I was born in 1967, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Just a bit away from Harrisburg in the Western half of the state. All I knew of this city was learned through stories I was told, as just after I was born I moved first to Hollywood, California, then to Seattle, Washington…then to Helena, Montana before finally landing in Phoenix, Arizona. In the 1970’s, the desert capital of Arizona was a big stretch of wide open heat. Filled with cactus, strange trees with very small leaves, dust and scorpions.
Phoenix did not have much of a modern history…even thought the human history is quite extensive. One of the aspects I find fascinating about the cities and the towns on the East coast, is that everything has a history. From the Harrisburg hotels to the corner pubs to the market places. The history is there without asking for it, nothing like the history in Arizona, which at the time needed to be dug from the ground through the archaeological digs of anthropologists, or the history that I knew was there, that I could see was written on the faces the Native American’s, who rightly so, did not really want to give their history to a small, white girl of five years old.
Later when I went back to Harrisburg when I was about 12 years old. My grandmother took me to the Midtown Market District. This is a place that illustrates the history of Pennsylvania, the people of Pennsylvania, my people. As the longest running market place in the U.S. there were many stories to be told and many stories to be heard. Wildwood Lake surrounds the community, and the bits and pieces of what is left of the Pennsylvania Canal gave me a bit of insight as to where I had come from. We from the region of Harrisburg, are a working class society. Post Civil War humans, making their way through the steel industry.
My first airplane ride taken alone was that ride back home. And as I looked out the window of the plane, I had a sense that the world was a very big place. I truly dug the fact that I knew now where I came from, but it made me ever so much more curious as to where my life was now. “Westward Ho” I thought, I’d heard that in an old movie with Clint Eastwood I think. And the plane landed in the dry desert heat, and my Pennsylvania spirit found a way to exist, with my Southwestern desert heart.
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Tags: Harrisburg hotels, Midtown Market District, Pennsylvania Canal