Central Pennsylvania -- The Scariest Place In the World

Hiya! It's been a while....First off, completely unrelated to the blog, here is a link to a free mp3 download from one of my favorite bands, Silverchair:

Silverchair - Across the Night

OK, now I must recount various vignettes collectively describing the horror and sheer isolation that is Central Pennsylvania.

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(1: Usually, a good indicator of the general activity of a certain area is the amount of variety on the local radio stations. So on my way back from Ohio (I visited my brother in Cleveland, a city that tries hard to be metro, but ends up being more like a slightly more rural/boring version of Central Jersey..I relate to experience to But the squirrels have brown tails and appeared slightly more playful, which was a lot of fun!!!) , there was an accident on I-80, a 2 lane road that cuts through the Central Pa. Mountains. Everything literally came to a dead stop with seemingly no explanation whatsoever.

Was their a horrific automobile accident? Was there a landslide from one of the several cliffs lining the roadside?

Perhaps the long-anticipated Yokel's Rebellion centered in the town of Hog's Feet FINALLY erupted, after years of false alarms!! (the newfound presence of 3-5 teenagers in Hog's Feet apparently enough to drive the townsfolk over the edge, especially after the 97th Annual Hog's Feet Jug Dancing Contest was disrupted by one of these wretched teenagers -- he allegedly held hands with a girl in public!! "The demon and Jezebel shall rot in Hell!" became a popular town rhyme during the tumult. The only casualty during the rebellion was a drunken chicken.)

Anyway, so we're stuck for about 30 minutes, and we didn't even move one inch on the road...So naturally, we figured that perhaps one of the local radio stations might give us some more information. So we flip it on and we turn the dial, and what we subsequently heard was unquestionably the most BORING radio program EVER!!! It appeared to be some sort of news station for the area, and at the time, the man was giving a weather forecast, first for that day, followed by a long range forecast for the week.

For 10 minutes, we listened to this very old sounding man (he must have been 100 years old.......there's no way he couldn't be......there's just.....no....way.....) ...and for all 10 minutes, he prattled on...and on....and on.....-- about just that day's forecast! It was like this:

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"And now......[5 second pause -- nothing but radio silence].......to.......day's..................fore........cast.............................[10 seconds of radio silence]...........to.....day's.................wea.......the........rrrr..........fore.......cast..............calls.......for........
...high...........temp................era..............tures...................ssssss.................[10 seconds of radio silence].......the..........hii......gghhhh.............temp..............era.............tur......[cough]....................[5 seconds of radio silence]...................[cough!]...................[cough!]..................tod...........ay's.............hi.... (a merciful etc...)
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And the scary part is that I'm barely exaggerating......And I'm telling the truth about the fact that for 10 minutes, our antediluvian radio DJ literally was still talking about that day's weather! Both my Dad and I just laughed in a disgusted way and punched the radio dial off.

After about 2 hours, we did start moving again....It turns out that the cause of traffic was that construction workers simply decided to block the road while doing repairs on a parallel road........of course, they worked........very................vvveeerrrrryyy...............sllowwwwwwwllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllyyyy.....

(2: OK, so what about the music on these local radio stations? I mean, I'm sure they didn't have a very wide selection like the good ol' tri-state area does, but at least they have the bare minimum, like classic rock standards, or some good folk music..........I'll even take John Denver for God's sake!! (and I say that while grinding my teeth in the most painful way imaginable) As long as it's something that represents a form of organized noise, functioning to keep my brain in the conscious state while passing through No Man's Land..

What I did hear, was not classic rock, was not folk....it wasn't even the horrors of John Denver......What I heard was POLKA! And you'll never, EVER believe the song I heard......

It was called "Who Stole the Kishka?" . There's no way I could make this up, it's just too stupid to be anything but the truth.

In fact, today, while at work, I remembered the song and looked up the lyrics on Google...and I found them!....So without further delay, here are the lyrics to "Who Stole the Kishka?"

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Someone stole the kishka
Someone stole the kishka
Who stole the kishka,
from the butcher's shop?
Who stole the kishka?
Who stole the kishka?
Who stole the kishka?
Someone call the cops!

Fat and round and firmly packed
It was hanging on the rack
Someone stole the kishka
When I turned my back
Who stole the kishka?
Who stole the kishka?
Who stole the kishka?
Someone bring it back!


Someone stole the kishka
Someone stole the kishka
Who stole the kishka,
from the butcher shop?
Who stole the kishka?
Who stole the kishka?
Who stole the kishka?
Someone call the cops!


Yusef found the kishka
Yusef found the kishka
Yusef found the kishka
And he hung it on the rack.
He found the kishka
He found the kishka
He found the kishka
Yusef brought it back
Heeeeeyyyyyyyy
Hey!
huh-huh-huh-huh

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(3: My last vignette is a short one -- it's about the diners in that area......So my parents and I were getting hungry, since the drive through Pennsylvania takes between 7-8 hours by car.....When going through Central Pennsylvania, there are gaps of between 40-70 miles between exits of off I-80. So when you come upon an exit with a potential main drag, you really tend to savor it.

So we were starving and we decided, "OK, the next exit we see, we'll go to a diner -- that is, if there is one".......So we reach an exit, and lo and behold! -- We see a sign indicating a diner...This was called "The Twilight Cafe".....We were all very happy, as we savored the mouth-watering delights of a country diner, chock full of scrambled eggs, endless pieces of toast, and a vast resorvoir of maple syrup...mmmmmmm..............I love breakfast food................

We get off on the exit, and get on the main drag.....we don't see a sign for the Twilight Cafe coming down the exit ramp, so we wondered, "Which way do we turn, right or left?...Does anyone see a cafe? Is there ANYTHING around here???"...

We searched up and down the "main drag" for five minutes......Nothing.....Absolutely nothing. Well...there was one possibility, but I always thought that to minimally qualify as a cafe meant boasting a shelter with a reasonably stable architecture, space for parking (not necessarily parking spaces), and an understanding of our present-day monetary system.

Now, it was possible that the scattered propane tanks I saw was indeed the Twilight Cafe, but it was more likely a 3-bedroom apartment for the area.

We were all discouraged.....So we continued driving, hoping that the next exit would provide us with our much needed sustenance. After another 60 miles or so, we finally approached the sign for the next exit, and yes! there was another cafe.....So in the distance, we couldn't quite see the name of the cafe.....we squinted, as we did our collective best to flex our lenses and irises....and when we got close enough at last to read the name of the diner, we saw this:

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Food - Exit 68
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Pitstop Cafe
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Even though each of us were starving, we continued past the exit without even a sliver of hestitation.

We did manage to catch a glimpse of the Pitstop Cafe as we passed by the exit ramp....It DID exist, so it's one-up on the Twilight Cafe....But from what we could see, it was basically someone's small trailer with the words "Pitstop Cafe" printed on it.......Again, I'm not kidding.


And that, my friends, was JUST A FEW highlights from my scary trip into the frightening Central Pennsylvania wilderness. My advice is to avoid it entirely and watch it from the comfort of your homes in the form of Survivor 10, coming soon to CBS.