CSI: Mahantongo Street

I read with amusement the Republican Herald article regarding the over-reaction of a few people to a falling bricks from two properties on Mahantongo Street in Pottsville –"La ville qui ne dort jamais mais se baigne de temps en temps."*

Apparently some busybody neighbor called the police trying to get these property owners in trouble. Why can’t people just mind their own business? Personally I enjoy the skankiness, grittiness and creepiness of parts of Mahantongo Street, but not necessarily in that order.

For those of you who missed the story, here it is with my analysis (thank you Republican Herald):

1. City police rushed to the 800 block of Mahantongo Street on Tuesday afternoon as a 6-by-4-foot section of a brick facade connecting two vacant row homes crumbled to the sidewalk.
Why were the police rushing? Did they think the bricks would make a quick get-away? Is it true they tasered a fallen brick and dusted for finger prints? Were Miranda warnings given to the bricks? So many questions, so few answers.

2.”… City Code Enforcement Officer Donald J. Chescavage said it was just the brick facade connecting addresses 802 and 804. City officials have been trying to get the property owners to repair those facades for a few months.
Fixing up a property to meet code requirements takes time - years and maybe decades in this economy. Some of us enjoy watching buildings decay and collapse along with neighboring property values. It is a cheap form of entertainment.

3. "When we saw there was a problem there a few months ago, we sent letters to both property owners telling them they better get together on this and work together…" Chescavage said.
Rumors are that the first letter was a valentine. A second valentine will be sent out next year but more stern. I also understand that the people who “noticed” problems ten years ago will be sent to re-education camps as problems only existed “for a few months.” The photographs on my website showing the tree growing out of the basement taken over the years have all been denounced as hoaxes and I am scheduled for summer re-education camp this July.

4. According to the online Schuylkill Parcel Locator, 802 Mahantongo St. is owned by Gregory E. Wagner, 310 Highland Drive, Pottsville; and 804 Mahantongo St. is owned by Edward and Ethel Schappel, 801 Mahantongo St.
For too many years Mahantongo Street suffered from a prissy and stodgy image perpetrated upon the world by novelist John O’Hara. These property owners should be commended for helping the street shed this worn-out image.

5. Yellow police tape had been stretched across the fronts of both properties, prior to Tuesday's collapse.
What about twenty four hour police or shade tree commission protection for the tree growing from the basement?

6. A neighbor called the Schuylkill County Communications Center at 5:26 p.m. Tuesday, reporting a "building collapse," according to a supervisor at the communications center.
I always thought that filing a false police report is a criminal offense. I demand an immediate investigation of the person who called in the report and the book should be thrown at him or her (as well as a few façade bricks).

7. City police immediately sealed traffic access to the 700, 800 and 900 blocks of Mahantongo Street, and Chescavage and Dan Kelly, the city superintendent of streets, were called to evaluate the situation.
Evaluation? Just place a few pedestrians on the sidewalk and watch if they get hit on the head. If so, tell them to walk on the other side of the street. No problem. Maybe it will knock some sense into them.

8. Chescavage assured police the buildings would not collapse.
Thank God! Now we can all sleep well tonight.

9. …Chescavage and Kelly advised them to block the sidewalk in front of the properties with wooden horses.
Where do you expect these property owners who have now suffered the humiliation of having a false police report lodged against them and their names splashed in the newspaper to find “wooden horses”? Lakewood Park’s Carousel was sold decades ago and the wooden horse that once graced the window of Knapp’s Leather Goods went west years ago. Isn’t there some PADCO money available for the purchase of wooden horses and other assistance for these people?


10. Meanwhile, Chescavage said he's going to step up efforts to get the property owners to get to work on these properties. .................. The Valentine will be sent out earlier next year, much sterner.

*“The City that never sleeps but occasionally bathes”

a bad day at the donut shop

With the recent release of the Mayor of Mount Carbon’s long form birth certificate proving that he is indeed the youngest mayor ever elected, some have moved onto other topics such as the mysterious crop circles in the Lewistown Valley. But not me.
I spend most of my time ease-dropping on the conversations of others while at Dunkin’ Donuts. I learn a lot this way. I discovered the truth about the Freemasons, the Oddfellows, the Knights of Columbus, the Hibernians, Teen-Age Republicans, the 4-H, and the Eastern Star- just be being a busybody.

