Joseph Priestley and Joseph Priestley House, Northumberland, Northumberland County

As I mentioned last month, my bff Andrea and I took a day trip through some of the more northeastern counties to collect a few markers, and this post is a result of that. After this there's just one more quest remaining for 2023 before I do my annual wrap-up for the year. My longtime readers may recall that, because I work in retail, I take the month of December off from blogging in order to have more time for little things like sleep.

This is only my second jaunt to Northumberland County with the blog; I hadn't managed to get there since I wrote about "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin some time ago. He had one thing in common with the subject of today's post - they both had insanely long lists of achievements, just in very different fields. In the case of today's subject, it was in a lot of different fields.

Gen. James M. Gavin, Mount Carmel, Northumberland County

I hate to open a blog post on a down note, but here we are. This bit has nothing to do with Pennsylvania history, although it's tangentially related to my writing. Shortly after last week's blog post went live, I received the devastating news that my dear friend Jessica had died unexpectedly. We had been friends for more than twenty years; she was one of my most supportive readers of nearly anything I wrote, and also one of my most honest and trustworthy critics. I valued her opinion deeply. She was much too young and it was a terrible shock. It feels strange to be writing something that, for the first time ever, I know she won't read.

But I know she's still making music where she is now, and I also know she'd want me to keep making words. So this is for you, Jess, with thanks for all the love and encouragement.

This week the blog makes its first visit to Northumberland County. I managed to snag this on the way home from a recent trip to Knoebels Amusement Park with husband Kevin, who deliberately veered off course in order to venture into the borough of Mount Carmel so we could all learn about "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin.