Hoodie Hoo: Schuylkill County Weather Modification Deemed A Failure

The bi-polar vortex once again is gripping Schuylkill County from the far north reaches of McAdoo to  southern Summit Station with no release in sight.    

The recent Schuylkill County Emergency Management Agency’s  attempt at weather modification appears to be a dismal failure at an enormous cost to those who actually pay their county real estate taxes on time.  

Winter season in Schuylkill County generally begins on November 1^st and lasts through May 14^th, followed by the long hot dry season which occurs before the rainy season.  The average winter temperatures have steadily decreased over the past several decades, generally reaching a low of minus thirty in February.  These long, cold winters have crippled the miniature golf industry which is the center of tourism in the county. In fact, numerous miniature golf courses in the area closed permanently due to the impact of the severe winters.  This has a ripple effect, creating many other hardships, including the lay-off of thousands of miniature golf caddies and those who work at the Pottsville Steel plant manufacturing those small miniature golf course carts.   Health hazards are also a concern as people tend to resort to using de-icing salt on their snacks because they are unable to get out to the stores to buy Morton salt.  De-icing salt has a much larger caloric count and is thought be partly responsible for the county-wide obesity epidemic according to the Pottsville Surgeon General.  

 Physicians have also reported a rise in the density of body fur growth occurring in the population, particularly in North

North Manheim Township

Manheim Township, which makes it more difficult for tattoo artists to have their work displayed properly.  And, of course, there is also the seasonal increase in the visits to the emergency rooms and welding garages for having tongues carefully removed from metal poles.

Weather modification is the act of intentionally manipulating or altering the weather.  With the down payment made on the sale of Rest Haven, $100,000 was earmarked  by the Commissioners for weather modification to shorten the winter season.  It was believed, at the time, to be a sound investment. 

Magical practices to control the weather have a long history. In ancient civilizations chanting incantations or mantras were performed by shamans to bring rain to drought-stricken regions.  In other ancient cultures, human sacrifice was performed with hopes of altering the weather, with varied results.  The Commissioners were presented several proposals.  Human sacrifice was ruled out, as the county population is already decreasing the way it is. 

After lengthy deliberation and public discussion, the investment of county funds with a Pennsylvania Dutch Pow-Wow shaman, a former county employee, seemed to be the most practical solution with a Hoodie Hoo Ritual to be performed on February 20^th.   Despite the purchase of colorful vestments for the participants to wear, the incantations chanted by the shaman and repeated by hundreds of her followers, the winter did not release its tight hold on the county. It was a failure.

Next year the county commissioners plan to rethink the idea of human sacrifice if the miniature golf industry in the county is to survive, or at least consider sacrificing a groundhog.  Funding should also given to retrain the out-of-work miniature golf caddies.
Below is a short video taken in the Schuylkill County Courthouse parking lot.

County Scandal, part I

It was one of those mornings in Schuylkill County when the sky was blue - a teaser before the clouds rolled in for the rest of the day. I was going into the Court House, on my way in to the Treasurer Office, to get my dog tag.  Actually not my dog tag in the possessive sense of that term, but my dog’s tag.  I certainly didn’t need a tag for myself.  I already had one. It is good until I expire.

 I was unable to get down the corridor, blocked by FBI agents carrying boxes out of the Clerk of Court Office to a large, white truck parked in the lot. You probably read about it in the newspaper or saw it on television. Things were moving faster out of the courthouse than bananas sold at Bill’s Produce on Senior Citizen Day or X-Boxes at Wall-Mart the night before Christmas. The Court House is normally quiet unless it is Taco Salad Day at the Canteen Restaurant, when the Mariachi Bands serenade the county employees during lunch hour. This day was no Taco Salad Day, but it was busier than ever.

  I made a bee-line out of that hall of justice as fast as I could, which is not very fast at all.  The dog tag could wait until next year. I already had a large FBI file (as well as my own dog tag and thank God I hadn't yet expired). I didn’t want garner any more attention.  According to Edward Snowden, everyone that has every clicked onto the Beansoup for the Soul Website is listed in the giant Government Surveillance Book. As webmaster I am certainly in it. Besides, many years ago I ripped off tags from mattresses at the Dusselfink Motel which I wanted as souvenirs to remember those nights that I got lucky.  I knew it was against the law, but I ripped off every  tag off that I could.  I courted danger in those days.  I also falsely impersonated a Vulcan once during the Winter Carnival. Now, I had to duck for cover.

