where did everyone go?

I just returned from the Santander (Sovereign) Majestic Theatre where a symposium was held on the topic, Pottsville’s Declining Population. I was quite pleased. With a declining population it was now easier for me to get a good seat and the line for popcorn was bearable.

Here are the facts. In 1940 Pottsville had a population of about 24,500 and now, in 2010, it is 14,172. While the drop sounds grim, I told the audience that it could have been much worse. Luckily for us more and more activities are now illegal so our prison is keeping ours numbers up. I reminded the audience that there are about 30 prisoners doing hard county time for removing the tag on their mattresses and we should be thankful for each and every one of them as well as the informants who ratted on them.

That remark was received by an overwhelming praise for prison overcrowding and demand that additional laws be immediately enacted making more behavior illegal.

The pros and cons of a county-sponsored Kids for Cash program to halt the out-migration of our youth was also discussed. This was soundly rejected due to the bad publicity the program received in Luzerne County.

As the main speaker at the symposium I pointed out glaring omissions by the press. For instance while the population of Pottsville had decreased 8% over the past ten years, the fact that the average waist size of the citizenry expanded by 8% was ignored. "Why wasn't this good news publicized?" I mentioned just before the buttered popcorn break.

I also pointed out that Pottsville now has three nursing homes filled with many Alzheimer residents, who have no plans to leave the city of Pottsville, especially since they reside in locked and secured buildings, and most of them don't have driver's licenses; they could only wander by foot to Mechanicsville if they wanted to leave our city.

Some one in the audience brought up the fact that the local women’s shelter had expanded and this also helped get the numbers up. Everyone gave a round of applause. “Hats off to the ladies.”
After another buttered popcorn break, I presented a power point presentation featuring statistics that outlined the consistency of the decrease over the past seventy years. The city has a steady decline of 8% per decade. "It is no stampede, no mad dash, no exodus, no hegira, no evacutation, no diaspora. It has been a very level but orderly out- migration. If you want to see an exodus try taking the post-apocalypic road through the wasteland from Shenandoah to Girardville. Pottsville will be here much longer than any of those municipalities. ...Maybe the county should be cut in two and the southern half united with northern Berks County. I just don't know." At this point another popcorn break was called.

If the City can maintain this consistency, then it is guaranteed that Pottsville will remain around for hundreds of more years; it will just be just smaller. A tiny town in a tiny county. All commerce will be done at the Tilden Shopping Area near Hamburg. In fact, it won’t be until 2060 that the city's population will fall below the 10,000 mark needed to retain city status. In that year, it will return to its roots and once again become a borough. Even in the tri-centennial year of 2106, the population will be a robust 6200. Someone mentioned that a larger percentage of these 6200 residents may be in nursing homes, shelters or in prison, so I asked that the word ‘robust’ be stricken from the record. In any event, I plan to be still cyrogenically preserved at that time at the Jalappa Ice Plant, not to be defrosted until the city's sesqui-tricentennial. Beep your horn when passing me. After one more popcorn break an open-mike participation was held, allowing suggestions for increasing the population of the city. Here are some of the responses:

• Conjugal visits for the prisoners.



• Grant citizenship to household pets (at least dogs for starters).



• Having the New Year Baby contest held monthly and double the prizes.



• Invade North Manheim Township and enslave the residents.



• Bring back the Mayor’s Dance at the Norwegian Street parking lot.



• Clean up the city & enforce the building codes to attract middle-class families.



• Demand a census recount and have each bi-polar resident count for two.



• Offer each new resident one dozen sticky buns as an incentive for relocating here.



• Promote the city as an ideal location for those entering the federal witness protection program.



• Rezone Greenwood Hill as a clothing optional area.



• Have all the city's traffic lights stay red longer, thereby delaying people from leaving.

All great ideas; all in all, it was a great symposium. I hope to see 92% of them back in ten years.

Road trip to Tremont

Mardi Gras week and nowhere to go.
With a gallon of gas costing more than a six pack of Yuengling, driving to New Orleans is out of the question. Even if a gallon of gas cost less than a half gallon of Guers iced tea, I wouldn’t go.

I don’t like to leave the county’s borders except for an occasional trip to Luzerne or Lackawanna County to watch the trials of the government officials, some elected, some appointed – judges, count commissioners, row officers, school board members, housing authority board members, meter maids, patrol boys; the whole gammit.

Mammy enjoyed the trials too; sitting in the courtroom with her lady friends who all knitted while the testimony was given. Why knitting? Not because it made her feel like Madame Defarge in Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities.” No, but because my birthday was coming up and she wanted to make me a sweater. So very thoughtful of her.

I feel secure here. Schuylkill County is my cocoon. It is my fortress, my sanctuary. This is why I stay here. The outside world means nothing to me. My world begins and ends in the four corners of this county.
I told Mammy that we would celebrate Mardi Gras in the french settlements of the county. We could get there and back and still have money left over for some Yuengling and Guers iced tea. I got out my map of Schuylkill County and looked for the French areas. At first we thought we would go to La Velle but we changed our minds. It was too small.
We finally decided we would celebrate Mardi Gras in the French village of Tremont. At first, Mammy questioned if that was truly a french area. I responded that it had to be a French settlement with a name like that. Tres means “three” and mont means “mountain.” I took three years of French so I knew what I am talking about. What else could it be? Comprenez-vous ?


I told her that it was settled by French fur trappers many years ago but with the closing of Pollack’s and the three other Pottsville furrier stores, fur trapping as a livelihood took it on the chin. The French settlers took their pelts and moved away. People around don’t wear fur anymore. People around here wear caps made in China, and tee shirts and sweat pants made in Vietnam.

So off we went in our F-150. We ended up in Tremont on Mardi Gras Day, or Fat Tuesday as some call it. We felt out of place walking around the Main Street in our costumes. With Spa 61 now shut down, Mammy got a good deal on a real cute outfit. She looked adorable. However no one else in town had on a costume, only baseball caps, tee shirts, sweat pants, and an occasional NASCAR jacket. I wore the Border Patrol costume that I purchased from someone north of the mountain who didn't need it anymore.

Tremont was so quiet. There were neither floats nor krews nor women flashing themselves in order to get some cheap plastic beads made in China. I dangled a few beads in front of a few women heading into the bank but I got no takers. I guess they had all the cheap plastic beads they needed. After standing in front of the old Tremont movie theatre (that is a French word for theater) we found a small downtown bistro. We sat down and were content to spend the rest of the day dining on fasnachts. These are delicious doughnuts that are deep-fried in lard that are then sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar. My mouth is now watering just thinking about them. I ate all of those in the photo to your left. Fasnachts became popular after the departure of the french fur trappers, or maybe the trappers all died off after eating too many fasnachts and that resulted in the Pottsville furriers shutting down their stores? Who knows?

In the words of Nancy Reagan, “Just Say Dough –nut; laissez les bon temps roulez."