If Montana wants to do this I hope they are the only ones: A bill allows meat from road kill ..

Would you eat it?
Have you eaten it?
Did it taste like chicken?

If Montana wants to do this I hope they are the only ones: A bill allows meat from road kill ..

The ties that bind you.. or trap you..

The coal region of Pennsylvania was a quaint little place since I can remember.. I was born and raised (for a bit) in Centralia PA, with a mine fire burning hot under my feet.. My family moved to a nearby town.. my heart and soul has been in this place for a long time.

But perhaps the same ties that bind you also trap you in. 

I read an article today in my morning paper.. It’s a little inside baseball perhaps, but it’s on my mind.. The article paints a story of a dying area.. Restaurants and bars are shutting down in the coal region.. the Pottsville REPUBLICAN and HERALD speaks about Cactus Jacks, the Restaurant at the Station in Tamaqua.. Yockos in Minersville. (All big deals).. another bar detailed in the article is only open one day a week.. 

A bar being shut down in the coal region is a big deal. You’d expect in this area a dirty little tap room would be shuttered if they were serving underage minors. But in the economic troubles lately, the prime reason for closure is money troubles.. 

I think back to my life as a  child. The area, then, wasn’t the best. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it’s a nice little quaint place, for sure.. but things to do? This ain’t no city, bo.  There were restaurants and run down bars, and a mall or two or three, or ‘tree’. When I was a child I didn’t think there was much to do. No kids did. It’s why most of them had ‘bush parties’ where beer was served in the middle of no where. But today, now, I look at the local disgrace the area is becoming and wonder if anything is left for my son to enjoy. 

I thought deeply about this as a result of that newspaper article. What does bind me to this area? It’s family. That is the answer.. It’s family.. I don’t work close to here, I actually commute a distance. My wife does too. When we want to do something with my son, we travel away from here.. But when we want to be comfortable and feel at home, here we are..

I think it was always that way, a bit. I believe that this region ‘felt like home’ .. It’s why, for decades, the Ashland Boys Association Parade was filled with thousands. Until it got canceled a few years back and struggled to begin again. Good luck to Ashland bringing it back in ‘13. 

It’s also why a town named Girardville hosts a spectacular St. Patrick’s Day parade.  Even Bill Clinton showed up in 2008 to campaign for his wife. The town wholeheartedly supported him.. he even had a screamer from Tony’s.. no word on whether he became immediately dyspeptic. 

There are other pearls that can be unearthed from time to time. Jim Thorpe is a beautiful and fun place.. Schuylkill Haven hosts a great summer weekend with fireworks.. and the Bloomsburg Fair is going strong. 

But what else is occurring?

Crime… drugs… lots of drugs. Lots of drug abuse. Lots of dilapidated homes literally falling down  into streets (Girardville, PA)… and now closing businesses.. 

The Schuylkill Mall is being hard hit, as are other malls. A new refurbished movie theater opened. I wish them luck and hope the mall stays open. I recall some early memories as a kid thinking it was a mecca of shopping.. of course smoking was legal indoors the smell of cigars also fills my fading memory..

I just hope and pray that, as long as we choose to live in this place, it will stay safe and quaint.. and more and more quiet, perhaps.. 

Family is why we stay. 
Besides the ties of that, there are few others …

However … even one day if the Coal Speaker leaves the coal region, you will never be able to extract the ‘area’ from him.. or anyone else that chooses to go.

After high school several friends had a mass exodus from here to go other places. Many returned and now, again, live locally after ‘living their lives’ in a city or larger place. 

But the coal region can come back, though it will never return to the paradise that it was during the coal mining days—that paradise was not shared by all and truly only for barons and bosses of coal mines that could care less about safety of workers. A part of this region’s history is that it was filled with hard workers and good people. Conservative Democrats… fair-minded but also sometimes a little suspicious of ‘outsiders’. Perhaps that also became its 21st century demise..? Any for of progress is despised by too many, forcing those younger with dreams and ambitions to look elsewhere to find that progress. 

I don’t know.

I cannot count myself as smart enough to understand why an area disintegrates .. I wish I was smart enough to know how to bring it back. 

But I’m not.

So with that all said, I end with this: Perhaps within the next few years my wife and I will be forced to make a decision. Keep the ties that bind us knotted and tight, or loosen them up and fly away. No matter the choice, we have a third party role: Our son. And in the end, it’s his future that matters the most now of all.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-7Yxel2gHM?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=374]

Since NBC is making us all feel older (but not wiser) with a replay of the 1990s SNL… why not go with it. Here’s GARBAGE with WHEN I GROW UP. Where were you when the song was being played too much on radio? I was going into my senior year.. the world was ahead of me.. as it may have been with you. 

