Americana Postcard ...

“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”

                                       ~ Mark Twain
                                            (Samuel Clemens)

                                              ~ 1835-1910

              

Sunset is on the doorstep of a late February day as a pickup truck prepares to drive over Wehr’s Covered Bridge in a scene that depicts an Americana Postcard.

Wehr’s Covered Bridge is an historic wooden covered bridge located in South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania. It is a three span, 117-foot-long, Burr Truss bridge, constructed in 1841. It has horizontal siding and a gable roof. It crosses the Jordan Creek and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The nearby Wehr’s Dam was built in 1904.

Halcyon Summer ...

“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.”

                  ~ George R.R. Martin,

                      ~ born 1948

The innocence of childhood meets the sweetness of a summer afternoon as this little girl, wearing a shirt splashed with the American flag, casts her fishing pole into Leaser Lake, New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, in a scene that paints the essence of halcyon summer days.

Leaser Lake’s namesake is Frederick Leaser, who in Sept 1777 with his farm team hauled The Liberty Bell from Philadelphia to Allentown where it was concealed in Zion Reformed Church. His homestead is located one mile north of the lake.

The lake is in the shadow of the northern Blue Mountain Ridge.

God Bless America ...

“While the storm clouds gather 

far across the sea,

Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free.

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

God bless America, land that I love,

Stand beside her and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans white with foam,

God bless America,

My home sweet home.”

                  

                ~ "God Bless America"

        ~ written by Irving Berlin in 1918   

                   & revised by him in 1938

                  ~ Kate Smith’s signature song

The spirit of America and the spirit of the open road that only a motorcycle can give meet on the General Thomas R. Morgan USMC Bridge, Slatington, Pennsylvania, just before the Fourth of July.

I loved seeing the bridge festooned with American flags leading up to Slatington Baptist Church, founded in its current location in 1900. To me, this image quintessentially proclaims, “God Bless America!”

The signs on the lampposts designate Slatington, established in 1864, as the Blackboard Capital of America.