# Sanders Meanders > Wandering About, One Day at a Time --- ## Pages - [1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die](https://sandersmeanders.com/1001-movies-you-must-see-before-you-die/): Steven Jay Schneider, general editor I have the fifth edition of this particular book, which sat on my coffee table... - [Drive-In Theaters](https://sandersmeanders.com/drive-in-theaters/): When Richard Hollingshead set up the first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey in 1933, it sparked a nationwide fad that peaked in the 1950s. - [Ohio To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/ohio-to-do-list/): I don’t get to Ohio that often, but the following shot made me want to visit. Immediately. Bun’s Restaurant, Delaware,... - [New York To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/new-york-to-do-list/): Town and Country Antiques, Liberty, NY Krug’s Stationery, Liberty, NY Webb’s Clothing, Walton, NY Vestal Motel, Vestal, NY Star Cleaners,... - [New Jersey To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/new-jersey-to-do-list/): Broadway Theater, Pitman, NJ Edgewood Motel, Bordentown, NJ Mast Pharmacy & Surgical Supply, Bordentown, NJ Edison Motor Lodge, Edison, NJ... - [Delaware To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/delaware-to-do-list/): The Charcoal Pit, Wilmington, DE Hollywood Motel, New Castle, DE Kirby and Holloway, Dover, DE Harry Louie Laundry, Dover, DE - [Maryland To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/maryland-to-do-list/): burpo - [New England To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/new-england-to-do-list/): Olympia Diner, Newington, CT The story behind the sign Donut Dip, West Springfield, MA Miss Florence Diner, Florence, MA George’s... - [Mid-Atlantic To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/pennsylvania-to-do-list/): This is a collection of signs in Pennsylvania that I have yet to take pictures of. Many are in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. - [South Atlantic To-Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/south-atlantic-to-do-list/): Virginia Satellite Restaurant, Richmond, VA Robert E Lee Motel (sign), Abingdon, VA Wright’s Dairy-Rite, Staunton, VA My journey to capture... - [Motels](https://sandersmeanders.com/motels/): You never view a motel quite the same way after watching "Psycho". All you have to do is see a motel sign and hills run down your spine. - [Scott's To Do List](https://sandersmeanders.com/scotts-to-do-list/): From time to time, when I have a free moment, I research signs I would like to get shots of... - [Diners](https://sandersmeanders.com/diners/): I’m not a diner guy. There, I said it. I love the signs, the chrome, the counters and the proximity of the chef to the people. But I'm not a diner guy. - [Vanishing America](https://sandersmeanders.com/vanishing-america/): The changes in American culture in the last thirty years have led to the disappearance of some great American icons. This is vanishing America. - [Movie Theaters](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie-theaters/): When the movies were young, a movie theater was in every town, and a grand marquee was an absolute necessity to draw in the people. --- ## Posts - [Question Everything](https://sandersmeanders.com/question-everything/): I have a rule, one that makes perfect sense to me: if a person has more than five bumper stickers... - [Can You Catch COVID From the Internet?](https://sandersmeanders.com/can-you-catch-covid-from-the-internet/): The answer may surprise you, when we come back... And we’re back. And no. The featured image I used for... - [The Brotherhood of the Rusty Ice Cream Sign](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-brotherhood-of-the-rusty-ice-cream-sign/): Let’s face it. We all love and feel nostalgia for the local ice cream stand. That wonderful building with a... - [The Search for True Meaning in Allentown](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-search-for-true-meaning-in-allentown/): We had one of those mornings. At the crack of 4:30, Cat exploded in a variety of meows, mows, and... - [To Be Continued](https://sandersmeanders.com/to-be-continued/): Since we last met, the summer ended and the fall arrived. I continued to write and take a few pictures,... - [Get It While It's in Season](https://sandersmeanders.com/get-it-while-its-in-season/): My father woke up one morning and said, “I need some french-fried lobster. ” Not only is the first line... - [Found: The Last of the Summer Couches](https://sandersmeanders.com/found-last-summer-couches/): One more for the road... - [A Lot Else, You See What I Mean](https://sandersmeanders.com/lot-else-see-mean/): Originally, when I wrote The Path Walker Evans Took, I had this idea that I would write a post solely... - [Death of a Flower: Protea](https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-protea/): For this series, I’ve been trying to find flowers that stay upright as long as possible. The idea of a... - [Found: Seriously? Another Couch](https://sandersmeanders.com/found-seriously-another-couch/): “There’s another one around the corner,” Laura said. Every smart answer I could think of flooded into my head. In... - [Summers by the Lake: Remembering John Margolies](https://sandersmeanders.com/summers-lake-remembering-john-margolies/): Last week, I saw an innocent little item Mod Betty had put on her Facebook page concerning the John Margolies... - [Found: Another Couch](https://sandersmeanders.com/found-another-couch/): It appears to be “Get Rid of Your Old Couch” season in Allentown. Maybe it’s peer pressure, that old oh-the-Petersens-are-throwing-out-their-couch-maybe-we-should-throw-out-ours... - [From Japan to Sweden without Leaving New Jersey](https://sandersmeanders.com/japan-sweden-without-leaving-new-jersey/): I kid New Jersey. We all kid New Jersey. After all, it’s hard not to kid New Jersey when they... - [Lost: Two Letters](https://sandersmeanders.com/lost-two-letters/): Ah, yes, you can see that there are two letters missing, but which two letters? You have 58 seconds. - [Lost: Corner of a Sectional Couch](https://sandersmeanders.com/lost-corner-sectional-couch/): The conversation reads in my head like this: Woman: We’ve got to get rid of this old couch. It’s so... - [The Path Walker Evans Took](https://sandersmeanders.com/path-walker-evans-took/): Walker Evans and I were not formally introduced. It had something to do with the fact that I was four... - [Death of a Flower: Gerber Daisy](https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-gerber-daisy/): After several different subjects, and finding that the flowers with the hardiest stems seemed to produce the best results for... - [Found: One Can of Whipped Cream](https://sandersmeanders.com/found-one-can-whipped-cream/): Things get left behind on trash day. It happens. And that’s what might have happened here, but upon closer inspection,... - [Found: One Shoe](https://sandersmeanders.com/found-one-shoe/): It happens. Kids lose their shoes, usually more out of design than out of carelessness. I even saw a child... - [Keep the Home Fires Burning](https://sandersmeanders.com/keep-home-fires-burning/): On the morning of my wedding, I woke up in the guest bed at a friend’s house. It was early... - [Lost and Found](https://sandersmeanders.com/lost-and-found/): Lately I’ve been finding a lot of interesting stuff out on the street. So much so that I’ve decided to... - [Death of a Flower - Sunflower](https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-sunflower/): During the experimental stages of the Death of a Flower project, I chose as one of my subjects a set... - [A Taste of the Finger Lakes](https://sandersmeanders.com/taste-finger-lakes/): Laura and I went our first wine tasting eight years ago, when we went down to Crossing Winery in Newtown,... - [No Good Story Starts in the Suburbs](https://sandersmeanders.com/no-good-story-starts-suburbs/): This isn't your father's Allentown. It's not even the Allentown of a few years ago. Allentown has undergone a resurgence as of late. - [When the Circus Left Town](https://sandersmeanders.com/circus-left-town/): Our life had been on hold for a few months while we prepared for our trip to Japan, so a... - [Riding Through the Streets of Tokyo. In a Go-Kart. In Costume.](https://sandersmeanders.com/riding-streets-tokyo-go-kart-costume/): by Laura Sanders When we were discussing our itinerary for Tokyo with my sister Hannah, she gave us a number... - [Better Than the Real Thing: Eating in Japan](https://sandersmeanders.com/better-than-the-real-thing/): One year for New Year’s, we went to a Japanese place in Bethlehem, called Kome. We had been there a... - [The Life of a Tourist](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-life-of-a-tourist/): At the path along the river, despite the gloomy day, everything opened up. It was our first full day in... - [The Inevitable Trip to Japan](https://sandersmeanders.com/inevitable-trip-japan/): We sat around my Mother-in-law’s apartment, the six of us: Laura’s sisters Rachel and Hannah, their husbands Derek and Dan,... - [Boy's Night Out](https://sandersmeanders.com/boys-night-out/): “Where are you? ” Laura said on the phone, through the car’s speakers. Busted. So, so busted. Well, there was... - [After the Storm](https://sandersmeanders.com/after-the-storm/): We passed by the Queen City Diner this morning. It was packed to the gills with customers. “I’ve always wanted... - [The Way That We Play](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-way-that-we-play/): There are many things that could be said about this year’s Super Bowl, but to sum it all up: everyone... - [The Death of a Flower: The Hydrangeas](https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-hydrangeas/): It’s