I'll have to resort to my usual banter about things that happened before most of you were born--while admitting that I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Here are some responses to emails I finally had time to read. I apologize to those I have promised something but haven't delivered, but hopefully I'll get to it this week.A local waitress asked me to say something about a dish that I often order when I go into a restaurant. It was one of the favorite dishes Mother used to make--a simple one, which she called "Schmierkase" or "schmeer case." It was simply cottage cheese with apple butter on it. "Case" is Dutch for cheese and in this case it is cottage cheese thinned with milk or cream until it is thin enough to spread on bread. It is simply a layer of cottage cheese with a layer of apple butter on it.Recently I made some homemade apple butter for our morning pancakes during a stay in the mountains. The process seems so simple today compared with the machinations of previous generations where apple butter kettles like the one owned by Dayton Hess and now owned by his great granddaughter, Lisa Hess Gordner, were used during the autumn ritual when "the frost was on the pumpkin and the fodder was in the shock." Gallons of the delicious topping for bread were made by workers with wooden paddles and spices and sacks of sugar and cinnamon. Men operated the peelers, while the women and children cored and sliced the apples. The paddles were moved back and forth to keep the sauce from sticking. By the end of the day there would be an accumulation of spicy, dark-colored apple butter ready to store in stone crocks for use during the long winter months.There is an easier way to make applebutter. Take 5 cups of applesauce and from 5 to 7 cups of sugar (to taste, in other words), a quarter cup of vinegar and a teaspoon of cinnamon and the same of allspice. Throw everything together in a saucepan and bring it to a boil on high heat. Turn the heat down when it begins boiling and let it slowly boil for 15 minutes.Bob Thomas chided me, writing that I "forgot those smelly 5 gallon crocks of fermenting,shredded cabbage." It is true that back when I was a pup, many farmers would have a couple of "crocks" of homemade sauerkraut getting "ripe" around the house. I don't remember ever helping make sauerkraut, but certainly remember having it to eat. All I know about sauerkraut is that you have to shred the cabbage in some manner, add the right amount of salt, pack it in a jar, then walk away and leave it to its own devices in a temperature of so many degrees. And in a dozen or so days, you'll have sauerkraut. Regretfully, I never had a matronly person to teach me. Sauerkraut was normally prepared as the cool days of Autumn arrived in time for its use in Winter.
Jim Laubach remembers making sauerkraut every autumn with his Aunt Madeline and his mother, Ethyl Laubach, with cabbage grown in their victory garden across the lane from their house. After the cabbage was shredded and properly salted, it was Jim's duty to stomp the mixtiure to "juice it up" in the crock as more cabbage was added. The stomper was made of wood and looked similar to a bowling pin. "It was a tiring job for a young lad, but that was my duty for the war effort."
I do remember someone in Benton once telling Father, "She's a-working," referring to the making of sauerkraut. I have been told that sauerkraut actually makes a noise as it ferments in the crock or barrel. I don't remember who the man was, but will always remember how proud he was when he said, "She's a-working good now." The words sound like something that old Frank Edson would have said, but I can't be sure about that.I can remember Father eating sauerkraut raw, just as he often ate his buckwheat cakes cold and rolled in the haying season when he didn't have time to have lunch. Mother fried it and she boiled it with pork and baked it with pork. She included it with a variety of vegetables and even served it as part of a salad.As he told it, sauerkraut was the only thing German that Father liked during his war years in World War II.Then there is the memory of Mother running around (Father said, like a "chicken with its head cut off) to catch a wild chicken, then grabbing it and twirling it around as though she were winding up for the game-winning pitch in a game of women's softball. After the neck-wringing ceremony was over, the chicken and its head parted company while the headless body flopped around making a huge mess of the back yard and giving heart failure to the family dog. The chicken then got dunked into a pot of boiling water until it was time to pluck the feathers from its still-hot body. Next came the singeing over an open flame, the gutting of the chicken and the frequent washes. The chicken went into a large boiler of cold water, then simmered for a couple of hours while dumplings or biscuits, fresh vegetables, a loaf of white homemade bread, and a pie were put together.
