The TREE HOUSE

Since so many of you have asked about the house in the Poconos, I decided to repost this from 2006.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

THE TREE HOUSE

The Tree House
Do the words Tree House conjure up some image from your childhood, a place where you could go and hide out, hang out, do pretty much what you wanted with no thoughts about the rest of the world? Most people associate tree houses with carefree little boys, messy places, usually, I mean, who “cleans” up a tree house? Most tree houses are in trees but I remember a friend who built one high on the rocks back behind his “real” house in the mountains overlooking the trees below, accessible by a torturous little path up the cliff face. It looked out into and over the tree tops.
Well, some years ago, Anna named the apartment we have in White Haven the Tree House, partially because it is on tree level in the front but mostly because when we went up there, we would have to spend several days cleaning up after my father and brother who had spent time up there the previous fall. Well, my brother used to come up more often when his aunt lived next door. With the aunt gone, he no longer seems to have any interest in going there. And, my father just turned 89 in May, so his visits are fewer and fewer. Pennsylvania is a long way from Florida, especially when you are 89 years old and driving all alone. I live 300 miles away and dread the drive up!
Four generations of our family have lived in this house and my great-grandparents were not the first owners of the house. I remember coming here to visit my father’s parents as a very little child. My grandfather and I used to sit in a big old swing on the front porch during thunderstorms. It was on this porch that he taught me how to tell how far away the lightning was by counting the seconds from the light to the thunder. He taught me distances and directions this way, also. “Now that one hit over near Freeland. That is 8 miles away,” he’d say. And he’d point and tell me the compass directions for Freeland.
The house is divided in to the Big House and a small 2 room apartment. Well, it isn’t all that small, really, but it is 2 rooms and a bath, an entry way and the “cave,” a small storage room in the hillside where we keep the garden tools, snow shovels, coolers, camping equipment, etc. The temperature in the cave stays in the 50-60º range year round. The living room doubles as a bedroom. The kitchen has a modern electric stove and an old wood or coal cooking stove that used to bake the best cookies! Years ago, Gram used to rent out the little apartment, then she moved into it in her old age when my step mother and brother were evacuated from Vietnam and they lived in the big house. That side has a lot of rooms. When my dad was young, it had 6 bedrooms. Now most of the bedrooms are storage rooms or empty. Dad took two of the rooms and made them into one very large master bedroom. We rent out the big side of the house – well, sorta. E is a tenant but also the caretaker. She keeps the grass cut in the summer and the snow shoveled or plowed in the winter and lets my brother know when something isn’t working right.
You can enter the house from different levels as it is built into the mountainside. From the road, there are 6 steps up to the front yard where there is a porch with a door leading into the cellar. Personally, I would love to turn that into a little apartment – stone walls, etc. The cellar is divided into four rooms, one completely underground, one partly in the side of the hill. There is a set of steps up the side to the first floor level, the front porch, a flower garden, the patio, a sun porch and around back to the entrance to the apartment.
We have a driveway at what amounts to a block away (as measured by the block across the street, but we don’t have any streets crossing on our side) and it goes up to a parking area level with the second floor. Therefore one has to go up or down a flight of steps to get in or out of the house no matter where you park. In my old age, this sucks! The old stone steps are narrow and steep. The property then continues on up the mountain where Bill cuts little paths up to the old stone walls and some great old boulders where I used to climb up and have my morning coffee and watch the sun come up over the mountain and the morning fog burn off the river which is probably about 500 feet away if measured in a straight line. However, in the mountains, there is no such thing as a straight line. There is a very steep bank leading down to the river owned by the state now and is part of the Lehigh Gorge State Park. I used to climb up and down that bank like a little mountain goat when I was a kid. It has its own tiny waterfalls, two of them, actually, from the creek that runs thru my lot across the street. The Lehigh River, even on the hottest day of the year is cold. Seriously cold. But, we used to swim in it as kids.
There used to be a house down there, a great little place, and the people had kids my age and they used to let us run all over their place. Their yard was our “beach!” Then the state wanted it for their Park. The people would not sell. This went on for a couple of years. The state tried to take the place by condemning it. The owners fought back. Then one night, it mysteriously burned to the ground. The fire Marshall could not determine the cause of the fire. Right. But I digress, again. So, of course, the people sold it – the land, that is, since the house was gone – even the garage somehow burned down, too. Amazing, huh? And now it is all weeds and rock as part of the naturalized park.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the house, the mountain side (if you live in the Rockies, please don’t laugh at my use of the word mountain here – that is what it is called) the steps, the view from up back. The plants that line the road for a few hundred feet are peonies my grandfather planted eons ago. Grandpop died in 1954. The trees around the house make it impossible to get a picture of the house in a way to show its size, etc. I will do my best to put the pictures on so you can tell what is what, but I haven’t figured out quite how to arrange things on blogger yet. 

