Yogi, Boo-Boo and the Buffaloes

Driving in NY State is always a challenge. We got off the NY Thruway and headed on narrow, twisting roads to our campgrounds, Yogi Bear Jellystone Park. On the banks of the nearly waterless Wallkill River, we were greeted with signs like, “Please Feed the Bears” and life-size statues of Yogi and Boo-Boo. We had one option for our site- the campground was completely filled for the weekend invasion of family tenters. Once we got settled, found that cable would work (barely), we got to appreciate our little haven in the trees….separated from the hoards of families, tents, firepits and swirling kids in helmets riding their bikes.

It was hard to believe that these NY towns are so close to NYC. There is no evidence of the trendy towns of the Berkshires, filled with antique shops and farmers markets. The towns here are real – with cafes (not Starbucks), small post offices, libraries, old time hardware stores and courteous people. There’s some evidence of "suburbification" – some of the farm fields being converted to McMansions with huge perfectly mowed lawns.

On the track of the Harlows, we searched local libraries and historical societies- checking out old maps, books and files. In the County offices of Orange and Ulster Counties, we found old wills and deeds. Strange to find wills dating from 1797 . John claimed that our family search was over – so we had our “graduation dinner” in New Platz at the Indian restaurant. Somehow, I’m just not sure that it’s truly over….

Kingston, NY Where the buffalo roam…
We had another reason for being in this part of NY State...installing our motorcycle lift on the back of the motorhome. The "gold standard" for motorcycle lifts is a company called, Overbilt. It's a true family operation…everyone is related – all the kids work either in the office or in the “factory”. Art, the owner, has quite an operation. He just closed a deal with Blue OX for an semi-exclusive relationship with them- they handle the manufacturing and get the use of the Overbilt name. Art’s going to be handling “R&D” and doing installations. We got the full tour of his shop. Across the road from the shop is his farm. Art and Darlene have a home on the farm- next door to his father- at 79, still riding motorcycles.

And the best part- Art has a herd of buffaloes—no plans to sell them as buffalo burgers. He told the story of when they delivered the herd. Evidently you have to introduce buffaloes to a new environment during the day so they have time to acclimate to their new surroundings. Well, they were delivered at dusk. The buffalo took a few laps around the farm fence- then went wild- taking off at speeds of 40 mph – straight through the fence and across the highway. 3 of them were killed on the highway in front of the farm…some of them made it onto the Thruway and met oncoming cars. They had no choice but to get to the loose animals and shoot them as quickly as they could. A sad ending for the loose buffalo…

Hazelton, PA

Is it Pennsylvania or Appalachia? The coal mining history of the town is evident everywhere-strip mining and tailings. The city itself still shows some traces of a classic past- old Victorian houses- now run down and inhabited by the town’s growing Hispanic population. This was the city that John’s great-grandfather lived in for 30 + years. We lucked across the gravestones of a number of his relatives in the city cemetery and spent time in the local library and historical society. The two elderly women who ran the Historic Society/Museum sat in their little “library” and told us stories of the changing town and the horrors of life as a miner. They showed us the mining histories detailing the countless deaths reported annually. Then, they told us of the changes in their town today- with the influx of Hispanics coming in for social programs, the growth in drugs and gangs and the shootings in the city. Like so many US cities, the downtown store fronts are empty, the streets full of litter, and the beautiful old houses in disrepair.

We had further confirmation of the decline talking with the locals at the “Roadhouse” were we had a huge burger and some wine. One of the locals, a CFO at a a program for kids with problems, told us of the spike in psychiatric problems. He told us that the incidence of schizophrenia and severe mental illnesses as well as drug problems have grown so dramatically in the past years.

Shoo-fly pie and dead relatives....

From cosmopolitan Pittsburgh to Amish country. We went from a wealth of ethnic restaurants to all you can eat “home-style” cooking. From speeding guys wearing backward baseball caps in old American cars to Amish men with long scraggly beards wearing all black and riding in horse and buggies. The area has grown dramatically and the entire stretch of Highway 30 is filled with outlet malls, Amish craft stores and restaurants touting shoo-fly pie. And the traffic has grown with the building. Trying to cross traffic can be a life-threatening experience.