I often think back to October, 1918, when Father brought Mother Back Home to Benton, PA, from her parents' home in Nescopeck. A few days into the honeymoon, Father told Mother that he would like chicken and buttermilk biscuits, a dish Mother had never tried to prepare. Father even killed their first chicken, sparing Mother that duty as one of the rewards of the honeymoon. Mother prepared a beautiful looking meal, but little of the chicken was consumed that night. It seems that no one had told Mother to remove the insides of the chicken before she cooked it. Father's first clue, apparently, was when he found the oats in the gravy!
Nothing quite satisfied like a large plate of chicken and biscuits cooked up, a Sunday favorite, whether at home or on those special occasions when the family headed for Hotel Moses Van Campen on Main Street or to the Pied Piper Restaurant in Maple Grove. The magic powers of chicken and biscuits healed the problems of depression, grief, the common cold and pains associated with hunger.The past generation in Benton didn't have a great deal, but they didn't know the meaning of "want," unless it came about through some great misfortune or because they were lazy. Nobody had a great deal, but everyone had enough and were always willing to share anything they owned--whether it was kraut, vegetables from the garden or canned fruit, meat from the smokehouse or eggs from the henhouse.Franklin D. Hess (June 24, 1940-August 6, 2011), died at his Asbury home at 391-A Harrison Road, Orangeville, Saturday. He had been in declining health for six years. He was 71. Frank was born at the Bloomsburg Hospital. He was a son of O. Edward and Beatrice M. (Swisher) Hess. He was a 1958 graduate of Benton High School and lived his entire life in Fishingcreek Township. He was a farmer and a DeLaval Dairy Equipment dealer operating as Franklin D. Hess Enterprises, which he operated from his home for 35 years until he retired in 2002. He was a member of the Asbury United Methodist Church.
Surviving are his wife, the former Nancy C. Sterner, with whom he celebrated his 48th wedding anniversary on May 18, 2011; a son, Neil E. Hess (Teresa), Danville; a daughter, Lori N. Maxwell (Glen), Huntersville, NC; grandchildren Katie Hess, Kelsey Hess and Colin Maxwell; and a brother, Robert R. Hess (Sandra), Benton. He was preceded in death March 22, 2004, by his sister, Elaine A. Hess.
Friends may call at the funeral home on Tuesday from 6-8 PM. Funeral services will be held on Wednesday at 11 AM in the Dean W. Kriner Funeral Home, Benton. Interment will be in the St. James Cemetery, Bendertown. The family will provide flowers. Memorials may be sent to Asbury United Methodist Church, c/o Nadine Steward, Treasurer, 233 Mountain Road, Orangeville, PA 17859 or to the American Cancer Society, 1948 E. Third Street., Williamsport, Pa 17701.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 5, 6 and 7, 2011. Expect some humidity Friday with high temperatures in the mid-80s. On August 11, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 265 points--2.5%. Tuesday, almost a year later, the Dow dropped 265 points. Stocks have recently been taking a terrible beating. Thursday, the Dow dropped more than 512 points.
August 5, the birthday of Linda Maher, Fred Westover, Sr. and Bill Allegar.August 6, the birthday of Tom Becker, Linda Maher, Joyce Keller and Erin Ackerman. Used but good items will be for sale on Third Street by Mary Robbins and Bea Lanyl. Look for the garage-sale sign. Cambra will hold its community-wide garage sales. There will be a WWII "Victory in the Pacific" tribute from 10 AM to 5 PM at the War Memorial Museum, Sonestown.August 7, the birthday of Lori Roberts Tunaitis, Charlie Crusan, Kareen Ellen Lawson (Kareen Royer), James Fox, Rod Pennington, Terry Griffith, William Mather and Prairie Home Companion storyteller and host Garrison Keillor. It is the wedding anniversary of Andy and Leann Gordon. The freewill-offering breakfast Sunday at the United Methodist Church will have a Hawaiian theme. It begins at 8 prior to church services.Quickies...
