Chin up, cheer up. My love's another kind.

I have been thinking for awhile about devoting some reflection and research to some of the finer [or weirder] facets of my hometown. Most people have a stock of collective hometown lore and legendry, shared stories and claims to fame, which is an interesting sort of preservation of folklore, maybe. Also, I truly believe that there is something that sets my hometown, Quakertown, apart. I’ve found that most people regard their native soil with affectionate distaste. This is probably the best way I could describe how I feel about Quakertown, but I also think that people from Quakertown affectionately hate Quakertown with a profound passion that surpasses other individuals’ more casual irreverence.

An illustration: practically all of my friends and acquaintances know that I am from Quakertown, while I probably know the specific birthplaces of only a few. This is probably because Quakertown has a pretty memorable name and because I talk about it fairly often—but if you asked me point blank, I wouldn’t say that I like it as much as it’s a preposterous quagmire of suburban hooligans, petty crime, loud imported automobiles, and entirely too many dining establishments. Which is again probably true of a lot of suburban pockets of the Commonwealth. Thus, the question at issue: WHY do people preserve a fascination with Quakertown? Why does the Q-Mart continue to linger in my conversational repertoire? How comes, in an era of increasingly ubiquitous digital connectivity, no one has yet reflected blogally on this interesting phenomenon? [note: Quakertown IS an Urban Dictionary entry… albeit not a very witty one…] Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that along with the aforementioned stock hooligans, diners, stupid cars, etc., Quakertown is also chock full of a TON of weird crap. And, for some reason, it’s not very well publicized outside of spoken lore. To set my mind at ease [or maybe construct a basic proposal for some sort of future PAID writing project…] I hope to explore some of bizarre and/or interesting things about my hometown. I have a few ideas at the moment, and hopefully some other people will provide some more topics of interest along the way. I’ll start with

The Weber

I think the Weber was invented in Quakertown. My only evidence for this assertion is that I remember reading this fact once on a paper placemat at a now-forgotten restaurant—and I can’t find anything on Google to refute the claim.

The Weber is a cheesesteak sandwich with hoagie [NOT sub] fixins like lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise. On the “cheesesteak” Wikipedia entry, this creation is listed as a “cheesesteak hoagie.” Either way, it’s delicious, and for most of my life I assumed without much forethought that the Weber was, at the very least, an accepted menu reference across the Eastern Seaboard. When I went to college, however, I realized that absolutely no one I met had ever heard the term before. It was one of those Matrix-ian philosophical moments, when you realize that reality as you know it is actually a mere cerebral projection… a bit of an exaggeration, but still—it prompted me to investigate further. “Investigate further” basically meant that I forgot about it for awhile until I discovered a Quakertown restaurant taking credit for the invention on a placemat.

I’m pretty good at looking stuff up on the internet, so I thought I’d give the Weber a try—and my results, I think, only solidify my case for the Weber’s Quakertown heritage. My first result was this Wikitravel guide to Pennsylvania. The Weber appears as a bullet item under “Eat.” According to the page credits, this particular wiki was compiled from work by a slew of contributors, including “beeracuda@yahoo.com” and “Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel.” Beeracuda is a pretty awesome email address. Unfortunately, these profiles do not list regions, so I can’t be sure if the Weber wikier is from Quakertown.

The next results are menus from the West Point Deli, conveniently located in Lansdale, PA – a mere hop-skip from Q-town, and then from the North Penn Gun Club in Trumbauersville, a Quakertown borough. In my crowning achievement, I found another local restaurant menu that included the Weber: the Franconia Heritage. The Franconia Heritage [“the Heritage,” familiarly] is a restaurant almost entirely populated by my grandmother and her friends. I think this is significant because it illustrates how the Weber may be a gem of knowledge only known to people who frequent septuagenarian diners, thus explaining its dire lack of web presence.

In conclusion, I put forth that the Weber must have been invented in Quakertown [okay, or in the surrounding county] because that is the only place, it seems, where you can find one. At any rate, I think the Weber is pretty important because 1. it’s tasty, 2. it’s a logical progression from the cheesesteak, and 3. it's one of relatively few non-incriminating claims to fame for our little not-very-Quaker village, so someone might as well start claiming the fame. If I was feeling a little more Nancy Drew, I would send this meandering correspondence to a local news outlet to see what could be uncovered. If I was feeling a little less Nancy Drew and a little more wired, I would probably start a Wikipedia entry for it. Now if I could just find that placemat…

The best of the vanished marvels have gathered inside your door.

