Americana ...

“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”

            ~ Jack Kerouac

               ~ 1922 ~ 1969

As if dropped into the spring landscape from a German Christmas putz, I captured this slice of Americana ~ with the American flag billowing in the breeze ~ on a late April afternoon along the Saucon Rail Trail in the Saucon Valley, Hellertown, Pennsylvania.

 

Steakin' Out The South Side ...

“I love the nostalgic myself. I hope we never lose some of the things of the past.”

      ~ Walt Disney

       ~ 1901-1966

“Family Owned Since 1940” is declared on the distinctive flatiron-shaped building that is home to Zandy’s Steak Shop, a staple on the South Side of Allentown, Pennsylvania that has been serving up tasty steak sandwiches, cheesesteaks, sausage sandwiches, french fries, pierogies and so much more for 81 years.

I captured this HDR shot of this mainstay at 813 St. John Street on an early May afternoon and presented the image in sepia to enhance the nostalgic mood. Prior to housing Zandy’s, the building used to be a movie theatre.

 

Huckleberry's Summer ...

   “I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”

       ~ “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

      ~ first published in the 
United Kingdom, December  1884 
& in the United States, February 1885

             ~ by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

                     ~ 1835-1910

 “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” or in more recent editions, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” is commonly named among the Great American Novels. The work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels, “Tom Sawyer Abroad” and “Tom Sawyer, Detective” and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River, set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer. He was lauded as the “greatest humorist this country has produced,” and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

This young boy is reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn as he sets sail to fish in the Jordan Creek as a summer sundown nears in this candid shot, presented in sepia, which I captured on a gorgeous mid-July evening at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.