A Mystery and Maybe a Bear

See this mess?  That's the scat of some evil creature along with the pipes from a windchime.  I had two big birdfeeders and a hummingbird feeder up at my place in Venango County.  When I came up last week, I found them all smashed to the ground along with an occupied birdhouse.  At first, I thought a vandal had done it; there's usually no one home up there, and the nearest neighbors are pretty far away.  Something or someone came up onto the deck, tore down a birdfeeder, and bent the nail that held it sideways into the rafter.  The bottle from the hummingbird feeder was completely gone, but someone had to unscrew it from the frame in order to remove it.  A little birdhouse was toppled to the ground with a nest inside.  And the main birdfeeder out front?  It had been attracting squirrels, so I attached a small windchime to the bottom of it.  Squirrels are twitchy, and whenever they stepped onto the birdfeeder, it caused the windchime to make a tinkling noise that always scared them away.  (I came up with that little trick myself, and I'm very proud of it.)  But last week, that birdfeeder was all bent up and on the ground with its windchime.

My first thought was that it was a vandal.  My second thought was that it might have been a bear.  But can bears unscrew bottles?  And yet, if it was a vandal, why did they only target things that bears would eat--like birdseed, sugar-water, and bird eggs?  If it's a bear, I thought, it was probably just passing through.  So I put things back in order and hoped for the best.  When I came back up after work on Thursday, same thing!  Except worse this time.  The big birdfeeder out front is completely gone, and the evil creature left a gift--that nasty scat in the top photo.  I found the pipes from the windchime scattered throughout the yard and mangled.  It looks like something...chewed them.  I love this place, but weird stuff happens here.  The creepy and mysterious creature in the woods behind the house turned out to be a red fox, which is way cool.  But I don't know if I'm equipped to share my space with a bear.  I mean, it came up onto the deck!  Oh, and it also snapped one of the cables that serves as a railing.  It must have climbed on the cable to get to the birdfeeder.  So destructive, it makes me want to take up hunting.

The Rainbow Family of Living Light Returns to the Allegheny National Forest!

I was so happy to learn that the Rainbow Family of Living Light is coming back to the ANF in early July.  I documented their 2010 visit here on my old blog, when they had about 12,000 people camping out in the national forest for a week.  Now, I follow some of their loosely organized stuff on social media.  The Rainbow People?  I like them.  I sympathize with their worldview.  They gather over the 4th of July to pray for peace.  There's a good energy about them...but their lack of structure and leadership can be a little frustrating.  There's currently a pre-meeting in the forest, just off Mayburg Road and south of Dunham Siding, where they're deciding where to hold their annual gathering in just a few weeks.  Who decides?  Just whoever shows up!  "Scouts" are making their cases for various locations within the ANF.  I doubt they'll return to the spot where they met in 2010.  Queen Creek just can't accommodate 12,000 people bathing.  For a view of their 2010 campground, click HERE.  The Rainbows always meet in a national forest, and they say there's a site in New York State that's also under consideration, but the one and only thing that Pennsylvania has and New York lacks is a national forest.  And its own language, Pennsylvania Dutch.  

I drove out to that quadrant of the forest to see what I could see, and indeed, there's a small encampment along Mayburg Road.  I'll be back up here around Independence Day, so I definitely want to go check it out.  I never thought the Rainbows would come back to the ANF.  Locals seemed to despise them in 2010, and we've got disease-carrying ticks.  Even now, various hiking and conservation groups on social media are making subtle criticisms, like, "Beware, if you are hiking with children!  There may be drug use and nudity!"  Please.  Any public beach in Europe has nudity.  And the Rainbows strictly forbid alcohol.  The only drug you'll find at a Rainbow gathering is the one that ought to be legal in this state anyway.  (It's a total embarrassment that we're the last state in the Northeast where recreational pot is still illegal...but that doesn't stop anyone from using it, and it's never prosecuted.)  Why is it that haters so often veil their hatreds in the guise of protecting children?  "A gay couple on TV!?  How will I explain that to my children?!"  Children will just shrug and move on, which is what everyone ought to do.  If social conservatives really wanted to protect children, they'd release the Epstein Files.  Do you really think a child is safer with a pedophile-protecting gun-packing bigot than with a vegan who drove here from Washington State to pray for peace?  

Didn't mean for this post to turn into a rant.  For my 2010 articles about the Rainbow People, click HERE and HERE.  The comments that various Rainbows made on the first post are evidence of their kindness and goodwill.

Kane, Pennsylvania

This is Kane, Pennsylvania. Kane has just one main street--Fraley.  And it's hard to tell from this photo what a hopping place this town has become in recent years.  I lived here for almost 4 years, and I LOVED it.  Kane sits high on the plateau known as The Big Level, so--unlike most small towns around here--a river does not run through it.