11/13/07

November is happening. Apparently, autumn occurred in a span of about eight-or-so hours, approximately two weeks ago. In that duration all leaves technicolored, their stems were seized with a brittle porosis, and they began to blanket the parks and yards where Scottie dogs now wear sweaters. Unfortunately, I was not awake for most this marvelous time-elapse, for it was still dwindling summer about two weeks ago, and it is now autumn in its terminal stages. I wish I could have had a little more time to prepare because this sort of landscape makes me disgustingly whimsical and extra-enchanted by things like Scottie dogs in sweaters—and it only widens the crevasse between autumn wonder and other, less golden seasonal affectivities.

November 29, 1960. Nice, France. And I, Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

November has been shaped to a surprising degree by animals. Along with the continually joyous and occasionally aggravating Dane the Sheltie, we have recently acquired a cat named [delightfully] Bratwurst. Bratwurst was generously donated by future-housemate Steve, in efforts to address less-welcome animals: the robo-mice that have managed to conquer every high-or-low inch of our kitchen and whoknowswhereelse. Unbeknownst to me in the original cat acquisition, however, was the added critical issue of squirrel. In the house. The squirrel in my bedroom fiasco was covered with adequate depth in the house blog, but suffice it to say that I never until now realized that I could be so completely irrationally terrified. I was TERRIFIED of the squirrel when I came upon it in the first floor sink, I was TERRIFIED when it was re-discovered in my bedroom, and I continue to be PARALYZED any time I think I hear squirrely scratchings in the walls or closets. I hope Bratwurst [who has recently, unofficially, been re-christened “Princess Bratwurst Leia Cleopatra,” to help us remember that she is a girl] is ready to eff some squirrel up. [Another thing pertaining to animals is the fairly recent decision to describe any pluralization of animals in the singular. As in, “I hope there are no more squirrel in our crawlspace” or “There sure are a lot of dog in this neighborhood.” I just think it lends a nice tone of authority.] We also have a weird selection of fish, in which I am probably the only to have even a mild interest. Dane is still my favorite house animal because the fish are largely boring, I hate all uninvited rodents, and I am allergic to Bratwurst.

“November Rain” never ceases to invoke some of my most impassioned car singing. I don’t care what anyone says; it is a triumph. I cannot foresee a time in my life when the melodramatic lyrics and indulgent guitar solos WON’T make me feel at least 15% better about everything.

November has seen a lot of soup consumption. I decided a few weeks ago that I really like soup, and there’s no reason why, really, I shouldn’t just eat it as much as I want. It’s fiscally responsible, relatively healthy, and it makes me happier than anything else I could assemble or purchase, given my mealtime time and location constraints. So I have been eating soup for as many meals as I can, for as many days in a row as possible, for about 23 straight days. Clearly it started with the Phở obsession, but I started to realize that even the Campbell’s Condensed was just so awesome. My primary soups of choice are Campbell’s Condensed Healthy Choice Tomato, Chicken Noodle, and [occasionally] Cream of Chicken, which I keep stocked for almost every lunch and dinner during the week. It is indeed a very limited selection, but I have yet to tire of it—especially since everything [everything!] tastes at least 80% better once I employ my standard doctoring technique, which always involves red pepper flakes, ground pepper, garlic powder, and some Frank’s Red Hot. Seriously. Some condensed tomato with Red Hot and a dash of the other accoutrements, a layer of melty mozzarella on top—it is a perfect delight. My only worry is that my digestive system has adapted to a soup-and-cereal-centric diet and will soon not to be able to process solid foods. But that can’t really happen, right?

November will conclude with what I choosing to call my personal manifest destiny, as in “Westward the course of empire takes its way,” or, “I am going to Oregon for Thanksgiving.” I’ve felt the invisible threads of wanderlust tightening around my heart for awhile now, and I am really excited to 1. see the Pacific Northwest, 2. see Amber and Dan and Car, and 3. hopefully raze some buffalo along the way [which is strictly a manifest destiny allusion. I don’t want to raze any buffalo, although I will be pissed if any of my oxen die when I’m fording the river.]

Try taking a journey by covered wagon across 2000 miles of plains, rivers, and mountains. Try! On the plains, will you slosh your oxen through mud and water-filled ruts or will you plod through dust six inches deep?

If for some reason you don't survive -- your wagon burns, or thieves steal your oxen, or you run out of provisions, or you die of cholera -- don't give up! Try again... and again... until your name is up with the others on The Oregon Trail Top Ten.