Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania sun rose at 6:14 over the Beltzville Reservoir. Several hours would pass before it would shine upon the sleepy heads of Sustainable Living Roadshow’s caravan. En route from the MidWest ReggaeFest, Priscilla had successfully completed a NASA-like docking maneuver with solutionaries Ben and Daniel – whose trajectory had brought them from Louisville, Kentucky, to the intersection of Interstate 76 and PA 18, Big Beaver - thus rounding out SLR’s first leg troupe.

I was up before the others to greet Mr. Sun and lay out the makings for breakfast: hot water, three French presses, a supply of Peet’s coffee and yerba mate, baby rolled oats, hemp seed meal, ripe strawberries, Flame raisins, honey, light brown sugar, almond milk and Saigon cinnamon. Late the night before, the caravan had stopped at this Pennsylvania state park to catch some zzz’s. Thus far, the tour’s dissemination of information has been on a need-to-know basis - perfect for someone living one day at a time - so, like an excitable schoolboy, I was filled with pure joy to discover that across the parking lot was a lake, its waters warm to the touch, just like Quarry Lake's. With breakfast in my belly, I grabbed a towel and headed over to the boat ramp to wade in. A lone fisherman was unpacking tackle, so I ambled over and introduced myself. It’s said a good reporter has a nose for the news. This blogger believes everyone has a story to tell. You just have to catch ‘em at the right moment.

George Rodgers had decided to spend the morning of his 52^nd birthday fishing with his son, Jarret. There are catfish and Striped bass to be caught. Striped bass, I learned, are a cross between freshwater White bass and saltwater Striped bass. Different from genetic-modification (GMOs), hybridization is a seahorse of a different color. The egg from the White is fertilized with the sperm of the Stripe. (Not to be confused with the White Stripes, the musical group.)

As with many sport fishermen, they planned to release the small ones and take anything larger home. When I asked how big they got, he took me back to his recently T-boned truck (he wasn’t injured), to proudly show me snapshots of his children holding up some of the ones they’ve kept. He has four boys.

Out-spoken in a measured way, George said he loves his country, but hates its politicians. Too many of the heroes we’ve revered end up criminals. The current economic climate? “What’s a family to do”, he asked rhetorically, “when both husband and wife work for the same company, and get laid off at the same time?”

Beltzvile Reservoir is the product of a flurry of mid to late 1960’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s flood control projects. After Delaware floodwaters rose suddenly taking the lives of four boys, there was a strong impetus to prevent future tragedies. In April, the lake was clouded with algae, the result of phosphates that had entered its watershed eight miles upstream. With abundant rains, however, the lake had healed itself, so that on this August morning its waters ran clear.

There’s a spiritual lesson here, if I don’t cloud it up with my intellect.