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/.

 

October Riverscape ...

“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.”

                   ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

                       ~ 1804 ~ 1864

A man stands on the banks of the Lehigh River and takes in autumn’s beauty as sunshine and temperatures that soared into the 70s fashioned a beautiful October afternoon along the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

I captured this shot this after setting out from the Cementon Trailhead of the D&L Trail in Cementon, Pennsylvania, part of the Asher F. Boyer Eagle Trail section of the D&L.

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Watercolor Sugar Maple ...

 “Art is man’s nature; nature is God’s art.”

 ~ Philip James Bailey

 ~ English poet

 ~1816 ~ 1902

Paint brushed with autumn hues, a beautiful sugar maple tree is the star of a sun splashed October afternoon in this painterly image I captured at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The sugar maple is one of America’s most-loved trees ~ and mine! In fact, more states have claimed it as their state tree than any other single species ~ for New York, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Vermont, the maple tree stands alone. One of its most prominent features is amazing fall color. As the seasons change, the leaves turn vibrant shades of yellow, burnt orange, and red.

Wild In The Grass ...

“All good things are wild & free.”

         ~ Henry David Thoreau

                ~ 1817 ~ 1862

The late afternoon sun and shadows dance around a wild, free and beautiful red fox on an October day at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.