And where are we now..?

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

MAKING ME FEEL OLD (AND OLDER)

So tonight NBC decided to play a blast from the past. The Saturday Night LIVE pop culture show all about the 1990s. And originally aired in 2007.

So it’s not bad enough NBC is reminding people how old they’ve gotten, but they have to doubly do it by reminding us with a repeat of a reminder!

My Sunday poem:

The curtains shine as the morning light.
comes in to express its daily right.
But I’m still in a sleepy fog, and just not ready for the Sunday plight.

(Yes they are my London curtains…made in Vietnam, sold in America, and hanging in the coal region )

Sleeplessness, heal thyself

It gets bad. Television is bad.. I ended up watching 25 minutes of a creepy minister with a bad toupee ‘healing’ people. I had enough when he ‘healed’ a woman who was deaf since 3..

Have these bottom dwellers no shame …?

I’m not tired yet but by GOD I’m not watching this anymore.. It’s trashier than SKINEMAX..

A race to the Vatican!

Those who worry the wait will be long for Peter the Roman (or whoever) to be revealed may take comfort in this news bit from the Vatican tonight: The conclave may meet prior to March 15.. Now how quick the white puff of smoke will rise is anyone’s guess. Undoubtedly behind the cassocks and frocks, a mean and nasty campaign for Pope is underway..

Is this horse meat, dog food, or ground hamburger? Bet you can’t tell the difference. And some can’t taste the difference either..

MY BOOK

A new years resolution I had last year and again this year was to write a book. If figured a page a day.

I didn’t get much at that so far in 2013. But is it too late to start? I’d only be down 47 pages.

So I figured if I actually did start my book today, I’d have 47 blank pages in the beginning. 

MY NINTENDO STILL WORKS

So it’s been dormant for years. It’s once again being utilized. Ayden likes Mario for WII so I wanted to see just how big of a fan he is. Turns out, he actually likes SUPER MARIO 3 and …..Donkey Kong (that one surprised me.) Of course getting the games to work is a little difficult. You often should pack a lunch just waiting for the game to actually start.

And then…midstream when you’re doing good just like you did as a kid, the game does that scrambled TV moment, freezes, and turns off on its own. And you feel as angry as you did in 1992 when it first started to happen.

I am just amazed that a game made in 1987 still works.. I am equally amazed that my son, born into sin during the 21st century, welcomes it with open arms. 

Maybe he’ll one day bring friends over to the house to show them this really old, really feeble, and really antique gaming system.

And then … maybe I’ll introduce the movie THE WIZARD to him. And blow his mind!

The revenge of the 20th century!! Let’s see if the WII still works in 2030!

So it’s fair to say that today is the day on earth when the sky actually did fall.

More here..

guardian:

The trail of a falling object is seen above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, where a meteorite flared spectacularly in the sky.

From Meteorite explosion over Russia – in pictures

Photograph: Reuters

The CABIN'S ON FIRRREEEE

Sing that in an Alicia Keys’ style voice.

Seriously though, why does the LAPD insist that they didn’t set any fires on the cabin with Chris Dorner in it? We have audio and scanners saying ‘burn the mother f&*^er down’ … Maybe it was just symbolic of their thoughts, of course. We will never have evidence. And like Waco, this will become another conspiracy theory and cult-favorite topic. 

But… seriously, audio explaining they were burning it down. And an official denial afterwards? Why bother..?

Channeling Upton Sinclair: Read this disgusting MIRROR story about the horse meat scandal in Europe. And then try to eat boxed lasagna.

Bet you can’t.

Channeling Upton Sinclair: Read this disgusting MIRROR story about the horse meat scandal in Europe. And then try to eat boxed lasagna.

I don’t care what your religious beliefs are. This has to freak you out.

“Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

“Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”

Pope Resignation Announcement Text - NYTimes.com (via zainyk)

So in guess the Popeatine becomes fallible again in march? Unless infallibility for life is in the retirement package..

I just hope he keeps tweeting.

The Pope wears Prada

The last Pope to resign was Gregory XII in 1415. I don’t think he Tweeted. Or wore beautiful red Prada shoes.

The Pope is resigning?!

Well…if Peter the Roman is next then I knew the end is nigh.

The forecast has not changed: The asteroid will still not hit earth. But it could take out your phone, so what's worse not having your communications for a while or not having your planet?

The forecast has not changed: The asteroid will still not hit earth. But it could take out your phone, so what's worse not having your communications for a while or not having your planet?