Tiny cities made of ashes.
Saturday I left with my dad to spend a few days in Butler, Pennsylvania for round one of the dead relatives search. As evidenced by the name and date I wrote in dust on a glider, I haven't been there since 2006. Butler used to have some kind of industrial plant that was the main livelihood of the town, but 30 years ago they shut it down because it wasn't profitable and moved it to Mexico, leaving a majority of people out of work. Apparently it was only the nice, pleasant people who worked there that left, because I found nobody over the age of 65 to be even remotely tolerable.
I generally consider myself very patient, not much bothers me, but there were a few nights that we went out to eat and a group of teenagers would be seated near us that made me honestly grateful grandpa is going a little bit deaf. it was so embarrassing to watch them. I'm so aware of how our group handles itself in public now. Good lord.
I didn't talk much for the whole week, because I didn't have much to say about my heritage. And it's kind of hard to talk to grandpa sometimes because I see him so seldom I'm never sure what my dad has and has not updated him on. But he's a good man, our conversations were short but meaningful.
People with cool names I'm related to:
Zeno Henninger, Betty H. Monroe Sprankle, Jemimah A. Douthett, Williamson Bartley.
I don't know much about them, except Zeno was like, a swindling gypsy pig farmer or something, who paid W.G. Douthett for half of his cemetery plot, and got the part with shrubs all over it. I'm really more interested in the family stories than the order of marriage, birth, and death.
The Douthetts have two buildings under their name, one we don't own anymore but it isn't used for any business. It was a two story department store from about 1816 to somewhere in the 70s. There is also a dentist office in the building that was abandoned by the renter somewhere in the 70s-80s. It still has all of the equipment, like a few chairs, and old X-ray machine, and a box of casts of people's mouths. We also have a building across the street that was an extension of that store, as I understand, but it is now an antique store that grandpa, Aunt Jeanne, and Jane manage. Aunt Jeanne is grandpa's sister and Jane is their cousin.
The antique store is chock full of everything I love, depression-era china, tea sets from around the world, decorative figurines, records, old comic books, gorgeous oil paintings, furniture, and for some reason a basket of McDonald's beanie babies. It's not doing well, as far as sales go. Vendors are still paying their rent, so they're in the black, but there's not much profit on sales. I think if it were in a better area where people appreciated things and knew what the fuck a sidewalk is it would be hard to keep things on shelves.
Currently, the other building is storage for Uncle Bill's stuff. Some of the boxes were from when he was married to Lu Anne and living in Butler, some of them were from his house in Florida. I'm pretty sure that after he died and people took the bigger electronics and their inheritance someone just threw everything else in a box. Seriously, there was a box of Kleenex and a bottle of Pert saved for almost 4 years now. Dad and I spent a few hours going through boxes and sorting things by content, things we were taking home, and things to sell across the street. It was a little tense because dad was really close to his brother, and has a no-nonsense approach to cleanup work. I mean, he was wearing his New Orleans mission trip shirt for goodness' sake, haha.
We jacked his wedding china, which interestingly enough is the exact same pattern as my mom and dad's, and I grabbed some jewelry, some photos (HE WAS SO CLOSE TO BERLIN AND HEART SO GOOD), an Adam Ant patch, the hottest Sports Illustrated swimsuit mag ever (80s hair and fashion + nipples = :D), and a bunch of Starlog magazines, several of them anticipating Labyrinth,Blade Runner, and Search for Spock.
Anyway, I think I'm considering Westminster, in New Wilmington PA, because I can graduate in four years with one year at Ai Pittsburg in the Media Arts program, I can layer my majors and minors and graduate with up to five concentrations, I wont have to take an English class at all, it's a Presbyterian school which means I get scholarships for going, and coincidentally the admissions/financial aid officer was my mother's roommate in seminary and sang at her wedding. I'm eligible for 3 scholarships that would knock out most of tuition, and if I wanted to, I could paint my dorm. They let you do that. Honestly, I'm a shoe in, and the campus is gorgeous. The only two concerns I have are the students, who were vacant during this tour and may be like the gigantic dillholes in Butler, and the fact that IT'S NEW WILMINGTON, PA. It never stops raining there! The pros outweigh the cons, but I'm never good with commitment, plus I have a year to figure out what's good elsewhere.