an odd feeling, getting flowers for the strict purpose of watching them decay, but by now, having watched a... - [60 Thoughts on It's a Wonderful Life, Having Not Seen It for About a Year](https://sandersmeanders.com/60-thoughts-wonderful-life-not-seen-year/): As most of you do about this time of year, I over-indulge in Christmas movies. Lately we’ve been visiting the... - [Pictures of Cat](https://sandersmeanders.com/pictures-of-cat/): It used to bother me when I used to see someone’s Instagram feed entirely populated by pictures of that person’s... - [The Death of a Flower: The Iris](https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-iris/): After the first few shots with the roses, I moved on to a flower that was growing in our garden.... - [Another Time, Another Place](https://sandersmeanders.com/another-time-another-place/): As I mentioned before, it’s been really difficult to get out there and get some sign pictures. Vacations always allow... - [Cleaning the Ocean](https://sandersmeanders.com/cleaning-the-ocean/): Every year, we trek down to Daytona Beach, usually in October or November. It’s the time we use to get... - [The Death of a Flower](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-death-of-a-flower/): Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook or who have been following me on Instagram have seen... - [On the Cubs in the World Series](https://sandersmeanders.com/on-the-cubs-in-the-world-series/): I started out as a Red Sox fan. More or less, I was born into it, since half my family... - [We Have a Cat](https://sandersmeanders.com/we-have-a-cat/): We have a cat. I never wanted a cat. I’m pretty sure I never asked for a cat. Growing up,... - [Some Thoughts on Back to the Future](https://sandersmeanders.com/some-thoughts-on-back-to-the-future/): Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies. It’s the first movie I watched in the theater by... - [While I Was Away](https://sandersmeanders.com/while-i-was-away/): Quite honestly, I didn’t expect it would take this long for me to begin posting again. I had grand plans... - [The Spot, Bethlehem, PA (Cure for the Summertime Blues, Part 1)](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-spot-bethlehem-pa-cure-for-the-summertime-blues-part-1/): One of the great things about taking pictures of old neon signs is getting close to history. Much more than... - [The Missing Ghost of Pottstown](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-missing-ghost-of-pottstown/): A couple of years ago I made a trip to Pottstown, Pennsylvania because they had done a unique thing: they... - [Drexel Hill Style Pizza](https://sandersmeanders.com/drexel-hill-style-pizza/): One morning on my way to work, I made a detour off the Blue Route (I-476 around the west side... - [In Deepwater](https://sandersmeanders.com/in-deepwater/): I recently bought a replacement for my aging 75-300 Sigma lens, which pretty much ripped itself a new one from... - [Tick Tock Diner and Rutt's Hut](https://sandersmeanders.com/tick-tock-diner-and-rutts-hut/): The short version: since I got a new job, I’ve hardly had time to draw breath, so this is why... - [The Endings](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-endings/): This winter was harsh and not just because of the weather. In January, I learned that I was losing one... - [Knowing When to Leave](https://sandersmeanders.com/knowing-leave/): Overall, I’ve had pretty good success as far as getting shots of old signs and not having anyone complain. I... - [Hey There, Georgia Girl](https://sandersmeanders.com/hey-there-georgia-girl/): Back in 2013, I fully intended to make a stop at the Georgia Girl Drive-In in Woodbine, Georgia, but unfortunately, I ran out of time. - [Wildwood, Part 3](https://sandersmeanders.com/wildwood-part-3/): Due to the construction in Wildwood last October, we found ourselves diving down streets that we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. - [(You Say You Want a) Resolution](https://sandersmeanders.com/say-want-resolution/): Kwik Shoppe, Shoemakersville, PA from January 2014 At the top of this year, as we do every year, we talked... - [Wildwood, Part 2](https://sandersmeanders.com/wildwood-part-2/): The more you go through Wildwood, the greater the embarrassment of riches. Just going down a side road can lead... - [Wildwood](https://sandersmeanders.com/wildwood/): So I said, why not go to Wildwood? It's not tremendously far away, and I had been looking forward to going. - [The Philadelphia Food and Sign Festival](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-philadelphia-food-and-sign-festival/): There's also no such thing as the Philadelphia Food and Sign Festival, but there should be. - [The New Jersey Expeditions, Part 2](https://sandersmeanders.com/new-jersey-expeditions-part-2/): Autumn arrived, and at the start of it, death visited us on both ends of the spectrum. First it was... - [Binghamton by Night](https://sandersmeanders.com/binghamton-night/): This last Labor Day weekend, we headed back from Binghamton. The Red Oak Diner sign on Front Street suddenly sprung to life with new, red neon. - [The New Jersey Expeditions](https://sandersmeanders.com/new-jersey-expeditions/): My main target was Hy-Way Bowl in Union, New Jersey. The old US routes, as I've often said, are the best, and US 22 is one of the oldest. - [Farewell to the Port Motel](https://sandersmeanders.com/farewell-port-motel/): The news hit me last week that the Port Motel sign has officially disappeared. The Port was part of a bygone era when US routes ruled the roost. - [Philadelphia Freedoms, Part 3 (Termini Brothers)](https://sandersmeanders.com/philadelphia-freedoms-part-3-termini-brothers/): Termini Brothers was my last stop on my tour of Philly signs. It is on 8th Street in Philadelphia, which is a tunnel burrowed through row homes. - [Philadelphia Freedoms, Part 2](https://sandersmeanders.com/philadelphia-freedoms-part-2/): For part 1, click here I continued down Broad Street in the hopes of finding two more landmarks from my... - [Philadelphia Freedoms](https://sandersmeanders.com/philadelphia-freedoms/): There were several Philadelphia signs on my to do list. Despite the fact that it's easy access for me to cross them off my list, I still wasn't doing it. - [Won't you take me to (Quakertown)](https://sandersmeanders.com/quakertown/): I was coming back from the Quakertown Farmers' Market when I saw the sign for the News Agency, pondered its significance and its age, and pulled over. - [Turn In, Tune Out](https://sandersmeanders.com/turn-in-tune-out/): My initial shots of the Turn-In Family Restaurant in Bath, PA were some of the first sign pictures I took, and good ones, too. - [Broadening Horizons at Shankweiler's](https://sandersmeanders.com/broadening-horizons-shankweilers/): I went by Shankweiler's Drive-In Theater to get some shots. They have a terrific neon sign out on the road that points passers-by on PA 309 to the drive-in. - [A Test at Nick's Diner](https://sandersmeanders.com/test-nicks-diner/): I've been going around to signs and places nearby that I've taken shots of before. The most obvious choice for a test was Nick's Diner in Allentown. - [Another Roadside Attraction](https://sandersmeanders.com/another-roadside-attraction/): One of the happier pieces of news I have received in the past few days is the sign atop Roadside America in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania has been restored. - [Feng Shui and the Art of Hot Dog Maintenance](https://sandersmeanders.com/feng-shui-and-the-art-of-hot-dog-maintenance/): On Saturday, I made good on a promise I made to Laura a while ago, to take her to Hot Dog Johnny's in Buttzville, New Jersey. - [Testing...Testing...](https://sandersmeanders.com/testing-testing/): Allow me to get technical for a moment. It’s been an odd year for us this year. It started out... - [Out of the Past](https://sandersmeanders.com/out-of-the-past/): As you might imagine, I have a pretty sizable love for old stuff, so on occasion I’ve been known to... - [Update on Ellis Brothers](https://sandersmeanders.com/update-on-ellis-brothers/): The good news first: since it was the Contemporary Furniture store owned by Ellis Brothers that burned down, and since... - [Where Credit Is Due](https://sandersmeanders.com/where-credit-is-due/): Hand lettered sign, Helmrich’s Seafood, Williamsport, PA One of the coolest things to happen to me in a while happened... - [At the Last Minute](https://sandersmeanders.com/at-the-last-minute/): Let’s back up a bit. A few months ago, I put out a post called “Tales of Philly Sales,” about... - [The San Antonio Food and Sign Festival: The Leftovers](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-the-leftovers/): As I said before, the weather turned nasty the last few days we were in San Antonio, so there wasn’t... - [The San Antonio Food and Sign Festival, Day 3: Austin Bound](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-day-3-austin-bound/): Here’s what’s great about my sister-in-law Hannah: on the day that we had planned to make the drive up to... - [The San Antonio Food and Sign Festival, Day 2](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-day-2/): We woke up on our second day in San Antonio to homemade granola and Cafe de Olla. This was going... - [The San Antonio Food and Sign Festival, Day One](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-day-one/): For a number of years, Laura's sister, the esteemed Chef Hannah, has been living in San Antonio with her husband, the esteemed Dr. Dan. - [Surrounded by Reality](https://sandersmeanders.com/surrounded-by-reality/): From time to time I find myself in the confines of Ithaca, New York, that stalwart college town at the... - [Different Signs, Different