MY NEWEST HERO!

Published on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 by Common Dreams

How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists

by Fran Quigley

From left, Greg Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice, and Michael Walli. (Photo: Saul Young/News Sentinel)In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism.  Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.

Here is how it happened.

In the early morning hours of Saturday June 28, 2012, long-time peace activists Sr. Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, cut through the chain link fence surrounding the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons production facility and trespassed onto the property.  Y-12, called the Fort Knox of the nuclear weapons industry, stores hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium and works on every single one of the thousands of nuclear weapons maintained by the U.S.

“The truth will heal us and heal our planet, heal our diseases, which result from the disharmony of our planet caused by the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which should not exist.  For this we give our lives — for the truth about the terrible existence of these weapons.”
- Sr. Megan Rice

Describing themselves as the Transform Now Plowshares, the three came as non-violent protestors to symbolically disarm the weapons. They carried bibles, written statements, peace banners, spray paint, flower, candles, small baby bottles of blood, bread, hammers with biblical verses on them and wire cutters. Their intent was to follow the words of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Sr. Megan Rice has been a Catholic sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for over sixty years.  Greg Boertje-Obed, a married carpenter who has a college age daughter, is an Army veteran and lives at a Catholic Worker house in Duluth Minnesota.  Michael Walli, a two-term Vietnam veteran turned peacemaker, lives at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington DC.

In the dark, the three activists cut through a boundary fence which had signs stating “No Trespassing.”  The signs indicate that unauthorized entry, a misdemeanor, is punishable by up to 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

No security arrived to confront them.

So the three climbed up a hill through heavy brush, crossed a road, and kept going until they saw the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) surrounded by three fences, lit up by blazing lights.

Still no security.

So they cut through the three fences, hung up their peace banners, and spray-painted peace slogans on the HEUMF.  Still no security arrived.  They began praying and sang songs like “Down by the Riverside” and “Peace is Flowing Like a River.”

When security finally arrived at about 4:30 am, the three surrendered peacefully, were arrested, and jailed.

The next Monday July 30, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli were arraigned and charged with federal trespassing, a misdemeanor charge which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail.  Frank Munger, an award-winning journalist with the Knoxville News Sentinel, was the first to publicly wonder, “If unarmed protesters dressed in dark clothing could reach the plant's core during the cover of dark, it raised questions about the plant's security against more menacing intruders.”

On Wednesday August 1, all nuclear operations at Y-12 were ordered to be put on hold in order for the plant to focus on security.  The “security stand-down”  was ordered by security contractor in charge of Y-12, B&W Y-12 (a joint venture of the Babcock and Wilcox Company and Bechtel National Inc.) and supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

On Thursday August 2, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli appeared in court for a pretrial bail hearing.  The government asked that all three be detained.  One prosecutor called them a potential “danger to the community” and asked that all three be kept in jail until their trial.  The US Magistrate allowed them to be released.

Sr. Megan Rice walked out of the jail and promptly admitted to gathered media that the three had indeed gone onto the property and taken action in protest of nuclear weapons.  “But we had to — we were doing it because we had to reveal the truth of the criminality which is there, that’s our obligation,” Rice said. She also challenged the entire nuclear weapons industry: “We have the power, and the love, and the strength and the courage to end it and transform the whole project, for which has been expended more than 7.2 trillion dollars,” she said. “The truth will heal us and heal our planet, heal our diseases, which result from the disharmony of our planet caused by the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which should not exist.  For this we give our lives — for the truth about the terrible existence of these weapons.”

Then the government began increasing the charges against the anti-nuclear peace protestors.

The day after the Magistrate ordered the release of Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli, a Department of Energy (DOE) agent swore out a federal criminal complaint against the three for damage to federal property, a felony punishable by zero to five years in prison, under 18 US Code Section 1363.

The DOE agent admitted the three carried a letter which stated, “We come to the Y-12 facility because our very humanity rejects the designs of nuclearism, empire and war.  Our faith in love and nonviolence encourages us to believe that our activity here is necessary; that we come to invite transformation, undo the past and present work of Y-12; disarm and end any further efforts to increase the Y-12 capacity for an economy and social structure based on war-making and empire-building.”

Now, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli were facing one misdemeanor and one felony and up to six years in prison.

But the government did not stop there.  The next week, the charges were enlarged yet again.

