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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 17 June 2000 (Week 25)

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Saturday, 17 June 2000

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[Following material written by me on June 14 and posted for me by Bob on June 17, 2000. BFT]

If you missed last week's messages for some reason, I am away until Monday with my parents in Pennsylvania. Bob has kindly agreed to post my daily messages in my absence as I penned them before my departure. If I am able to get to a PC while I am away, I will send him an e-mail update to post, too.

Since I am writing all this pre-trip, I am speculating on our activities as I know them or as I imagine based upon previous trips.

We will go to the farmers market this morning. This is a huge, wonderful market, like I have never seen except in Allentown. We will purchase our sausage, ring bologna, and other assorted meats, that again, cannot be bought in the south. He will shrink wrap our order and we will place it in coolers for the journey home.

We will return to the hotel early to allow Mom and Dad to get dressed for dad's high school reunion, the purpose of the trip. I have no idea which one this is. Their ages, they have them every three to five years rather than 10. I will remain in the hotel room reading and have a snack lunch. The U.S Open will be on, so I will watch a little golf.

Late in the afternoon, I am going over to visit a friend of ours who used to live here in Winston-Salem. She is married, with two children and lives in nearby Emmaus. Last time I was up, she had one child, so Benjamin must be around 3 years old. I told Vicki not to go to a lot or trouble or plan a dinner out. With two small children, it will be easier and more relaxing to order pizza or grill something.

I am not sure what time I will return to the hotel. It will depend on their schedule, etc. Last time it was rather late and my parents were already in bed.

We'll see how all this plays out.

Sunday, 18 June 2000

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[Following material written by me on June 14 and posted for me by Bob on June 18, 2000. BFT]

Sunday morning is bakery morning. Again, there is nothing in the south that compares with baked goods from a Pennsylvania Dutch bakery. We order a bunch of stuff the day we get there to be picked up Sunday morning. Shoo Fly Pie, pastries, cakes, etc.

Last visit, we walked around a little mall after our bakery visit and then had lunch. In the afternoon we will go over to my Aunt and Uncle's. Not sure what is on tap for the afternoon. We may visit another Uncle or my dad's sister and/or her daughter.

We will than go out to dinner somewhere and return back to the hotel for the evening.

Monday, 19 June 2000

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[Following material written by me on June 14 and posted for me by Bob on June 19, 2000. BFT]

After breakfast at the hotel, we will head over to my Aunt's to pick up the meat coolers they are keeping for us and to say goodbye.

We will hit the road for home, with a couple of stops and be in sometime in the late afternoon.

Full update and details tomorrow.

Tuesday, 20 June 2000

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We had a very nice trip. The drive home was long and tiring. I guess I am showing my age. I remember when a nine hour drive did not bother me. 

I don't have pictures from trip yet. I have to take the film to be processed. I don't carry the digital in case something should happen to it since it is Bob's for his use on the book.  I will post pictures the end of the week.

The drive up was not too bad. We stopped once for breakfast and once for lunch. But, we were only going as far as New Oxford, outside York, PA. I saw my cousin, Kay, for the first time in 30 years and met her husband. She took us over to see one of my dad's brothers in the Brethren Home where she works as the publicity person. Then we all went out to dinner and met her son and his wife. Her son, David, is the cousin I have been corresponding with on the family history. It rained like heck and we had an awful storm most of Thursday night. 

We went back to the Home so we could all visit for awhile longer. David shared his photo albums he has put together from the old family photos. We went back to the hotel, which was right across the street.

The next morning Kay and her husband met us for breakfast at the hotel restaurant for a last time visit. We headed off to York, PA to walk around the city. Then my mom wanted to find this house built like a shoe that she had seen on one of the television news shows. It was right outside York.  It is now up for sale. The elderly couple who own the house are ready to give it up. They rent it out as a B & B in the winter and offer tours in the summer. They sell homemade ice cream, so we had that for our lunch. Then on to Allentown. Friday night we all went to the Brass Rail, the famous steak place in Macungie. My uncle and cousin met us there. We went back to the house for a nice visit.

Saturday morning, we were up early to go get the meat ordered by mom, at the farmers market. Their farmer's market is not like any we have down here. They have fresh meat, cheeses, and produce right from the farms. We then headed back to my aunt and uncle's house to drop off my parents so they could go to their reunion.