Seasons](https://sandersmeanders.com/different-signs-different-seasons/): During one summer day last year, I found myself with a bit of time, a bit of hunger, and proximity... - [At First You Don't Succeed](https://sandersmeanders.com/at-first-you-dont-succeed/): Tuesday ended up being a very interesting day. I had planned to take Laura in to work on my way,... - [What Gets You Through the Winter](https://sandersmeanders.com/what-gets-you-through-the-winter/): It was cold today, which officially makes the winter redundant. The Northeast has been brutal this year, with wind chills... - [The Learning](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-learning/): A friend of mine once said that he liked the fall because it reminded him of going back to high... - [Reinvention](https://sandersmeanders.com/reinvention/): Stop me if I’ve said this before, but it had great impact: a few months ago I was listening to... - [The End of Limbo](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-end-of-limbo/): For the last few months I’ve been trying to concoct a post on signs in the Central Susquehanna Valley in... - [Tales of Philly Sales](https://sandersmeanders.com/tales-of-philly-sales/): Philadelphia Sales Company, or Philly Sales as they were more commonly known, was the Wal-Mart before there was Wal-Mart, and I loved it. - [Mission Accomplished](https://sandersmeanders.com/mission-accomplished/): The sun was at our backs, slowly disappearing behind the comfort of Virginia hilltops. We hadn’t said anything to each... - [A Bit of Old Florida](https://sandersmeanders.com/a-bit-of-old-florida/): When my grandparents moved to Florida in the mid-80s, it was inevitable that we would go down to visit them.... - [What Is to Come](https://sandersmeanders.com/what-is-to-come/): It was windy on the beach at Daytona during the middle of the week. Not nasty enough to pick up... - [Gone Fishin' (for Signs)](https://sandersmeanders.com/gone-fishin-for-signs/): I suppose the mark of whether you are a good employee is the amount of work that piles upon you... - [Ugly/Beautiful](https://sandersmeanders.com/uglybeautiful/): What is it that draws us to abandoned and broken places? Is it simply just because they are different from... - [Save the Drive-In](https://sandersmeanders.com/save-the-drive-in/): In passing by a storefront in Lewisburg just recently, I saw a flyer for Project Drive-In, an initiative started by... - [The Heart of Easton](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-heart-of-easton/): For the last four years, I’ve had cause to go in to Easton, PA once a week. It’s the hometown... - [The Long Lost Video of Auburn](https://sandersmeanders.com/the-long-lost-video-of-auburn/): While I was digging up stuff for the last post, I finally got around to editing the video I had... - [An Engagement](https://sandersmeanders.com/an-engagement/): Last year at this time, my sister-in-law Rachel wanted to know if we would be available to take some engagement... - [Neon Dreams and Neon Missions](https://sandersmeanders.com/neon-dreams-and-neon-missions/): Closing Up at Zandy’s in Allentown, PA, 2009. A few days ago I had a dream. Don’t laugh, but it... - [Happy Birthday to My Oma!](https://sandersmeanders.com/happy-birthday-to-my-oma/): Completely off the subject of signs and completely on the subject of stories, here is a very special happy birthday... - [Old Friends](https://sandersmeanders.com/old-friends/): Picking up where I left off last week... New Jersey is strangely familiar to both of us. After all, Laura’s... - [This Week on Jersey Shore](https://sandersmeanders.com/this-week-on-jersey-shore/): “It was an education,” Laura said, when the day was all over. Like just about everyone we know, we have... - [Highway 61 Revisited](https://sandersmeanders.com/highway-61-revisited/): For a number of years, we would travel along PA 61 through the heart of Coal Country to get to... - [Roads (Slightly) Less Traveled](https://sandersmeanders.com/roads-slightly-less-traveled/): Signhunting is not an exact science. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of resources out there for discovering where... --- ## Movies - [Annie Hall](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/annie-hall/): “We needed the eggs. ” It’s the punchline of the joke Woody Allen tells at the beginning of the movie,... - [The French Connection](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/the-french-connection/): It’s been about a week and (as of this moment) there hasn’t been any significant development in the death of... - [Titanic](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/titanic/): When I was ten years old, my uncle decided to take me and my cousin fishing in Boston Harbor, which... - [The Pink Panther](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/the-pink-panther/): Over the last few years, this movie’s rating on IMDb has slowly gone down, and it seems apparent why: it’s... - [Eraserhead](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/eraserhead/): David Lynch just passed away yesterday. He will probably be best remembered for Twin Peaks, but he is also responsible for four movies on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, including Mullholland Drive, The Elephant Man, and Blue Velvet. - [Airplane](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/airplane/): When Airplane! was released in the summer of 1980, it followed a trailer that was totally in keeping with the... - [Jules and Jim](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/jules-and-jim/): When you start getting deep into the great movies of the past, eventually you’re going to run in to the... - [Star Wars](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/star-wars/): I don’t sleep well, and I never have. Even when I was very small, I would very often get out... - [Blow-Up](https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/blow-up/): It’s been a tradition of ours to eat pizza, drink a cocktail, and watch a movie together on Friday nights.... --- # # Detailed Content ## Pages - Published: 2024-08-18 - Modified: 2025-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/1001-movies-you-must-see-before-you-die/ Steven Jay Schneider, general editor I have the fifth edition of this particular book, which sat on my coffee table for years. I don't think I ever had the idea to actually go for it and watch every single one until 2020, when I was suddenly given a bit more time to think about movies and death. This was my COVID-era project: pre-pandemic, I had watched a little less than 300 of these, and now I am up to over 650. I will be reviewing the ones I've seen, but in kind of a different way. Most of the reviews won't necessarily be about the movies themselves, but more about personal stories I have concerning these. The ones I've seen so far are in bold, and linked entries have reviews. You'll notice that whenever you come up to a movie that is in the genre of horror, or a movie that has a lot of blood in it, or even There Will Be Blood, that movie is not in bold. I don't like to watch movies with any kind of gore in it, I'm admittedly a terrific chicken about such things, so please don't judge me for not watching Halloween or The Shining or Nightmare on Elm Street. Thank you in advance. -Management You'll also probably notice that there are over 1001 movies on this list, and this is not in error. This is due to the fact that, with each new edition, movies are added and subtracted, so the... --- > When Richard Hollingshead set up the first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey in 1933, it sparked a nationwide fad that peaked in the 1950s. - Published: 2014-06-23 - Modified: 2014-06-23 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/drive-in-theaters/ When Richard Hollingshead set up the first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey in 1933, it sparked a nationwide fad that peaked in the 1950s. At one point, the United States had as many as four thousand, but, due to television and multiplex theaters, that number has dwindled to the mid-300s. The necessity for these these theaters to have digital projectors by the end of 2013 further lowered the amount of working drive-ins. Here are some of the drive-ins I have encountered along the way: Shankweiler's Drive-In, Orefield, PA Shankweiler's is the oldest active drive-in theater in the country, and the second in existence, opening in 1934. Fortunately, this theater has thrived in the face of the extinction of so many others. The Pike Drive-In, Montgomery, PA Featuring three screens, the Pike opened up in the golden age of the drive-in in 1953. They continue to show movies despite the advent of digital conversion and is among the theaters listed on Honda's Project Drive-In. Fingerlakes Drive-In, Auburn, NY The Fingerlakes Drive-In along US route 20 in between Auburn and Seneca Falls, NY, and is the oldest operating drive-in in the state, continuously operating since 1947. There's a white picket fence around the theater and a cool red Dodge that sits year round in front of its sign. Unfortunately, this one, too is in need of a digital projector. Their page for donations is located here. Mahoning Drive-In, Lehighton, PA The Mahoning Drive-In's owners of 15 years have recently announced... --- - Published: 2013-08-21 - Modified: 2013-08-21 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/ohio-to-do-list/ I don't get to Ohio that often, but the following shot made me want to visit. Immediately. Bun's Restaurant, Delaware, OH (their sign is in the MIDDLE OF THE FRICKIN STREET. I'm in love. ) 40 Motel, Columbus, OH Million's Cafe, Cincinnati, OH Balyeat's Coffee Shop, Van Wert, OH --- - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2017-05-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/new-york-to-do-list/ Town and Country Antiques, Liberty, NY Krug's Stationery, Liberty, NY Webb's Clothing, Walton, NY Vestal Motel, Vestal, NY Star Cleaners, Vestal, NY Chanticleer, Ithaca, NY State Theater, Ithaca, NY Happy Landing, Ovid, NY Henderson's Drug Store, Penn Yan, NY Community Restaurant, Cortland, NY Chuck Wagon Diner, Duanesburg, NY West Taghkanic Diner, Ancram, NY Martha's Dandee Creme, Queensbury, NY First Prize Mike's, Schenectady, NY Lombardo's Grill, Albany, NY Chief Martindale Diner, Craryville, NY --- - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2017-07-21 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/new-jersey-to-do-list/ Broadway Theater, Pitman, NJ Edgewood Motel, Bordentown, NJ Mast Pharmacy & Surgical Supply, Bordentown, NJ Edison Motor Lodge, Edison, NJ Circus Drive-In, Wall Township, NJ Hy-Way Bowl, Union, NJ Bayville Liquor Store, Bayville, NJ White Manna, Hackensack, NJ Bendix Diner, Hasbrouck Heights, NJ Moon Motel, Howell, NJ Olga's Diner, Marlton, NJ (closed) Tick Tock Diner, Clifton, NJ Arlington Diner, N. Arlington, NJ Lyndhurst Diner, Lyndhurst, NJ Clam Broth House, Hoboken , NJ Hot Dog Johnny's, Buttzville, NJ Hunter's Lodge, Delaware, NJ --- - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2017-05-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/delaware-to-do-list/ The Charcoal Pit, Wilmington, DE Hollywood Motel, New Castle, DE Kirby and Holloway, Dover, DE Harry Louie Laundry, Dover, DE --- - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2013-08-09 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/maryland-to-do-list/ burpo --- - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2013-08-09 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/new-england-to-do-list/ Olympia Diner, Newington, CT The story behind the sign Donut Dip, West Springfield, MA Miss Florence Diner, Florence, MA George's Coney Island, Worcester, MA Day and Night Diner, Palmer, MA Al Mac's Diner, Fall River, MA Mill Pond Diner, Wareham, MA --- > This is a collection of signs in Pennsylvania that I have yet to take pictures of. Many are in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2017-07-26 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/pennsylvania-to-do-list/ Pennsylvania New York New Jersey Pennsylvania This is a collection of signs in Pennsylvania that I have yet to take pictures of. Many are in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. Lincolnway Lanes, York, PA Tropical Treat, Hanover, PA (in truth, I have a blurry picture of this one, taken from a moving car) Molly Pitcher Waffle Shop, Chambersburg, PA Carlisle Theater, Carlisle, PA Glenside Hardware, Glenside, PA Avery's Flower Shop, Jermyn, PA Miss Oxford Diner, Oxford, PA Rite Spot Motel, Fayetteville, PA Lansdowne Theater, Lansdowne, PA Llanerch Diner, Upper Darby, PA (strictly because I saw Silver Linings Playbook and freaked) Click here for the article Melrose Diner, Philadelphia, PA Click here for the article Stein Flowers, Philadelphia, PA Dolphin Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Boot and Saddle, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The story about this sign is here Termini Bros, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The story about this sign is here Philip's Restaurant, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The story about this sign is here Divine Lorraine Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (love this shot from up top) Click here for the article New York Town and Country Antiques, Liberty, NY Krug's Stationery, Liberty, NY Webb's Clothing, Walton, NY Vestal Motel, Vestal, NY Star Cleaners, Vestal, NY Chanticleer, Ithaca, NY State Theater, Ithaca, NY Happy Landing, Ovid, NY Henderson's Drug Store, Penn Yan, NY Auburn Diner, Auburn, NY Uncle Joe's Pizza, Geneva, NY The Deluxe, Geneva, NY Community Restaurant, Cortland, NY Crazy Otto's Empire Diner, Herkimer, NY Chuck Wagon Diner, Duanesburg, NY West Taghkanic Diner, Ancram, NY The story about the... --- - Published: 2013-08-09 - Modified: 2017-05-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/south-atlantic-to-do-list/ Virginia Satellite Restaurant, Richmond, VA Robert E Lee Motel (sign), Abingdon, VA Wright's Dairy-Rite, Staunton, VA My journey to capture this sign is here. Delaware The Charcoal Pit, Wilmington, DE Hollywood Motel, New Castle, DE Kirby and Holloway, Dover, DE Harry Louie Laundry, Dover, DE --- > You never view a motel quite the same way after watching "Psycho". All you have to do is see a motel sign and hills run down your spine. - Published: 2013-07-24 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/motels/ You never view a motel quite the same way after watching "Psycho". To a certain extent, most of the motels still kicking around kind of resemble the black-and-white world Anthony Perkins seems eternally stuck in. Business has been slow since they diverted the highway. Chills run down your spine. And maybe I'll wait to take a shower when I get home later this afternoon. Here are a few of my favorites from my travels: Port Motel, Port Trevorton, PA The Port Motel sign was one of the most recognizable sights along the Susquehanna on US 11 and 15 in Central Pennsylvania. It has since gone on to sign heaven, somewhere in 2013-2104. More pictures of this old beauty in this article and Vanishing America. The Shangri-La Motel, New Smyrna Beach, FL This gem is back from the days of individual cottages. On the day I took these pictures, I happened upon the owner of the motel. She says that the local architectural school comes by every once in a while with a group of students to take a look. According to her, the neon in the sign hasn't worked since a storm a few years ago. Hawaii Motel, Daytona Beach, FL I've stopped by this one a couple of times. On my most recent trip, I got to see it lit up at neon magic hour. Morrison Motel, Hershey, PA Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago. This is another guessing game as to whether it is open... --- - Published: 2013-07-03 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/scotts-to-do-list/ From time to time, when I have a free moment, I research signs I would like to get shots of and then I write them down on a piece of paper or a notebook that I promptly lose. Having just come across one such slip of paper, I felt it was high time that I create a better system. And here it is, my online version of my sign to-do list, but here's the fun part... well, maybe not the fun part, but what passes for fun on a rainy Wednesday... I'm leaving this open to comments, so if you see any signs on this list that have since disappeared, or if you have any other suggestions that are not in Antarctica or the Yukon, I would greatly appreciate it! Wherever possible, I'll try to put a link to a picture of the sign. Any and all suggestions are welcome! I soon realized that there are far too many entries to be contained here without it getting annoying... so I've broken down the list to regions: var map0 = new FlaMap(map_cfg); map0. drawOnDomReady('map-container-0'); map0. on('click', function(ev, sid, map) { jQuery('#freeHtmlMapStateInfo0'). html(''); var link = map. mapConfig. map_data; if (link == '#info') { var id = map. mapConfig. map_data; jQuery('#freeHtmlMapStateInfo0'). html('Loading... '); jQuery. ajax({ type: 'POST', url: 'https://sandersmeanders. com/index. php? freemap_get_state_info='+id+'&map_id=0', success: function(data, textStatus, jqXHR){ jQuery('#freeHtmlMapStateInfo0'). html(data); }, dataType: 'text' }); } }); More signs to come as I get to them. I also have a pictorial depiction of them on... --- > I’m not a diner guy. There, I said it. I love the signs, the chrome, the counters and the proximity of the chef to the people. But I'm not a diner guy. - Published: 2013-05-15 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/diners/ So about here is where I start looking like a fraud. I’m not a diner guy. There. I said it. I love the signs, I love the chrome, I love the counters and the proximity of the cooks to the general public. I’m generally in favor of long, thin buildings and my views on paper hats border on lionization. There’s just one problem that I see in this whole argument: I love everything about the diner culture, but as hard as I try, I usually dislike the food. As a result, even though I have taken many, many pictures of diners, I have very infrequently eaten at any of them. I’m more in love with the idea of a diner. Which I guess makes me more of a diner theorist than a diner guy. However, before you all shout “Faker” and get out the rope, I will tell you that I have eaten at least one of the establishments on this page. However, my opinions of the food contained thereof I hereby keep to myself to protect the guilty party. The Garfield Diner, Pottsville, PA The Garfield has been closed for two years at the taking of this picture, but plans are in the works to re-open it. Whether it has or not is a mystery, and I haven't been by Pottsville recently to see if it has. Let me know if you know anything about this. By the way, did my mountain goat impression to get the black-and-white shot...... --- > The changes in American culture in the last thirty years have led to the disappearance of some great American icons. This is vanishing America. - Published: 2013-05-07 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/vanishing-america/ Moments in time pass so quickly. If you're fond of grabbing those historical picture booklets you see in book stores, you realize how much a place can change in the course of years. I'm so grateful for those people who took the shots that fill those pages, because without them we would be missing great chunks of history. This is vanishing America. This page, I'm afraid, is