From my ease-dropping, I now know that there is a new group attempting to control our county….It is a shadowy group, a modern incarnation of the age-old Iluminati...a group of masterminds plotting to create a New County Order.

The other day, I saw these individuals enter the Donut Shop, I saw them place the same order. Double cocoa kreme puff donuts…two of them…large coffees with half and half. They gathered around the same table, sitting in a rectangular formation. They ate their donuts and drank their coffee while talking about the upcoming election. But there is no emotion. None. Just the pretense of it. Their words, their gestures, everything else is the same. There is no feeling. Not like me when I eat a double cocoa kreme puff donut. Whoo Hoo! Something is passing between them all, some secret. It's a conspiracy, I know it.

I cautiously watched them from behind my newspaper. I read the Pottsville Republican. I pretended to read Doctor Gott’s column on curing flatulence and then a column by Ione Geier who recalled about the night that Tubby Allen go the salt and pepper shakers mixed up at the Pottsville Club.
I glanced over nervously. The men continued to eat their donuts. I thought to myself, “I hope they don’t notice me.” I began to perspire profusely. I occasionally took a bite out of my Apple Cheese Danish and washed it down with coffee. The coffee was hot and black. Just like the coffee the men at the table were drinking. Just like a woman I met down in New Orleans thirty years ago, but that is another story. I overheard some of their conversation. They discussed the eventual take-over of the county. Who? Who is going to take over the county? I started to choke on my Apple Cheese Danish. I told the concerned waitress that I did not need the Heimlich maneuver, but thanked her anyway and told her that I would take a rain check on that. She did bring me a glass of water. It was fluoridated! I refused to drink it. I spit it out. Wouldn't you?
I watched them get up and leave the table. I slowly walked over, I looked down…hmmm….left behind were donut crumbs, a TV Guide and a miserly tip. “Why seventeen cents?” What is the significance? Of course, the primary is on the.... 17th! BUT why TV Guide? I realized that I was onto something really big.

Something is going to happen. It is already in process. I need to get the word out. Who is taking over the county? Who would want to take over the county? Would it be coal operators bent on transforming the entire county into one big Wadesville, having us work fourteen hour days below ground and making us do all our shopping at the company stores rather than at Walmart? Would my daughter, Santana be destined to become a "breaker girl" and have to give up her dreams of becoming a pole dancer? Would it be the railroad operators? Nah….scratch that…. Would it be the brewers? They once had a lot of clout. Nah….The Gas Industry already controls the rest of the state. Nah, not them....I picked up the TV Guide. I noticed that the Food Channel shows were all circled. Yes! I found the clue I was looking for. Then it dawned on me….

"County Commissioner candidate, Gary Hess is connected to food catering...
Controller candidate Brad Petchulis is connected to the sale of meats....Controller candidate Christy D. Joy is connected to catering....The current sheriff is connected to catering....
County Commissioner candidate Larry Padora is in the bakery business.....The County has just published a... cook book!...what kind of recipes do they have is store for us little people?... I have to have that cookbook..I need to get one right away....sooner or later we'll, all of us, be on the menu.... All of us."

Is this the start of the New County Order? If the food industry gets a stranglehold on the county what does it mean? Is it the end of the Atkins Diet? Will all of the gyms and health clubs be shut down? Will the prices of halupkies be artificially manipulated? God help us if they are! Is this a desperate attempt to bring the shadowy Mrs. T back to power so that she can rule over us as if she was Eva Peron, Imelda Marcos or that mysterious female Jury Commissioner we never see? Will it be like that Twilight Zone episode where the Kanamit aliens come down to earth to harvest mankind for some sort of intergaltic gumbo? I dropped the TV Guide, took one more bite of my danish. Whoo Hoo! I quickly exited the Donut Shop, running up and down Westwood Boulevard with my hands frantically waving back and forth, yelling at the top of my voice to anyone who would listen to me. Will you? Please listen to me....This is even bigger than the Mount Carbon birth certificate story.