• The summer hours of the Sullivan County Museum are Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 1 to 5 PM. The last day the museum is open for the summer is Saturday, September 3.• If you don't hear from me for a couple of days, it is because the government plans to deport old people instead of illegal aliens in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs. I'll be on the run until this blows over...
• Becky Fritz Garrison and Amy Fritz Eckert are looking for a graduation picture of their mother, Joan A. Henry Fritz. A copy of a 1946 Benton High School yearbook would help, but there was no yearbook for that year (none according to Linda Haines, until 1952). Can a reader help?
• AT&T has announced that it will begin throttling data throughput for heavy users (top 5% of data consumption) of its unlimited smartphone data plans beginning October 1. Verizon Wireless switched to a tiered model similar to AT&T.
• The Exploration & Production segment of Williams is focused on developing natural gas reserves in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado, the Bakken Shale oil play in North Dakota and the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. The business operates domestically in Wyoming's Powder River Basin and the San Juan Basin in the southwestern United States, with international investments in Argentina and Colombia. Exploration & Production reported segment profit of $94 million for second-quarter 2011, compared with $73 million for second-quarter 2010, a 29% increase in profits primarily based on oil production in the Bakken Shale and higher average prices. Unexpected developments with the Martin well did not appear to significantly affect the profit of the division.
• A seasoned citizen friend wrote, saying it all began with an iPhone. On their grandson's birthday, the grandparents bought him an iPhone. He loved it. Who wouldn't? My friend said that on his birthday, his wife made him very happy when she bought him an iPad. Their granddaughter's birthday was a few days ago and they got her an iPod Touch. His wife celebrated her birthday yesterday so he got her a replacement iRon. That is when the fight started. His wife failed to recognize that the iRon can be integrated into the home network with the iWash, iCook and the iClean. This inevitably activates the iNag reminder service. My friend is expected to be released from the hospital next week. Until then, he says "iHurt."
The canning season is beginning Back Home in Benton, PA. The first tomatoes are ripening up on the vines and canning of tomato juice will be in full swing by the end of the month. Max Hartman recently sent pictures of the tomatoes they plucked from their plants to make tomato juice. Lee and Carolyn Remley probably set the record in the local area for making tomato juice. Everyone who has a garage sale locally must have canned a lot in their lifetimes. They certainly have Mason jars to dispose of!
For those of you who never had dried corn, you can buy a great equivalent marketed as "Copes Corn." Horace Harrison carried that brand in his IGA store on Main street and after Mother no longer dried the corn, she simply bought the commercial equivalent.I am a little vague on what my parents planted in our garden. I do know that we had potatoes, cabbage, turnips, carrots and parsnips which we stored in the cellar for the winter. I know that we had lettuce, lima beans and green onions. I can’t remember having spinach and don’t remember having spinach in a salad until after I married. Sweet corn would be planted in two rows in a crop of field corn. Tomatoes were planted close to Fishing Creek, along the bank, and grew on stakes planted in the ground. I am certain that during World War II the canning of fruits and vegetables increased significantly.
The crop I loved to eat the most was lima beans, and it was also the crop I most hated to prepare for the dinner table. The shelling of limas to me was very tedious. While the pile of pods grew quickly, the pan of lima beans filled slowly. Mother often combined the limas with cream-style corn to make succotash.
I can picture the family on the side porch on the glider gabbing about nothing in particular while washing and then shelling the lima beans. Mother liked to use scissors to cut a thin strip along the inner edge of the pod where the beans attached. The beans went straight from the shell to the pan. Occasionally, we got busy and the beans scorched during cooking.
