Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club

Want to have more fun than you can imagine? Want to meet all kinds of interesting people? Want to have a hobby that you can really enjoy plus the good possibility that you will have a monetary gain? If the answer is yes-then buy an antique car. Better yet, buy one and join a car club. Better, better, better yet, join the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club.



Peggy and I just returned from the ACD Spring Meet in Saratoga, NY. "Non Car" people always ask me about meets. What fun are they-what do you do at a meet-sit in front of your car all day-sounds boring.



I am the wrong (or right) person to ask about cars. I absolutely love anything with wheels and a motor-cars, motorcycles, scooters, etc. The old ones are especially fun to drive and tour.

A car meet consists of tours to interesting places, sometimes judging, meeting old friends and making new ones, and most important-eating, and partying.



A great fun part of the weekend is the Vintage Clothing Costume Ball. Did you ever notice how folks change their personality when in a costume? The shy get bold and the wacky get wackier. It is a fun fun time.

Mercer Museum Folk Fest

There is " hidden treasure" in Bucks County, Pa. - and very few residents know or visit. I know there are dozens of historical places and buildings, but my very favorite is the Mercer Museum in Doylestown.

Henry Mercer was quite a wealthy man and collected tools as a hobby. Wondering what to do with over 40,000 tools from more than 60 early American crafts and trades, he decided to build a museum and share them with the public.

Did he build an ordinary structure-No Way. Henry built one of the first all concrete buildings- six stories high-fireproof-made entirely of reinforced concrete. It was build in 1916 and today is on the Historical Register-with over 80.000 visitors a year.

Peggy and I are members and every year, we , along with our friends Cork and Anne, volunteer at their Annual Folk fest.. We set up a tent demonstrating decoy carving and the history of water fowling. It is a lot of fun and helps the museum -showing an aspect of colonial life that is not frequently demonstrated.

18th Centurey Crafts and Trades

One of the great aspects of the Mercer Museum Folk Fest is the authenticity of the event. Period clothing is required as are all tools and equipment.

A cooper is making barrels using a shaving bench.

Another shows a tinsmith-complete with a period hair style.

The baker was really interesting-she had a genuine bee hive oven in which she had heated with a wood fire. She then scraped out the coals and baked for five hours. Just hauling and setting up this display was a mammoth task.

The real purpose of the Fest is to educate. In the one picture, My friend Cork is "holding court" with a group of young folks. Cork is good with the kids-demonstrating carving techniques while throwing in tall tales and humor.

A Walk on the Wild Side

I recently visited my hometown in the mountains of Clearfield County. The area is sparsely populated with lots of woods, streams and mountains. If you love malls and shopping, this is not for you. If you love the outdoors-fishing, hunting, canoeing, hiking, this is paradise.

My favorite activity is either hiking or riding my ATV around the mountains. You never know what you'll find around the next bend: maybe a blacksnake or rattlesnake; it might be a deer with a fawn; it may be a fox or coyote, hawk, snapping turtle-and the list goes on.

At the turn of the century, the mining of coal from deep mines (tunnels into the sides of mountains) changed. The industrial age brought heavy equipment that was able to strip the earth's surface-exposing the valuable coal.

There were few laws in the1920's to the 1970's and coal strippers played havoc with the land. Huge ravines were cut-coal was extracted-and the area abandoned. The result was a ravaged landscape with huge open pits with high walls. It was a mess.

Then along came the beaver. They dammed the ravines and created beautiful lakes and ponds. Local men privately stocked these waters with bass and sunfish -on their own-with no state assistance.

In the one picture you can see where the end of the beaver dam was recently washed out by heavy rains. The dam height is about 18 feet-the water level dropped considerably. Note how the dam was built in a coal stripping ravine.

The one problem with hiking in the mountains is that there are no bridges- you just tie your shoes around your neck and wade through the ice cold water.