Davies and Thomas Company, Catasauqua, Lehigh County

One final reminder: I will be signing copies of Laury's Island: The Lehigh Valley's Forgotten Park at the Laurys Station Volunteer Fire Company's annual Community Day this coming Saturday, September 21st. The event runs from noon to 8 p.m. and will include a ton of activities for kids, plus food vendors, crafters, local non-profits, live music, and more. If you're within driving distance of the Lehigh Valley and this sounds like it might interest you, check out this Facebook page for more information, including the address of the fire station.

As I said on my own Facebook, I will be there until I run out of books. Please help me run out of books. ;)

Speaking of running out, I am genuinely starting to run out of markers! I haven't been able to take too many road trips this summer for various reasons, so I haven't had a lot of opportunities to add to my stash. I do still have a few from prior trips, but I need more. I have a visit planned with a friend next week in Chester County, so that will help. In the meantime, I'm going to start occasionally updating Confessions of a Wandering History Nerd on Wednesdays instead of MQ, just to help my content stretch a bit farther, so look for a new post over there next week. (It'll be about a cemetery, for those of you who like that sort of thing.)

My hometown of Catasauqua put up a new marker last year when I wasn't looking, so for this week's regularly scheduled nonsense, let's go visit my former neighbors and see what we can learn.

William Findley, Latrobe, Westmoreland County

You know that expression about how life is what happens while you're making other plans? That was my experience trying to get this blog updated! This month has been more than a little topsy-turvy thus far, what with an erratic work schedule, a (thankfully short-lived) stomach bug, my birthday, and a whole lot of other things. I've had to keep quite a few balls in the air, and I'm really not good at juggling. But I'm trying, I promise.

Before I get into this week's topic, for those of you who didn't see it in this month's newsletter, I will be signing copies of Laury's Island at the Laurys Station Volunteer Fire Company's annual Community Day on Saturday, September 21st. The event runs from noon to 8 p.m. and will include a ton of activities for kids, plus food vendors, crafters, local non-profits, live music, and more. If you're within driving distance of the Lehigh Valley and this sounds like it might interest you, check out this Facebook page for more information, including the address of the fire station.

Meanwhile, this week we're trekking back to Westmoreland County. This is the last marker I have from what I collected there during my trip with my sister last October, which to my mind sounds like a great excuse to take another one, but time will tell. This gentleman had a lot to say on the subject of the Whiskey Rebellion, and his account of the situation was rather at odds with the one issued by Alexander Hamilton.

Simpson Ferry Road, Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County

So we've been in a drought for much of the summer, and yes, we needed the rain we got last week. It's my considered opinion, however, that we did not need it all at once. I hope that those of you who gave the "Rainy Day in PA" crossword a try found it enjoyable, it was actually quite fun to make. Happily, the weather this week has been much kinder to me and I've been able to do a lot more of my usual stuff and nonsense.

For this week's quest, we're heading back to scenic Cumberland County to talk about a very old ferry road. The road is still there; the ferry, not so much. This post will probably be one of the shorter ones because in all honesty, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information about the subject, but I'm going to share what I was able to find.

Rainy Day in PA

First, happy birthday to my own personal mother!

Well, like most of the eastern seaboard, I'm currently keeping eyes on a storm named Debby. And as many of my longtime readers know, I'm one of those people who doesn't do well in certain kinds of weather - when the barometer drops, my pain levels rise. I'm used to it, but that doesn't make it fun. It does, however, make it difficult to focus on things like a blog post. Add in the fact that this is going to be a concern for a few days straight and I don't anticipate doing anywhere near as much writing this week as I would like.

But I'm not leaving you in the lurch, not this time! When I realized that the odds of my getting a post done were lower than usual, I went in search of an alternative. And I found what I think is a pretty good one. I do the NYT crossword puzzle every day and I'm quite fond of it, so if you also enjoy crosswords, you'll probably like this.

Revolutionary War Gun Factory, Hummelstown, Dauphin County

Yesterday I had a grand adventure, the likes of which I haven't been able to enjoy for some little while. I made my way to picturesque Hummelstown to visit a friend from my days at Kutztown University; AmyBeth and I were members of the school's Medieval & Renaissance Club (and you are shocked by that, I'm sure). She offered to be my tour guide if I would make the trip to visit her, and was so considerate as to schedule us a visit at the community's historical society. Geneva, who met us there, gave me access to all kinds of information related to the two markers in Hummelstown and was very interested to hear about what I do. 

We caught up on each other's lives while we enjoyed a delicious lunch at the 1950's themed diner The Soda Jerk (delicious burgers and excellent service!) and then took a trip to nearby Hershey. In total, together we collected seven markers, visited two cemeteries (one of which I'll be writing about for my other blog, so look for that), and discovered a museum that neither one of us even knew existed. We both had such a good time that we're going to arrange another trip, maybe when it cools down some in the fall. Meanwhile, today we're heading back to the colonial era to learn about a brief moment in Hummelstown history.

John A. Shulze, Womelsdorf, Berks County

It wasn't my plan, when I wrote last week's post, that someone who rated a brief mention in that story would be the focus of this week's work, but here we are. I collected this marker a few months back while roaming the wilds of Berks County with husband Kevin and bff Andrea - I think we were on our way home from Zenkaikon, but at this point I don't honestly remember for certain.

In any event, this week we're looking at the life of another of Pennsylvania's governors. This time, it's number six.

Lehigh-Lafayette Football Game, Bethlehem and Easton, Northampton County

The weather this week has been really hard on me. I've been taking pain medicine at night in order to be able to sleep. Between the excessive heat warnings, the (sometimes fulfilled) threat of thunderstorms, and the rising humidity pushing the barometer down, I haven't been exactly well. My longtime readers know that I'm very much at the mercy of the weather for a lot of things, and it's hard to be awesome when you don't want to move. But I'm doing my best here.

Being subject to the weather isn't helping with another problem - I'm running low on stockpiled markers, as I've mentioned. I'll be fixing that a bit in the coming weeks; I have a planned day trip to Schuylkill County near the end of July to collect markers with a college friend, and a few other possibilities up my sleeve. I have some plans for posts on the other blog as well, such as next month when some of my friends and I go to Dorney Park in Allentown and celebrate the 100th birthday of the roller coaster Thunderhawk.

All of that is to tell you why this week's post is about a football game. I just collected the second of the two relevant markers during a trip to Bethlehem with best friend Andrea last week; we were a little bored, the weather was decent, and we decided to grab a few markers in the nearby city and follow up with ice cream at the historic Bethlehem Dairy Store, familiarly known as "the Cup." I'd heard of it but never been, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in the vicinity of Lehigh University. A proper marker hunt always involves ice cream, you know, it's a rule.