The coal region of Pennsylvania was a quaint little place since I can remember.. I was born and raised (for a bit) in Centralia PA, with a mine fire burning hot under my feet.. My family moved to a nearby town.. my heart and soul has been in this place for a long time.
But perhaps the same ties that bind you also trap you in.
I read an article today in my morning paper.. It’s a little inside baseball perhaps, but it’s on my mind.. The article paints a story of a dying area.. Restaurants and bars are shutting down in the coal region.. the Pottsville REPUBLICAN and HERALD speaks about Cactus Jacks, the Restaurant at the Station in Tamaqua.. Yockos in Minersville. (All big deals).. another bar detailed in the article is only open one day a week..
A bar being shut down in the coal region is a big deal. You’d expect in this area a dirty little tap room would be shuttered if they were serving underage minors. But in the economic troubles lately, the prime reason for closure is money troubles..
I think back to my life as a child. The area, then, wasn’t the best. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it’s a nice little quaint place, for sure.. but things to do? This ain’t no city, bo. There were restaurants and run down bars, and a mall or two or three, or ‘tree’. When I was a child I didn’t think there was much to do. No kids did. It’s why most of them had ‘bush parties’ where beer was served in the middle of no where. But today, now, I look at the local disgrace the area is becoming and wonder if anything is left for my son to enjoy.
I thought deeply about this as a result of that newspaper article. What does bind me to this area? It’s family. That is the answer.. It’s family.. I don’t work close to here, I actually commute a distance. My wife does too. When we want to do something with my son, we travel away from here.. But when we want to be comfortable and feel at home, here we are..
I think it was always that way, a bit. I believe that this region ‘felt like home’ .. It’s why, for decades, the Ashland Boys Association Parade was filled with thousands. Until it got canceled a few years back and struggled to begin again. Good luck to Ashland bringing it back in ’13.
It’s also why a town named Girardville hosts a spectacular St. Patrick’s Day parade. Even Bill Clinton showed up in 2008 to campaign for his wife. The town wholeheartedly supported him.. he even had a screamer from Tony’s.. no word on whether he became immediately dyspeptic.
There are other pearls that can be unearthed from time to time. Jim Thorpe is a beautiful and fun place.. Schuylkill Haven hosts a great summer weekend with fireworks.. and the Bloomsburg Fair is going strong.
But what else is occurring?
Crime… drugs… lots of drugs. Lots of drug abuse. Lots of dilapidated homes literally falling down into streets (Girardville, PA)… and now closing businesses..
The Schuylkill Mall is being hard hit, as are other malls. A new refurbished movie theater opened. I wish them luck and hope the mall stays open. I recall some early memories as a kid thinking it was a mecca of shopping.. of course smoking was legal indoors the smell of cigars also fills my fading memory..
I just hope and pray that, as long as we choose to live in this place, it will stay safe and quaint.. and more and more quiet, perhaps..
Family is why we stay.
Besides the ties of that, there are few others …
However … even one day if the Coal Speaker leaves the coal region, you will never be able to extract the ‘area’ from him.. or anyone else that chooses to go.
After high school several friends had a mass exodus from here to go other places. Many returned and now, again, live locally after ‘living their lives’ in a city or larger place.
But the coal region can come back, though it will never return to the paradise that it was during the coal mining days–that paradise was not shared by all and truly only for barons and bosses of coal mines that could care less about safety of workers. A part of this region’s history is that it was filled with hard workers and good people. Conservative Democrats… fair-minded but also sometimes a little suspicious of ‘outsiders’. Perhaps that also became its 21st century demise..? Any for of progress is despised by too many, forcing those younger with dreams and ambitions to look elsewhere to find that progress.
I don’t know.
I cannot count myself as smart enough to understand why an area disintegrates .. I wish I was smart enough to know how to bring it back.
But I’m not.
So with that all said, I end with this: Perhaps within the next few years my wife and I will be forced to make a decision. Keep the ties that bind us knotted and tight, or loosen them up and fly away. No matter the choice, we have a third party role: Our son. And in the end, it’s his future that matters the most now of all.