 I headed down Second Street and stopped in front of the Eagles Bar, across from the world renowned Lipkin Incubator Building. Unbeknownst to most people, the Incubator is where city chicken was discovered by Mr.Lipkin many years ago.  I looked up at the jutting broken plastic sign, swaying in the breeze, which once proudly stated “Eagles Club” but now had the blank look which characterizes the expression on the faces of people that I passed along the way.  I headed inside. I wanted a drink today and not city chicken.

                                   City chicken could wait! 

 

 I took off my brown fedora, placed it on the bar and grabbed a stool. Before long I noticed I wasn’t alone. I let go of the stool and looked over my shoulder.  There at a table was a man, sitting by himself, smoking a cigarette and looking at daily lottery tickets. He smoked as if he was sending smoke signals to a distant planet. 

I was puzzled. “What planet?..... Pluto? Couldn’t be..... It’s no longer a planet.” My brain started to work over-time.

How much is that worth? I had no answer.

 He was a portly, thick-necked gentleman with greasy, disheveled hair; black with some grey showing at the roots that protruded from his vast scalp .  He apparently used more dye in his hair than all the dye used at the recent St. Clair Fish and Game Easter Egg Hunt.   

He was dressed rather conservatively for Pottsville. That is, he was wearing a clean long- sleeved white shirt and did not have a baseball cap on his head.   In downtown Pottsville, a man wearing anything other than a T shirt and a baseball cap on is about as inconspicuous as a nudist in the Winter Carnival Parade.

 

He signaled me over to his table. It was then I realized I was in a room with the famed City of Pottsville’s Surgeon General. I was asked to join him for a mid-afternoon drink, a pickled egg and several slices of beer bologna, that were lined up in a row on a small white dish. I quickly acquiesced and sat down at his table. It was then I remembered the planet I was trying to think of earlier.

Uranus!

He leaned over and asked me what I had thought of the Lager Jogger 5k Run that had recently been held in the city. I told him that I enjoyed it. He looked at me with sharp distain; staring with his eyes that reminded me of the eyes of the wooden horse that once looked out the window of Knapp’s Leather Good Store on South Centre Street. He raised his left arm and pointed at me as his voice went up two octaves:

“Those foolish people don’t realize that running will cause them shin splints, bunions and falling arches in years to come and not necessarily in that order.  The proper way to any finish line is to shuffle or cake-walk along, or better yet… get a ride. Haven’t these people ever heard of the STS bus system?”

I could see that he was getting upset and I quickly changed the subject. I asked him about an inquiry I had received several days ago.  It concerned the so-called Rest Haven Scandal of the early 1970s.

I was unaware of the details. I wasn’t sure if such a scandal ever occurred and if it did occur, was it sexual in nature. I had thought it may have involved hanky-panky between aged residents. You know, perhaps clandestine illicit relations on a Craftmatic adjustable bed after the lights were out.

The Surgeon-General, puffing on his cigarette, responded curtly, “No, it was not like that at all. Clandestine illicit relations occurred elsewhere in the 1970s causing scandals, not in Rest Haven. You are thinking about Martha's Vineyard or Washington DC.”

 Cigarette smoke then trailed upwards forming a cloud above his large bulbous head. What type of cloud? I quickly remembered. Thank God my brain was still working overtime.

                                     It was a cirrus cloud!

I continued my rapid-fire questioning. “Did the Rest Haven Scandal involve illegal break-ins by so-called plumbers or electricians attempting to fix the Rest Haven Bingo games?  Who would order such a break-in? Would the bingo prizes be that important?”  I remembered that the District Attorney in the 1970s organized bingo raids quite frequently, attempting to eradicate the scourge of bingo once and for all.  Maybe Rest Haven was the crown jewel of that crack-down.

  Again the answer was in the negative.

“What the hell was the Rest Haven Scandal then?”

“Sit back, boy and I will tell you a story that will knock your compression socks off. But first, pass me the salt and help yourself to a pickled egg and  some beer bologna.....  I like horse radish on my hard-boiled egg. How about you?”

                              

                                       TO BE CONTINUED