On Tuesday August 7, the U.S. expanded the charges against the peace activists to three counts.  The first was the original charge of damage to Y-12 in violation of 18 US Code 1363, punishable by up to five years in prison.  The second was an additional damage to federal property in excess of $1000 in violation of 18 US Code 1361, punishable by up to ten years in prison. The third was a trespassing charge, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison under 42 US Code 2278.

Now they faced up to sixteen years in prison. And the actions of the protestors started to receive national and international attention.

On August 10, 2012, the New York Times ran a picture of Sr. Megan Rice on page one under the headline “The Nun Who Broke into the Nuclear Sanctum.”  Citing nuclear experts, the paper of record called their actions “the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.”

At the end of August 2012, the Inspector General of the Department of Energy issued at comprehensive report on the security breakdown at Y-12.  Calling the peace activists trespassers, the report indicated that the three were able to get as far as they did because of “multiple system failures on several levels.” The cited failures included cameras broken for six months, ineptitude in responding to alarms, communication problems, and many other failures of the contractors and the federal monitors.  The report concluded that “Ironically, the Y-12 breach may have been an important “wake-up” call regarding the need to correct security issues at the site.”

On October 4, 2012, the defendants announced that they had been advised that, unless they pled guilty to at least one felony and the misdemeanor trespass charge, the U.S. would also charge them with sabotage against the U.S. government, a much more serious charge. Over 3000 people signed a petition to U.S. Attorney General Holder asking him not to charge them with sabotage.

But on December 4, 2012, the U.S. filed a new indictment of the protestors.  Count one was the promised new charge of sabotage.  Defendants were charged with intending to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of the United States and willful damage of national security premises in violation of 18 US Code 2155, punishable with up to 20 years in prison.  Counts two and three were the previous felony property damage charges, with potential prison terms of up to fifteen more years in prison.

Gone entirely was the original misdemeanor charge of trespass.  Now Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli faced up to thirty-five years in prison.

In a mere five months, government charges transformed them from misdemeanor trespassers to multiple felony saboteurs.

The government also successfully moved to strip the three from presenting any defenses or testimony about the harmful effects of nuclear weapons.   The U.S. Attorney’s office filed a document they called “Motion to Preclude Defendants from Introducing Evidence in Support of Certain Justification Defenses.”  In this motion, the U.S. asked the court to bar the peace protestors from being allowed to put on any evidence regarding the illegality of nuclear weapons, the immorality of nuclear weapons, international law, or religious, moral or political beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, the Nuremberg principles developed after WWII, First Amendment protections, necessity or US policy regarding nuclear weapons.

Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli argued against the motion. But, despite powerful testimony by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a declaration from an internationally renowned physician and others, the Court ruled against defendants.

Meanwhile, Congress was looking into the security breach, and media attention to the trial grew with a remarkable story in the Washington Post, with CNN coverage and AP and Reuters joining in.

The trial was held in Knoxville in early May 2013. The three peace activists were convicted on all counts.  Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli all took the stand, admitted what they had done, and explained why they did it.  The federal manager of Y-12 said the protestors had damaged the credibility of the site in the U.S. and globally and even claimed that their acts had an impact on nuclear deterrence.

As soon as the jury was dismissed, the government moved to jail the protestors because they had been convicted of “crimes of violence.” The government argued that cutting the fences and spray-painting slogans was property damage such as to constitute crimes of violence so the law obligated their incarceration pending sentencing.

The defense pointed out that Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli had remained free since their arrest without incident. The government attorneys argued that two of the protestors had violated their bail by going to a congressional hearing about the Y-12 security problems, an act that had been approved by their parole officers.

The three were immediately jailed.  In its decision affirming their incarceration pending their sentencing, the court ruled that both the sabotage and the damage to property convictions were defined by Congress as federal crimes of terrorism.  Since the charges carry potential sentences of ten years or more, the Court ruled there was a strong presumption in favor of incarceration which was not outweighed by any unique circumstances that warranted their release pending sentencing.

These non-violent peace activists now sit in jail as federal prisoners, awaiting their sentencing on September 23, 2013.

In ten months, an 82 year old nun and two pacifists had been successfully transformed by the U.S. government from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism.

