Why do I consider it my "
Old Stomping Grounds" shelf?
This is why...
I was born and raised in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, just north of Allentown (home of Mack and Bonney - and also Horlacher Brewery - now gone, and A-Treat soda), Bethlehem (home of Bethlehem Spark Plug), and Nazareth (home of the raceway made famous by Mario Andretti, and the best and still hand-made guitars on the planet). There were probably fifty machine shops on that map at one time, and that's no exaggeration.
Palmerton sits at the foot of the Blue Mountain, with the Appalachian trail on top, near the Lehigh Gap, where the Lehigh river runs through it. The Lehigh was a decent whitewater river, with a few Class III, some Class II, and mainly Class I rapids. It also supplied some power to the west plant of the New Jersey Zinc Company, the Gulf & Western Company my grandfather worked for his whole life, at first on the track gang for the railroad that ran between plants, and for many years as the foreman. On the Long C thread I recently told a story of the model RR they gave him for his retirement. That pen and ink drawing of a PENNSY K-4 engine you may have noticed earlier in the thread was also presented to him the same day they erected the model RR set up in his attic.
And I have his 30 year pin.
He came to the US in 1914, at the age of 15, not speaking A SINGLE WORD of English. He said the signs on the busses outside of Ellis Island said, "HARD WORK, GOOD PAY" in seven different languages. He got on one and it took him to Palmerton. His future wife, my grandmother, was a maid at the boarding house he lived in. I don't mean to suggest this is special. I know well and good there are hundreds of thousands of stories just like it. Just saying, no matter how old I get, no matter how far I travel, that place and these people will always be a part of me.
