Andy's Articles

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL

In small town America we often lament that our kids move away when they grow up. When our children reach the age of eighteen or so you can hear the collective moan of “There’s nothing to do around here”. As parents, who generally don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything, that has to be, done it can be hard to understand this youthful angst. We like to say they lack imagination and if you just opened your eyes to the possibilities you would see lots of great things to do. It’s probably true too. But discouraging your children from going forth to conquer new worlds isn’t the American way. America was founded on that very spirit.

I remember telling my Mom and Dad at the age of 19 that I was going to take my ’68 International Travelall and my Sheppard/Huskie puppy Sadie and drive across the United States to see what I could find. They were as apprehensive as I was committed. But I remember my Dad saying he wished he’d gone out west as a younger man. It was his way of showing approval.

I spent the better part of the next three months on the road of this great land during the summer of our nation’s bicentennial. From the 4th of July in Boston down to Nashville and New Orleans over to Austin and Phoenix and up to the Grand Canyon and the Rockies north. I returned in the fall with both a full head of ideas and a new appreciation of home. The fact of the matter was that my eyes had been open to both the possibilities of my future and the beauty of my past. It actually was my upbringing that gave me the confidence to be an explorer of life. This is the greatest gift a community can provide its young people. We shouldn’t measure ourselves by how many of our children leave but rather by the quality of young adults we send out into the world.

With that spirit in mind I asked Mrs. Gables seventh and eighth grade English classes at Our Mother of Sorrows school to write an essay on their views of growing up in Johnstown. I met with these young adults on the overlook from The Inclined Plane as we discussed the virtues of their hometown and the exercise of writing about them. We gathered all of their essays into a booklet for our guests at the restaurant to read enjoy and vote on their favorite. They chose this submission by seventh grader Patrick Unger.

Growing Up In Johnstown

My childhood in Johnstown has been filled with amazing people, places and activities. As a kid in Johnstown, places and activities to do are in abundance. In Johnstown sports are of large-scale importance. I am not just talking abut leagues and high school sports. I am talking about the backyard games you play with your friends. At home I play Jailbreak (cops and robbers) with my friends in our woods. It is the best on a summer night with the cool breeze and refreshing blue night sky. I also play Ultimate Frisbee with my friends at Engh Field. Summer time is when our games take place. In the fall we play football, diving into a pile of leaves for a touchdown is the greatest part. Another thing I like about growing up in Johnstown is being able to stroll where you want to and still feel safe. Johnstown is beautiful to take bike ride through any time of the year. I ride through the leaves in the fall under the cool green leaves in the spring and under the night sky in the summer. Lastly, the environment and sites of Johnstown are wonderful. I love nature a lot. I go to Stackhouse a lot with my friends and it is also a great spot for camping. The Inclined Plane, Flood Memorial and Flood Museum are also places of my interests; I like to read about the history of Johnstown. Summertime is a great time for lots of activities but one in particular is my favorite. What is that one activity? It is just relaxing with my friends, enjoying a refreshing Arnold Palmer (half ice tea and half lemonade) at Clark’s with our feet up watching a beautiful, spectacular summer sunset over Menoher Blvd. That is what growing up in Johnstown is all about.

Congratulations to all of the Patrick’s out there, you’re exactly the kind of young people we are raising to become productive citizens of the world. As we celebrate the many graduations from all of our fine schools this time of year we can share in a collective pride that as a community we have prepared them well.

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE

And the Academy Award goes to Kristy Puchko of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And the Oscar goes to “Bo” Whittle from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. This years Academy Award goes to Ryan Dixon of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And the Oscar winners are Kev Stock and Micah Mood from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And the Academy Award goes to Matt Meehan of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Don’t be surprised if you hear these words at The Academy Awards ceremony in the not too distant future. After all, famous people and film artists all have to be from somewhere, why not here? Probably the one thing many of them have in common is they grew up in a community that was supportive of their interests and art at a young age, a community of encouragement.

Many people probably don’t realize it but Johnstown is increasingly becoming that kind of a community. Last Saturday night amidst a torrential downpour hundreds of locals gathered at The Heritage Discovery Center to present and watch this years Johnstown Film Festival entries. Yes, films are entered from all across America but increasingly this now five year old festival is screening film being created in our own backyards, literally.

