E.G. BellThe lottery prizes have been getting big lately. Over a billion. We buy a ticket when it gets that high. Otherwise, the only gambling I do is life insurance. I have plans if I win.
I’m going to get publicly arrested for reading the paper while sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the Point State Park fountain. I want the rest of the free world to feel like they also won the lottery.
I have also toyed with the idea of getting a job so that I could publicly keep working. I always said I would do this, just with a much different attitude.
I also considered buying an island and living with my wife and the man we love (me) mostly away from people.
And perhaps a prom date with Kristin Bell. Caviar wishes.
Another big item on my wish list is to rebuild the Grand View Point Hotel along the Lincoln Highway in Bedford Pa. It really bugs me that it overlapped my ‘orbit’ but I never got to see it. It burned down in October of 2001, just a month after 9/11. I was in grad school. I have to imagine it would take a big bit of a billion dollars to finance this. I would donate it to the state or some organization to operate.
Last year my wife and I took a road trip to traverse the Lincoln Highway from Greensburg PA to just outside of New Jersey. Research revealed little of roadside interest from Ohio to Greensburg. On the last 15 miles to New Jersey, traffic was more than we were willing to experience, but there were great things to see in the section we drove. There is the Pied Piper in Schellsburg; The huge Coffee Pot in Bedford; The Dunkle gas station, also in Bedford.
These are sights, not events. Points of interest for a road trip. My kids would have been underwhelmed. (But they would have had the memories). If you ever decide to take a Lincoln Highway road trip, consider stopping at the Lincoln Highway museum just outside of Greensburg. It is worth the visit and the kids will like some of the attractions. There are also a lot of antique malls and stores on this road.
There are similar attractions even closer to home, and also frustrating like the Grandview. In Mt. Jewett, you can see the Kinzua Skywalk. It is breathtaking. It is free to the public. Definitely worth the trip. There is a visitor center/gift shop with many interesting attractions and souvenirs. Frustrating because it was a complete world-famous bridge within my orbit. I never saw it whole, a bridge some considered the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’. It was broken by a tornado in 2003. The Skywalk is still a sight worth seeing. The bridge is a postcard.
I’ve come to appreciate that nothing is guaranteed. I honestly did not know about the attractions on Lincoln Highway in my younger days. Or the Kinzua Bridge. Had I known, I cannot say that I’d have taken the time to see them. Now that experience is lost to history. Or smaller. I can’t say that my grandfather or father knew about them either. If they did, they never took me to see them. My grandfather got me to Forbes Field once. My dad took me and my sisters to the Drake oil well and Pithole. The latter are both still available. I’m glad we got to go. I have those memories. It is the memories I don’t have, that can no longer be had, that are frustrating.
An interesting thing about the attractions along Lincoln Highway is that they were created by local people who saw the potential of the nascent automobile and improving roads. People created these attractions to draw the driving public. These were way before my time. I only became aware of them when I stumbled onto some of Rich Sebak’s documentaries on public television. He has a LOT of them. Kennywood; Inclines (Pittsburgh); Caboose Motel (Titusville); Gravity Hill, etc. There are a lot of interesting things to see in Pennsylvania. There used to be a lot more. If history is any guide, a lot of those we enjoy today will probably not be around when our children are sitting where we’re sitting. And they will be frustrated at missing opportunities lost. Spectacles available only on yellowing postcards and grandpa stories. Unless I hit it big in the lottery.
Did you know we have roadside attractions right here in the Forest? In Tionesta. The Sherman Memorial Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in Pennsylvania. One of only 4. A working lighthouse. According to a plaque on the structure:
“The lighthouse was built as a beneficial landmark for the Tionesta community and to serve as a place to preserve the heritage of the Sherman family.
“The 23-acre Lighthouse Island is open to public use, offers a boat launch, fishing pier, one-mile walk/bike trail, and now several new attractions in the newly constructed Peace Park. The park features a Freedom Cross, Veterans Memorial, Statue of Liberty, a chapel, and replica timber crib dam.”
What a wonderful heritage! Once upon a time, I wondered aloud about the rationale for a lighthouse on a river. I’ve come to a better perspective. This set of attractions is in the same tradition of visionary people who saw potential in unique monuments along American highways. I have been to Lighthouse Island a while back. I’m going to visit again to see the attractions added since then; To take my adults and their children to see things that are here now. Nothing is guaranteed and I want us to be among those who can say they came. They saw. They remember.
I said in my very first Forest Press article that we live in the midst of magic. It is magic still and growing all the time. Visit the monuments while you can.
