Does the madness ever end?

A few weeks ago, I went to see my family in PA.  We had a good time as usual but on the way home, I discovered something that sort of made my day.  My little town of Tionesta has maybe 500-600 people…tops.  I grew up there from as far back as I can remember.  I thought I knew everything about my hometown…my tiny hometown.

I actually grew up outside of town in an even less populated area.  Anyhow, we always seem to have to make trips “in to town” to get something we need for the next feed.  Of course, we eat all the time when we visit so we make many trips to town.  On one of the trips into town, we discovered that there are, in fact, two bells in Tionesta, PA.  I previously had become acquainted with one bell, but this other one caught me by surprise.  I had no idea it even existed!

For such a small town, Tionesta has an excellent library.  I remember going there often where Ronald Childs sat behind his desk, monitoring the check-out cards.  He was always ready to recommend a book or talk about the history of the town and area.  Years later my aunt worked there as a volunteer.  My Mom used to live next door to the library and played in the cemetary that is on the library’s grounds.  All that is to say that I frequented the library and was pretty familiar with the grounds.  I thought I knew all about the library and the town.  Somehow, someone had snuck a bell in on me.

So, as we prepared to leave for home, we stopped and I licked the 2nd bell in Tionesta.  I learned a valuable lesson on this bell, though.  It’s an important lesson for all of you bell-licking virgins…a bell that is uncovered is a bell that gets washed by the rain and baked by the sun…it’s a clean bell.  On the other hand, a bell that is covered by anything is the opposite of a clean bell.  This second bell was covered and tasted absolutely like my grandmother’s attic…after a nest of baby mice had peed all over 20 year old cardboard…and then baked in the heat…and then laid under a 15-year-old’s gym bag for a week…and the gym bag had old french fries in it.

Anyhow, it was still a bunch of fun and I didn’t come down with mad cow disease or the swine flu…just a lesson in the effectiveness in nature’s washing mechanisms!

More