I reluctantly left Kane in 2010, and this little town has made a serious comeback in the decade and a half that I've been gone.  There are so many new businesses, most catering to the outdoorsy crowd--hunters, backpackers, snowmobilers, ATVers...  My little girls took dance lessons on the second floor of this building.  I took this photo while standing in front of the local senior center, and some old folks came out and started chatting.  We ended up exchanging names and phone numbers!  They invited me back for lunch anytime I'm in town.

A tattoo parlor...in Kane?  Yes, indeed.  And it's now got swanky loft apartments, microbreweries, a printing press, and lot of bars, shops, and restaurants, too.

And lookie here, a boot store!  They sell all kinds of outdoor apparel, but mainly footgear.  Fifteen years ago, I never would have believed it if you told me that someday I would buy a new pair of hiking boots in Kane.  But I had to do it! I needed new boots, and I wanted to support this place.  Surprisingly, they had a lot of customers.  I said to the girl at the checkout counter, "Kane has changed!"  She said, "Really?  It's been like this as long as I've lived here."

It does my heart good to see Kane thriving.  This little town was good to me...and for me.  I stopped drinking here.  The forest healed me...the lovely Allegheny National Forest and environs.  I was the pastor of this church.  It's one of those unusual churches that looks kind of stark and uninviting on the outside, but it's warm and beautiful inside.  Actually, this was originally the Congregational Church.  But here in Kane, the Congregationalists (aka, "Puritans") and the Presbyterians merged in the 1950s. They took the Congregational building and sold the old stone Presbyterian building to the Mormons.  The Mormons?  No.  No one in Kane is silly enough to convert to Mormonism.  But the Mormons wanted to be in possession of the grave of the Civil War general, Thomas Kane--founder of the town and member of the old Presbyterian church.  Mormons like General Thomas Kane because he--though not a believer--protected them in their westward trek to Utah.

I was ordained in this lovely room.  Just click on this photo and dwell with it a moment.  

Not sure why they're still sporting white paraments in ordinary time.  The last Sunday of Eastertide was May 24.  But I'm no longer in charge here, so I'll let it go.  It's nice that they leave the church open during the daytime.  I was the only person there today.  I went in and looked around, then spent a half hour or so in a back pew, just taking in the beauty of the place, and the memories, and the sacredness.  It was such a joy just to be here again...to rest, and think, and pray.

The first time I ever broke bread at the Holy Table was right here in this room.  I was so nervous.

This was my view every Sunday--and we packed this church out!  Even the balcony was pretty well filled most Sundays.

I baptized my little girls at this font.  Strangely, this church has two baptismal fonts: the old Presbyterian font (from the now-Mormon building) and the Congregationalist font, seen here.  This Congregationalist font is much prettier, but it's stuffed away behind a piano, and we never used it--except when I baptized my daughters.  The backstory: on Ash Wednesday of 2007, I was just out of the gates, and I wanted to be creative.  I'd done some newbie clergy gimmick where people wrote their sins on Post-It notes and drowned them in the waters of the baptismal font.  (Yeah, I know, it was trite.  But then our artist-in-residence made all that wet paper into a papier mâché butterfly for Easter morning.)  On the 2nd Sunday of Lent, when I baptized my daughters, our sins were still soaking in the main baptismal font, so I had to use the other one.  (I can't believe you just read all that arcane shite.)

In my day, this was the youth lounge--with old couches and a big TV.  It's actually a really nice space.  They ought to make it into an art gallery.

Okay, so here's a tale.  In November of 2000, I'd just been sent home from Africa, and I was driving from my parents' house in Canton, Ohio, to a new job in Stony Point, New York--right on the Hudson River.  My life was a mess.  I was still drinking.  I REALLY didn't want to be back in the States.  I was lonely, and angry, and overwhelmed, and didn't know what would come next.  But because I hadn't seen an American autumn in half a decade, I decided to take the scenic route to Stony Point: US Highway 6--which is a beautiful drive across Northern Pennsylvania.  With my heart all broken and afraid, I drove right through Kane.  "Huh," I thought.  "Kane.  Grandma used to call this place 'The Icebox of Pennsylvania'. She said there were wolves here."  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I drove right past the church where--seven years later--I would be ordained, where I would learn my life's calling, and past the house where I would live happily with my wife and my two sweet little girls.  

Sometimes things get better.  I'm so grateful, and I really love this place.   

Olmsted Manor

Olmsted Manor is a grand old country estate in Ludlow, Pennsylvania.  The Tudor style mansion on the grounds was built in 1917.

It's hard to get a decent frontal photo of the house because of all the trees.  That's one thing I love about Olmsted Manor: it seems to rise naturally out of the forest all around it.

Olmsted owned a handful of electric companies in New York City and Long Island.  It's said that during his working life, he lived in Manhattan during the week and took a train to Ludlow on Friday afternoon.

He spent the weekends here with his wife and kids in this beautiful place, attended the Methodist Church in nearby Kane, then caught a train back to New York at 4:00 on Monday mornings.

As I recall, neither of his kids had children, and when Olmsted's son died, he left the house to the Methodist Church.  They use it as a retreat center.  You can actually get a room here.

