This view is about two blocks, as the crow flies, from my home. This is Baltimore Street, looking north toward the Square. Time is about 6AM. All this will change in about half an hour as people start coming into town for the Farmers Market, which is where I was headed at this hour, prior to going to the library. Taken in April; cool morning, gentle breeze blowing down from the northwest - simply wonderful to be out in it.
Mr. Rohrbaugh was still asleep, but his shop was awake, if one can judge by how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed his sign is. The barber pole was spinning, though you can't tell in this image.
One of two Famous Hot Wiener restaurants in town, this is the original one. Someone is up at 6AM, getting ready for the breakfast crowd. And, yes, there are many folks who like their hot dogs, with sauerkraut and brown mustard, plus finely minced onions, for breakfast, thank you very much! I didn't have any money the day I took these pictures, or I would have been one of them.
One of my favorite buildings in town, its Art Deco facade suggests this might have been a pencil factory at one time. Now it is a shoe store.
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Finally, for this post, anyway, here is Iron Mike, beloved icon of parental devotion and grief since before the turn of the last century. Iron Mike was placed over the grave of a child who died in the late 1880s (might have the date wrong, but it's close). The child's grave was at the confluence of two lanes in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, and Mike stood guard there for many years. He was moved, though, because - supposedly - his presence frightened the horses pulling hearses down those lanes, not a happy occurrence when one is attending a funeral, to be sure. Iron Mike's story is interesting, but I'll save it for another day.
(photos (c) M. C. McLemore, April 2012)
6 comments:
Nothing wrong with hot wieners for breakfast. Call it sausage and toast. Dunno why people seem to have categories for what shapes of foods are only for certain meals.
Lovely place, especially at 0600.
Martha, I enjoyed seeing these pictures of your town and your library and reading what you had to say about them too. Looks like a nice place to call home. Thanks for sharing. Hope you are having a nice weekend. :-)
Enjoyed the tour of your town! I don't know about a hotdog for breakfast, though. At least the shop wasn't selling hot, buttered croissants on that cool morning when there was no money to buy. Or chocolate donuts.
I've been away and it's like an unexpected prezzie to discover you are managing to communicate. Now that our stay in the USA is forty years distant language is one of the levers by which memory is enabled. Thus "threw a wrench". I have never passed through your town but I could have. In doing so I would never have discovered about Iron Mike.
I recently visited an extensive exhibition of Norman Rockwell's SEP front covers. I expected to find the pictures sentimental, dwelling on a form of the USA that doesn't exist, perhaps never existed. But this was not the case. NR could have passed through your town and gathered ideas as he did so.
Your sense of, and appreciation of the ambiences of the outdoors shines through. Most people wander through their environment without noticing anything - those who are perceptive see something new every time they pass through. My late wife always told me that her mother taught her to “look up” when walking through towns - that way you are rewarded with interesting sights that most people miss.
What a lovely and peaceful looking home town. I like the fact you were out so early before everything got somewhat busier. I hope you had good luck finding some early bargains at the farmer's market.
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