Scene on the Road: June 10, 2007 - June 16, 2007 Archives

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June 10, 2007 - June 16, 2007 Archives

June 13, 2007

... are we there yet? Week 1, Toward Easton on 611

Thanks for checking in. I'm The Inquirer's newest blogger, celebrating the serendipity of the classic Road Trip. I hope to share scenes from the road that remind us to enjoy the journey, rather than focusing on the destination.

From Steinbeck & Charley to Kerouac's Sal & Dean, and even Crosby & Hope, hitting the road has been a time-honored excuse to seek out life's mysteries -- and a great motivation for capturing those revelations on film (and memory card!).

I grew up in the "See the USA in a Chevrolet" days, and my family made annual drives from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see my relatives in Minnesota (where, although my schoolmates never quite believed me, you can actually straddle the great river that gave our state its name).

Even as a young adult, I continued to hit the road, accomplishing a goal I'm proud of to this day -- visiting each of the 50 United States before my 30th birthday (okay, I couldn't drive to Hawaii and Alaska, and maybe I didn't see more than the airport terminal and tarmac, but I did get to actually stand on the ground and breathe in both the tropical and Arctic air).

But what really hooked me on the photographic serendipity of the road trip occurred a few years ago when I set out to commemorate the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial (2004-2006) for the newspaper (see photo with the bison at right). My own cross-country journey of discovery started beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and I eventually made four trips over 35 days - in different seasons - that would ultimately generate 6,388 rental car miles and nearly as many images. The result -- what a kind editor called "an unvarnished representation of contemporary lives and landscapes linked with the travels of those first explorers" - was shared with readers in a six-part photo-essay series in the newspaper in 2003.

In subsequent years, I've been fortunate to carry my cameras out on other road trips as well: taking Route 6, all the way across the top of Pennsylvania; along the "Hallowed Ground" from Gettysburg to Charlottesville, and last summer, exploring three of the Commonwealth's most heavily visited tourist regions -- the Poconos, Pennsylvania Dutch Country and Coal Region.

I'll start my latest trip later today, heading from The Inquirer and Daily News Building north on Broad Street / Route 611 toward Easton and the Delaware Water Gap. I'll talk about what I see and will post photos along the way. In the meantime, please check out the links at right for slide shows from my previous road trips. Plus, since most of those roads out there go both ways, I hope to hear from you as well, and as I get rolling, even share some of YOUR road trip photos. Cheers, TomG

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Road Trips Summer 2007

Posted by Tom Gralish on June 13, 2007 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

June 14, 2007

Speaking of Serendipity - Week 1, Toward Easton on 611

As if I actually needed to be reminded, you really CAN'T plan for serendipity. Knowing this would be my first road trip, I decided it should begin from the front of the newspaper building. So (cheating just a little bit) I went scouting on North Broad Street the other day, and right across the street found Travis and Robert gutting the insides of an old railroad car that in an afterlife had become the Steak and Bagel Train. It was one of the only two eateries in the neighborhood back when I was hired at the Inquirer (Roy Rogers was the other). Both places closed years ago. They were hesitant to let me return to photograph them without permission of owner Ibrahim Aly, who reached by cell phone, told me he plans for his Ray's Philly Cheese Steak Train to open in the fall. He also told Travis and Robert it would be okay. So I arranged to come back today. Well, turns out Thursday is their day off.

I don't usually like to take photos of signs.

So I kept walking north on Route 611, Broad Street, ending up at the corner of Spring Garden, which is also home to two celebrated murals: Meg Saligman's "Common Threads" (1998) and the newer "All Join Hands: The Visions of Peace Project" by Donald Gensler (2006) from the city's equally celebrated Mural Arts Program.

The peace mural, which is on the side of Benjamin Franklin High School, faces a big parking lot and seeing it got me thinking - again - how I don't really like to take photos of signs (or murals) but in this case I was intrigued by all the cars squeezed into the small space, wondering how many might be commuters who drive into the city every day on the same road I'm about to travel. No matter how remote the road, no matter how exotic the locale, what a road tripper sees as a brand new experience is always old hat for somebody else who has to drive it every day. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the mural and the haphazardly parked cars thinking it could be a photo if somebody walked through them. But that can't happen because the owners are presumably all at work. Then Bruce Dorpalen suddenly appears in my viewfinder (under mural's left eye).

