#451 Pennsylvania

I'm back from Pennsylvania, the land of scrapple and suicide lanes. Nice Thanksgiving dinner at Daughter's fiance Hercules' grandmother Nana's house, where I finally found out the difference between stuffing and dressing.

Daughter and Hercules came up from New Jersey. They're taking a few days to explore areas in Pennsylvania they might consider moving to. Hercules' mother is on an extended visit from California.

Hmmm, lots of things in the first paragraph to explain to non-Pennsylvanians!

Scrapple IS what most people think Spam is but isn't. When Hormel makes a canned ham, they cut the big hunk of meat off the shoulder, and can it. But there's a lot of meat left on, in, and around the shoulder bones. So they trim all the bits of meat off the bones (getting a bit of the soft gristle, too, pure protein), grind it and put it in the Spam can, seal the can, then cook it. Cooking in the can is what causes all the nice jelly around the Spam. Spam is pure ground-up pork shoulder. Nothing else, nothing yucky. I like Spam.

Scrapple, on the other hand, is made from all kinds of scraps. I had a very bad experience more than 50 years ago when I accidentally saw scrapple being made. It involved huge a boiling vat topped with gray foam that parted to reveal an entire pig head, that rolled up like the "NO!" in a Magic Eightball. It had eye holes. Its tongue was hanging out. It looked at me. To this day, the mere smell of scrapple nauseates me. I was offered scrapple for breakfast this morning, and the severed pig head looked at me again.

Suicide lanes seem to be unique to Pennsylvania. I thought they had gotten rid of them, because they do deserve the name. It's a third center lane on a rural two lane highway, to be used only for left turns from either direction (or, unofficially, for passing a slow farm vehicle or Amish carriage). It runs for miles, down the middle of the road. Naturally, some idiots think it's a "go faster" lane created especially for them. So some innocent will pull into the suicide lane to make a left turn, and be clobbered at 60 mph by an idiot who can't get back into the regular lane quick enough. Unless the idiot has already been clobbered by another idiot doing the same thing from the other direction. Oh well. A lot of Pennsylvania is still nearly virgin forest. Maybe this is how the state keeps population growth down.

AOL Journal Land has been full of arguments and discussions the past week or so about stuffing versus dressing. I never knew there was a difference. Nana served both yesterday. The stuffing was the usual bread etc. mixture stuffed into the turkey. The dressing was mashed potatoes with sauteed onions and celery, and a couple slices of white toast cut into small cubes and then sauteed with the veggies, and veggies and bread were then mixed into the potatoes. I liked both. Yummy.

I'm blathering. I'm kind of avoiding a topic I want to note here. For myself.

This past summer I told Daughter one of my biggest secrets, because it affects her, and because she finally came right out and asked. It was finally unavoidably time. I had hoped she would just sit on the information, because it could potentially adversely affect another, who is deeply involved but didn't know it. Or suspected, because of some questions I had to ask about ten years ago, but didn't know for sure. And probably didn't want to know. And really didn't need to know anyway. Maybe.

Yeah. I should have known better. This is, after all, Daughter. She is what she is and has always been. If she were a dog, she'd be a terrier.

Daughter made contact, an anonymous card last June (which she didn't tell me about until now), and a phone call this past week. They discussed the topic. They're exchanging photos. I can't believe it. My past is coming back to haunt me.

She's handling it well. So's he, apparently. I'm a mess.

I don't know how to feel about it. It's been in the back of my head for 30 years, and now here it is right in front. She played a stored cell phone message for me to hear, and the voice on the phone shook me badly. I asked Hercules' aunt for a cigarette, and I took it down to the basement and smoked it. I don't know why, but when my mind is going six directions at once, the only thing that will stop it and put me back on track is nicotine.

She has given me an email address.

She has pointed him to this journal.

Ack!

I wanted to do an entry on "I want to go home". It's all written up - I wrote it last week, when I noticed that I say "I am content" a lot in these journals, even when things are tearing me up. It's such a difference, and I wanted to explore it. I figured I'd put it in sometime when I have no time to write or nothing to say.

But now I hesitate.

And I'm not sure why.

~~Silk