The grounds are part of the joy of this place.  It's got all these enclosed gardens, and bowers, and secret places to be alone with a book or your thoughts.

It's got some grand entrances, too.

At one time, the Olmsteds had 14 full time gardeners to maintain the grounds.

It's strange that only one family ever lived here.  The son never married and lived here into old age.

Sadly, there was a women's group meeting in the main house when I stopped to visit.  They were occupying the entire building, so I wasn't really supposed to be inside.

I was not able to get any photos of the grand rooms because there were women meeting in all of them, some with the doors closed.  So I had to limit my interior photos to hallways and stairs.

Still...it's a nice hallway, right?  

All the bedrooms were standing open with luggage and toiletries in most of them.  I really didn't want anyone to think I was there to steal stuff from the bedrooms, so I didn't linger long upstairs.  Still--here's a bedroom that was open and waiting to be cleaned.

My wife and I stayed in this room many long years ago.

It's a mansion without ghost stories.  How can you have ghosts when a single family did all the living that was ever done in the house--a family of devout Methodists who neither drank nor experienced tragedies...

A nice feature of this bedroom is the little sunroom that comes attached to it.

See the little summerhouse up by the edge of the woods.  Of the many little nooks for hiding, that would be my favorite. 

This place was designed with introverts in mind...

A view of the main house from the summerhouse.

Like I said, I love the way the landscaping sort of rises naturally out of the surrounding forest. 

There's a stone picnic area with a big fireplace up by the woods.

There's a slight air of disuse about the grounds, though the retreat center seems to be pretty well used.

When I lived and worked in Kane--about 10 miles away--I came here often to write.  The director at that time was a friend.  But everyone I knew here is gone now.

Sewickley Presbyterian Church...and 8 Links to a Week in Greece

This is The Presbyterian Church of Sewickley.  Nice, but a little less grand than I'd expected.  I came here recently for a seminar on the decline of religion in America.  

Nice glass...

An old and outdated tradition dictates that this blog has no domain outside the Keystone State.  Like Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrain, who used to chase Beau and Luke Duke to the county line, where he'd cast his cowboy hat to the ground and kick his police cruiser, Snow & Jaggers cannot cross the state line into any other place.  

But if you'd like to see a little spot of Greece, try clicking on these 8 links to our recent vacation there:

Greece, Part 1, Athens: CLICK HERE.

Greece, Part 2, Itea and the Bay of Corinth: CLICK HERE.

Greece, Part 3, Ancient Delphi and Its Oracle: CLICK HERE.

Greece, Part 4, Holy Trinity Monastery (A Brief Pilgrimage): CLICK HERE.

Greece, Part 5, Great Meteoron Monastery: CLICK HERE.

Greece, Part 6, Thessaloniki: CLICK HERE.

Greece, Part 7, The Aegean Sea: CLICK HERE.

And now for the Glorious and Terrible Conclusion, Greece, Part 8, The Mountain: CLICK HERE. 

Mount Saint Benedict

It's foolish to go peak-bagging in Erie County, but I happened to be there and wondered if there were any unclaimed hilltops or summits to add to my collection.  

For my online peak-bagging club, I've bagged 53 previously unclaimed peaks--including this virgin summit on the grounds of a convent...appropriately enough.  That's to say, no member of the club had climbed it yet...until I did.  But it's hardly a climb at all.  

The Mount Saint Benedict Monastery, just east of Erie, has trails through the woodlands on its grounds.  But the actual summit of the so-called "Mount Saint Benedict" requires a bushwhack through lots of poison ivy.  

The Benedictine Sisters of Erie are a progressive order, and their emphasis is on peace between nations and peoples.  There's actually a famous sister living here by the name of Joan Chittister.  She's writes  inspirational books and supports women's ordination in the Catholic Church as well as the use of birth control.  In popular culture, nuns are usually depicted as austere and cruel, but I've never known a nun I didn't like...

It takes a lot of moxie to resist the prescribed dream for an American woman--the husband, the children, the suburban home, the career--and instead choose a life of celibacy and service.  

The blue dot is the main monastery complex, and the red summit is the peak of Mount Saint Benedict.  At 640 feet above sea level, it's barely any higher than the earth that surrounds it.  But one odd thing about nuns: they like to name their convents after mountains--even in places where there are no mountains, like Mt. Mercy (Carlow College, Pittsburgh) and Mount Saint Benedict.  

Shades Beach, Erie

I was in Erie on business--of sorts--when I decided to see if there was a humble peak to bag before heading back into the Great Woods.  While looking for a truly "humble" summit called Mount Saint Benedict, a mere 640 feet, I came across Shades Beach, which is a Harborcreek Township park.

With a name like "Shades Beach," I decided to give it a chance.  The thing I typically don't like about beaches is the absence of shade, so this place sounded worth exploring.  And it is.  

It's got a woodland trail that wends its course steeply uphill and along the high cliffs above Lake Erie, affording pretty good views.

The city of Erie was less sad than I'd remembered, too.