Nothing Better Than Shopping in Downtown Allentown on a Cold Icy Day in January

The funeral was over at about 1 PM. After enjoying a lunch of talking with old friends and family at the fire house social hall - Lulu and I had 4 hours to kill before catching our plane at ABE Airport. They changed the airport's name to LVI - Lehigh Valley International - we were not fooled. The old terminal where John Kennedy and Richard Nixon flew to town on the campaigning trail in 1960 is still there.

Funny grayhead tangent - when John Kennedy's car pool came through Tamaqua in 1960 - many students extended their lunch hour to get a chance to see history. When they tried to get back into the school - the principal stood in the doorway in his best George Wallace and Lester Mattox imitation - marking the mostly Catholic kids illegally absent and sending them home for getting a glimpse of their hero. Such was life in a waspy Republican-dominated coal town.

A trip to Allentown would not be complete without shopping on busy Hamilton Street. Nancy wanted to pick a few things up at Hess's - a shopping landmark of her youth. Picture 3 shows Nancy with some of her past shopping treasures. How about a piece of that "mile high strawberry pie" served in the Hess's patio with the dress in Picture 2. Just down the street was Trout Hall shown in Picture 1. All those years of shopping with Cousin Ruthann - little did they know that the oldest house in town was nearby - where the William Allen Family lived. Just 2 blocks form Hess's was the place where they hid the Liberty Bell when Philadelphia was occupied by the Brits in 1777 in the Revolutionary War.

You can see in Picture 4 what we were up against. The temperature hovered around 32 degrees - the cars and grass were candy coated with ice from the night before - but we experienced mostly rain.

We left ABE at 5 PM - and after a few delays in Atlanta - were safely at our home in Tallahassee by 11PM. The 36 hour trip did not give us much time to visit other friends. It would have been nice to visit for a happier occasion. But life goes on for the rest of us. It makes one realize that our years of life are finite - and the best way to celebrate Aunt Ethel's life is to enjoy every person we meet and every second we have.