It wouldn’t be right not to give a plug for the housewife and mother of the farm during the time when I grew up. The following is invented from a merger of my mother and Ruth Kline, my sister-in-law. This woman never actually existed, except as she exists in my mind today based on real events I actually saw as I grew up. The woman—let’s call her Harriet so that she sounds more human—would feed “supper” to the hired men and would wait until everyone had eaten and headed back to the barn before she began taking snippets of food from what was left. She rarely sat down. Often, one of her cranky children would be carried from table to sink and back with stacks of dishes in the other arm. Harriet might have had an older daughter to help care for the young children and make some simple dishes like boiling lima beans (remember the "scorching?"). Harriet’s husband would go to bed after the evening chores were finished, perhaps listening for a few minutes to a Phillies game or a political speech, but she would not be able to retire until about ten o’clock. At half-past four in the morning, she was up and heading for the milk house where her deeply grooved hands would prepare for the arriving pails of warm milk. Breakfast was ready for the menfolk by six in the morning. Harriet worked in excess of sixty hours a week, mostly in home-making, but a high priority was caring for her poultry, dairy and garden.
Some farm families cured their own meat when I was growing up. I only remember the butchering once--two hogs (generally known as "pigs" when small and "hogs" when grown). Butchering--like passing debt-ceiling legislation--isn't something that is very enjoyable to watch. I can't remember a smoke house on our farm, but I certainly remember the smell of a smoke house, so we must have had one.
Another smell from my childhood was that of freshly baked bread--ever so much better than "boughten bread." The process to get the homemade bread was difficult by my way of thinking. Mother would "throw the flour to it" by simply reaching into the flour bin and pulling out handfuls of flour. Mother mixed all the ingredients and I kneaded it until I got tired and then Mother would take over. It always seemed as though we did that in the later parts of the day. The bread would then be covered and set in a warm place to "raise." The bread would be kneaded again in the morning and then baked. Nothing will ever substitute for the taste and smell of freshly baked bread with warm butter.
Although I don't remember much about it, Mother must have done a lot of baking. We had a cabinet about 36" high with a flour bin in it. The door was hinged near the bottom. Mother never measured the flour. She simply reached in and took a handful and added it to the mixture. I doubt that she even had a measuring cup. The flour came in both 25 and 60 pound bags. Lard was the shortening that was used and was kept in the basement where it would stay cool and not spoil. Although animal fat is never healthy for people, Father lived to be 90 and Mother to be 88.
As long as we are talking about canning and baking, we might as well move on to pickles. To get ready for this new subject, take the time to read the article about the struggle more than a century ago by politicians, public health experts and social reformers who were alarmed by immigrants who liked highly seasoned cooking laced with garlic, onions and pepper. Strongly flavored food, some believed, led to nervous, unstable people. Nervous, unstable people made bad Americans. To be a good American, you had to eat like one!
This is where the garlicky, vinegary pickle comes into the picture, which Kathy Arcuri discusses next in her August article entitled "In a Pickle.""Summer in a Jar, a favorite cookbook title, captures the delight of homemade pickles in the dead of winter. A cheese board garnished with dilly beans, hard-boiled eggs marinated in pickled beets, salad greens topped with tangy carrots, and I am transported to August.
"Pickling is a 4500-year old food preservation technique, first developed in ancient Mesopotamia with cucumbers grown from Indian seeds. The word “ pekel” in Dutch simply means brine, but English speakers tend to equate a pickle with the cucumber variety. However, all manner of edibles--vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat, and fish--can be preserved for months in acidic brine. Indeed, every culture seems to have its preferred pickle delicacy, from papaya in the Philippines, beets in Russia, herring in the Scandinavian countries, eggs in Britain, even snakes in Taiwan.
"And here in America, we have our own pickle heritage. Amerigo Vespucci, an explorer and mapmaker for whom our continent was named, was also a pickle merchant who provisioned ships with all sorts of pickled vegetables, to preserve the food and prevent scurvy during long sea journeys. Christopher Columbus in fact was one of Vespucci’s customers, and may have discovered the New World with the Italian’s pickles on board.