Mount Carbon: today and yesterday

The relentless demands placed upon the mayor of Mount Carbon to release his birth certificate are placing the tiny hamlet of Mount Carbon in the spotlight this election season. This so-called birther movement insists that ‘his honor’ is not the youngest head of the tiny community as publicized; they believe that there were several former Mount Carbon mayors younger – one as young as seven.
So here is a quick look at the history of Mount Carbon – often confused with Mount Olympus, Mount Rushmore and Port Carbon.

Mount Carbon, the mystical, elven fishing village, is well-hidden in the moorlands and foothills of the Sharp Mountain, somewhere between Greater Pottsville and the steep-walled valley of Outer Pottsville (the so-called hill of the forests). It is situated on rising ground behind the hythe, or small landing, on the west bank of the Schuylkill River. It is sometimes referred to as a kingdom under the mountain.
At one time the village also encompassed the east bank of the river. The boggy nature of that land made for above-ground habitation rather than the traditional hobbit-holes commonly found elsewhere in Mount Carbon.

After the invasion of 473 by a horde of Winter Carnival Vulcans this eastern settlement was destroyed, conquered and replaced by the Greater Pottsville Sewer Authority. This area still remains a sewer spot today. In 510 a wall was then built around the village, with the help of the dwarves of the nearby glittering caves, preventing further pillage and looting. Remnants of the wall are still visible to passer-bys today, especially those frequenting Julian’s Café.

Mount Carbon has become synonymous with an earthly utopia – a happy land, isolated from most of the world, reachable primarily by canal boat - a place of peace and tranquility. It has a human population of approximately eighty, an undetermined number of Sindarin elves, hobbits and gnomes, fifteen dogs, eight cats, and two finches and one bog turtle.

It was founded as far back as the end of the First Age, sometime during the Years of the Trees when the Dwarf Fathers awoke from beneath Sharp Mountain. The origins of its inhabitants are obscure, but it believed they were pre-Númenóreans. The villagers maintain a long-lasting friendship with the trolls and the mountain people of North Manheim, a nearby township, or shire, ever since the peace treaty of 947.

Originally the head of state was the king who exercised power over the original inhabitants, with the assistance of a tribal council. Now the leader is to be elected by the populace, with the king remaining only a figurehead who officiates at the monthly firehouse’s 80-20 drawings. The royal standard of Mount Carbon still remains an image of a white tree in blossom upon sable field, surrounded by seven Bavarian beer caps and surmounted by a halibut.

Before the time that the girls gone wild invaded Goodfellas and before the war of the wrath, the village was rumored to be covered with the pearls, opals and East Penn bus tokens that the elves found in the flowing Schuylkill River, apparently tossed overboard by careless passengers on the canal boats travelling between Pottsville and Philadelphia that carried high rolling gamblers and floozies, not necessarily in that order.

On the site of the present day Pottsville Pizzeria was located a famed inn - The Prancing Pony - which was visited by travelers from all parts of the world and elsewhere. It was the chief edifice within the village, built along the great road, or Centre Turnpike. It had fine Bavarian Lord Salisbury Ale. It is where the art of smoking pipeweed began.

When the canal boats ceased to run, the shipbuilding stopped and the docks at its port fell into decay and the Prancing Pony was demolished. The village had been dependent upon the River for contact with the outside world. It was the major crossroad due to its location on a major travel route. With the canal not to reopen for at least another ten years, its major industries remain saloons, pizza, hoagies and fresh fish (halibut).

Springtime has come to Schuylkill County: a poetic blog

I am a devout reader of the Thunder and Lightning Column in the Pottsville paper which allows petty complaints of the readers to be aired daily. However the other day the one writer had me so steamed up that I could not sleep for two days. Apparently the writer had nothing better to do than complain about litter that hugs the hill alongside the Fairlane Village Mall on Route 61. Excuse me, but don’t these people have anything better to whine about? Don’t they realize that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure? This is my treasure so lay off buddy!

