Western Pennsylvania
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Come Visit “The Parnassus Pen”
This is Jenny, and I have a few items to discuss. First: Happy birthday to my youngest sister, O.S.G! Sis, if you are reading this, I want you to know that it was…
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Writing About the Ones That We Love
So I few years ago, I read an article in one of the Pittsburgh newspapers about “The Girl Factory” by Karen Dietrich. This is a young woman’s memoir about growing up in Connellsville,…
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Colonial Snakebite
Snakes fascinate me. Today I pulled down “The Day Must Dawn,” by Agnes Sligh Turnbull. (This is a fiction novel about colonial Westmoreland County and the burning of Hannastown in 1782. The author…
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Mystery Writing
First, I have many special memories about visits to bookstores. I grew up south of Somerset, PA. Even a trip to the “local” bookstore to buy the newest Baby-Sitters Club book was…
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The Parade
So tonight I went through the photos that I took in New Kensington in 2017. Most came from the parade on the weekend prior to July 4. This was the 2nd year in…
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All My Life’s a Circle
This is a photo of my maternal grandfather’s own grandparents. With their children. So, the married couple are my great-great grandparents, and one of the boys is my great-grandfather. This branch of…
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Dance With Me On the Dark Side
Hi, I’m back! I have to recommend two more podcasts that I liked so much that I listened to them multiple times. I downloaded both of these…
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Pre-Halloween Horrors
A few weeks into my junior year of college, one of my classmates, “Gwen,” passed away alone in her dorm room. Natural causes, from a longtime medical condition. On the same floor…
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Tecumseh and the Prophet . . . and the Eclipse
Did you know that a solar eclipse darkened the Ohio and Pennsylvania sky in June 1806? (The path of totality ran through the Pittsburgh region!) This eclipse is an important character in…
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Confessions of a Train Passenger
I like to watch and listen to strangers in public. At the park. In restaurants. In stores. On the train. Several years ago, I rode the Amtrak by myself from Washington, D.C.…