"So this summer, in honor of such a universal part of our human heritage, as the garden’s harvest yields its bounty, jars of pickled vegetables are accumulating in my pantry--a bejeweled treasure trove to sustain us through Benton’s long winters. To simplify matters, I’ve created an easy and efficient pickling method for a few pints at a time, requiring at most a half hour of kitchen duty for several jars of the essence of summer. No day-long toil in a steamy kitchen for me.
"My favorite vegetables for pickling are green beans, red and gold beets, carrots, cukes, and trombone squash--often with onion slices, colorful slivers of pepper, a garlic clove, various pickling spices, and sprigs of herbs tucked into the jar for extra flavor. Select a brine of your choice from the many options in cookbooks or on-line, making sure to use only kosher or canning salt.
"Next, pick your vegetables early in the day, when they are crispest. Pack them tightly, sliced or whole, into pint jars, pre-cooking only the beets; and tuck in herbs and spices as desired. Place allspice berries, whole cloves, mustard seeds, and other pickling spices at the bottom of the jar, allowing them to float around once the brine is added. And slide sprigs of herbs like tarragon or dill along the side for a decorative appearance.
"Finally mix the brine in a glass quart measuring container and microwave on high, until boiling. Then just pour some brine into each jar, leaving ½” of headroom; attach the canning lids; and turn the jars upside down for about 10 minutes (Note: the USDA recommends finishing with water bath processing, but I find that produces a limp product and is not necessary). As the jars cool, the lids should seal (refrigerate any jars that don’t seal properly), and voilà, you have tasty treats for family and friends to enjoy in the months to come."
***Caution: do resist the temptation to sample the wares immediately; pickles require at least six weeks to undergo the magic of fermentation, as they morph from garden-variety vegetables into delicious condiments.--Kathleen Arcuri
Sharon L. (Hartman) Lynn (January 23, 1943-August 3, 2011), Mill Street, Benton, died Wednesday at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, where she had been a patient since May 15. She had been in declining health for several years. She was 68. Sharon was born in the Berwick Hospital. She was a daughter of Verncel Howard Shaffer and Marion Lucille Hartman Bach. She was raised by her grandparents, Herman and Mildred (Sutliff) Hartman, from the time that she was 3 months old. Sharon was a 1961 graduate of Benton High School. She once worked at Dol-Ang Manufacturing/Krystal Fashions, Benton.
She was a member of the Stillwater Christian Church. She was once active in Scouting and had served as a Weeblos Den Mother as well as a Girl Scout Leader. She was an active member of the community and a past president and life member of the Benton Volunteer Firemen Ladies Auxiliary. She also served as the secretary for the Benton Ambulance Association.
She and her husband, Wilson E. Lynn, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on June 24. Surviving, in addition to her husband, are her children Steven S. Lynn (Bonnie), Orangeville, and Deborah Sue Lynn and her companion, John Ewald, Orangeville; sisters Lloydene Nati (James), Elmira, NY; Debbie Bach, St. Augustine, Florida; and an aunt, Carolyn Hartman, Benton. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by a son, Scott Alan Lynn, on September 6, 1961.
Funeral services will be held Saturday at 11 AM with calling hours for two hours before the service at the McMichael Funeral Home. Burial will be in the Waller Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in her memory to the Benton Volunteer Fire Company, P. O. Box 252, Benton, PA 17814 or to the Waller Memorial Hall, c/o Shirley Fulmer, 640 Waller Road, Benton, PA 17814. For online condolences, visit www.mcmichaelfuneralhome.com .
Wednesday and Thursday, August 3 & 4, 2011.
