The Mills Brothers, Bellefonte, Centre County

It's not a very comfortable day here in the beloved commonwealth. As of this writing, our air quality is in code orange status, meaning that I'm not looking forward to going outside. Just as it was two years ago this week, our air is again being a bit clogged by smoke drifting down from the Canadian wildfires.

Things are busy here. Last week, my mother's last surviving aunt, my very dear Great-Aunt Gene, celebrated her 100th birthday! Naturally, we've been very caught up in preparing for that. One of her sons even arranged for her picture to appear on the Jumbotron at a Phillies game (she loves the Phillies). She's not a reader of the blog, but she's always been interested in hearing about the things I learn while researching my posts, so I thought it was fitting to mention her here.

This week's post is a bit of an odd one, because the Pennsylvania connection feels to me like a little bit of a stretch. The subject itself, however, is quite interesting.

Bellefonte Air Mail Field, Bellefonte, Centre County

It's crunch time for Zenkaikon. We leave tomorrow and spend three and a quarter lovely days in beautiful downtown Lancaster, hobnobbing with other weirdos (most of them in costume). I'll be doing two presentations about Lancaster history and one about Celtic mythology. I'm not sure which ones will be available to watch via Zenkaikon Online, but they did make it free for everyone this year - so if and when I have links to share, I'll provide them for anyone who might care to watch me babble about history. I'll also return to uploading podcast episodes next week when it's over, I want to do a little fine-tuning.

For today, you just get to read my babbling. We're going to skip back in time just a little over a century, back to when air mail was a relatively new thing and somewhat dangerous to boot. A little community in central Pennsylvania was key to the success of the endeavor.

Bellefonte, Centre County

It always throws me off a little when there are five Wednesdays in a month, because it means one extra blog post sneaks in there. Next week is my birthday, and I'll be taking some time off from work for the occasion - not so much to celebrate getting older, but in order to get moving on a couple of projects I've been trying to get underway. If all goes well, I should be making an announcement in the next few weeks that I never expected I would be making, but here we are.

Go ahead and indulge your imaginations. No, I'm not having a child or getting another pet, but beyond that, feel free to go wild.

Anyway, for this final quest in August, we're heading out to almost the exact middle of the state for another visit to the adorable borough of Bellefonte. This time we'll just find out why the community itself is significant - it actually has two (identical) historical markers of its own.

Pennsylvania Match Factory, Bellefonte, Centre County

We've had suspiciously decent weather in recent days. February feels more like early April. I'm not sure I trust it, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

For this week's quest, we're heading back to beautiful Centre County, which I visited with husband Kevin last summer on his birthday trip. The weather was much more predictable on that occasion, since one generally knows what to expect from July, and we were charmed by the county seat of Bellefonte. The community has a lot of markers, including one for what I hadn't realized was once a major industry in central Pennsylvania.

Anna Wagner Keichline, Bellefonte, Centre County

And this is the last of the 'county firsts' for August! Kevin and I were both absolutely charmed by the little community of Bellefonte, which we visited on our way home from his birthday trip last month; it's picturesque and out of the way, nestled between the mountains of Centre County. We were actually a little sorry that we couldn't stay longer. It seemed like every turn we took brought us to another beautiful building, particularly the Centre County Courthouse, and there were a surprising number of historical markers to be found.

I decided to go with this one for the first Centre County marker because the woman it celebrates is quite extraordinary, and I was curious to learn more about her.