What a Pithole!

"Well, THAT doesn't sound good..."

Zoe's right.  It might not sound good, but I spent part of my weekend, in...PITHOLE.

Pithole City, Pennsylvania, that is.  Though it's not a real place anymore.

Let me explain.

This past weekend, we had a memorial service for my Grandpa who died in February.  We waited to have the service because our family is pretty spread out (from Vancouver, BC to around the Washington D.C. area to Florida and everything in between), and it just seemed easier than making everyone travel during the winter months.

And, so we gathered, first, for a memorial service in Neiltown, PA, which is where my Grandpa was born.  It is a "blink and you'll miss it town" comprised of about a four-mile radius.

One House.  One Church.  And, a couple of stubborn pheasants who stood in the road and didn't want to move.

The church had no electricity.  No bathroom.  It had pot bellied stoves and wide plank floors and probably wasn't much different than it was when my Grandpa went there as a tiny boy.

After the service was over, the whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) caravaned to Pithole City for a picnic.

More accurately, we went to the site of the extinct Pithole City.

My Grandparents were from Titusville, Pennsylvania, which is part of the Pennsylvania Oil Region.   Nearby Pithole City was also part of the Pennsylvania Oil Region, in that it was a Boom Town that grew up almost overnight.  It was a real place from 1865 to 1868, and then it became a ghost town.

Suddenly, there were 15,000 people living there, trying to get rich quick. 

Suddenly, the oil dried up, and they were gone.

Weird.

The Official Sign

The other Official Sign

An Oil Well Replica

A model of the old town

More model

What did you do this past weekend?

Did you visit  ghost town?

I didn't think so.

Sparkle Pond is Getting Crowded

Yesterday marked the passing of my final Grandparent, Harold Dwight Fitch.

I know this much: I was fortunate, lucky, and blessed to have my Grandparents in my life for as long as I did. All of them were around until I was into my 30s. They all lived to be in their 90s, and each one of them was of sound mind until the very end.

And Grandpa Fitch was the last of them all.

I will miss everything about my Grandpa. Everything. To know him was to love him -- just ask anyone who knew him. He was just Special.

Grandma and Grandpa Fitch
in front of their house in Titusville, PA

Grandpa and I seemed to love all the same things: Art and Drawing. Birds. Music, especially Jazz. Coffee. Animals (though not necessarily cats, and not necessarily Rabbits. When he met Zoe, however, he told her she was safe-- much too soft for a stew. Oh, Grandpa!). Ice Cream. Learning new things.

Oh, and we both loved Grandma.

Throughout my life, those were the subjects we always came back to.

Of course, there were some other things that he liked that weren't necessarily my thing: Math for one thing (he was an engineer). Also fishing. (I don't not like fishing exactly, but...)

Grandpa with a prized Something-
Fish. Bass? I don't know my fish.

Well, and Organ Music isn't my favorite either, but when Grandpa would sit down and start playing "Ain't She Sweet" I couldn't help but love it. He played by ear. I always thought this was the coolest thing in the world.

Me and my sister with Grandma and Grandpa
(I'm the cute and adorable baby. Apparently, I looked
drunk in pictures then, too.)

I loved staying at Grandma's and Grandpa's house when I was little. I was there a lot.

My parents were both teachers, so before I was old enough to start school, I went to Grandma's house everyday when my parents went off to school. My dad would drop me off on his way, and I would get there just before Grandpa would head off to work.

I loved that time in the mornings. I would run in their house, put on Grandpa's slippers and hat and go straight to the cupboard where the cookie jar lived, where many mornings "The Mousie" (a.k.a. Grandpa) would have left me a little note telling me not to eat all his cookies!

On Sunday, when I went to visit him, just two days ago, he said to me, "Remember that Mousie? He used to try to get your food, didn't he?"

"He sure did, Grandpa," I said. "But I think he usually gave up and let me eat it anyway."

When I would sleep over on weekends, we would watch Lawrence Welk together while Grandpa smoked his pipe and he and Grandma told me every little detail about all the performers on the show. They knew everything about those people! It was amazing!

Oh, and we watched a lot of cartoons. Grandpa loved Tom and Jerry and the Flintstones, Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny. That Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote made him laugh every time.

Grandpa and Me enjoying some after-dinner coffee.
We have the same haircut in this picture.

I could go on for pages. I could probably fill a book with all my memories. And those would only be some of them. He was one of the most wonderful people I've ever known. I'm just lucky that he was also my Grandpa and that I got to spend so much time with him. And, that he loved me.

He was the one who nicknamed me "Frog" from a shirt I used to wear. The Chick never calls me anything but Frog to this day. I am Aunt Frog to my niece, and my sister calls me Frog, too.

If I were a Frog at Sparkle Pond (akin to a Fly on the Wall), I would get to see what Grandpa's up to now. My guess is that he's out on a boat (away from all the previously arrived cats of ours) and he's fishing and enjoying himself. When he's caught a few, he'll go to wherever he and Grandma call home now, and fry those fish up for dinner along with some onions.

For desert, they'll have an ice cream sundae.

Someday, I'll get to share ice cream with them both again. Not that I'm in a hurry. If I follow suit, I have about 50-60 years left in this life.

But, someday, I'll be at their house again, eating ice cream and watching reruns of Lawrence Welk while Grandma shakes her head saying, "Listen to Myron play that accordion, Harold," and Grandpa counts out, "And-a-one, and-a-two" in his best Lawrence Welk (Austrian?) accent.

I can hear it now.