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Day 6: Pottstown
We watched the Warriors pull out a game 6 victory over OKC until midnight and slept in until after 9 in the morning. I determined the synagogue office is closed on Sundays so the plan was to have breakfast, go by the cemetery where my mother’s family is buried, see the old Vaughan family farm, and then spend the afternoon at St Peter’s Village.
We had breakfast at Friendly’s whose primary claim to fame seems to be ice cream concoctions. In fact, the ice cream and candy bar surrounded by two fudge pop tarts caught Marion’s eye and we may need to stop by this evening to try it out.
The waitress asked if I wanted coffee and I said no. But when she came back she said ‘do you want a coffee’? And I said no, it stunts your growth. Oh, she said because I brought a second one by mistake and I was going to give it to you free. I said, not if you paid me. She was shocked. She had never met anyone who didn’t like coffee. I said I was like a unicorn. She walked away shaking her head. We had pancakes (Marion) and French toast (me) with bacon and eggs. Very tasty.
After breakfast we went back to the Sly Fox to pay for last night’s pre-dinner. They weren’t open but we got someone’s attention at the door. She said, “You can’t drink or get food served until 11:30 but you can sit inside if you want.” Which was nice because it was hot (and only 11:00). Well, no, we wanted to pay up for last night. You see we left without signing our bill. Oh, she said. You don’t have to sign. That’s just in case you fight it, there’s proof you agreed so pay. I never realized that’s what the signature was for. Although it does make sense since no one ever actually looks at the signature to see if it matches. So, ok, we aren’t felons. And Barry and Linda can show their face there again without fear of arrest.
Off to the cemetery. Per the Internet it’s closed on Sundays but we decided to go see anyway. It’s Memorial Day weekend after all. Well, it wasn’t closed in that you could still enter. But the office is, in fact, closed. And the cemetery is huge. So how are we going to find the graves? Especially since we had no luck without help (and even then it was hard) at the other places. Well, I’d seen some pictures of the grave on Ancestry.com and I knew the monument was pretty large. So I suggested we take a quick drive around just in case. It was a long shot, but why not? Nope, nope, nope, well… look for a big one, kind of like that one over there… oh that’s it! We were pretty lucky.
It’s impressive, especially compared to the Kessler’s. Grandmom, Grandpop, Great Grandmom and Great Grandpop are there as well as Great Uncle Andrew and a name I hadn’t seen before (with no death date) that I will have to re-join Ancestry and see if I can locate (or ask Mom). Grandmom and Uncle Andrew’s birth years don’t jive with what I’ve got in Ancestry.com either. So some research is needed there too.
From there, we headed off to the old Vaughan farm. I pretty much planned to just drive by. I didn’t want to go in. And we did just drive by. You could see it from the road a bit (the house doesn’t look the same to me). I thought about driving up and knocking but I didn’t have the nerve so off we went.
On to St Peter’s Village which I remembered as a quaint little tourist town with funky shops and such and a nice river with big rocks. I also remember it as the place where I fell into a waterfall up to my waist wearing shoes and pants when we visited way back when ( I was maybe 6 or 7). Well, the river and rocks are still there. And the town is sort of. But there’s not much left of it. One antique store, a pinball arcade with some nice old machines, a candy store, ice cream store, bakery, post office, and that’s about it. Oh and the new age oils and potions store. There was a great conversation in the store while we were there. We noticed there’s no cell service in town. The guy behind the counter is talking to a couple of mid-20’s women about it. He’s saying “Well, if you drive out to either end of town there’s service. There’s a spot right in front of so and so’s store if you stand in just the right spot. You can get reception on AT&T and Sprint I think but not Verizon. The owner stands out there sometimes but if he turns to look at a price or something he loses it. You can go up the road to the quarry. But not all the way to the top. About halfway up.” And on and on. We just decided we could do without for an hour. But you could tell the women were having withdrawal.