So yeah. Happy days, err'boday.
<3
I generally consider myself very patient, not much bothers me, but there were a few nights that we went out to eat and a group of teenagers would be seated near us that made me honestly grateful grandpa is going a little bit deaf. it was so embarrassing to watch them. I'm so aware of how our group handles itself in public now. Good lord.
I didn't talk much for the whole week, because I didn't have much to say about my heritage. And it's kind of hard to talk to grandpa sometimes because I see him so seldom I'm never sure what my dad has and has not updated him on. But he's a good man, our conversations were short but meaningful.
People with cool names I'm related to:
Zeno Henninger, Betty H. Monroe Sprankle, Jemimah A. Douthett, Williamson Bartley.
I don't know much about them, except Zeno was like, a swindling gypsy pig farmer or something, who paid W.G. Douthett for half of his cemetery plot, and got the part with shrubs all over it. I'm really more interested in the family stories than the order of marriage, birth, and death.
The Douthetts have two buildings under their name, one we don't own anymore but it isn't used for any business. It was a two story department store from about 1816 to somewhere in the 70s. There is also a dentist office in the building that was abandoned by the renter somewhere in the 70s-80s. It still has all of the equipment, like a few chairs, and old X-ray machine, and a box of casts of people's mouths. We also have a building across the street that was an extension of that store, as I understand, but it is now an antique store that grandpa, Aunt Jeanne, and Jane manage. Aunt Jeanne is grandpa's sister and Jane is their cousin.
The antique store is chock full of everything I love, depression-era china, tea sets from around the world, decorative figurines, records, old comic books, gorgeous oil paintings, furniture, and for some reason a basket of McDonald's beanie babies. It's not doing well, as far as sales go. Vendors are still paying their rent, so they're in the black, but there's not much profit on sales. I think if it were in a better area where people appreciated things and knew what the fuck a sidewalk is it would be hard to keep things on shelves.
Currently, the other building is storage for Uncle Bill's stuff. Some of the boxes were from when he was married to Lu Anne and living in Butler, some of them were from his house in Florida. I'm pretty sure that after he died and people took the bigger electronics and their inheritance someone just threw everything else in a box. Seriously, there was a box of Kleenex and a bottle of Pert saved for almost 4 years now. Dad and I spent a few hours going through boxes and sorting things by content, things we were taking home, and things to sell across the street. It was a little tense because dad was really close to his brother, and has a no-nonsense approach to cleanup work. I mean, he was wearing his New Orleans mission trip shirt for goodness' sake, haha.
We jacked his wedding china, which interestingly enough is the exact same pattern as my mom and dad's, and I grabbed some jewelry, some photos (HE WAS SO CLOSE TO BERLIN AND HEART SO GOOD), an Adam Ant patch, the hottest Sports Illustrated swimsuit mag ever (80s hair and fashion + nipples = :D), and a bunch of Starlog magazines, several of them anticipating Labyrinth,Blade Runner, and Search for Spock.
Anyway, I think I'm considering Westminster, in New Wilmington PA, because I can graduate in four years with one year at Ai Pittsburg in the Media Arts program, I can layer my majors and minors and graduate with up to five concentrations, I wont have to take an English class at all, it's a Presbyterian school which means I get scholarships for going, and coincidentally the admissions/financial aid officer was my mother's roommate in seminary and sang at her wedding. I'm eligible for 3 scholarships that would knock out most of tuition, and if I wanted to, I could paint my dorm. They let you do that. Honestly, I'm a shoe in, and the campus is gorgeous. The only two concerns I have are the students, who were vacant during this tour and may be like the gigantic dillholes in Butler, and the fact that IT'S NEW WILMINGTON, PA. It never stops raining there! The pros outweigh the cons, but I'm never good with commitment, plus I have a year to figure out what's good elsewhere.
So yeah. Happy days, err'boday.
<3