This is an Operating Certificate for the Hercules Cement Company in Stockertown, issued in 1959 by Lehigh Valley Air Pollution Control and signed by one R. Emmet Doherty. Since 1970, the R. Emmet Doherty Clean Air Award has been presented to a regional air quality leaders in recognition of their service and of Doherty’s considerable legacy. Maybe you’ve never heard of him, but not everyone has their own award or their own page on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s website.
Keith Williams, the chairperson of the Lehigh Valley Air Quality Partnership, sent me these images. It’s something special to see documentation from the early era of air quality control, signed by one of the issue’s most respected pioneers. Click to enlarge.
Friends, I did not make it to Egypt Star yesterday, but I did succeed in my primary goal, which was to enjoy a genuine Lehigh Valley Fastnacht (plain) at Mary Ann Donut Kitchen. Like most people in Allentown, I love Mary Ann Donuts. They are the best and most authentic of all Allentown pastries. As Linus Van Pelt might say, they are sincere.
While Mary Ann usually has a huge variety of freshly-made donuts, bagels, and crullers on hand, the only offerings yesterday were three varieties of the traditional Pennsylvania German pre-Lenten pastry. Reports from early in the morning had Fastnacht-seekers lining out the door for over two hours. By the time of my visit around 1 PM, the place was still full and still filling.
My Fastnacht was excellent, by the way. An added bonus: Mary Ann’s always delightful staff were wearing special shirts that read:
Maybe you call it Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. In these parts, friend, it’s Fastnacht Day. My pledge to you, dear reader, is that I will not repeat last year’s poor showing. Not only will I enjoy fastnachts (yes, plural) today, but I will be enjoying them from Mary Ann Donut Kitchen. Holler if you know what’s up. I may also venture to Egypt Star Bakery so as to get the most fat for my Tuesday.
This is a big deal. As I said last year, we used to even get faschnats in elementary school. Enjoy yours early and often. Then get your butt to church on Wednesday for the imposition of ashes.
I never used to take part in that particular Lenten tradition, but I did it last year from a place of feeling like I really needed to do something different, even if only provisional, to connect with the Holy.
Image via Wikipedia
I’ve been on a long, interesting journey since then. I’m not ashamed to drop the qualifier “provisional” from my status as Christian, so long as epistemological humility isn’t breached. But I’m still more apt to describe my faith in Conan O’Brien terms than, say, the limiting language you might hear in some Christian quarters. Even so, even so, I find myself much more interested in the mystical traditions than ever before, much more at home around ritual and structure so long as I can approach them, too, from a place of humility and from a recognition that God is bigger than the things we do and that when God meets us in those things, it’s because God is God, not because we’ve done something cosmically essential. But it’s also true that our drive to meet God in places carved out by tradition echos something cosmically essential: an understanding that we want and need the mystical, the holy; a hope the God will meet us wherever it is we seek to find.
For me, the power of Christian ritual has absolutely nothing to do with it being set down by patriarchs with apostolic authority or some other contrived historiography that super-values the existential (and perhaps compulsive) needs of long-dead saints. For me, our rituals, like our stories, are opportunities to embrace the basic Christian claim: the in-breaking of God at every turn, the furious longing on God’s part for time and eternity with us.
Oh boy. This post was supposed to be about donuts. More to come on Huffington, I think.
When I was in college, I believed my life’s work to consist of two major projects: 1) fundamentally questioning the epistemological prejudices of the 17th-century philosphes (pompous jerks) and 2) bringing back the ’80s. By the time I graduated, I’d seen the US beat Russia in hockey and Hulk Hogan regain the WWF championship. Goal #2 totally nailed. Goal #1 turns out to be a longer deal.
Almost ten years later, the ’90s revival is in full swing like clockwork. I like to think I play a part in this, however small (watching The Fresh Prince on TVLand totally counts). I know I can be a bit of a nostalgia snob, but without nostalgia snobbery, how will the world know it’s not too soon to dust off Hypercolor? That was a trick question, friends. It’s never too soon for Hypercolor. See what I mean?
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea behind the headline. There’s definitely a MySpace joke in the mix here somewhere. Can you come up with a better headline sticking to these central elements: nostalgia for 2005, MySpace’s current woes, nostalgia for 1991, and something funny about a municipality throwing away everybody’s snow chairs? Do so in the comments. Hint from a nostalgia snob: the (NOT) construction is very, very tricky. As the root of everything snarky and ironically detached about our society, can it ever actually be satirized? Herein lies the problem with this headline. It’s much too late to use (NOT) in a sort of topical way, but as the original of the ironic species, (NOT) also seems somehow immune to further satirization. I’d say it’s the Chuck Norris beard of snarky catchphrases, but not even a roundhouse kick from the Chuck Norris of snark (Jay and Eric, I want you to wrestle for that title) can touch it its lovely whiskers. (NOT) is an untouchable, the great Source Wall of everything we wink about. You leave MC Hammer out of this.
My wife and I were watching the Hess’s documentary on PBS 39 last night. Even though I wasn’t alive for Hess’s (and Allentown’s) mid-century glory, I visited the original store on 9th and Hamilton quite a few times in my youth (the 80s and early 90s). My memories of Hess’s aren’t as robust as my parents’: I never saw Pip’s show in the window, the Flower Show, or Adam West and Burt Ward. I do remember 1984 Olympic apparel and following the Swatch counter workers around the store because my cousins and I were convinced they had top-secret new designs on their persons (I remember them in white lab coats. please tell me this is not confabulation). I remember standing in line for a seat at the Patio (a formerly world-famous restaurant on the basement level for you out-of-towners) not very infrequently, and having my meal (usually chicken croquets) brought in a miniature oven and desserts (chocolate mousse) in tiny freezers. I remember the models, the French room, the spiraling drive of the parking deck. Other memories are more spotty. At some point, a store is a store is a store to a kid.
Chris Cocca 