reserved for the epitaphs of the fallen. It seems incredible to think that all the pictures on this page have been taken since 2009, and this many of them are already no more. The Mel-Dor Motel, Bechtelsville, PA My wife and I passed by here one night in 2010 at what I call "neon magic hour," the hour after the sun goes down and the neon signs come to life. I kind of wanted to go home, but I thought, "Now is the perfect time to get a shot of this," so off route 100 we went, I balanced my car precariously off the road, and snapped away. I got a decent bunch, of which I believe this is the best. A few months later we passed by and the sign was gone. When I think I could have passed these shots up that night, I almost get mad at myself. I look at this one and think, don't ever pass on a shot because you're tired or this or that or the other. Life will pass by, and you don't want to... --- > When the movies were young, a movie theater was in every town, and a grand marquee was an absolute necessity to draw in the people. - Published: 2013-03-06 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie-theaters/ When the movies were young, a movie theater was in every town, and a grand marquee was an absolute necessity to draw in the people. My father-in-law remembers four movie theaters in his hometown in New Jersey. But now, years after the multiplex theater became the norm rather than the exception, these old one-screen theaters and their marvelous signs are gradually dying out. Anthony Wayne Theatre, Wayne, PA The Anthony Wayne opened first as a stage theater. It opened as a movie theater in 1928, and gradually as the years went on, they subdivided the space into smaller screens. The theater currently has five screens. You can't see him from here, but the helpful lad behind the ticket booth told us all the history. Good lad. The Strand, Kutztown, PA The Strand has been in continuous operation since it opened in 1916, making it one of the longest-running theaters in the country. They made it a two-screen sometime in the 80s. The Watson, Watsontown, PA Watsontown, PA has had a theater in this spot since the 20s. The original burned down, and a few years later, this one was put up in the same spot. It closed its doors in 2009 and is currently for sale. The Angela, Coaldale, PA A happier story with this one. This gem in the coal region of Pennsylvania opened in 1940 and closed at the beginning of the 1970s. It sat basically untouched until it was restored in the late 90s. As I understand... --- --- ## Posts - Published: 2024-08-18 - Modified: 2024-08-18 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/question-everything/ - Categories: Meanderings I have a rule, one that makes perfect sense to me: if a person has more than five bumper stickers on the back of his or her car, that person should be questioned by the appropriate authorities. Over the years, I've made revisions to this rule: for instance, flags count as two bumper stickers, depictions of sports teams count as half a bumper sticker each, and bumper stickers that are unreadable or offensive count as three. If you have a bumper sticker that declares your love for a dog, this does not count toward your total, but if you have one that says "I love my Granddogs," society should step in. All this to say, I really, really hate bumper stickers. Question Everything is one of those bumper sticker slogans that's been around for years, and I must admit, in the past, every time I saw it, I could feel a bit of anger rising up inside me and the knee-jerk thought, You don't tell me what to do. It's a confrontational statement whether it wants to be or not, and as a bumper sticker it frankly sucks, because no one really wants to question everything, unless you're on the Schuykill Expressway during rush hour. And anyway, there's too much at stake to question everything, so what's the point? The point is, we don't always know what we're seeing. The image above is a great example: when you first look at it, you might think this is a painting or... --- - Published: 2024-08-04 - Modified: 2024-08-04 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/can-you-catch-covid-from-the-internet/ - Categories: Meanderings The answer may surprise you, when we come back... And we're back. And no. The featured image I used for this post is a picture I took on my way to work in 2019. I had my camera in my bag and the usual Philly traffic was raging outside, and as our cars marched slowly through the EZPass sensors, I managed to fish my K-1 out and blindly fire off this shot. It's not perfect. It barely catches the subject I meant to get. It's mostly in focus, but not really. There are a million flaws with it and yet I can't stop looking at it. I was listening to a podcast while working from home, and it was the first thing I ever heard about the then-coronavirus, later COVID-19. We were still in the "sales of Corona beer are tanking" stage of the pandemic, a moment so foolish that we care to forget about it, and yet, it seems like something equally strange and foolish has been quick to replace it in the days and years since. The podcast told me about what was to come: deaths, hospitals filling up, quarantines, all the things that were to come in the next month, and I said what just about everybody else did at the time. It will never come to that. It just sounded like someone who wanted to get some unwarranted attention, pay it no mind. Laura and I did as much as everyone else did: we gathered as... --- - Published: 2018-03-31 - Modified: 2019-04-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-brotherhood-of-the-rusty-ice-cream-sign/ - Categories: Signs and Stories Let's face it. We all love and feel nostalgia for the local ice cream stand. That wonderful building with a lot of glass in the front, a sliding window, a towering swirl on a sugar cone, and usually, an old sign on top, lighting up the night, welcoming in your poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe soft serve. For many, the opening of the ice cream stand is the sign that spring is here, with the promise of many summer days ahead. My local was the Jones' Humdinger on the north side of Binghamton. They open in late March, so the ice cream season is just as likely as not to coincide with the end of winter. Yet people are willing to stand outside for their ice cream then, in the hopes to capture a bit of sunshine. The Humdinger still has the old sign that was there forty years ago. Here in Allentown, the Ritz Barbecue has an ice cream stand with some of the best I've ever had. Plus, they have a terrific old sign. This sign, in part, led me to start the hashtag on Instagram #rustyicecream, dedicated to these seasonal paradises. There are quite a few still going in the Northeast, due to the fact that we never get tired of ice cream in the summer, so any chance I get to visit another local parlor, I get on over there. Needless to say, when I discovered there was a beauty I missed in the Scranton... --- - Published: 2018-03-11 - Modified: 2018-03-31 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-search-for-true-meaning-in-allentown/ - Categories: Meanderings We had one of those mornings. At the crack of 4:30, Cat exploded in a variety of meows, mows, and MERRROWRRRS until we woke up and gave him running water from the bathtub he felt he so richly deserved. As we didn't have to go to work that day, we did as we do most mornings, drink our coffee while contemplating how we can ship Cat off to a more forgiving family. In Argentina, preferably. Cat, destroyer of dreams As this point in the conversation can take a turn for the dark, we changed the subject to something lighter. We had just bought a new TV stand, and it was sitting in the living room all bright and beautiful. Our TV had been resting on the cedar chest, and in order to use it for the purpose in which it was intended, we had to lift the TV off to open the lid. Not so bad with the current LED, but before these days of lighter televisions, we had an old CRT which weighed roughly 14 tons. "How long have we had the TV on the cedar chest? " I asked. I immediately regretted it. The answer to that question was going to be far too depressing. But that's how the winter is in the north. It goes on so long that when you think back to a time it wasn't winter, even that isn't enough to cheer you up. This winter has been especially dark and cold, and on... --- - Published: 2017-12-30 - Modified: 2018-03-11 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/to-be-continued/ - Categories: Meanderings, Photography Since we last met, the summer ended and the fall arrived. I continued to write and take a few pictures, but nothing momentous or amazing was going on, so I was feeling like I would need to post something just to post something. And that's never good. By the time we got to October, it was time for vacation, and for Daytona Beach, which I figured would give me something to write about. Storms had come through as they had the year before, but instead of flip-flops and glasses and televisions washing up on shore as they had during Matthew, all we got this year was seaweed. And not just seaweed, but SEAWEED. We visited the St. Augustine Lighthouse, which was something we wanted to do for a long time and never got around to: All of this was interesting, and I admired the photographs as I got home, but overall I didn't feel like anything happened. We went to the beach, we ate seafood, we listened to the ocean at night, and yet, when it was all done, I didn't feel like much of anything happened and I didn't feel like our vacation felt like a vacation. Not true, of course, as I look back on it. But a malaise is a malaise, I didn't post anything, and I wasn't really taking much, if any, pictures. So the question is, when you