Max Fedore was there this year. A high school student, Max’s busy schedule didn’t permit him time to make a film for this year’s competition but a previous year’s entry turned him on to the energy of film making and he wants to stay connected to it. Jocelyn Meehan is there every year. In college now, she still comes to support her brother’s entry even though she didn’t star in this one. Matt or M.J. Meehan as he is calling himself these days is creating seriously good film that can be seen on his website meehanart.com. Casey Contres and Josh Leonard are students at Northern Cambria High School where as a student project they created a documentary about local Vietnam veterans and their feelings about returning home from the war to a less than grateful nation some forty years ago. So moving was their portrait it won this year’s youth award. To produce this film a grant was secured from the History Channel by the Coal Country Youth Hangout.

Kristy Puchko used to work at The Westwood Plaza Theatre and Café. Now she works in New York and just returned from San Francisco where her first animated short film was being screened in a festival there. She is busily trying to figure out if she can fly back to California for an upcoming screening of “The Skeleton Boy” to an audience of tens of thousands at this year’s San Diego comic book convention. While on the left coast she might try to see Ryan Dixon who now lives in L.A. where he works in the film industry. A far cry from his days making horror films with the characters from Pleasant Valley Golf Course where he got his start some ten years ago.

The third place winner this year was a disturbing nightmare story from Lee “Bo” Whittle. “Follow Me Down” was one year in the making, six months of which was used to actually shoot the film on Sundays in downtown Johnstown when streets were empty. While there are only a couple of central characters in this very tense dialogue-free 30 minute film it did require over fifty extras to play dead on the streets of Eighth Ward to create a post apocalyptic surreality. Bo went out of his way to thank the then City Manager Curt Davis, our police chief and others in City Hall for making the Johnstown shoot possible.

This year’s first place winner was a local entry. “Arrividerci, Signore Fuccini” is a seriously clever and surprisingly funny look at racism, terrorism and gambling. Its writer and director Kev Stock has produced over 25 short films in the last 7 years and is currently earning his masters degree in film at Ohio University. His collaborative partner Micah Mood accepted the first place award for his good friend who couldn’t be there in person on Saturday night because he is on location working on a film. Of course he is.

PATRIOTIC STAYCATION

A few weeks ago Katie and I drove over to Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Katie is originally from there and has family still in the area. If you are not familiar with Cherry Hill it is just on the other side of Philadelphia and is essentially a part of the metropolitan sprawl of our state’s largest city. Katie and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary this year and so I have been visiting her family’s home for over three decades. Its not hard to get there, you get off the turnpike at Valley Forge and take the Schuylkill (“Sure-Kill”) expressway to the Ben Franklin Bridge over the Delaware River and pick up Route 70 East. I know the road so well I can point out all of the significant neighborhood landmarks of Katie’s youth. The original family home, her high school (Cherry Hill East in case you are wondering), the Woodcrest Swim Club where she swam and worked, Victor’s Liquors, Rambler’s Jewelers and most importantly Big Johns (formerly Little Joe’s) the home of the best cheese steak around.

But in over thirty years of making this trip what I can’t tell you anything about is Philadelphia. For some strange reason we avoided it like the plague. That is until this last visit when Katie’s sisters, Peaches and Pat, decided we should visit old town Philly and the historic area organized as the Independence National Historic Park. Our visit started at the Independence Visitor Center which we parked directly beneath, very easy. I recommend this as a good way to orient oneself to the maze of streets and buildings each one of which has incredible historical significance. While we spent a long afternoon looking around, you could spend days.

We began our exploration of American history at The National Constitution Center where an interpretive display using a live actor/narrator and projection recalled the story of the creation of the single most significant document of our democracy, the Constitution of the United States of America. Did you know that some 50 other nations have used it as their guiding inspiration for creating their own democracies and that at 4,440 words it is both the oldest and shortest constitution of any major government in the world. I didn’t know these things or many other amazing facts about The Constitution until I visited Philadelphia.

My favorite experience of the day was a live theatre performance by three excellent actors presenting opposing views on today’s most debated issues as considered by the Supreme Court. This staging brought wonderful perspective to differing views on immigration reform, same sex marriage, the right to own a gun amongst others. It was an inspiring demonstration of what it means to live in a country whose governing document encourages discourse and disagreement and guarantees your right to have your own opinion and articulate it aloud without fear of repercussion. You know the kind of tears one gets from pride; I cried those tears during this performance. It was a wonderful feeling.