We spent several days doing more family research- this time, John's father's side. Ploughing through deeds and court records, we were able to pin down the location of John’s great-great-great grandfathers property. We were stunned to find that the brick house on the property still exists. Originally a two story brick building, it has been expanded over the years and is now a bed and breakfast with 9 rooms. We met the owners who were in the process of selling the B&B and buying another property. They were very gracious and showed us the inside and outside of the house, explained their discoveries while renovating-even showed us the cellar.

Our other family search was in the Columbia, PA cemetery. We were lucky to track down one of the volunteers who has taken on the cemetery as a project and has attempted to catalog the gravestones and keep the place maintained. We found the graves of 8 of the AuWerters from the area.

John’s father had told a family story of the Civil War burning of the Columbia Bridge- with his family playing a key role. So, we had to visit the “Columbia Bridge Burning Diorama” in Wilkensburg. Only open from 1:00-4:00 on Sunday afternoon, we were the only two visitors, paid our $4.00 fee, and got a personal presentation. This man has been doing this presentation for 10 years. The diorama wasn’t the typical audio presentation with lights to highlight the specific battle scenes. No, this was very low budget, with an audio feed and our guide standing over the diorama with a laser pointer, pointing to each battle scene to correspond to the audio. 10 years…. Imagine that!

One morning, we took the Philadelphia Pike, trying to avoid the Route 30 traffic and stumbled upon the Whitmer Inn. With a limited number of families in the area in the 1700-1800’s, it seems that one or another of John's relatives had married into all of these families. We pulled into the driveway and were met by a very strange looking man- short, scrawny, cigarette smoking in dusty jeans and an old t-shirt- who appeared to either be on drugs or high on A LOT of caffine. He welcomed us into the house/inn, thinking that we were incoming guests to the inn. Once we explained that we were just interested in getting some history and information on the Whitmers, he started pulling out books and pamphlets on the inn and the family. He sat us down at a table still littered with food—cantelope slices, small boxes of sugary cereals and one of those grocery store coffee cakes still in plastic wrap. It took us a while to realize that this spread was his B&B offering for his guests. The room was packed with stuff- old newspapers, magazines, books lying in stacks all around the room.

We actually found the family connection in one of the genealogies that our new friend gave us. After trying to take notes on the lineage, we realized that we needed a copy of the document. Leaving me behind as “collateral”, John went back to the motorhome to make copies. While I sat and poured through the other documents, Grant would bounce in and out of the room. I got stories about his father, the archeological digs in their backyard and details on his various “antiques”. He’d leave for awhile, go into the next room and I’d hear him talking to someone or something- I assumed it was an animal. After a while, I started having visions of Grant as a serial killer, holding a hostage behind the door. FINALLY, John came back. I was ready to leave- but Grant wanted to give us the tour of the house. We got the full tour of the rooms, an explanation of his “renovations” and a request to “put in a good word with the tourist bureau”. Evidently he gets a few complaints.

In between all the research and encounters with strange and wonderful characters, we made a trip to York, PA, home of the largest Harley Davidson assembly plant. Here they assemble the touring and soft-tail models as well as doing custom work. Their list of products is a bit like a Starbucks menu….fat boy electra glide, heritage soft-tail classic…. The plant was huge-with over 1.5 million square feet under roof. Interestingly, most of the assembly work was done by women-with robots doing a lot of the other work.

After the tour, we stopped at the Eastern Market in York- and chowed down on a typical Pennsylvania style meal- a huge chicken pot pie. Nothing like chicken and gravy in the middle of the day to make you feel completely lethargic. Add to that, the horrendously hot and humid weather, and you have quite a combination.

To make the Amish seem normal, we went to the Ephrata Cloister. Founded in 1732, this was one of America’s earliest communal societies. The community- composed of “households”- families living on nearby farms- and the 80 celibate Brothers and Sisters. They came together following a charismatic leader from Germany, Conrad Beissel. Beissel believed in Saturday as the main day of worship and a God with a male and female side (the female side was Sophia)-and a desire to unite with god- leaving no room for earthly marriage. The Brothers and Sisters led an austere life- eating only once a day- and then only eating bread, fruits and vegetables. Their nights were spent sleeping on narrow benches with a block of wood as a pillow. From midnight to 2:00 a.m., they were rousted up to watch for Jesus to return “as a thief in the night”. So, without much sleep or much to eat, they spent their days farming, milling and running a printing press.