August 3, the 96th birthday of Leon Robbins, an avid hunter, outdoorsman and spinner of tall tales. It is also the birthday of Terry Hack, Sandy Westover and Yvonne Fetzer Lukashewski. It is the wedding anniversary of Rick and Maryann Bardo. It was on this day in 1492 that Christopher Columbus sailed from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, leading ships Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and a crew of about 90 men. The crew headed for "Cathay" (Asia) and ended up in Guanahani, San Salvador, an island in the Bahamas, about two months later. Columbus kept a journal about the natives of the island in which he wrote "They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion." Tonight at 8 PM come to The Center to watch skits developed by acting workshop students. The skits are the result of a six-week acting class conducted by Fishing Creek Players. Instructor M.R. Daniels will explain the class topics and then the students will do a script-in-hand presentation, employing various techniques taught during the sessions. There is no charge; refreshments will be served. Expect periods of thunderstorms today with moderating temperatures.
August 4, the birthday of Roxie Walters, Bob Sweeney and President Obama. Ron and Faye Igou celebrate their wedding anniversary. The popular North Mountain Fire Company carnival kicks off tonight.
Becky Westover's book has "gone to marketing," so there should be some major news on that subject very soon.
Do you know where all the open fishing waters are in Columbia & Montour Counties? Do you know where you can take a hike that is pet friendly? Do you know what game is prevalent in our local state game lands? The answers to these questions are found in the newest publication of the Columbia-Montour Visitors Bureau (CMVB)--its Outdoor Recreation Guide.
The Outdoor Recreation Guide consists of 41 different listings, all with gps coordinates, hours, directions, contact information and descriptions. This guide was made possible by the CMVB, the Columbia County and the Montour County Commissioners.Pick up a free copy of the Outdoor Recreation Guide at either the Bloomsburg (121 Papermill Road) or Danville (316 Mill Street) Welcome Center. For those living outside the area planning a trip to Columbia and Montour counties, a full version is also available for instant download from the website under the brochures tab.
Didja know that President Obama may have solved the illegal immigration problem?
The unemployment rate in Mexico is so low that illegal immigrants are sneaking back into the country.The Benton Country Cultivators will hold its monthly meeting Thursday, August 11, at the Library at Misericordia University, Dallas, at 6 PM. The group will hear a presentation on "Shakespeare on Flowers" and then visit the Shakespeare Garden where all the flowers come from his plays. Anyone interested is welcome to call Marie Castrotiovanni, 925-5031, or Meg Geffken, 925-6264.
In California, a favorite sport on son David's ranch was to poke a water hose down a gopher hole and try to figure where the little critter was going to come out using the "back door." On the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach, there was a fun game known as Whac-A-Mole, where little critters would come up out of a hole and the object was for you to swing a sledge and bonk them on the head before they could disappear back into the hole. Last week I had a "Whac-A-Mole" experience when up popped a knee problem when I was worried about larger health issues. As I got up from sitting on a chair, my knee suffered a strange separation which affected my ability to walk and to sit. The resolution of the problem will be determined Friday when the surgeon makes a decision on what to do. Friday will be his first opportunity to see X-rays and MRI results. I'll let you know when I have to gopher surgery.
Sunday evening, Marcia Kay and I had a party for the children and grandchildren who had August birthdays. We gathered on the back deck and grilled mixed vegetables and brots and burgers in the 90° outside heat of Camp Hill, and washed it down with peach ice tea and a brew imported from Pottsville. Birthday cake and watermelon topped off the eating activities for the day. It was then time for fun and games, supplied this year by outfitting everyone with a water pistol and the coldest water we could find to fill the pistols. It was great fun--until Monday morning.
And so in the time Monday that I had between appointments, I attempted to recall the years spent on the farm. These were the years when Mother would spend half her day cleaning. What was in the barn made it to our yard to some degree and what was in our yard got "tracked" into the house. Keeping a farm house clean and neat was a chore. The driveway between the house and the barn was not paved, and even using the ever-present door mat, what was not to come into the house did come into the house no matter how many times we wiped our feet.
