Gen. Wayne Headquarters, York, York County

Tomorrow we leave for Zenkaikon, and I'm running around in circles trying to get everything done that I need to have done. That of course includes this blog post.

It's been a while since we looked at anything in York, so I thought it would be good to head back there. In the process of setting up this post, I learned that the individual named on the marker actually has a couple of markers about him. So I won't be talking a whole lot about the gentleman himself - we'll leave that for when I've collected those markers. I will, however, go into the details about his time in York.

Thaddeus Stevens, Gettysburg, Adams County

As my Facebook followers are aware, I went radio silent for much of the past week due to being on a desperately-needed vacation. For the first time since 2019, my beloved Zenkaikon once again took place at the Lancaster County Convention Center and I was there for the whole thing, participating in discussions about my favorite media and admiring the colorful costumes and hugging people I had not seen in far too long. It is my happy place and I missed it more than I can say. (To use a modern colloquialism: If you know, you know.)

It was originally my intention to do this as a double marker post. However, there is simply too much to say about this particular subject; I can't confine myself to just one. So since there are two markers, in two counties, and a lot to say... you get two posts. The timing of this is deliberate, because the gentleman in question is observing his 230th birthday this coming week, and the two posts will be examining his life and legacy in both Gettysburg and Lancaster. 

Wilkes-Barre Fort, Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County

I can't believe it's already November! Only a handful more blog posts before I do my annual retrospective post and look ahead to 2022. Hopefully I have enough material to get me through the winter months, especially if the snow is heavy and I can't go looking for more, although it would be nice if I can manage one more marker collecting quest before the days get too cold.

This blog is sort of a cross between a hobby and a job. It's both and it's neither all at once. I take it very seriously, because much of my personal identity is bound up in being a writer; but at the same time, I can't take it too seriously or I'll never have any fun with it, and life has enough things in it that aren't fun without volunteering for more. 

(On that note, thank you for the kind remarks I received following last week's post, with regards to the passing of my dear friend Jessica. I am very appreciative of all my readers who reached out to offer their condolences; it meant a lot.)

Today's post is one of those with which I've had a bit of fun. The subject itself isn't particularly amusing or anything, but the wording of the marker kind of is. See, almost without fail, the wording of the historical markers is sensible and easy to understand; this is a good thing, because otherwise most people would ignore them more than they already do. But today's marker is a little different - I kept reading the text and just sort of blinking at it. Why would Pennsylvania have had a fort which protected the courthouse of a county in Connecticut? On what map does that make any kind of sense?

Well, as it turns out, there was once a series of minor wars between Pennsylvania and Connecticut. If this is the first you're hearing of such a thing, don't feel bad, because I never heard about it either.

The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Dauphin County

For reasons that probably don't need to be explained, I haven't been able to travel to today's subject and take pictures. But last fall, my parents were in the city of Harrisburg, as I mentioned in my post about the Underground Railroad, and they got a few pictures of markers for me while they were in the vicinity. Today my stepdad joins the ranks of the blog's guest photographers, and hopefully, he and I will both get to make a proper visit to the subject in the relatively near future. Whenever I'm finally able to go, I'll come back and edit this post to add more pictures - I promise I'll let you know when that happens.

"Pennsylvania," says one of my sources for today's post, "is a history-minded state." That, of course, is why I'm here and why you're here with me.

Lafayette, Bethlehem, Northampton County

May is here, and it's actually starting to look like it where I live! Several of my neighbors have planted fields of canola, and it's a massive lift to the spirits to drive to the grocery store past fields of beautiful yellow flowers, stretching for acres. I'm so grateful to the farmers who decided to put in that crop.

I didn't know what to write for today's post. I'm actually starting to run out of my backlog of 'saved' subjects; I've done all of the markers I've collected for several counties. (That's not to say that those counties are done, just that I need more material from them.) My younger sister lives with us, and I remarked that today I needed to do a blog post. She wanted to know if I've written about bread yet, which as my longtime readers know, I have not. I've made bread - yesterday was my first attempt at homemade bread and it went very well; I have dubbed it "existential bread" because we joke that people are baking to stave off the sensations of existential dread. I'm probably not as funny as I think I am.

Anyway, I gave her two possible topics for today's post and she picked the one you're about to read. So it's partly because of Liza that we're learning about the Marquis de Lafayette.

Blue Mountain Forts, Annville, Lebanon County

If you live in Pennsylvania, you know that last week we had a lot of severe weather all over the state for a few days in a row, including several tornado watches and warnings. As I mentioned in the past, my body reacts badly to severe weather, so I was in pretty bad shape and missed last week's update. My apologies to anyone who was looking forward to it!

It seems that the last time I mentioned my problems with the weather was in my post about the Hanover Resolves. Today's post has two things in common with that one, and this is the first. The second is that, like in that post, I only have one photograph for today - the picture of the historical marker itself. After attending the latest meeting of the White Rose Irregulars of York, my companions and I made a brief detour in Lebanon County to collect a few markers there, and here is the first post from that county.