They were known for their style of calligraphic writing called Frakturschriften.

At night, those who could sing practice for the choir; those who couldn’t sing, would spent their time doing large calligraphic wall hangings. Beissel promised the second coming of Jesus in his lifetime- so when he died, the community declined and in 1813, the last celibate died.

Pittsburgh - "From Hags to Vomit Bags"

Pittsburgh was a pleasant surprise. We found one of the old family houses in Wilkinsburg (just outside the city). It was a beautiful old house- now a 3 family. John managed to take a brick from the house (yet another blonde brick house) – the house where his father was born.

We spent time at the Heinz Historical Library and the Carnegie Mellon Library doing research on the family. With the information we gathered there, we were able to search for some of the houses they lived in and places they worked. It gave us a chance to see a lot of the Pittsburgh neighborhoods. One side of the family worked and lived in an area called the Strip. Once it was filled with factories belching smoke; now it’s become an “it” neighborhood filled with old warehouses turned into lofts and bars, funky little shops selling cheeses, veggies and meats. (We even got to see some of Pittsburgh’s cuties dressed up for a hot Saturday night—chewing gum and drinking beer- at the same time!)

We had one of the many Pittsburgh “originals”- a Primanti’s sandwich. Their claim to fame is the “all in one” sandwich- meat, cheese, coleslaw and French fries on thick slice white bread. The restaurant was filled with sturdy Pittsburgh people. The men (John calls them “meatballs”) are all stocky and beefy. The women are absolutely huge. We watched in horror as these huge people ordered their all-in-one sandwiches with French fries covered with nacho cheese sauce as an appetizer. We found that other Pittsburgh originals include: the Big Mac (invented by a local McDonald’s owner in 1968), Heinz Ketchup, Chipped Ham, and the Klondike Bar. (Sandwich Photo courtesy of Flickr: )

The Carnegie Library was lovely –much like the Cleveland Public Library—a grand old building with marble floors and filled with people playing games on the Internet terminals. Our downtowns appear to be dying. Across from the Library was the “Cathedral of Learning”- a breathtakingly ugly Stalinist looking 42 story building that houses classrooms and offices for the University of Pittsburgh. (They call it a “meeting of modern skyscraper and medieval cathedral”.)

We spent one morning at John’s grandfather’s old factory- Columbia Steel and Shafting Company. On our way back through the city, we found our way to the top of Mount Washington and got some spectacular views of the city and the three rivers converging. We made our way down to the South Side. Once home to Eastern European immigrants who came to work in the mills in the early 20th century, today they’ve restored to a 20 block area with coffee houses, restaurants and funky shops. We stopped for a huge corned beef Reuben sandwich- which served as lunch and dinner.

We couldn’t leave Pittsburgh without visiting the Andy Warhol Museum—mostly because it was featuring an exhibit on John Waters, called “From Hags to Vomit Bags”. It was a collection of photos done by Waters – including such memorable collections as “12 Assholes and a Dirty Foot”- or photos taken from his TV of movie clips showing people on the toilet or vomiting. It was quite an insight into the mind of a very strange man. Even more interesting was the stream of people being directed to the exhibit by the stringy X’ers at the ticket booth. They recommended that everyone start with the Waters exhibit- old and young. We saw a 70 year old woman wheeling her 80 year old husband through the exhibits- looking at photos of assholes! Or women with children in strollers wandering past the “porn” section.

We spent a Sunday afternoon driving to Conneaut Lake Park. John’s great-grandfather got started in the amusement park business there- with a small boat business to ferry people across the lake. The amusement park was charming- a little bit of the past still alive. The old rides – the Tilt-O-Whirl, the old wooden roller coaster- were all still operating. The park was packed with families- enjoying the old rides and the lake.