You might get the wrong idea. Things were not as bad as they were in the days when my grandparents lived--before my time, regretfully. Mother still had "spring cleaning" and "fall cleaning," her term for what I dreaded as "house cleaning," holdovers from a bygone day.
I remember Mother helping Mary Dallas Hess (wife of Dallas Hess, a farmer in Benton Township. Because there were a number of local people with the name "Mary Hess," her friends gave this Mary the honorary middle name of "Dallas"). I observed "spring cleaning" the "old-fashioned way" at the home of Mary Dallas.
Mary Dallas, Mother and I moved all the parlor furniture into another room, removed the tacks from the wall-to-wall carpets and lugged the carpet to the clothes line, hung it, then beat it unmercifully with a carpet beater--a device which looked a little like a tennis racquet. Give a kid a carpet beater and something to hit and he is in hog heaven! It was hard to figure out what all the fuss was about. No one was ever allowed to go into that room anyway. How could it get dirty? The beating process continued until no signs of dirt were visible--and then continued "just in case."
Eventually, the carpet had to come off the clothes line and be relaid on the parlor floor. Mother would tell me to lay the carpet "longways," a term I never grasped--at least on the first try. The carpet would then be tacked down with small rips in the carpet getting extra tacking before chairs and tables were correctly pushed into position.
The process was different in the large room to the right as we entered the back door--the only door I ever saw anyone use. For cleaning this room, Mary Dallas took a stiff broom and brushed the larger particles out the door with a vigor that I knew I never wanted to mess with. She didn't seem to notice the cloud of dust that raised like it was noon on Nagasaki and slowly but carefully settled into every nook and cranny of the furniture. This is the point at which I would be called into service as the "dusting" process began in earnest.
The next time that you get your vacuum cleaner out of the closet, don't grumble at how much work is involved. Be thankful for the invention of the vacuum cleaner.
Monday, August 1, and Tuesday, August 2, 2011. You may see some showers Monday and Wednesday, but all in all it is an "open the windows at night and enjoy the summer" type of week.
August 1, the birthday of Barbara King, Seth Eyer, Betty Rafalko, Norman Brown, Jennifer Welliver and Deb Little. A Committee of the Whole/Special Meeting of the Benton Area School District school board will take place in the Middle/Senior High School cafeteria at 6:30 PM.
August 2, the birthday of Crystal Janney, Fred Houseweart and Sherri Barrett Prueitt. Danville Community Band plays a variety of music in the Millville Community Park tonight at 7 PM.
President Obama and congressional leaders agreed to raise the federal debt limit early Sunday evening. The agreement, yet to be ratified by the House or the Senate at this writing, includes sharp spending cuts but no new taxes.
The debt ceiling crisis may be over later today. But, then again, it might not be. The Democrats aren't walking away with as much as they had hoped for. The agreement, as reported by major television networks and newspapers, seems to indicate that the agreement doesn't include either revenue or stimulus and lets the Republicans get a million in cuts now without offering anything to the Democrats. Sometime after that happens, a congressional “ Supercommittee” made up of the Grand Poobahs of both parties will recommend up to $2 trillion in further cuts. If that plan doesn’t pass Congress, an "enforcement mechanism" will begin making automatic, across-the-board cuts to almost all categories of spending.There is a new free application for the Google Chrome browser, that lets you view several thousand television stations through your browser. "Wonderful," you say, licking your chops at the prospect of watching American Western movies from a television station in Romania. I didn't get it to successfully work, but I will. Here is how you do it. Download the free extension "TV Chrome" at the Google Chrome Web Store. Make sure that you have Windows Media Player plug-in installed. Look for a TV Chrome icon on your toolbar then navigate around to the 115 or so counties represented on the list of available stations. Don't have Google Chrome? Download it here.
