Fastnacht Day/Fat Tuesday

As a kid, I always looked forward to Fastnacht Day. It actually translates to "Fast Night." The German tradition is to eat the very best, and lots of it, before the Lenten fast. It serves as a way of using up the last of the lard (and sugar and stuff) before beginning a fast from sweets. Fastnachts (pronounced fost-nokts) are doughnuts.

Starting very early on Shrove Tuesday morning in a very small kitchen, my grandmother and aunt would make fastnachts for the entire Goodfellow family. My father would pick up several dozen at noon time and bring them home to a large welcome. Not only were the fastnachts unbelievably tasty treats, but we had to eat them all that day. We had to fatten up; the next day was the beginning of Lent.

A recipe from a Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook:

German Fastnachts

1 cake yeast or 1 pkg. granulated yeast dissolved in 1 cup warm water

Mix together: 1 cup mashed potatoes, I teaspoon salt, ½ cup granulated sugar, 1 cup flour

Put the yeast into this mixture, set this to rise about 1 hour in a covered kettle.

Next mix together: ¾ cup butter or lard (soft), 1 large cup granulated sugar, 3 eggs (mix thoroughly and add), 1 pint warm water.Sift about 3 qts of bread flour into a large dish pan. Now make a well in the center of flour and pour the first two mixtures in. Work flour in very gradually with one hand until too stiff, then use both hands using more flour if necessary until the dough is pliable and not too sticky. Set this to rise in dish pan in a very warm place for 2 hours. Divide the dough into four parts. Roll to not less than ½ inch thick and cut into squares 2x3. Put a slit in the center of each one and let it rise again on tablecloth, cover with cloth keeping it raised in center of batch so as not to crush them when light. In about 1 hour, fry in deep fat. Store in warm place or they will get hard.

12 Things to Remember

1. The value of time
2. The success of perseverance
3. The pleasure of working
4. The dignity of simplicity
5. The worth of character
6. The power of kindness
7. The influence of example
8. The obligation of duty
9. The wisdom of economy
10. The virtue of patience
11. The improvement of talent
12. The joy of originating

~ Anonymous

Long-haired Cattle

Holtzschwamm Church

Holtzschwamm Church, built in 1849, is an example of Georgian design. It's located just east of York, PA, off route 30. It is also known as Paradise Union Church.

Presidents' Day

Little known facts:

Abraham Lincoln drove around Washington in a car he called the Lincoln Continental convertible. Known to his college buddies as “A-Linc,” Lincoln always complained that Washington and Jefferson got all the presidential publicity while he was largely neglected.

George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree; he did, however, use cherry wood for his false teeth. And it’s true that he never told a lie except for that one time when Martha asked him if they were lost.” No.” he had replied.

Rutherford B. Hayes had a wart on his ass the size of an acorn.

Calvin Coolidge refused to speak during his last two years in the White House. “A President should be seen and not heard,” he had once said before the grand silence. Foreign relations actually improved during those years.

William Howard Taft, our most obese president, once jailed a reporter for calling him “President Fat Ass.”

John F. Kennedy regaled himself and others by farting at state dinners and then pointing to the visiting dignitaries.

Faces

Frogs Discussing the Cheney Matter...

First Frog: Whittington should have never done that cartoon caricature of the Vice President.

Second Frog: At least not while Cheney had a gun in his hand.

At the Arboretum

These Corinthian columns were salvaged from a renovation of the Capitol and erected in the US National Arboretum in the 1980s. They don't seem to fit here, but apparently the government just couldn't throw them away.

Facing a crossroads...

"More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisom to choose correctly."

~ Woody Allen

A World Class Look

A world class look in a World Cup year. Check out these terrific soccer polos.

“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me – not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream, to fail, and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the state of calm utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say. ‘This, with God’s help, I have done.”

~ Dean Alfange

Point of Rocks

B&O Railroad Station

Point of Rocks, MD

Neighborhood Model

Andrea

The Strand

Rog Rogers and Trigger

My old friend, Tim, and I were reminiscing recently about our boyhood days in Hanover, PA. One of the great treasures we had then was the Strand Theater on Carlisle St. and its fabulous Saturday matinees for kids. Tim, Jack, and I would troop up to the Strand every Saturday, shell out 18 cents, and settle in for hours of entertainment.

It was the era of the “B” westerns. RKO studios made a lot of them, and we could always look forward to one of these cowboy heroes: Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Johnny Mack Brown, Rex Allen, The Durango Kid, Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd) , Lash LaRue, Whip Wilson, Rocky Lane, Wild Bill Elliott, Tim Holt, Monte Hale.

The Strand always ran a double feature.

Plus, it showed a half a dozen cartoons featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Tweety Bird, Tom and Jerry.

Plus, we had a few comedy shorts: the Three Stooges, and a guy named Joe McDoaks.

Plus, the Strand usually had a serial running. We’d see a chapter of the story each week. The hero would always get involved in an impossible-to-get-out-of situation at the end of each chapter only to get himself out of it miraculously at the beginning of the next.

And then there was the promotion that ran sometimes in conjunction with the Hanover Clothing Company. Each kid would get a number going into the theater, and then sometime during the afternoon a movie of a race full of whacky characters would be shown. Each character had a number on his or her back. Your number would correspond to one of the characters. If your character won the race, then you won too. The prize, I recall, was a pair of Red Ryder gloves from Hanover Clothing.

To get ourselves through this action-packed afternoon we had to have sustenance and that was candy. I would almost always get Jujyfruit or Jujubees, occasionally Necco Wafers or Goldberg’s Peanut Chews. The key thing here was to have something that would last a while.

Laughs, thrills, sheer excitement! You can not believe the fun we had - all for 18 cents. We walked out of that theater exhilarated. And we just couldn’t wait to get back there again for next week's show.

Bethesda Mime