He lives in West Philadelphia and rides his bike to work at the North Broad Street branch of the national non-profit ACORN Housing Corporation. So what's he doing in the parking lot? Picking up his wife's car because she ended up at the emergency room at Hahnemann University Hospital (she's okay). This is a long way to circle back to serendipity, but Keelin Barry, Bruce's wife, drove in be a chaperone on their daughter Galen's 9th grade class trip to Baltimore this morning. While waiting to leave from the Julia R. Masterman School, she started (looking in direction of traffic first) to cross the street to grab a cup of coffee when she was struck by a bicyclist -- pedaling the wrong way -- as she stepped off the curb. She hit her head and another parent called 911. It turned out she did NOT have a concussion and was okay, so Galen got on the bus and left with the rest of her classmates. Mom and Dad went home. And I got back into my car and continued heading north....

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Road Trips Summer 2007

Posted by Tom Gralish on June 14, 2007 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

June 15, 2007

Shooting Signs - Week 1, Toward Easton on 611

Oh, on my last post, did I say I don't shoot signs? That's usually one of my general "Rules of the Road Trip" (stay tuned, more to come).

This sign was on Ferry Road, not Route 611, but I would never have even seen it, except for another sign that made me detour: "National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa." I'd passed it many times over the years, but I'd never taken the exit. So on this trip, I made the decision ahead of time to skip downtown Doylestown and take the divided highway Bypass (breaking another Rule of the Road -- stay off the freeway). The shrine was created in 1955 as "a religious and cultural center which would be able to attract everybody. Its aim: to keep the Polish spirit alive; to show the richness and depth of Polish culture through the centuries." There will be lots more in my next post on some of the more famous visitors, including:

The Polish Pope who visited a couple of times when he was the Polish Cardinal...

...and an American nicknamed "Dutch."

Before the shrine though, I passed through Willow Grove.

The Chance Vought F7U-3 "Cutlass," the first production tail-less military aircraft. According their brochure, the "Gutless Cutlass", as it came to be called, had its share of problems. It's at the Harold F. Pitcairn Wings of Freedom Aviation Museum maintained by the Delaware Valley Historical Aircraft Association at Willow Grove Naval Air Station/Joint Reserve Base. It's only open on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesdays.

Fossil fuel: Regular unleaded was $1.38 per gallon the last time it was pumped at this station in Warrington.

I pulled into a parking space at the Turkey Hill Minit Market in Ottsville, and looked to my right just as John Howland and his brand new puppy enjoyed a simultaneous yawn in his front seat. I didn't get the picture. My camera was right next to me on the front seat, but the moment was over before I could pick it up.

Then his girlfriend Lindsay Naunczek returned to the car, and I jumped out to talk with them. They'd just picked up the 9-1/2 week old golden retriever from a nearby breeder. It was Lindsay's surprise for John's birthday. He'll turn 22 on June 20th. "I knew it was either this...or a Pat Burrell jersey," he said. He even had the name picked out -- Marley -- from John Grogan's book, Marley & Me. They're from Cheltenham and were driving south, headed back home from college at Bloomsburg University. I was going north on Route 611 when I 'd passed the dog sign earlier, so I wondered. And yes, it was for same reason I stopped. Clean restrooms.

Trauger's Farm Market near Kintnersville this week is featuring strawberries, scallions, rhubarb, lettuce, asparagus and "Pick Your Own" strawberries.

The Delaware River near Coffeetown.

Downtown Easton's Great Square on the site of the old courthouse, where the Declaration of Independence was read on July 8, 1776. The 75 foot tall obelisk named the Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, was dedicated in 1900 as a memorial to local Civil War veterans. At Christmas time it's covered with a hundred foot Peace Candle.

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Road Trips Summer 2007

Posted by Tom Gralish on June 15, 2007 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

June 16, 2007

Cathedral Ceilings - Week 1, Toward Easton on 611

Getting back to the Route 611 road trip and the Shrine of Czestochowa with more about the statues ("the Polish Pope who visited a couple of times when he was the Polish Cardinal...and an American nicknamed "Dutch."). THIS statue isn't one of those two, but part of a new outdoor Rosary Walk. There is something about open space that inspires.