Didja ever think how different the three primary neighborhoods are in Columbia County? We live in the northern part of the county--the Benton/Millville area--and often forget about how different the other two areas of Columbia County really are. A number of people have told me that we were like foster children--those of us who live in the upper Fishing Creek valley--until the Northern Columbia Community & Cultural Center came along and proved its worth. When we meet people for the first time from other parts of Columbia County, it is not unusual to have them say to us something to the effect that we are from the northern part of the county, up where they have that wonderful community center.
Each of the three areas have a slightly different physical look to them, and that in turn determines in part how we make our living, spend our free time and plan our social activities. Our ethnic origins are different in each part of the county and we don't always agree on politics or religion. The boundaries created when Columbia was carved from Northumberland County in 1813 (and modified in 1850) were as imperfect as the political boundaries drawn today in the political world.Starting in the south, there is the area of Catawissa and the now almost-forgotten town of Centralia. Mining was big there and until about 1885 Catawissa was a railroad center. Eastern European settlers moved into the area, along with some Welsh and Scottish. Residents tended to look toward Schuylkill and Northumberland counties for most of its commerce rather than in other parts of Columbia County, much as Lower Luzerne County tends to look toward Dallas and Wilkes-Barre for its commerce.Moving North, the river-bank communities of Bloomsburg and Berwick looked toward business and industry rather than agriculture for its livelihood, although the English and German settlers did their share of farming and grist mills were important. Commerce sprang up with the opening of the North Branch Canal in 1829. The railroad arrived. Pig iron from local mines fueled furnaces at the north end of the only town in Pennsylvania. A silk mill opened and a carpet company made a splash as textiles took hold. A "normal school" continued to grow, became a college and eventually a university. A major interstate highway brought commerce to both Bloomsburg and Berwick.
Berwick's commerce got a huge boost with its position at the start of the turnpike beginning in Nescopeck which headed for the Lehigh River at Mauch Chunk and with the Susquehanna & Tioga Turnpike which forged its way into New York state from its Southern terminus at the Susquehanna. The English of Berwick were not much into farming, but concentrated on the foundry built to manufacture agricultural implements, which eventually broadened its scope to railroad rolling stock. The American Car & Foundry Company came along one hundred and eleven years ago.Moving North in the county, God's county comes next and in this area we'll throw in Orangeville, Benton and Millville and a host of small communities positioned along country roads on the side of rolling hills, beside tranquil south-flowing streams that gently migrate to our neighbors to the South and in narrow valleys where our friends and neighbors call home.We have a proud heritage that dates from the days when those who came before us were mostly Democrats opposing Mr. Lincoln's War and the platform of the Republican party. Many of us today haven't changed our conservative thinking very much, but today that kind of thinking is generally aligned with the Republican party. We love to listen to the stories of lumbering operations at our end of the county, the building of wagons in Millville and Benton, the Benton Town Park and the days when the annual Farmer's Picnic turned Benton into a parking lot for horses and buggies and when the Firemen's Carnival was held in the shade in that wonderful setting. We read about the production of whiskey and the events in the life of its owner who also happened to be the only U.S. Congressman to have come from Benton, the coming of railroads, the growing of buckwheat, the butchering of the family pig at the approach of cold weather, the building of grist mills to feed early settlers. We listen carefully to the stories of the great fire which did much damage to Benton in 1910 and our minds wander to visualize the scope of that fire.We cherish our time spent hunting and fishing and don't want any discussions of tampering with our right to keep our firearms. We continue to till our fertile but glacially impacted soil. Over the past hundred or so years, our ancestors built houses with a certain sameness to them. We honor those in the community who went off to serve in World War I and II and the other skirmishes that our nation finds itself in.
We often reconstruct the atrocities committed on civilians of the upper Fishing Creek Valley during the Civil War. We are proud that Millville has long been a religious center and a manufacturing center for farm implements and that Benton had two wagon manufacturers in his proud history. This is what we call "home," this is where once a toe is dipped in Fishing Creek the person never wants to leave or if he leaves he wants to return.
