What can be the best thing about a book of essays is that they are different flavors of the same main ingredient. This is the case in "Philadelphia Reflections". In lovely, bite sized pieces, I was able to savor different aspects of a portion of the country that I am completely unfamiliar with. The theme mentioned in the book's summary, "A City of Neighborhoods" proves more than true as the reader is introduced to Allentown, Pughtown, Oreland, Germantown and, of course, Philadelphia. Because each essay had such a different taste to it, I found myself reading only one each sitting - individually savoring the words and images and emotions these writers bring to life.
As much as I liked the book as a whole, several stood out from the rest for me. "No. 13 on the B Line", by Colleen Lutz Clemens absolutely transported me. I felt as if I was part of this family, part of the events she describes. "...local ordinances prohibited Allentonians from gambling for money on Sundays, so we found a bingo game with prizes - not money, but meat - in Topton. Stacy and I fought over who got to sit seatbelt-less in the front seat of the brown Monte Carlo . Mennonites in horses and buggies slowed traffic on the one-lane highway. Auntie Weasel and my cousin John came, along with Nan and Pappy. John, a product of thalidomide, used his half arms to circle vowels in the Sears and JC Penney's catalogues, while the rest of us marked our boards. Postage stamp for a T-bone, four corners for pork chops and the big game, the coverall, for a full meal, including a roast, potatoes and corn, if it was in season." And, "One day, I won a pack of chicken while humming the lines of a Stayfree commercial. I believed this song enchanted me and sang it to myself for the next three hours." This story was so well done that I was profoundly sad when I finished it - it felt as if a little window I had into a past that had elements similar to mine.
In "Portrait of a Village", by Maria Baird Garvin, I was captivated by the first sentence. "I met my house in the aftermath of the huge snowstorm of February 1972," and the piece lives up to that engaging beginning.
"Landscape Design", by Laura M. Gibson, spoke far more eloquently that I would ever be able to about feelings that we share on the environment, our role in it and the changes we can make as part of the larger picture. After moving to Oreland, she tries to adapt to her new surroundings. "In our small mountain town out West, even our summer nights had been cool and quiet and very dark. I sweated among the sheets and tried to shut my ears against the din - not against the rasp of cicadas and one very industrious owl, but against the constant pulse of traffic that rose above it, as if the beat of so many living in so few square miles was an amplified drumline in the heart of the night." Where Gibson strives to find her place in this new environment and work with it in harmony, her neighbor seeks to exert control, to shape it to his will. "On a few occasions, I caught him leaning against a fencepost after dark, his headlamp turned off, shoulders slumped, watching the windows of his own house." This piece resonated very deeply for me as many of Gibson's feelings are similar to mine. She puts in beautifully when she writes, "I thought about the anthrax room, about the way the oversized televisions in my neighborhood, which we could see through windows when we walked the streets with our dogs at night, created a collective flickering glow all around us. How this odd ritual of participating in the world actually unmoored us from one another in the way that Orwell depicted so well. Encouraged us to build an anthrax room. To practice intolerance of our neighbors. To be afraid." As much as she captures the atmosphere of her surroundings, she captured a place in time for me.
And in "Delaware and Pine" by Darcy Cummings, I was able to take one last visit to this region across the country from me as a part of her childhood memories. "Some nights I lay in bed and imagined I was walking with my eyes closed from Delaware Avenue to Second Street at the end of the block: the feel of the cracked, rough sidewalk under my feet. Step by step, I'd retraced the scents - tar, rags, gasoline, beer and roast beef; old unpainted boards; peppery weeds; and singed feathers."
I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. The images, the histories, both of place and of people, will stay with me for a long while. This place, that I have never been a part of, is part of me now.Delete ReplyReply ForwardSpamMovePrint Actions NextPrevious
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