Driving in, I passed multi-tiered parking lots with spaces for hundreds of cars. But on a cloudy weekday, between masses, I was able to find a spot in the front row, right under the twenty five foot high statue of Pope John Paul II, "portrayed with raised open, loving arms." There's a photo in my previous post. You can't see my car, a Honda Civic, because it's hidden by the statue's base. Like my cameras, and laptop, it's company gear. For those who've asked, I use Nikon. A D200, with fixed focal length 18mm and 180mm lenses and 28-70mm zoom. I keep a 300mm in the trunk along with a spare D100 body.

Towering another 200 feet above him is the Bell Tower and the main church. But I walked the other way, directed by the arrow for "Gift Shop." You can tell a lot about a cultural, educational, recreational -- or even spiritual -- institution by their gift shop. That's not quite a "Road Trip Rule," like "Don't eat anything that's served out a window (except ice cream)," but if it were, this one would make the cut. As far as gift shops go, it could even live up to the highway hype of a South of the Border or Wall Drug. It is one impressive gift shop.

Of course they have plenty of replicas of the "Miraculous Painting" of Our Lady of Czestochowa (story is the original was painted by St. Luke and first brought to Poland in 1382). And more Polish candy, crackers and snacks than you can find outside of Warsaw. They have shelves after shelves of Polish books and all kinds of religious articles, souvenirs, books, and Polish imports. There's even a cafeteria and Polish deli (open only on Sundays).

A priest and sales woman were speaking in Polish, then switched to accented English when a third woman joined them in a discussion about per-call-fees on the international phone cards the shop sells. "Sure, if she talks for three hours straight it's a bargain," the priest says.

Besides the thousands in the gift shop, I expect a religious shrine will have lots of religious statuary. So the secular bronze couple seated at a picnic table caught my eye.

I walked up just as Teresa Laudanski of Mercerville, NJ was greeting nearby workers in Polish. "Czesc." They're replacing the stucco on the main church with granite. She saw me climbing all over the base looking for weird angles and getting up close to photograph the bronze guy in the suit with the folk-costumed lady examining something tiny between his fingertips. She offered to take a picture for me with my camera standing next to them. After I introduced myself she said I should go find her building contractor husband Joseph, with "a big hat and beard."

So I did. He first started coming to the shrine after emigrating in 1979. He helped construct the stage when President Ronald Reagan was a guest at the annual Polish-American Festival in 1984. News reports from the time say Reagan, campaigning for his second term, drew cheers by declaring: "Thank God for Pope John Paul II," after Philadelphia's Archbishop Cardinal John Krol praised him for supporting federal aid to religious schools.

Twenty years later, Laudanski wanted to commemorate the historic visit. But he didn't want it to look like all the other hero statues "standing" in town squares. When he saw an old news photo of the president, sitting at a table holding up a single placki (Polish potato pancake) with costumed festival host Jennie Gowaty -- he knew he had his statue.

Except for the pancake. In the picture, Laudanski thought, it blocked the Gipper's face. So he had the artists leave it off. But they left the fingers holding ...? It was dedicated at last year's festival.

This year the festival will be the first two weekends in September, with polkas, food, rides and games for the kids, and even 17th century costumed cavalry reenactors doing battle.

All this reminded me of my maternal grandparents, Thomas and Katherine Opatz, who were farmers in the Polish immigrant heart of Minnesota. The area inspired Garrison Keillor's fictional town of Lake Woebegon, although HIS farmers are mostly of the Norwegian bachelor variety. I have childhood memories of grandma in her kitchen saying the rosary in Polish along with a priest on the AM radio every evening. If you go to the Lake Woebegon link, the photo is from homecoming at the high school my cousins attended. It was shot by photographer Richard Olsenius who was one of my heroes when he worked at the Minneapolis Tribune and their excellent Sunday Picture Magazine in the 1970's.

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Road Trips Summer 2007

Posted by Tom Gralish on June 16, 2007 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)