A short walk away we visited the brand new home of The Liberty Bell. I was struck by two things in particular. First, how physically small it was compared to my imagined image of it and secondly by how big its impression was as a symbol. So large is its presence that people are constantly jockeying politely for a position from which they can have their family photographed with it. I stood quietly by myself in a corner, like a ghost watching one family after another beam with obvious joy at the occasion of a photo with The Liberty Bell. I was especially impressed by the diversity of Asian American, Hispanic American, African American, German American, Italian American and every stripe represented by the flag of this melting pot nation. People have been drawn to our shores from around the globe by the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and they were all on display with The Liberty Bell.

We finished our exploration of American History where out history began, in Independence Hall. To stand in the very room where George Washington presided over the birth of our nation was nothing short of amazing. The energy of Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton and their peers is palpable and inspiring. Hearing stories about them and seeing statues of them had a humanizing effect that made them seem more imperfect and consequently more like us than not.

I have always felt great about America and blessed to call her my home but every once in a while it is good to recharge that battery, especially in times of national challenge. With a war on, a difficult economy and an ecological disaster unfolding in front of our very eyes daily it is easy to lose faith, but don’t. Go to Philadelphia and recharge your patriotic battery.

“THEY SAY”

One of my least favorite expressions is “they say”. I want to know who “they” are. I suspect most of “us” want to know who “they” are.

To me accepting the “they say” doesn’t come easy. I’m not at all comfortable accepting an assumption based upon some faceless entity. None of us should be, it’s mentally lazy. We should all think for ourselves all of the time and question what are in some cases long held beliefs that aren’t credited to an actual study with an actual persons name on it.

For me this lack of blind acceptance goes back to my childhood. One of the most dreaded jobs in the forced labor camp I grew up in on Sunnehanna Drive occurred every year about this time. My father would hand me a twelve inch medal rod with a split pointed end and a wooden handle at its top and tell me to go out and pull the dandelions, the dreaded weed stick. There were two of them actually. The short get down on your knees and crawl across the entire yard on all fours version I just described or the full length four foot this-is-gonna-really-kill-your-back stand up version. Pick your poison. The good news was that this job if performed diligently could be completed in a day. The bad news was they grew back and for a period of months this task was on the weekly to-do list.

This is one of those jobs that provides a young man with a lot of opportunity for contemplation. Thoughts like, what if I just pull the yellow tops and stems off, could I be done in time to ride my bike to the Dairy Queen with Jeff Platt or, I’m going to mow the grass tomorrow, why don’t I just do it today and cut these suckers down. Wouldn’t that just create healthy mulch for the yard like in that dust to dust ashes to ashes thing they keep talking about at OMOS. If I did that I would still have time to ride my bike in Stackhouse Park with Jeff Platt.

But my ultimate contemplative thought was, these plants are really pretty. With their yellow flowers that grow taller by the day, their lush green leaves and that white root that was sturdy and long. Why didn’t we just embrace them as flowers, flowers that for a few weeks every year provided free decorations compliments of Mother Nature. After all she put them here for a reason and as we all knew as kids of the 60’s and 70’s it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. After all who was it that determined this otherwise beautiful plant was to be demonized as a weed to be eradicated and not a flowering plant to be cultivated. Well, I think we all know the answer to that one, it was “they”. “They say” left unchecked these varmints will take over the world or at the very least the neighborhood.

To this day I refuse to agree with what “they say” about this plant. But now of course we don’t have to crawl around on all fours with a weed stick to eradicate this plight. No, now it’s as simple as having a big truck full of chemicals pull up in front of your house and a person in a green uniform will drag a hose back and forth across your yard spewing a chemical formula that none of us really knows what is in it, covering your lawn with a greasy liquid while filling the air with a noxious fume that at minimum stinks. They say house pets should stay inside for the day. That is like leaving your canary at home when you go into the mine.

I mean no disrespect to the yard care industry. Their just providing a service we have been convinced over time that we need based upon a determination made by that faceless “they”. But the free thinker in me seriously wonders what spraying chemicals all over our planet might be doing to our water supply and the air we breath.

Do you suppose someday we will determine that the preponderance of cancers we are experiencing is linked to the modern chemical world we live in?

Wouldn’t it be an incredible irony if we discover that the looked down upon lowly dandelion properly consumed is the cure for cancer. Then what would “they say”?