feel like this, what do you do about it? You don't talk about things. You do things.... --- - Published: 2017-09-27 - Modified: 2017-12-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/get-it-while-its-in-season/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: beach haven, howards, new jersey My father woke up one morning and said, "I need some french-fried lobster. " Not only is the first line of a novel I will not write, but it is also a fact. I might have been a teenager when that fateful morning occurred, but if I was, I would have been in just under the wire. Having spoken the words I need some french-fried lobster, he got into the Toyota and started it up. Mom and I followed him to the car, figuring it was best not to let him go on this quest alone. He knew of only one place in the world where such things as french-fried lobster existed. The previous summer, we had made our way to the Jersey shore and found a place called Howard's in Beach Haven, for whom this was a specialty. We arrived on Long Beach Island, found a hotel, made our way to Howard's, had dinner, stayed the night, and drove back. In my adult life, I have been plagued by the phrase Oh, I can't do that. I think to a certain extent we all suffer from it, even those that jump out of planes for fun. It seems too simple: I want to do this, no one will be harmed if I do this, all it will cost me is time and effort, and in the end, I'll have a story that will last the rest of our lives. And yet, we resist. That seems like a lot of... --- - Published: 2017-08-29 - Modified: 2017-08-29 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/found-last-summer-couches/ - Categories: Lost and Found - Tags: lost and found One more for the road... --- - Published: 2017-08-24 - Modified: 2017-10-02 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/lot-else-see-mean/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: walker evans Originally, when I wrote The Path Walker Evans Took, I had this idea that I would write a post solely on what Walker Evans, if he were still alive, would take pictures of today. This post was to feature several pictures that I would take myself: a) in color, because I personally don't think he would have continued to be bound by the confines of black and white, and b) on my iPhone, because in the latter days of his life, he had taken to the latest technology, the Polaroid instant camera. This post will never happen. You see, in all the research I did for this, I came across a list he wrote in 1934 a list of picture categories: things he had shot, and presumably, wanted to shoot. I had read Evans' list before, and I had planned to make this the basis of the pictures I was going to take. It went as follows: People, all classes, surrounded by bunches of the new down and out. Automobiles and the automobile landscape. Architecture, American Urban taste, commerce, small scale, large scale, the city atmosphere, the street smell, the hateful stuff, women's clubs, fake culture, bad education, religion in decay. The movies. Evidence of what people of the city read, eat, see for amusement, do for relaxation and not get it. Sex. Advertising. A lot else, you see what I mean. The next logical step was to take pictures of these things, or failing that, their 2017 equivalents. I... --- - Published: 2017-08-16 - Modified: 2017-08-16 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-protea/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: death of a flower For this series, I've been trying to find flowers that stay upright as long as possible. The idea of a drooping, wilted flower is really appealing at first, until you realize that, for the most part, wilted flowers pretty much look the same. I went with sunflowers, and loved the result. I started to look for more flowers with hearty stems, and one day, while at the nursery, I found something I didn't know existed in nature. Behold, the pincushion protea. They had two of them, and it didn't take a second for me to decide that this would be my next subject. I saw the hearty stems, the strange, unearthly center and the curly tendrils on the outside, and I was entranced. This one pictured above also had these wonderful ribbon-like portions woven through it. I couldn't wait to see what results this would bring. At the nursery, the woman who checked us out lamented, "I love these. We don't get them in that often. Unfortunately, they don't last. " I assured her that it wouldn't be a problem. I took this shot on day 1, and I loved the look of it, the almost mirror-like effect. So much so, I decided that for these flowers, I would shoot a similar shot during each session. The woman at the nursery was quite right. By day 6, the pincushion proteas had already transformed. The color had faded and the head had dropped. The beautiful extensions had become disorganized, like unruly... --- - Published: 2017-08-09 - Modified: 2017-08-09 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/found-seriously-another-couch/ - Categories: Lost and Found - Tags: lost and found "There's another one around the corner," Laura said. Every smart answer I could think of flooded into my head. In this case, though, I knew what she was talking about. As you know, Allentown has been littered with old couches waiting to be picked up for the morning trash. This was the third in a month. I strapped the camera around my shoulder and headed up the street. Laura had spotted it out of the corner of her eye, so she didn't see that it was not one couch, but a loveseat jammed into a couch. So, all tolled, we have had four sightings in The Season of the Couch. Stay tuned. I'll probably find another one tomorrow. --- - Published: 2017-08-04 - Modified: 2017-08-24 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/summers-lake-remembering-john-margolies/ - Categories: Photography, Signs and Stories Last week, I saw an innocent little item Mod Betty had put on her Facebook page concerning the John Margolies collection that the Library of Congress put out recently. John Margolies passed away last year, and the LOC was providing those interested with a look at over 11,000 images he had taken over the years of roadside architecture and signage. The name seemed somewhat familiar, so I did what we all do, I went to Google with a bunch of questions about John Margolies, and they provided the necessary information on who he was, and examples of his work. The picture Google put next to the name stopped me dead in my tracks. It was 1989. I saw an ad in the newspaper for a waiter position for a resort called Scott's Oquaga Lake House. My only previous work experience had been a summer at McDonald's, and I wasn't prepared to go back to that, so I called the number on the ad and set up an interview. The place I was going was in Deposit, which was over 20 miles from my house, but this was truly a case of beggars not being able to be choosers. I needed a job, any job. Scott's Oquaga Lake House sounded like the perfect place for me to work, and in a lot of ways, it was. It was minimum wage, no tips, and I could stay in a room on the campus (for a fee) and eat my meals in the... --- - Published: 2017-08-02 - Modified: 2017-08-02 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/found-another-couch/ - Categories: Lost and Found - Tags: lost and found It appears to be "Get Rid of Your Old Couch" season in Allentown. Maybe it's peer pressure, that old oh-the-Petersens-are-throwing-out-their-couch-maybe-we-should-throw-out-ours feeling. Be that as it may, free couches are available in Allentown. Stop by for tremendous savings! --- - Published: 2017-07-29 - Modified: 2017-07-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/japan-sweden-without-leaving-new-jersey/ - Categories: Photography, Signs and Stories - Tags: clam broth house, clifton, jersey diner, new jersey, rutt's hut, signs and stories I kid New Jersey. We all kid New Jersey. After all, it's hard not to kid New Jersey when they present you with things like this: (Those of you not from New Jersey, this is the Cannonball Loop from Action Park, a ride so unsafe they shut it down after a month. Reportedly they sent dummies down it to test it, and after one came down with all its limbs intact, it was declared safe. ) But say what you will about New Jersey, they do pull a Springsteen out of their hat every once in a while. Laura's sister Hannah contacted us a few weeks ago from Japan. She read up somewhere about a Japanese market called Mitsuwa which had all the comforts of home, provided your home is in Japan. There were several in California, one in Hawaii, one in Texas, and one—you guessed right—in Edgewater, New Jersey, directly across the Hudson from Manhattan. She asked if we were willing to check it out and we said Oh, gee, if we have to. Since our Tokyo trip, there were many delicacies we were craving. We made a list. I made another list, or at least, I already had a list. This part of New Jersey was uncharted waters for me, and there were many, many signs I wished to capture. I talked Laura in to going to Clam Broth House in Hoboken before we went to Mitsuwa, owing to the fact that a) it was technically on the... --- - Published: 2017-07-26 - Modified: 2017-07-26 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/lost-two-letters/ - Categories: Lost and Found - Tags: lost and found Ah, yes, you can see that there are two letters missing, but which two letters? You have 58 seconds. --- - Published: 2017-07-20 - Modified: 2017-07-20 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/lost-corner-sectional-couch/ - Categories: Lost and Found - Tags: lost and found The conversation reads in my head like this: Woman: We've got to get rid of this old couch. It's so old and... Man: I like it fine in the basement where it is. Woman: It's not even good enough for the basement. Honestly, I'm embarrassed to have it in the house. We've got to take it to Goodwill. Man: Hmph. All right, I'll get the truck. Twenty minutes later: If you have any other thoughts as to how this could have gotten on the side of PA 309, please let me know! --- - Published: 2017-07-18 - Modified: 2017-07-25 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/path-walker-evans-took/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: bethlehem, easton, pennsylvania, phillipsburg, walker evans Walker Evans and I were not formally introduced. It had something to do with the fact that I was four years old when he died and we didn't run in the same circles, something like that. He was a photographer who is most known for documenting the south during the height of the Depression. I ate paste. When I first started doing Instagram, I posted a picture of the Flour Mill above. One of my friends, who is an architect and knows about stuff, complimented me and said it reminded him of Walker Evans. I thanked him, then promptly Googled 'Walker Evans. ' Pretty quickly, I realized how much of a compliment it was, even though I had no intention of taking this or any other picture in anybody's style. Then, a few months later, I crossed over the Free Bridge from Easton, PA to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. There were a couple of neons in Phillipsburg I was after, including Eddie's Drive-In, right along the river. A friend had mentioned Jimmy's Hot Dogs was a good place to eat, and it was within walking distance of where I was, so I toddled on over and got a couple of their finest. Along the walls they had pictures, old, historic. They were by Walker Evans. He had been to this spot back in the 30's, had taken a picture of Jimmy's original location. It was odd to me, that he had some connection to the area. Most of the pictures I... --- - Published: 2017-07-14 - Modified: 2017-07-19 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-gerber-daisy/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: death of a flower After several different subjects, and finding that the flowers with the hardiest stems seemed to produce the best results for this "Death of a Flower" series I've been working on, you would think I would continue on this path, wouldn't you? I couldn't resist. The sunflowers showed me how vibrant colors showed up in the studio, so when I saw these gerber daisies, I knew they had to be the next group. The centers looked like eyes, how could I say no? The stems weren't that thin, and in fact, when I looked at the back of them, it appeared that a wilted version of this flower might be very interesting. I took several shots from the reverse side the first day I had them. I wasn't worried about the petals falling off like they had with the lilies I had tried out a few weeks earlier. I was more anxious about wilting, and there was no doubt they were going to wilt. It was just a matter of how fast, and how hard it was to get a good image. Face down, I thought, these couldn't be all that interesting. At this point I was still finishing up with the hydrangeas, so I let the gerber daisies go a while. I got back to them on day 5, and by then, half of them had already started to droop. But they didn't quite cave. They gently bent. Downcast almost. Now I wasn't seeing an eye, I was seeing a... --- - Published: 2017-07-12 - Modified: 2017-07-05 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/found-one-can-whipped-cream/ - Categories: Lost and Found, Meanderings - Tags: lost and found Things get left behind on trash day. It happens. And that's what might have happened here, but upon closer inspection, I don't think so. All that was left on this area between the sidewalk and the road was a) the can of whipped cream, and b) the pink cap for the can of whipped cream. Which begs the question: what's someone doing with a can of whipped cream on Front Street in Media? Right between the Fire House and the Library? Also, did anybody know that Cabot made whipped cream? And if so, where do you get it? Answers to these questions are welcome. The most creative answer gets a slightly-used can of Cabot Whipped Cream. --- - Published: 2017-07-05 - Modified: 2017-07-05 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/found-one-shoe/ - Categories: Lost and Found, Photography - Tags: lost and found It happens. Kids lose their shoes, usually more out of design than out of carelessness. I even saw a child drop one out the window of a moving car. I found this one on the Third Street in Media back in May, and I'd like to think the little stinker yanked it off from the front of the stroller while Mom wasn't looking. --- - Published: 2017-07-04 - Modified: 2017-07-14 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/keep-home-fires-burning/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: binghamton, Jrama's, July 4 On the morning of my wedding, I woke up in the guest bed at a friend's house. It was early and I noticed I was the only one there, so I got dressed and stepped out and saw that they were outside, burning some scraps left over from the construction of their new house. He was piling the wood on to the fire and she was armed with a hose to keep the grass from burning and generally to keep the fire under control. I said, "Can I help? " Twelve seconds later, and four hours before the wedding, I was armed with a hose to keep the grass from burning and generally to keep the fire under control. My friends, the couple I was staying with, had some other things to do in town, and took off. For the next two hours, I manned this post. This is how I spent the morning of my wedding. Fifteen years later, and this makes for a nice story. Some of you might feel that this wedding-morning scenario is a perfect encapsulation of the marriage that was to come, and I know, because you've told me after I've related this story to you. Not true. Laura has never planned out a project like this and abandoned me, and if this keeps happening to you, I'm sorry. But what I take from that morning is this: keeping a fire is hard. It needs constant attention, it can go out, and it can get... --- - Published: 2017-06-29 - Modified: 2017-07-05 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/lost-and-found/ - Categories: Lost and Found, Photography - Tags: lost and found Lately I've been finding a lot of interesting stuff out on the street. So much so that I've decided to put together a section called Lost and Found, full of found items, and one lost dog. A dog so lost he's missing from the poster created to find him. The couch below is just one of the many pieces of furniture I've seen in places where it doesn't belong. I'll be posting some short posts here, mainly driven by photographs. I also added a post from earlier this year, The Way that We Play, which featured a picture of a leather chair on the side of I-476 on a snowy day. --- - Published: 2017-06-25 - Modified: 2017-06-25 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-sunflower/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: death of a flower, flower, photography, sunflowers During the experimental stages of the Death of a Flower project, I chose as one of my subjects a set of Peruvian Lilies. They were highly colored, had very prominent and interesting stamens, and above all, they were pet friendly, so I could leave them out without worrying about the cat munching on them. However, the decay process with these flowers came in two stages: Alive, with flowers intact. Dead, with no remaining petals whatsoever. About the most interesting picture I could have taken was a self-portrait of myself, sweeping up the floor from all the dead petals. So far the best successes I had were with flowers with strong stems, which could hold up the "face" of the flower long enough to get interesting shots before it totally wilted and collapsed. Thus, the decision to go to sunflowers next. I got five in this group, and each one seemed to have a different personality. One was smaller than the rest, one already had some petals that were bending inward, and another was twisted upright. I was most excited about the upward-facing flower, because once wilting began, this one was most likely to hold its shape. Upward-facing Sunflower, 15mm, 1/180 sec @f/9 Using the larger sunflowers as a subject allowed me to use my wide-angle Pentax 15mm f/4 lens on individual shots, which was another plus. I love this lens and the way it renders color. For the most part I used it and my 35 f/2. 