East Penn bus memories

Word was out that the pre-release Center would be coming to Pottsville. It would be a match made in heaven. You know, with the Intermodal Transportation Center being opened at the same time. I have to admit that I never quite knew what the word "intermodal” exactly meant. My dictionary defines the word as “Type of international freight system that permits trans-shipping among sea, highway, rail, and air modes of transportation.”
That seemed to clear things up; many thought it would be just a new bus station in the County Seat, trying to bring back the glory days of the old Pottsville Bus Station at the corner of Rt. 61 and Norwegian Street. The bus station featured a top notch restaurant, a photo booth, and a magazine stand. It was always busy. I am not just referring to its photo booth…. four pictures for fifty cents. I am talking about the bus station itself. It was not perfect though. Its biggest drawback was that the transportation there was only “Unimodal,” that is, only one means of transportation --- busses. The new Intermodal will cleverly combine busses with automobiles, SUVs, trains, pogo sticks, balloons, escalators, canal boats and the medivac helicopter.
My favorite busses of the past were certainly not the glamorous Trailways busses. No, sir. My favorites were those big green East Penn Bus Company busses that roamed the county and which reappear in my dreams periodically. They were infamous for the fumes emitted whenever a bus driver placed the key into the ignition. Yes, sir the county seat was surrounded by a big black cloud of diesel exhaust in the 1960s and early 1970s and I loved it. At times, when a bus would travel up Market Street, visibility would be about .o2%, with everyone within a radius of 250 square yards enveloped within the charcoal haze.
How thick was the smog emission? The smog was so thick that many people covered in could not even see the Guers Ice tea cartons they were drinking from and would spill their beverages all over themselves. I know this for a fact, as it happened to me on more than one occasion. If that was not so bad, then get a load of this: the only thing visible in Yorkville was the faint glow of the Burger King sign (which was actually erected with the smog in mind). It was also reported that more than a dozen people actually disappeared, never to be found again; all last seen walking through that crazy, hazy dark spot left behind by a sputtering East Penn bus. The disappearances were all blamed on alien abductions by the law officials. Alien interference always seems to be the excuse for anything unusual that happens around here. Finally, the resident scientists at the City Planetarium held that the pollution from these busses even surpassed the emissions from the last eruption of the county’s only active volcano, Mount Laffee. You all remember that eruption, don’t you? And that eruption was even ten times worse than the one at the Polish picnic's cabbage soup stand back in 1979.
I wonder what ever happened to those East Penn Busses?
I love the smell of diesel fuel in the morning. Don't you?
With the Intermodal Transportation Center in the heart of the historical district, perhaps the busses can be taken out of moth balls, called up to active duty, polished up with some turtle wax and given a new bus lease on life.
They could be to Pottsville as what the Duck bus tour is to Philadelphia.
I am running out of time now as I have to go and find a Christmas tree, Hannakah bush, Secularist shrub, Holiday hedge, or whatever one is supposed to refer to it now a day.

I never even got around to discussing the neat plan to fill Centre Street in Pottsville with prisoners. That will have to wait. I have a bus to catch.

Mount Laffee Eruption

I want to discuss the earth movements within the coal region. I am not talking about Sharp Mountain with its visible subsidence. Nor, am I talking about when frenetic polka dancing gets out of hand and the foot stomping creates those tremors that you feel beneath your feet. Forget it; I am not even talking about the vibrations along Market Street during Cruise Night. For Pete’s sake, I am talking about real-life earthquakes and lava spitting volcanoes, just like in the movies. You know, like that flic “Volcano” starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ann Heche that is on AMC every other week. I would pass on that one and recommend that you rent “Godzilla 1985” at West Coast that features the famed lizard king trapped within a volcano.

“When mankind falls into conflict with nature, monsters are born.”

That was the best line in the film and words to live by, even twenty years later. You may think I am joking, but earthquakes do happen in Pennsylvania. In 1954, over one million dollars in damage was caused in Wilkes-Barre by two nasty tremors. As for volcanoes, there are more than 500 in the world and Schuylkill County is home of the littlest one – yes, the runt of the world’s volcanic litter. Although it has been dormant for over one hundred years, the St. Clair area is the home of Mount Laffee – “the Vesuvius of Schuylkill County.”
To be precise, Laffee is located between Pottsville and St. Clair. No, I am not talking about the Fairlane Village Mall, although that is also located between Pottsville and St. Clair. It is safe to go there and shop without fear of lava spills. Speaking of the Mall, what the heck is a “Fairlane Village” anyway? “Fairlane” doesn’t even appear in my Dictionary. “Fairlane” was a 1960’s Ford muscle car, and it is obvious that the owners of the nearby Ford dealership, who owned the land that the Mall was built upon, picked the name to promote one of its best selling cars. The Mall was named to help promote sales of the Ford motor vehicles for crying out loud. Luckily for all of us that it was not called “Pinto Village.” Well, back to seismology.
The county’s volcanic explosion occurred on April 24, 1879. The day before gave little indication that Mount Laffee would finally erupt. People were going about their usual Schuylkill activities of funnel-cake making, cashing disability checks and purchasing lottery tickets. At about 1:30 on the afternoon of the 24th, there was a tremendous roar and a gargantuan column of flames with rocks, smoke and dust gushing from the summit of their beloved Broad Mountain. Historical records indicate that the explosion could be heard as far away as Pitman and Clamtown. Luckily the villagers were able to get out of the way of the cataclysmic blast, but the lush landscape never recaptured its beauty. Take a ride near Wadesville and you can see the devastation caused by Laffee’s fury. Strip mining had nothing to do with what you see; it can all be blamed on the volcano. If it were not for the volcano, the area would now be a forested paradise.
At first, the people living nearby obviously attributed this eruptive activity to the wrathful Pele, goddess of volcanoes. This was the most logical explanation at the time. However, the more educated people of Pottsville scoffed at this superstitious perception. After an emergency town meeting at the Majestic Theatre, the consensus was that the hot lava and clouds of dust came from the fire god, Vulcan, who lived somewhere in the fiery netherworld located between Gilberton and Mahanoy City. Suddenly, someone in the crowd got up and yelled, “The god had to be appeased and we must search for a virtuous woman right away!” Regardless of how expensive and time-consuming, many in the crowd agreed and headed to the door to commence the search. It was not until one brave Pottsville High science teacher stood up on the stage and made it publicly known that volcanic eruptions are not super-natural, but rather part of the earth’s digestive system; comparing it eating too much hot sausage and city chicken during the American Way Fair. He described in detail how these volcanoes are studied and interpreted by scientists. The unruly crowd was told that that Mahanoy City, despite its appearance, was not part of the netherworld, and that Vulcan wasn’t a god but only a Winter Carnival celebrity, so they should forget about their search for a virtuous woman in Pottsville.
And that’s the way it was back on April 24, 1879 – the day that Mount Laffee erupted.