I particularly find that stretch of road appealing and often sit by the McDonald’s window just gazing as I savor my cheese mcmuffins, watching the ashened snow melt away after a long, hard winter; the anthracite earth now awakening from its long slumber and revealing gems of plastic bags, food wrappers and the like, crawling up through the ice, all flickering in the season’s newborn sunlight, calling out to me, waiting to be reborn, making me feel reunited with the past.

The past and the future now both entwined in the one eternal present under the spring equinox. I am in awe in what was once before. I say it again. I am in awe in what was once before. It brings me curiosity. Perhaps these are bags from Value City, Payless Shoes, the Fashion Bug, Coney Express, Orange Julius or Waldenbooks - the stores of old? Oh what treasures and treats they once held. Lustrous species of years gone by packaging, attracting me with their quivering lush colors of beige, black, grey, and off-white. Diamonds sparkling in the dirt, but when joined together resembling a smothering security blanket enveloping the hillside along our thoroughfare, and embracing me along the way.

I sometimes step outside from McDonald’s ambidexitously smoking a cigarette while holding a double bacon mccheeseburger, listening while the traffic slows for the light, listening above the sounds of the whirling engines, to that rustling dainty plastic as it endlessly dances alone in jigsaw puzzle formation, and waves to me, laughting in the diesel fuel-scented, errant breeze. Waving also to the passersby aimlessly traversing route 61; pick-up truck window now opened just a wee bit, enough to allow the Winston smoke to flow out and upwards towards the heavens, as if it were a europhic incense offering to swell the heart of Brigit, the Celtic goddess of spring in some sort of thanksgiving or praise for, once again, another successful Girardville parade.

I often wonder what those fallen bags could be saying to me with that sweet, faint sound of flapping plastic. It must be “Ahh, springtime has come to Schuylkill County.” Within a few weeks the plastic bags, pastic soft drink lids, and paper containers will be joined by the brightly colored display of political signs, forming one huge bouquet, but each crying out nonsensically to anyone who looks, “vote for me and your life will improve.” Each sign held high and aloft by a metal band, each sign competing against one another, vying for attention, knowing that only one candidate will win. “Please lord let it be me.” And so, it goes, year after year, another bouquet with names, some the same and some different, but in the end our lives not improving, but with each spring comes the resurrection of hope that this election time it will be different. Haleluliah! “Ahh, springtime has come to Schuylkill County.”

Soon the streets of our downtowns will be magically filled with out-of-shape, shirtless, strange looking men parading like proud peacocks, showing off some new expensive tattoo paid for probably by the taxpayer through somesort of subsidy, shuffling up and down the sidewalks in rhythm with hairy backs, holding a cell phone (with unlimited minutes) in one hand up to a pierced ear as if each was listening to some distant seductive siren whispering teasingly, whispering above the roar of the ocean found within a conk shell, whispering what powerball numbers to pick and what topping should be on the pizza that will be brought home for dinner that night and where bath salts can still be purchased legally. Bed, Bath Salts and Beyond?

Yes, it is a primeval mating ritual, with the men responding without words to those forlorn, haltered-top women now passing by. Glistening navel rings, like the brass rings found at the Flying Horses at Knoebels' Grove, perched in the middle of the revealing flabby white little bellies, reminding the men that the new year baby contest is only nine months away and time is a-wasting…springtime is the time of rebirth, springtime is the time to hook-up with someone, anyone. "Please lord, let it be me" echoes down the lonely coridors once called business districts.

“Ahh, springtime has come to Schuylkill County.” Yes, as I sit there in McDonald’s eating the last of my Mcnuggets, I find it more exhilarating looking at that littered bank, far below the abandoned Value City, than you who dare criticize and think you are better than the rest of us with your crocuses (crocii?), daffodils, tulips, pussy willow, and/or robin eggs. Not necessarily in that order.

What I see makes me feel alive while those other things that you hold dear to you are just downright boring. I then get up and throw away my losing powerball tickets as if to make a sacrifice to Brigit, that Celtic goddess of spring. I watch them flutter across the highway and land amidst the bed of discarded dreams.