Fran Quigley is an Indianapolis attorney working on local and international poverty issues. His column appears in The Indianapolis Star every other Monday

AN OLD PIECE OF HISTORY

THINK YOU HAVE A SERIOUS RAKE? Well, I sure do. This rake has been in my family ever since I have known my family and then some! I know this rake is MUCH older than I (and I am glad something is!) A couple years ago, the old handle pretty much just disintegrated. It finally turned to dust, and I was, quite honestly, heartbroken. As you can see, this is no ordinary rake. Nope. It may have a different name in other parts of the country, but around here, this is known as a shatters rake. Guess that is because it is used for raking shatters! Ordinary rakes just don’t do the job like these rakes once did. I don’t know if they can even be found anymore, but back in the days when the strawberry was king, shatter rakes were most useful. An "ordinary" yard rake would do a lot of damage, and not be able to handle as many shatters. You see, farmers covered their strawberry plants with shatters over the winter. They didn’t dump chemicals in the soil, they didn’t buy fancy ph gauges, no fertilizers, they just wintered their berries under a cover of shatters. Now some parts of the Shore call them shatts. “Fereigners” call them pine needles… the long pine needles like those from the loblolly pine. Here is one of those pine trees in the winter - this is a baby, just about 5 feet tall at this point. See how long those needles are? When they fall to the ground, we call them shatters. I don't know why fereigners can't get a handle on that name. Fereigners? That’s what the old folks called folks from further away than the “come here” states (MD, Del, PA, NC, SC). Come here’s were tolerated... fereigners, not as much. Most ‘come here’s’ eventually learn the local names of things and how to pronounce them, fereigners have a harder time, and some fereigners spend all their time trying to correct the locals on what they have called things for generations. Sigh. Most of those folks come from one particular state, but I won’t mention that. (Reminds me of a favorite bumper sticker that says, “We’re RURAL, not stupid.”
Anyway, back to the rake… I have tried to survive without it, but after cleaning up a big chunk of the East 40 here, I decided to get a new handle for my old friend. I looked in a number of places, from Lowes to Tractor Supply (the most expensive of all,) knowing our local building supply place would be outrageous. I never did see one for less than $28. That’s just a dumb old handle, folks! Then, I thought of Jaxons – an old timey hardware store where much of their stock is made in America, and they actually help fix things! What a novel idea! I called them on the phone and not only did they agree to help me out, they actually KNEW what a shatters rake was! The man that fixed it actually appreciated its age and spent an hour (and 2 drill bits) getting the new handle to work with the ancient rake. Yep, it can be called ancient, we know it is well over 100 years old. Best of all, the new handle cost just over $10. Well, no... the best part was to see someone caress the old steel and treat it with reverence.
The newer rakes might be as wide from side to side, but there is a lot of difference in the length of the tines and the space between them. Then there is the flimsy metal thing that holds the rake to the handle. This thing from China (that cost nearly $30) will come apart in a couple more years with its one size fits all skimpy little sleeve that the handle fits into. Well, you can see the difference. The old rake will last as long as I need it to, and when I am gone whoever inherits it or buys it will probably consider it a piece of junk – but I bet it will outlive them, too. Maybe the Smithsonian would like it? A piece of Americana!

A SERIOUS RAKE comparison of my newest rake, made in China, no doubt, and my old friend. We were trying to figure out if this rake got twisted somehow, or if it is made this way. The guys concluded it was made this way as the steel in it is so strong, it burned up a drill bit trying to get the nail out and they could not imagine any way it could have gotten twisted unless it was made this way. All I can say is I can't wait to get outside and use it!

MY WISH FOR US ALL

Today is the Solstice. It can be proven by measuring the position of the sun and the length of the day. Many folks celebrate the Solstice, not as a superstition thing (If we don't sacrifice a calf the sun won't come back!) Most of the stories about what the "pagans" did were made up by those who wanted to convert them (add to the collection plate, etc). The actual date of the Solstice varies from year to year by a day or 2 - the earth wobbles a bit - and then there are time zones. Plus, this is the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. Cool, huh? Or warm in Rio. So, whether you celebrate it or not, I hope your Solstice and the new year (sun-wise) is happy and healthy for you.

Next - December 25th….. Happy Birthday to, um, ah………

Many Christians are unaware that the true spirit of reverence which Muslims display towards Jesus and his mother Mary spring from the fountainhead of their faith as prescribed in the Holy Quran. Most do not know that a Muslim does not take the name of Jesus , without saying Eesa alai-hiss-salaam i.e. (Jesus peace be upon him).

Many Christians do not know that in the Holy Qur'an, Jesus is mentioned by name twenty-five times. For example:

.. We gave Jesus the son of Mary Clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the holy spirit. .. Quran 2:87

Behold! the angels said: "O Mary! Allah gives thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to Allah. Quran 3:45

.. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) an apostle of Allah .. Quran 4:171

And in their footsteps We sent Jesus the son of Mary, confirming the Law that had come before him .. Quran 5:46

And Zakariya and John, and Jesus and Elias: all in the ranks of the righteous: Quran 6:85

The Quranic Titles of Jesus
Though Jesus is mentioned by name in twenty-five places in the Holy Quran he is also addressed with respect as: "Ibne Maryam" - son of Mary; as Masi (Heb) Messiah - translated as Christ; "Abd-ullah" servant of Allah; "Rasul -Ullah" - Messenger of Allah.

