Browsing Category: "People"
Could Gitmo Detainees Come To Gettysburg?
President Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay within the next year. There has already been talk of sending at least some of the detainees held there to York County where federal prisoners have been housed for some time. This has many local residents concerned, including Adams County Congressional Representative Todd Platts, who has an office in Gettysburg.
Keep in mind that these are prisoners. They won’t be turned loose on the public and asked to dine at local restaurants or cozy up to tourists from Alabama. Of course, one of the concerns for local residents is always escaped prisoners. What if one of them gets loose?
If a foreign prisoner were to escape in York County and make his way to Gettysburg this summer or next while tourists from around the world are enjoying a walk or a ride around the nation’s most famous battlefield, I’m sure you’ll hear about it for a long time. If that prisoner is indeed a terrorist and performs an act of violence then the fallout for the Obama Administration will be even worse. But understand that these plans have not been finalized.
You may not agree with the closing of Guantanamo Bay, but that doesn’t spell doom and gloom for domestic security. Write your Congressional representatives and let them know how you feel about terror suspects being held in Adams or York County Pennsylvania. But, please, don’t panic.
Local Blacksmith Forges Ahead With Quality Wine Racks
The Gettysburg Pennsylvania area is full of creative craftsmen. One such crafts person is blacksmith Robert L. Meckley, who owns and operates Pigeon Hill Forge near Abbottstown, which isn’t far from Gettsyburg Borough.
Among the fine handcrafted wrought iron products Meckley makes are wine racks, wall hooks, dinner bells, and other wine-related products. These home decor items are all hand forged using the best wrought iron available and Robert Meckley is the man behind the blacksmithing.
Be sure to visit Meckley’s website and take home a few handmade wrought iron products from Gettysburg Pennsylvania.
Gettysburg Tourists: What’s Your Favorite Place To Visit?
I thought it was time to ask visitors and local residents of Gettysburg Pennsylvania where you favorite places to visit are. Leave a comment on this post and tell us where you like to go in the Gettysburg / Adams County area. Be specific. Don’t just say “the battlefield”, for instance. Instead, give a specific site on the battlefield such as Culp’s Hill or Cemetery Ridge. Or better yet, think of someplace other than the battlefield that you like to visit.
Tell us your favorite sites to see in Gettysburg and the surrounding area. Yes, feel free to mention York, Hanover, Harrisburg, Carlisle, Lancaster, or anywhere within a reasonable driving distance.
York Fairgrounds To Erect Vietnam War Memorial
Soon the York Fairgrounds will be home to a Vietnam Veterans war memorial. Any veterans that were killed from York County will be honored. Bricks are being sold and organizers are hoping to have the memorial completed by the end of 2009.
There will be two classes of brick offered, one for veterans and one for donors. The cost is $100 per brick.
The Veteran’s Affairs office in York has order forms. The York Veterans Affairs office is located at 100 W. Market St., York, PA 17401. Visitors to the area will soon have another site to see.
Murals And Artwork By Lise’ – Adams County’s Christian Artist
Just before Christmas, while driving along Kralltown Road in Adams County, I saw a wooden, hand-painted sign next to a mailbox as I was driving back home from a consulting gig. The sign read something of the nature (I can’t recall the exact words) “Children’s Books, Illustrated By Local Artist.” I promptly pulled into the driveway to see these local artist illustrated childrens books. I’m glad I did.
The artist is a down-to-earth, very sweet Christian woman by the name of Lise’ (pronounced Lisa) Miller. I must say that I was very impressed with her work. Though I didn’t purchase any of the childrens books at the time, they are something that I would highly recommend.
But Lise’ doesn’t just illustrate childrens books. She also paints murals and artwork by custom order. And her work is fabulous! You can get a glimpse of her beautiful artwork in her online gallery. But be forewarned; as captivating as her digital prints are, they do not do justice to her live artwork. You’ve got to see it for yourself.
I’d encourage you to pay her website a visit and contact Lise’ through her contact form. Whether you are a native of Adams County, Pa. or a visitor, I’m sure she would love to share her artwork with you as she did with me. And according to her, simply sharing the gift is enough for her to complete her joy.
The Pennylvania Wanderer Blog
I just discovered a new blog. The Pennsylvania Wanderer lives in Harrisburg and travels to nearby places writing about them.
Much of what you’ll find on his blog is about wine and in his sidebar you’ll find the links to Pennsylvania wineries. So if you like wine and you have an interest in visiting the local wineries then I’d recommend visiting The Pennylvania Wanderer and seeing what he has to say about events, people, and places in the area.
Slow Travel In South Central Pa.
I just bought a car from a fellow out Newberrytown way. If you’re not from Gettysburg or the surrounding area you may have no idea where that is. Hell, I just went there and I don’t know where it is. But it sure was fun. Exciting at least.
My father-in-law picked me up in York Springs and we met the seller in York. He has a 1988 Ram Charger. Ugly as sin, but it’s tires are real beauts. And drives like a charm.
So we drove up the road to a title office called Runkles and they gave him the business over his name. His drivers license had one name and the title had II after it, signifying a junior. They wouldn’t transfer the title for that discrepancy. My father-in-law had already left.
So we hopped in the oversized jalopy and headed toward Newberrytown where he pulled into the office of an insurance agent/notary. She had no problem transferring the title for us. I guess it helps to be on a first name basis with the notary.
