Category Archives: Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday

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I don’t have the time to do a “Ten on Tuesday” EVERY Tuesday, but today is a snow day so I’ll play along.  Today’s task is to identify Ten Interesting Things About My Community.  I had some generous assistance from several websites (thank you Wikipedia and Google Image)!

  1.  I have a “Gettysburg Address”!  Although I’ll include greater Adams County, PA, as part of my community, the county seat where I live is plenty famous.Lincoln
  2. As a person who doesn’t really like apples, I am friggin’ SURROUNDED by them (quite literally).   The 4th largest apple producer in the country, Adams County is home to more than 35 varieties of the fruit in 20,000 acres of orchard.  I actually know some Motts.
  3. We are home to the Majestic Theater, the “grandest small-town theater in America!” Under the direction of Jeffrey Gabel, it was fully renovated in 2005.  The earlier version gained notoriety when President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady, Mamie (who were residents of Gettysburg) would attend performances there, often with world leaders as their guests.
  4. Many places are tourist meccas.  Our tourists are the kind who like to dress up in wool clothing and parade around on the 4th of July (beat THAT, Martha’s Vineyard!)
Battle of Gettysburg

Battle of Gettysburg

5. Because of that “civil” war (I hardly call a war that took the lives of a million people civil, although it is also known by other names, depending upon which side one’s people were on) my town boasts a lot of ghosts.  It is quite the booming industry here, in fact.  My own son took visitors on ghost tours.  The company he worked for sent the tour guides out with stud finders, which, when turned on and pointed at a ghost, would make unusual optical disturbances.  (Stud finders also do that when pointed at yogurt shops and living basset hounds, but what do I know!)

6.  Adams county was named after President John Adams, whose cousin, Samuel Adams, inspired a line of beer.    People in Adams County love their beer.

7.  They also love their cult films.  Jean Stapleton (of All in the Family fame) and her husband William Putch lived in nearby Franklin County and ran a summer stock theater that still exists (Totem Pole Playhouse).  Their son,  John Putch , produced, wrote, and directed a trilogy of films centered on a stretch of the Lincoln highway in south central Pennsylvania: Route 30.

8.  The entire county only has five high schools, although there are three institutions of higher learning: Harrisburg Area Community College, Gettysburg College, and the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary.

9.  The closest Indian restaurant is 40 minutes north of here.  We cherish our little Thai restaurant and endeavor to keep it open by eating there as frequently as possible.  The grocery store sells sushi (but note that it is grocery store sushi!).

10.  We host lots and lots of small town, community events all year round: the Halloween parade, New Year’s Eve on the square, Salsa night on the Square, First Friday events in town, concerts at the college and seminary, classic movie night at the Majestic in the summer…  I poke a little fun at this town on occasion, but I really love living here.

 

10 on Tuesday

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Carole over at Caroleknits.net posts a regular column every Tuesday where she enlists people to blog about 10 things.  I’m new to her blog so I am not sure how it is organized but today’s list is: 10 Things I Did in 2015 That Made Me Feel Proud.  So here goes…

  1.  I survived rejection…LOTS of rejection.  One paper submitted for review was rejected three times and another twice.  I learned a lot from the experience and will attempt to reconcile all the constructive feedback (and ignore the ridiculous).
  2. I lost 30 pounds.  Actually I lost more but the holidays have enabled a few of the shed pounds to reappear.  I’m in it for the long haul, however, and am motivated by health so I feel secure that I will continue on this VERY SLOW PATH.
  3. Although the semester was a bear and I never really felt like I caught up with myself I had some pretty splendid teaching moments this time ’round.  One particular highlight was the very successful Genealogy project my History and Systems in Psychology students completed.  In small groups they interviewed every faculty member in my department and traced their academic lineage back to the “fathers” of modern psychology (either Wilhelm Wundt or William James).  Along the way they met reference librarians (THE MOST important people to make friends with while in college) who fought one another over who got to help with the project.
  4. I discovered a new musical enchantment: Balinese Gamelan!  My friends Janelle and Dan play in an orchestra at my local college and I attended two concerts.  I was so taken that I begged to be permitted to join the group.  I start rehearsing with them in January and hope to journey with the orchestra to Bali next summer for a festival!
  5. Listened to some fairly remarkable audiobooks on the 2015 commute.  Notable among them are: Station Eleven, (Emily St. John Mandel), Being Mortal (Atul Gawande), and a re-listen to The Wee Free Men (the late Sir Terry Pratchett).
  6. I exercised with great regularity, despite a bum knee (that is currently in real need of a cortisone shot).
  7. Oh…and I started this blog.  I’m not a frequent post-er and my content spans both my professional life as well as my personal life, but I am pretty satisfied with it overall.
  8. I cleaned out the linen closet (which had been on my to-do list for more years than I am willing to reveal).
  9. I knit just about every day and twice a month with some of the best darned knitting friends a person can hope to have!
  10. Kept up with social media: got an Instagram account
  11. Whoops…I just remembered!  After a very splendid trip to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival with Janelle (with a meet up with Laura and Janet) I hatched a plan to make a real effort at reducing my stash yarn.  I pulled an assortment from my many bins, paired them with patterns, and had my husband put them in paper bags and staple them.  As soon as I clear the 2015 deck (I have one pair of socks to finish and a log cabin afghan to seam) I will plow into the project bags!