He is spoken of as "the word of God", as "the spirit of God", as a "Sign of God", and numerous other epithets of honor spread over fifteen different chapters. The Holy Quran honors this great Messenger of God, and over the past fourteen hundred years Muslims continue to hold Jesus as a symbol of truth.

Christmas and 25th of December
Jesus is commonly considered to have been born on the 25th of December. However, it is common knowledge among Christian scholars that he was not born on this day. It is well known that the first Christian churches held their festival in May, April, or January. Scholars of the first two centuries AD even differ in which year he was born, some believing that he was born fully twenty years before the current accepted date. So how was the 25th of December selected as the birthday of Jesus?

Grolier's encyclopedia says: "Christmas is the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated on December 25 ... Despite the beliefs about Christ that the birth stories expressed, the church did not observe a festival for the celebration of the event until the 4th century.... since 274, under the emperor Aurelian, Rome had celebrated the feast of the "Invincible Sun" on December 25. In the Eastern Church, January 6, a day also associated with the winter solstice, was initially preferred. In course of time, however, the West added the Eastern date as the Feast of the Epiphany, and the East added the Western date of Christmas".

So who else celebrated the 25th of December as the birth day of their gods before it was agreed upon as the birth day of Jesus ? Well, there are the people of India who rejoice, decorate their houses with garlands, and give presents to their friends on this day. The people of China also celebrate this day and close their shops. Buddha is believed to have been born on this day. The great savior and god of the Persians, Mithras, is also believed to have been born on the 25th of December long before the coming of Jesus .

The Egyptians celebrated this day as the birth day of their great savior Horus, the Egyptian god of light and the son of the "virgin mother" and "queen of the heavens" Isis. Osiris, god of the dead and the underworld in Egypt, the son of "the holy virgin", again was believed to have been born on the 25th of December.

The Greeks celebrated the 25th of December as the birthday of Hercules, the son of the supreme god of the Greeks, Zeus, through the mortal woman Alcmene Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry among the Romans (known among the Greeks as Dionysus) was also born on this day.

Adonis, revered as a "dying-and-rising god" among the Greeks, miraculously was also born on the 25th of December. His worshipers held him a yearly festival representing his death and resurrection, in midsummer. The ceremonies of his birthday are recorded to have taken place in the same cave in Bethlehem which is claimed to have been the birth place of Jesus .

The Scandinavians celebrated the 25th of December as the birthday of their god Freyr, the son of their supreme god of the heavens, Odin.

The Romans observed this day as the birthday of the god of the sun, Natalis Solis Invicti ("Birthday of Sol the invincible"). There was great rejoicing and all shops were closed. There was illumination and public games. Presents were exchanged, and the slaves were indulged in great liberties. These are the same Romans who would later preside over the council of Nicaea (325 CE) which lead to the official Christian recognition of the "Trinity" as the "true" nature of God, and the "fact" that Jesus was born on the 25th of December too.

In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon says: "The Roman Christians, ignorant of his (Christ's) birth, fixed the solemn festival to the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or Winter Solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of Sol " vol. ii, p. 383.

There are several Christian groups who are opposed to Christmas. For example, they take the verse from the Bible in Jeremiah 10:2-4 as an admonition against decorating Christmas trees. The King James Version reads: "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen.... For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."

In order to understand this subject, it is helpful to trace some of the history of Christmas avoidance, particularly its roots in Puritanism. The Puritans believed that the first-century church modeled a Christianity that modern Christians should copy. They attempted to base their faith and practice solely on the New Testament, and their position on Christmas reflected their commitment to practice a pure, scriptural form of Christianity. Puritans argued that God reserved to himself the determination of all proper forms of worship, and that he disapproved of any human innovations - even innovations that celebrated the great events of salvation. The name Christmas also alienated many Puritans. Christmas, after all, meant "the mass of Christ." The mass was despised as a Roman Catholic institution that undermined the Protestant concept of Christ, who offered himself once for all. The Puritans' passionate avoidance of any practice that was associated with papal Rome caused them to overlook the fact that in many countries the name for the day had nothing to do with the Catholic mass, but focused instead on Jesus' birth. The mass did not evolve into the form abhorred by Protestants until long after Christmas was widely observed. The two customs had separate, though interconnected, histories.