At any rate, the paperwork all done, I had agreed to drop the seller off at his home in York Haven (wherever that is). Another fifteen minutes later and he was climbing out of my brand new old vehicle waving sayonara. I think that’s French for “So long, suckaaahh!”
Well, I had forgotten to bring along the cell phone so that I could call me wife and ask for directions back home. Mr. Newberrytown had told me to head up the road a piece and hit I-83, which would take me to 581. But that’s in Camp Hill and I didn’t think that sounded right. It was the opposite direction from York and I knew where York was. I went up the road a piece and missed my turn beside the fire company. That’s OK, I took the next one – a winding road called 295 that went up and down and around and in and over and under, then across Conewago Creek followed by more unders and ups and downs and arounds until I finally connected with I-83. I got on the highway headed toward Harrisburg.
Thinking it was the wrong direction, I turned around and went back toward York. When I got home my wife told me I was going right the first time. It just doesn’t pay to be from Texas!
Anyways, I made it to York and got to my exit, Hwy. 74, and took the ramp down to the stoplight. My windshield wipers decided to stop working then. And it’s snowing like Christmas. So I got out of the vehicle and manually worked the wipers because I enjoy looking like an idiot. And that worked until the light turned green, at which point I got back in the vehicle and drove for a few more feet until the snow had my windshield covered again. You know, I managed to make it home alive. Ah! how sweet are neck of the woods.
If you’re from out of town and that sounds like a real good time of travel to you, you can have a similar experience. Just hop in your vehicle and drive. Head to Newberrytown or Over There, which is about half way between Here and Yon, and just enjoy the scenery. Boy, Conewago Creek looks awesome through the snowy icy air in a strange vehicle from 500 feet in the air as the Deliverance-style rapids rush by underneath in places you couldn’t find on a map! And if you don’t believe me, just try it. What else did you come to Gettysburg for?
Gettysburg Pennsylvania Blog Is Looking For Guest Bloggers
Have a unique story to tell about Gettysburg Pennsylvania? Did you live here and do something crazy? Pay a visit to Gettysburg during spring break and lose something? I’d like to read your Gettysburg stories. Become a guest blogger.
Yes, if you submit your stories about Gettysburg Pennsylvania we will publish them right here on the Gettysburg Pennsylvania Blog. Stories should be between 300-500 words and be about Gettysburg. The story can be about anything related to Gettysburg or that happened in or while passing through Gettysburg, but your story must contain the word Gettysburg or Gettysburg Pennsylvania no less than three times and no more than ten times.
Any story we publish about Gettysburg will include the author’s name and a link back to your website or blog if you have one. If you don’t have a blog or website we will still publish your story with just a name. No other contact information will be published. To submit your Gettysburg story, send to info at gettysburgblog dot com.
Congratulations To President-Elect Obama
Well, the election is over and now Gettysburg Pennslvania, along with the rest of the country, has a new president-elect. Barack Obama won the election handily and already his historic win is receiving accolades and driving a nostalgia for a time when another historic president made his way through Gettysburg. Obama has been compared with Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation and freed the slaves in the U.S. Lincoln is also recognized as the president who saves the union.
Well, here we are again, in the 21st century, and we’re as divided as ever. Maybe not with guns and weapons of warfare, but with stark differences in ideology, and the incoming president is promising to unite us once again. Can he do it?
Whether he can or not, one thing is for sure. Barack Obama has already made history. There is no doubt that he is destined to have his place in the Hall of Presidents and First Ladies, located right here in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.
George Will Resurrects Faulkner, Civil War Heroes, And Learning
I didn’t realize that George Will, a popular conservative columnist for The Washington Post, had written a column honoring the new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center. But he did.
He said some pretty striking things in that column, some of them politically charged, others of them socially on target, and all of them historically enlightening. Among the gems are:
- In 1863, 11 major roads converged on this town. Which is why history did, too.
- Recently, a Gold Star mother finally visited Gettysburg, after driving by it often en route to visit the Arlington, Va., grave of her son, who was killed in Iraq. She was especially moved by these words from a Gettysburg newspaper published four days after the battle: “Every name … is a lightning stroke to some heart, and breaks like thunder over some home, and falls a long black shadow upon some hearthstone.” Gettysburg still stirs, but not as it used to, or should.
- Ours would be a better nation if boys and girls of all regions, and particularly the many high school and even college graduates who cannot place the Civil War in the correct half-century, could be moved, as large numbers of Americans used to be, by the names of Gettysburg battlefield sites, such as Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Culp’s Hill and Little Round Top, instead of being like the visitor here who said it is amazing that so many great battles, such as Antietam and Chickamauga and Shiloh, occurred on Park Service land; and another visitor who doubted that the fighting here really was fierce because there are no bullet marks on the monuments.
- Ten years ago, this column asserted that disrespect for the national patrimony of Civil War battlefields should be a hanging offense, and said: “Given that the vast majority of Americans have never heard a shot fired in anger, the imaginative presentation of military history in a new facility here is vital, lest rising generations have no sense of the sacrifices of which they are beneficiaries.”
Each of these snippets is a verbatim passage from George Will’s column and they leave me with a thought: Americans are forgetful, ignorant, and nonchalant about their common history. That is why we need such places at the Gettysburg Battlefield and its associated monuments. The preservation of our national heritage is more than honor. It’s a privilege, and the people of Gettysburg are proud to be a part of that. I am too.
