EPISODE 6: NO PICTURES -- GETTYSBURG, ALTOONA, JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, FALLINGWATER, AND ARTHURVILLE

The first minor disaster of my trip happened to me in the New Deal Homestead town of Arthurville, West Virginia. I did something to my camera and lost all my pictures since Gettysburg. So this episode will not be illustrated. I understand there is a possibility of recapturing those lost photos especially if I don’t reformat the chip. But this will have to wait until I come home.

I took a picture of the site of Pickets charge and one of the monument to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I talked to one of the rangers in the visitor center about whether or not Lincoln was justified in being really angry with General Meade for letting Lee’s army retreat to Virginia without any effort to pursue and destroy. The ranger thought that Lincoln was not justified since Meade had to minister to the dead and wounded, etc. This reminded me of a joke told by a comedienne, whose name I can’t recall, that I heard when she was on the same bill as David Sedaris in Seattle a couple of years ago. She was pointing out how politicians have to be diplomatic in their speeches. When Lincoln said, “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced”, what he really meant to say was: “That goddam, f--king Meade.”

One of the best things about travel is the positive surprises. I was just trying to get to Altoona without going on a major highway and wound up on Highway 74 north out of Carlisle. It turned out to be a fantastic drive up and down a mountain ridge that I had no idea was there. The leafs were turning and the scenery was breathtaking. I came across a little town called Icklesburg, or something, and decided to stop at a little roadside stand. I had the most delicious Italian sausage sandwich in a wonderful roll that they bake themselves using their pizza dough. It was fantastic. And they had a sign in the bathroom: “If you sprinkle while you tinkle, sweetie please wipe the seatie.”

One of the reasons I went to Altoona is that I have in my notes, that I got from somewhere, that there is a famous wooden roller coaster, maybe the biggest, tucked into the right field wall of their minor league ball park. I envisioned this old-fashioned park right in the heart of town with the outfield wall modified to take the roller coaster into consideration. I knew the baseball season was over but thought I might be able to ride the roller coaster anyway. Well, I was greatly disappointed. In it not in the heart of town but out across the river and freeway from downtown Altoona. And it turns out the coaster right next to the ballpark is not the famous one. That is located a bit closer the to river and it is the oldest wooden roller coaster, not the biggest. I was able to take a picture (now lost) of this strange looking ride only from afar since the amusement park within which they are located was closed for the season. I think this was a greater disappointment than the Worlds Largest Kazoo.

However, the other reason for coming to Altoona was not a disappointment at all. Horseshoe Curve is a massive bend in the Pennsylvania railroad track outside of town. It was built to connect one side of a valley with the other and is built over two large fills of two ravines. One takes a little funicular up the side of the hill and you can stand right next to the track at the bend of the curve. As if on cue a huge train about 100 cars long roared by encircling me with the front of the train on one side of the valley and the end – no caboose, of course – on the other side with me in the middle of it all. It was really cool and truth be told the pictures I took did not do it justice because one would have needed a panoramic lens. One interesting note: the Pennsy was one of the most forward thinking railroads but was one of the last to convert to diesel; maybe they did not want to thumb their nose at their best customers, the coal mines of Pennsylvania.

On the way to Fallingwater I noticed signs to the Johnstown Flood Memorial so I thought I would stop by. I really didn’t recall the cause of the flood. I thought it was just caused by a large storm. A storm was involved but what really caused the flood was the failure of a dam holding back a huge lake. Over 2000 people were killed. What I did not realize was that the lake was an artificial one built only to serve the recreation needs of a sportsman club comprised of very rich business people from Pittsburgh, the likes of Carnegie, Mellon, and Frick. An older dam had breached earlier and these plutocrats just had the dam repaired without any engineering assistance. There is some controversy but it is felt that the dam failed because of this lack of proper engineering.

Well, one place where I am sad that I lost my pictures was of Fallingwater although I was able to get this off the Internet – although this is in winter.


Winter at Fallingwater

It is really an impressive place. One of the things I wanted to point out was that it certainly does not meet the 50-foot setback requirement from an environmental critical area (as some of the detractors of the ECA policies used to point out). One picture that I lost was of a statue in the courtyard by that old Litvak, Jacques Lipschitz, again.

As I noted, Arthurville, WV was an effort by the FDR administration to provide assistance to miners from Morgantown who were unemployed because of the depression. It was a homesteading program where these unemployed minors were provided land whereby they could make a living. It was a typical New Deal program that provided lots of social services. Eleanor Roosevelt was especially interested in this project and she came every year to attend the high school graduation ceremonies. I took some pictures of the different types of homes provided, some rather substantial. But…..