I took off downtown to find the library.  While out roaming around, I stopped and ate lunch at a diner, another northern phenomenon we don't have down south. After I ate lunch, gassed up the car, and drove around downtown to look around, I went to the Historical Museum Library. I had good luck finding a few things that I did not have in my genealogy stuff that I was looking for. I was in there for about 3 1/2 hours.  

I then went to our friend Vicki's house to visit her and her family. We cooked out, in the rain again, and had a very nice visit. My folks were just getting back to the hotel around 10:00 pm the same time I was.

Sunday we went to the bakery to pick up the baked goods, stopped at a deli to get some lunch stuff and went back over to my relatives house. We did genealogy stuff, she has loads of clippings to give me. Then we went up to the winery to buy some wine to bring back and went on to visit another aunt in a nursing home. From there we went on to dinner and back to my relatives house. We packed up the meat in coolers, said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel.

I enjoyed the trip, got some good information, and visited my relatives. It was busy but fun and I love the Lehigh Valley area.

Wednesday, 21 June 2000

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I spent most of yesterday getting caught up. Bob waited to do our laundry but he had done a load for his mom. We did three loads today and have two for tomorrow. I did my page and read mail until mid morning. With the high humidity the grass was pretty dry by 10 am. I mowed and then put out my fertilizer. It was supposed to rain this afternoon or evening.

I stopped to fix lunch. After I fixed my plate with a ring bologna sandwich and chips, I set it down on the couch table in the den where we eat. We have This End Up furniture and it has these nice tables that fit over the arm of the sofa. We eat all our meals in the den.

Anyway, I went back in the kitchen to see if Bob had every thing he needed for his lunch. When I came around the corner, there was Malcolm standing up on the sofa eating something. I yelled, get down, thinking he was eating my lunch. HA! He had left the food and was eating the napkin. I do have a strange Border Collie.

I am off to the gym and the store. 

Thursday, 22 June 2000

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No golf this morning. The weather forecast is for storms this morning. I will use the morning to get some work done and maybe go to the gym this afternoon. I need to pick up my pictures from the trip.

   a picture of my dad taken at the Brethren Home where we visited my uncle.

I still have a lot of reading material to catch up on that came in while I was out of town. I think I will fix my tuna/ham casserole for dinner. The recipe is posted on my recipe page on the Netwidows Recipe Site.

J.H. Ricketson, who has a wonderful list of barbecue recipes on the Daynotes Gang recipe page, wants me to post a how-to about making Pennsylvania Dutch steak sandwiches. I am working on that and will post along with it the Philly Steak Cheese how-to as well. Before I can post the Pennsylvania one I have to check with my mom to see if the recipe for the sauce is top secret. If it isn't, I will post the recipe along with the basic ingredients for making the sauce. 

It is not top secret because of a family thing. I am not sure if my mom got it from the restaurant or somewhere else and was told not to give it to anyone.

J.H., I hope to have that recipe up by this weekend. I am going over to their house Saturday for lunch.

It is time to do our big Southern Foods order. For those unfamiliar, Southern Foods is a supplier to restaurants of fine meats and other vegetables, desserts, etc. Consumers can also purchase food from them too. We started getting their meat over several years ago. We bought one of their freezers and do an order about three times a year.

The food is not cheaper. We buy it for the quality. I was tired of buying nasty tasting, limited cuts of meat in the grocery store. The meat is shrink wrapped and shipped frozen. I have not found anything comparable in the local stores except at the Fresh Market across town. Theirs is about the same or higher per pound. Plus I have to drive to get it and wrap it. And, I cannot shrink wrap it to maintain the freshness.

The vegetables, cold cuts, and most of the desserts can be bought at the local grocery stores. Since I have to go once a week for milk and fresh stuff, I only buy their meats. They even have pantry items. 

If I lived in the Allentown area, I would shop at their Farmer's Market. They have meat straight from the farm and as pretty as you will see anywhere in a shop. I would just do my weekly shopping their, which you can do. The building is several blocks long, all enclosed, and full of vendor stalls from local farms, bakeries, merchants, etc. Our fresh markets and farmers markets try to imitate this, but just don't carry it off like the Pennsylvania Dutch do. I am sure there are other parts of the country north and west that have this same setup.

Friday, 23 June 2000

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I am just about caught up from being out of town. I still have several magazines to get through. I will head to the gym this morning and run an errand. I may go to the library this afternoon to work a couple of hours. I need to return some books anyway.

Supposed to be hot and muggy today. We did not get the storms yesterday that were predicted. I cleaned the downstairs area since we did not play golf. Now I just have to do ours on Sunday. 

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