A drive to Pennsylvania

If one lives in a place for a long time we don’t appreciate the cultural differences that have gradually evolved over the last couple of hundred years.  Having lived in Michigan a large part of my life, and in Tennessee, Washington State, and Maryland, I have begun to appreciate these “cultural” differences. Now, I should not generalize because the US cultural evolution is quite uniform; we have the chain restaurants, the chain stores, and the similarities in home design for bedroom communities around large cities, the interstate roads and the same commercial and commuter patterns.  So, what is the difference?

A big influence in this “cultural” difference seems to be the result of the geography of the state (of course there are many other factors, the origin of the immigrants, the influence of local industry, their religions, their role in the politics, etc).   Pennsylvania, like Tennessee, has a special culture that is greatly influenced by geography.  For example, in the “flat” states, the concept of planned communities seems to be more noticeable – cities are in a grid pattern with streets and avenues running east and west and north and south.  But the hilly geography of Pennsylvania does not lend itself to a classical grid structure for a community.  As a result, there are winding roads everywhere, if you want to go east, you may have to travel to all points of the compass before you get to your easterly destination.  In the flatter areas of PA, you have subdivisions similar to everywhere else, but guess what, because of historical property laws; access in and out of those communities is greatly limited leading to tremendous traffic congestion in the mornings and the afternoons.  

The geography has isolated people leading to more of a “turf” mentality and to being a member of a certain community; “Oh I’m from Norristown”, “and I’m from “Skippack”, and I’m from “Collegeville.” Are typical conversations one hears from people talking about where they are from.  In reality all these places are within 5 or 10 miles of each other, but to hear them talking about it you would think they are from different countries.

Getting here, we drove across Pennsylvania on the famous (or maybe infamous) PA Turnpike, I-76.  It was a beautiful and peaceful drive.  It wasn’t always so, the PA Turnpike has traditionally been a death trap, a challenge for truckers and car drivers alike – one would age much faster just driving that highway, nerves would get wrecked, marriages would be destroyed, children would be beaten, personalities would change from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde (Hmmm… I wonder if Robert Louis Stevenson imagined the PA Turnpike when he wrote this).   But something great has happened, the lanes have been made wider, road shoulders have been added and widened by carving out the rock in the original hills that bound the roads.  The PA Turnpike was built on the Rail Road access land and the width of the land is limited for expansion; especially in hilly areas in towns and cities.  It was probably not too bad when speed limits were slower, but 65 to 70 miles per hour in winding roads with sharp rock outcroppings on the right and on-coming traffic on the left makes for a very nervous ride.  100% concentration was a must.  

But it is now being made wider – a never ending construction project comparable to the never ending pot hole repair in Michigan – and the drive was very pleasant.  Of course, it is still winter and nothing was green, but it was still very pretty with the rolling hills in the background.  We got to see the wind farms in the high country, the tunnels though the mountains and water seeping through the strata and freezing on the rocky sides of the road.  Yeahup, I-76 is changing for the better.   On the other hand, maybe it was the time of the week or the time of the year that made it seem less crowded.