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20091022174219 Dodge Grand Caravan 2005

Console, power outlets, digital compass, thermostat, environment controls, stow and go seats

Route 15

I will be making the Route 15 trip from Harrisburg to Williamsport in a few days. I lived in York, Pa. from age 5-9. My parents are both from Williamsport, so we made the trip from Williamsport to York many times. So often that it's one of my most vivid memories. Thanks for blogging about this seemingly unremarkable stretch of road. I remember lying down in the back of our station wagon, in a "bed" with coloring books, a pillow and a flashlight; before the age of seatbelts. I knew the road mainly by it's sounds, and what I could see upside down through the back windows of the car. The best part was the bouncy "click,clack...click, clack" of the concrete segments. And me sliding toward the tailgate when we'd finally get to one of the passing zones, and gun it past a slowpoke. The smokestacks at the powerplant in Selinsgrove were always visible from the back of the station wagon; as were the radio towers (I think there are five) on the hill above Shamokin Dam. That's a traffic light now, but I think it used to be a flashing yellow caution before you turned left to start up the hill. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the need to yawn as we climbed Montgomery Pike and the air pressure changed. I knew then it was time to get up and wait for the grand finale... the Bald Eagle overlook. At night, the lights of Williamsport and Montoursville can make you think you're decending into a metropolis. Then, down the hill full speed, round the corner in South Williamsport, and cross the metal-grated Market Street bridge. I miss that sound since the bridge was replaced. Anyway, the road doesn't have as much character as it did back then, but it sure is a lot quicker. And it still impresses my kids, even though they're buckled up.

I should explain "Grady" for those of you who accessed this blog from a "Grady’s World" link. "Grady" is the nickname I was given years ago during my earliest days at the Daily Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua. It was given me by Steve Bradley, the long-gone guy who was Sports-Editor at that time. Back then the newspaper was still pasted up — not ‘pyooterized. The scorebox-page was known as the "agate-page." I didn’t know the priorities at first, and Bradley didn’t consider stroke-addlement anything other than a negatory attitude. So when he saw I was doing the agate-page, he’d get angrily frustrated, and make a faint stab at showing me the priorities. ....Which is what I did, but then he’d come over and tear up what I had done — and bellow that I hadn’t done as asked. Finally I got mad: "So what do you actually want?" I asked. "Ya tell me how to do it, I do that, and then ya tear up what ya asked for, saying I didn’t do as asked." So Bradley gave me the name "Grady;" mainly as a put-down. "Grady" is the TV-character I look a little like. The "Grady" name stuck, even long after Bradley went elsewhere. It stayed "Grady" until I retired.

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