As ardent Protestants, Puritans identified the embracing of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300s CE as the starting point of the degeneration and corruption of the church. They believed the corruption of the church was brought on by the interweaving of the church with the pagan Roman state. To Puritans, Christmas was impure because it entered the Roman Church sometime in this period. No one knows the exact year or under what circumstances Roman Christians began to celebrate the birth of their Lord, but by the mid-300s CE, the practice was well established.

Islam requires Muslims to respect the faith of others. Regardless of historical facts and theological differences that Christians may have among themselves or theological differences Muslims may have with Christianity we cannot disregard the sentiments of practicing Christians who use this occasion to revere Jesus .

Prophet Muhammad was always very respectful towards the Christians. According to Islamic historians, Ibn e Saad and Ibn e Hisham, once there was a delegation of Byzantine Christians, who were traveling from Yemen to Madinah. The delegation was led by a bishop by the name of Zqyd al-Usquf, who came to discuss a number of issues with Prophet Muhammad. When the time of their prayer came, they asked the Prophet if they could do their worship in the mosque of the Prophet. He answered, "Conduct your service here in the mosque. It is a place dedicated to God."

We should never ridicule the religious beliefs of others, no matter how much we disagree with them. God says in the Quran: "And insult not those whom they worship besides God, lest they insult God wrongfully without knowledge. Thus We have made fair-seeming to each people its own doings; then to their Lord is their return and He shall then inform them of all that they used to do". Quran, 6:108

For whatever you celebrate, I wish you Peace and Love. Isn't that what He tried to teach us? What better way to celebrate than a day of loving each and all.

HORSE’S PATOOTIES AND HISTORY

Last week, my neighbor and co-author of http://www.thefrogandpenguinn.blogspot.com/, asked if anyone knew why the distance between the rails was whatever it was. He also said possums were not allowed to answer. Sigh. Maybe because this possum told him this bit of “information” some time ago, and he remembered it. Now whether it is right or wrong, or just a bit of truth or absolute fact doesn’t matter in the telling of a good story. What matters is if people REMEMBER it. Right?

The story I passed along to my neighbor was this one:

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an
exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old,
long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The
roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of
destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original
specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Now the twist to the story...

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets
attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. ... and you thought being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!

Now there are more facts than this story mentions, and they can get very tedious, so I won’t bore you with them. But I will say this. The first time I heard any explanation about the ruts in old Roman roads was from an archeologist friend, somewhere in Italy, (or was it in Ephesus?) but she gave the credit to a team of oxen pulling carts for the wagon wheel distance – then the Roman chariot wheel spacing followed. Somehow the horse’s ass has a funnier ring than the ass of an ox. Actually, that sounds confusing, but I won’t go there, either.

Then another friend challenged me with the ‘narrow gauge’ tracks used in this country. That answer is simple, too. The smaller carts were used in mining and were pulled by a single animal, usually a mule. If you wade thru some of the histories of the early coal mines in PA, particularly the biography of Josiah White, you can learn a lot of amazing things – like the very first tracks carrying anthracite to the Lehigh River where it was then carried by barge to the southern cities- were made of wood! It took me a whole summer to wade thru that book, but it really had some fascinating information about the very early destruction of the land, as the Europeans “tamed” the wilderness in Pennsylvania, deforested miles and miles of forest, and began mining anthracite along the Lehigh and Susquehanna rivers. Interesting, but not as entertaining. The wooden rails had to be replaced constantly as the weight of the coal quickly shattered even the hardest wood.

THE PLAYHOUSE

 

I hate cleaning out closets, barns, attics… the storage bins of long ago memories, wading thru what some call nostalgic moments. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some wonderful experiences, been to some amazing places, done some exciting things, but at this stage of my life, most of my memories are bittersweet. I guess that happens when you are the survivor, and all of the folks you shared those experiences with are gone. I am not going into all that to depress anyone, no one needs to read someone’s whining about their losses, but this one took me by surprise. A gazillion years ago, back when I was working on my Art Ed degree, I had the good fortune to land a summer job (of sorts) as a lowly assistant to an assistant at a summer playhouse. I got to do all kinds of fascinating things… I learned how to make a castle so cold and damp and forbidding looking that sitting out in the audience, you were glad you did not live in that age and time… or a palace room so beautiful you never wanted to leave. Manor libraries, business offices, tenement kitchens, cozy living rooms with just enough hiding space for a corpse or two… ah, the theatre. From Sweeney Todd’s barber shop to the bed room in the Sound of Music, to the café in La Cage aux Folles… we whipped up scenery in a couple days or so that would have been good enough for Broadway, I swear. And really, it had to be. OK, our stage was smaller and the house only sat 500, but we had real stars playing on our stage. Real ones… where was this? About 30 miles from our house in the Poconos is a little town called Mountainhome, and in the middle of its tinyness is a little road called Playhouse Lane, and on that lane stood the Pocono Playhouse. In searching for some old pictures of the Playhouse, I found the following quotes… probably in the Pocono Record????? I was in such a state of shock, I forgot to make note of the source…