Marion actually found a nice necklace and some old postcards at the antique store. But I had neglected to remind her about the rock climbing aspect when we left in the morning and she didn’t really have the right shoes. We wandered around a bit on the rocks but not too long. Plus it was hot and getting crowded. It still draws plenty of swimmers. There was a nice swimming hole there.
While wandering around I decided that it really wouldn’t be so bad to go to the farm and knock on the door so we returned on the way back from St. Peters. We stopped just before and talked to Mom who was just getting out of the hospital. She sounded good. It turned out she had a bleeding ulcer. And apart from the throwing up had felt fine through the whole experience. Nothing life threatening which was very good to hear.
We drove up to the farm and were met by a good sized (not to say fat) but slow and gentle dog, who didn’t bark. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. There were a couple of kitties lounging on chairs but no humans. I was still a bit uncomfortable and didn’t spend a lot of time wandering around looking for someone. We got a few pictures and headed back to town. Those are the sort of situations I need my friend Les. Someone perfectly willing to peer in windows, knock on doors and get someone’s attention. But that’s not me.
It was time for lunch so we decided to try Little Italy after the stories Barry had told us the night before. There was a great sign out front “You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning”. You really can’t argue with the logic. The pizza was pretty good. And the clientele, while certainly interesting, wasn’t quite as wild as Barry described. But then again, it was still early in the day.
We walked from there (across from the Hill School) down High Street to the Manatawny River where the old Vaughan Knitting Mill was. We passed the historical society (sadly closed as it was the 5th Sunday of the month and they’re only open the 2nd and 4th). And the old library which looked a bit tired. We passed by where the store used to be which is now an art place and a restaurant that had closed (but had been serving Pottstown since 1921, apparently in another location). We needed a bathroom and were finding none so we went into a diner and had a piece of Oreo cake and some drinks so we could use the bathroom without guilt, which we did. Well without feeling guilty about the bathroom. The cake is another story.
We wandered back up the other side of High St. Things are definitely not looking up for downtown. There are still some businesses but it’s all kind of run down. And a lot of available space. Not a lot of people. Of course it was Sunday but I suspect it’s not all that different during the week. More of a Target and Walmart crowd I think.
While doing some research on our store I came across an article from the Pottstown Mercury from 2002. 14 years ago and it would seem not much has changed. But it was nice to see the shout out to our store. We were big back in the day.
Families hustle from the New York Store with housewares across the street to Boyer’s Shoes and stop in Bechtel’s Sports Shop. For gifts, they visit Zipf’s on one side of the street or Wolf’s China and Glass on the other.
At the other edge of the three busiest blocks of the downtown, the kids are hankering to check out the toys and games at Town Toy. In between, shoppers choose from the Ellis Mills department store, H.F. Smith and Son Stationery, Kessler’s clothing stores, Royal Shoe Store, Weitzenkorn’s, many jewelers, sandwich spots, the Farmer’s Market and banks.
This was the High Street of 40 years ago, before the age of malls, Wal-Mart and everything-‘R- Us. Stores were open Monday and Friday nights, and downtown bustled with shoppers. During the holiday shopping season, the lower level of the New York Store was transformed into a gift extravaganza, complete with Santa Claus in a huge sleigh to greet children.
Now, with the exception of Weitzenkorn’s and Bechtel’s, which is open limited hours under new ownership, the stores of those years are gone. And very few businesses have replaced them.
High Street foot traffic, even at lunch when it should be brisk with local workers, is almost nil. Weitzenkorn’s, the Army and Navy store, Lastick Furniture, Celestine Gifts, and Ranieri’s Paint and Floor Covering still do decent business. But shoppers don’t linger to sample restaurants, browse in shops or just window-shop. The reason: There’s little to sample or browse.
The article went on to talk about the group responsible for trying to do something about it. But despite their best efforts, things are not going well. Hopefully someone or something will come along to turn it around.
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