Showing posts with label Allentown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Allentown. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Wrapped In A Hot Bun ...

 

“…I fell in love with you and then you went away

But now you’re coming home to stay

Hot dog, soon everything will be all right

Hot dog, we’re gonna have a ball tonight

I’ve got a pocketful of dimes

It’s gonna be just like old times, hot dog …”

        ~ “Hot Dog”

    ~written by Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

   ~ recorded by the great Elvis Presley

   ~on the 1957 album “Loving You”

Hot Dog! A hot bun, warm autumn sun and the American Flag wrap around a hot dog treating himself to ketchup and mustard atop Yocco’s West at 2128 Hamilton St., Allentown, Pennsylvania on an early November afternoon.

Yocco’s ~ the self-described “Hot Dog King” ~ has been a Lehigh Valley tradition since Italian immigrant Theodore Iacocca founded the original downtown Allentown location in 1922. Area residents, predominantly of Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsylvania German) descent, had difficulty pronouncing I-a-co-ca and instead pronounced it Ya-co-ca, and the name Yocco’s subsequently stuck. Yocco’s has six locations across the Lehigh Valley.

The Iacocca’s are relatives of the late Lee Iacocca, the American automobile executive and Allentown native who passed in 2019 at age 94. Lee Iacocca graduated with honors from Allentown High School (now William Allen High School, my alma mater), in 1942. He attended Lehigh University in neighboring Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in industrial engineering.

For more information on Yocco’s visit http://www.yoccos.com/.


 

Monday, July 10, 2023

Flares Of Freedom ...

 

“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

    ~ from the inspiring Inaugural Address of

          President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

              ~ 1917 ~1963

 ~ 35th President of the United States of America

               ~ 1960 ~1963

             & U.S. Navy veteran

The birth of America & its freedom is celebrated with vivid flares of purple & gold flashing across the summer night sky by the Fourth of July fireworks set off from J. Birney Crum Stadium, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Happy Birthday, America! Bravo!

How wonderful it would be to have fireworks ~ and the fire of patriotism ~ in our hearts every day!

Monday, June 26, 2023

Sunfire ...

 “… Goodness gracious, great balls of fire …”

    ~ “Great Balls Of Fire”

   ~ 1957 popular song recorded by

     Jerry Lee Lewis

         ~ 1935 ~ 2022

     at Sun Records, Memphis, Tennessee

Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis in February 1952. Sun was the first label to record the great Elvis Presley as well as Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash.

Great Balls Of Fire it’s a sunset Jerry Lee Lewis would love as a red sun sets amidst the trees in the surreal.

I created this image by blending my shot of the hazy red sunset of June 6, 2023 in the West End of Allentown, Pennsylvania with background texture by Jai Johnson for artistic effect.

The wildfire smoke from Canadian wildfires moving through the area caused the hot milky skies and orange haze in the evening sky that caused sunsets such as this.


 

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Fly Me To The Moon ...

“Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like

On a-Jupiter and Mars

 

In other words: hold my hand

In other words: baby, kiss me …

 

… In other words: please be true

In other words: I love you”


      ~ “Fly Me to the Moon”

  ~ song written by Bart Howard & made famous by the wonderful Frank Sinatra

 

     ~originally titled “In Other Words,” the song was written in 1954 by Bart Howard. The first recording of the song was made in 1954 by Kaye Ballard. Frank Sinatra’s 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon.

 

Love can fly you to the moon, and in this case, the flight takes wing in the surreal!

 

I created this image by blending my shot of a Finnair plane soaring through the skies over Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania on February 18, 2023, with my capture of the Supermoon over Cedar Creek Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania on December 3, 2017.

Finnair is the flag carrier & largest airline of Finland, with its headquarters in Vantaa on the grounds of Helinski Airport, its hub. Finnair flies between Europe, Asia & North America via Helsinki.