“Pocono Playhouse—theatrical home since 1947 to such heralded actors as Betty Grable, Walter Matthau, Jean Stapleton, Steve McQueen, Shelley Winters, Hal Linden, Gloria Vanderbilt, Larry Hagman, Cybill Shepherd, Richard Kiley, Kaye Ballard, Ted Knight, Bonnie Franklin, and John Travolta.” burned down last night….

And… “Gloria Vanderbilt and Margaret Truman made their debuts at Pocono Playhouse in the 1950s,” said longtime resident Maryann Miller, who owns Theo B. Price store in Cresco with her husband, Warren “Mickey” Miller.”

And… “Stars who played there over the years included: John Travolta, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Cybill Shepherd, Jean Stapleton, Shelley Winters, Ted Knight, Hal Linden, Bonnie Franklin and Kaye Ballard.”

To this I can add dozens of names, the names of the people I remember working with, some fondly, some disappointing to the point of tears. I remember Gary Moore, and Gary Burghoff, Angela Lansbury, Imogene Coca and her husband, King Donovan. Gary Moore was funnier off stage than on – not to say he was not a good actor, just that he was a nut! Probably the funniest people to work around were Imogene Coca and King Donovan. We had to do frequent quickie repair work to the set because they often improvised during a scene and sometimes the set did not handle it very well. When cement blocks are really Styrofoam… well, you get the idea. They were gracious people and actually considered us human, unlike one or two others I won’t mention.

Does anyone remember Betsy Palmer? She was probably the nicest person to be around – a genuinely warm and unpretentious kind person. I always smiled when I arrived at the Playhouse and saw the Mercedes parked out back with the BP license plate. I knew it was going to be a good day. She was like sunshine on legs!

On the other hand, I was so excited anticipating the arrival of Eve Arden, having grown up on Our Miss Brookes, and then I became a teacher myself… well, I was just excited meeting the voice that convinced me that being a teacher would be a great and wonderful thing – and all I can say is – life is full of disappointments, and I will say nothing more.

Anyway, the point of this post, along with general reminiscing, is to pay tribute to one of the greatest little summer jobs I ever had, and one of the neatest places I have ever had the opportunity to visit, let alone “hang out.” The Playhouse used to be the highlight of my summers in the Poconos… In later years, we planned our vacation around what was playing – or often, who was playing, but that came to an end – first when the theatre was sold and it became… um, well, I am at a loss for words… lets say it lost its class. The performers were unknowns, and even though some of the performances were really enjoyable, I guess I always just felt a bit cheated. Several years ago, I wondered why we were even driving 30 miles to see anything. The quality of the performances left so much to be desired… and I guess lots of other folks felt the same way, too. I think the last time I attended a show there, there were empty seats all thru the house. It was sad, I just hoped someone would buy the place and bring it back to the Playhouse it was when Rowena Stevens owned it.

Anyway, I was cleaning out a box of “stuff” the other day, and I found my old make-up kit, my kit from a gazillion years ago. As I said, we all had to learn how to do EVERYTHING, and make up was included. After tossing the kit in the trash can, I came in the house to check on the whether the Playhouse was even open this year or not. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the pictures. It is like losing a family member, really. I read the story and shook my head in sorrow.

If you are interested, google the Pocono Playhouse, the Pocono Record has a great story on the history of the place and the history of the last owner Ralph Miller and his “trail of fire” –

“In this special report, the Pocono Record, Times Herald-Record and Cape Cod Times collaborate to uncover the string of broken promises, questionable business dealings and trail of suspicious fires that have followed Ralph Miller across three states over 21 years. The owner of Pocono Playhouse was also the one-time owner of the Woodstock Playhouse in New York and Falmouth Playhouse in Massachusetts. Every time that Miller or his playhouses have gotten into trouble, fire destroyed a theater or Miller declared bankruptcy.”

It is sad, like losing a dear old family member… and even though the shows were no longer as great as they used to be, I miss knowing I can’t even drive by and look at the old place, let alone buy a ticket and sit for a couple hours and have some live entertainment. The last few years, props were trucked in, unloaded, and the stage crew traveled around to a few different sites in the summer. Nothing was done on site anymore. I guess they were used to working on small stages, so things did not have to be custom built to fit.

I used to love to watch the show, often standing in the back of the house because there were seldom any empty seats. Some shows were sold out at the beginning of the season, a month or 2 before the curtain went up. But I would have to watch the show a couple of times… once to see the show, but initially, to see how the scenery worked. Sometimes we reworked a scene after the opening night to make it look a little better, or to make movement a little more realistic.

Several of us would stand in the back with ice cream cones in our hands as the curtain went up. The sign of a good show was forgetting to eat the ice cream and having a handful of runny glop as we got caught up in the show. I always kept a pocketful of paper towels in hopes of an excellent show!

AND THE NEW LIBRARY (in maybe 8 months time…)

I just posted pics of the White Haven (Pennsylvania) library as it is today, nestled in a coffee shop (Coffeeworks on Main St in the basement of the old hardware store that only we old timers apparently remember.)  See previous post. But this is where it will be this time next year when they finish renovating this building. The outside is quite impressive, isn’t it? This is called the Engine House Project and this is an effort to rehab a former Lehigh Valley Railroad engine repair shop into a multi-purpose library and Heritage visitor’s center.

It has been used for a few fund raising events and programs, but you can see the inside has a lot of work left to be done. check out the beautiful stone walls.

White Haven has a lot of tourist potential as it is in the center of an area that includes 3 state parks (Hickory Run, Lehigh Gorge [which took some of my land] and Nescopeck, all within 6 miles, the Gorge being within feet of the bldg) and welcomes over 400,000 tourists annually. Interstate 80 runs thru one side of the town and 940 goes thru the middle. White Haven is 4 miles from the NE extension of the PA Turnpike and is on the Lehigh River which separates White Haven from East Side, where my house is, on the East Side of the river. East Side is in Carbon County and somewhere in the middle of the river is the county line, with White Haven in Luzerne County which is known as “the Gateway to the Poconos.” 

The library that will be housed inside these walls will meet the needs of children from Crestwood, Weatherly, and Hazleton school districts by providing hard copy resources, literacy programs and state of the art communications technology. But I bet people will miss the coffee! Think they will at least have an espresso machine???? a Starbucks vending machine????

Train and history buffs will appreciate the magnificent structure as it is believed to be the last railroad repair shop still intact in the Commonwealth of PA. I have known the building all my life and I am still impressed. It cleaned up good, as they say.

“Green” people will appreciate the fact that the building will be climate controlled with geothermal wells… a bit ironic (a double pun, that word) since the railroad was practically invented to move coal from the area and the coal was used to make iron that previously had been imported from England. Did you know the FIRST rails for the FIRST railroad were made out of WOOD? Funny, they didn’t last long. Did you know that people laughed when Josiah White tried to get people to burn those black rocks he found in these hills? They were very different from the coal found in England, big shiny black rocks that were slow to ignite, but burned much hotter than wood, hot enough to melt the ore to make iron. The railroad was first made to move the black rocks to the canal locks he built on the river. If you are interested, you might want to read a book that is both interesting and boring all at the same time on Josiah White, for whom the town was named. He was the founder of Lehigh Coal and Navigation and the Lehigh Valley Railroad – whose logo is on the building. 

The Project is a true community, grass roots effort, with the White Haven Borough council members voting to purchase the building in 2002 in response to hundreds of signatures (including mine) asking them to do so on the community’s behalf.

The library has been in existence, in one place or another, for 13 years, most recently in the coffee shop, so you can imagine how exciting it will be to have ALL the books unpacked and on shelves and available to the public. You can learn more at www.whitehavenlibrary. Years ago, my step mother (a librarian) used to drive 28 miles one way to Wilkes-Barre to check out a stack of books to last her a week or so, to help her survive “this god forsaken back woods place.” This was back when she had just recently been evacuated from Saigon with the rest of the American dependents and found herself in the old family home. I guess it was too quiet for her… no bombs going off day and night, that sort of thing… sigh. Anyway, she started back then to push for a local library, but nothing happened for many, many years. She gave up and moved to Bradenton, Fla. Fortunately, others kept up the fight, but it has been a struggle. That ride over the mountains to WB was a rough haul in the winter! Trust me.

Train buffs will recognize the brick pattern in the parking lot. Anybody want to guess why it is there? What it once was? (that is a clue). Both the circle and the straight section????? See the tracks currently in use just a few feet from the parking lot and building, like mid point in the picture?

A view from the entrance to the parking lot.