8 macro lens... --- - Published: 2017-06-21 - Modified: 2017-06-21 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/taste-finger-lakes/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: finger lakes, flx, wine Laura and I went our first wine tasting eight years ago, when we went down to Crossing Winery in Newtown, Pennsylvania. We really didn't know what to expect, honestly, having managed to go through nearly 40 years of life without such experiences. They put us in a room with large barrels lining the walls, poured the essential stuff in our glasses, and spoke wistfully of oak and berries and citrus and other things that you're supposed to taste, but didn't. But no matter. It was good wine, and even though we didn't know why it was good, it still was. That summer, my parents offered to take us up to the Finger Lakes to do a proper wine tour, complete with chauffeur. That would be my Dad, who doesn't indulge and is perfectly content to drive around and look at the scenery. We had had a good experience at Crossing, so why not? And we've been going at least once a year ever since. Shaw Vineyard So, as seasoned travelers along this well-worn path, the least we can do is impart some wisdom. There are a few supplies that every Finger Lakes Wine Tourist should have, and they are: A designated driver. Dad, in our case. A basket of snacks. Generally we go with crackers, cheese, and slices of salami. Food is not necessarily guaranteed along the trail, although that has changed in recent years. I'll cover that in another article. A game plan. Because not all wineries are created... --- > This isn't your father's Allentown. It's not even the Allentown of a few years ago. Allentown has undergone a resurgence as of late. - Published: 2017-06-12 - Modified: 2017-08-29 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/no-good-story-starts-suburbs/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: allentown, Blues Brews and Barbecue, pennsylvania, Union and Finch Laura and I both grew up in the country. I was in upstate New York and she was in central Pennsylvania. We both went to Tennessee for college and ended up in Chattanooga. We got married, and moved to Pennsylvania. Short version. In all of that time, we never lived "in the city. " Outside the city, on a mountain overlooking the city, at arm's length of the city, we specialized in these places. When we first got to Chattanooga, the reputation of the city was less than stellar. Back in the day they used to test the air quality by putting a mason jar outside, and if a quarter-inch of soot had gathered in it by evening, it was considered a good day. By the time we left, Chattanooga was thriving, a tourist destination, and one of the best places to live in the country. We arrived in Allentown in 2008. The city is of a similar size, both were built on rivers, both had pretty much ignored the potential of their riverfront areas. It all changed for Chattanooga when it built the Tennessee Aquarium on the river. We hoped the same would happen for Allentown. Allentown Riverfront, March 2009 In the meantime, going to downtown Allentown was not exactly the nicest of experiences. There wasn't much to see, old buildings were decaying, landmarks like Hess's department store had faded from memory, and about all that was left was the statue in the center of 7th and Hamilton in... --- - Published: 2017-06-10 - Modified: 2017-06-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/circus-left-town/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: circus drive-in, home drugs, new jersey, shore lanes Our life had been on hold for a few months while we prepared for our trip to Japan, so a lot of the things we had planned to do suddenly became available to us. First and foremost for me was the Circus Drive-In in Wall Township, New Jersey, very near the shore. This location had been on my to-do list for quite a while, and when I heard they had closed for good after the season last year, I had been cursing myself ever since. In January, the word had spread that the Circus was about to be sold to developers, and therefore, demolished just as soon as it took to get a bulldozer or two out there. By the following months, community efforts had blocked that from happening, if only temporarily. I read up to see what was going on over there, but no word since the beginning of March. As we got in the car and headed west, I couldn't help thinking they wouldn't tear the place down and not tell anyone, would they? Fortunately, the building and the sign still stand, so I don't have to bore you with pictures of a vacant lot. The weather people had predicted a terrible day for New Jersey, so of course I knew that would change. The clouds persisted across the state, which was fine by me. Bright and cheerful and sunny didn't seem to fit the mood. The Circus Drive-In sits next to a Jiffy Lube, which means that... --- - Published: 2017-05-30 - Modified: 2017-05-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/riding-streets-tokyo-go-kart-costume/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: go-kart, japan, maricar, shibuya crossing by Laura Sanders When we were discussing our itinerary for Tokyo with my sister Hannah, she gave us a number of different options. The zoo and the Sky Tree and the Great Buddha all came up. Kappabashi Street, which I was very excited about. One thing not optional, according to my brother-in-law Dan, was Maricar. Maricar is attempt to recreate the experience from the Mario Kart games. Only you're actually driving a go-kart through the streets of Tokyo. They also give you a costume so you look like one of the characters. This combines two things I hate the most: driving and traffic. Three if you count being run over by a truck while wearing a silly outfit. My sister Rachel was on the fence like me. Scott really wanted to do it, and my brother-in-law Derek wasn't going to be denied. Hannah said it wasn't really her thing either, that she was nervous the first time she did it, but she said once you start riding around, you don't even think about what you're doing. I didn't entirely believe her. But I knew the guys were looking forward to it so I reluctantly agreed. There was one stipulation: we had to get our International Driver's License. I figured, hey, it's just cool that I'm getting an International Driver's License, so we went by AAA and got the permit. The night before we were supposed to go do this crazy thing, I was feeling nervous. No, lets be honest, terrified,... --- - Published: 2017-05-24 - Modified: 2017-05-29 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/better-than-the-real-thing/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: beef, imperial hotel, japan, tokyo One year for New Year's, we went to a Japanese place in Bethlehem, called Kome. We had been there a few times before, and thought the hibachi would be just the thing for the family. Rachel and Derek came, Laura's aunt and uncle and her cousin, and we couldn't have made a better choice. We sat around the grill, watched the chef prepare the food, send random streams of sake in our directions, do the onion volcano, all the things that we come to know and love from this type of experience. We all had a great time and had good food. If you were to have asked me then, on that night, if that was what eating in Japan was like, I would have said, "No, probably not. " And I would have been right. And wrong. Again, not that I'm suddenly an expert on Japanese food. It's just that now I have an idea of what Japanese food can be. For instance, one of our first outings was to the Ramen Museum, north of Yokohama, which Hannah chose specifically because a) it's interesting to look at, b) because they have several different ramen vendors there, and c) because a couple of vendors have gluten-free ramen, which allowed her and Laura to indulge. The Ramen Museum has an elaborate set-up to look like a stylized version of a 1950's Japanese street, complete with movie advertisements and signage. Each one of the storefronts is a ramen restaurant. Ramen. Most of... --- - Published: 2017-05-07 - Modified: 2017-05-07 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-life-of-a-tourist/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: japan, ome, sawanoi brewery, tokyo At the path along the river, despite the gloomy day, everything opened up. It was our first full day in Japan. It may have had something to do with the sake tasting we had just left, but already the world was different. It would be a few days before we would do the truly touristy things like going up in the Tokyo Skytree or seeing the pandas at the Ueno Zoo. In this spot along the river, as it had been at the Sawanoi Saké Brewery we had just visited, there were no other tourists. Just us. Everyone else grew up here, lived here, belonged here. That sudden realization was the moment when tourism ended. We were all part of the same picture. And then again, maybe it was the saké. Bear in mind that I don’t want to be one of those people who, having been touched by international travel, thinks of himself as Rick Steves or Anthony Bourdain. I know nothing. It became more evident as our time in Japan wore on that I know less that nothing. In part, at least as far as Japan was concerned, this was by design. I wanted to be genuinely surprised by what I was seeing. The first days of our stay were going to be at Yokota AFB, and the last three days were set for an Airbnb in Arakawa-ku. Hannah and Dan were driving us around in a rental van while we were on base, because Hannah's Diahatsu is... --- - Published: 2017-04-30 - Modified: 2017-05-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/inevitable-trip-japan/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: japan, newark, tokyo We sat around my Mother-in-law's apartment, the six of us: Laura's sisters Rachel and Hannah, their husbands Derek and Dan, Laura and me. Dan is stationed at Yokota Air Base, and somewhere in the conversation, somebody said something to the effect that we should all meet up with them in Tokyo. Somebody else said it would be a great idea. I nodded, but it wasn't anything I'd really ever considered. Laura stared blankly. A month or two passed, and I figured, the initial groundswell of support for the plan would wane, but it did not. Passports were received. Talk of plane tickets and the like. Agendas and such. Laura stared blankly. It was going to be a fourteen hour trip on a plane from Newark to Narita, non-stop. The best I could boast was JFK to Atlanta. Laura had done Atlanta to Los Angeles, a sprint compared to our upcoming marathon, and she hates to fly. All that time in the air. We both stared blankly. Nothing against Japan, of course. It was distant in our minds, something so unreachable that it was unthinkable, so we had never thought about it. Instead, we thought about other places we wanted to go, places that didn't require passports or plane tickets or even agendas, for that matter. Japan loomed, like a trip to the proctologist. The date was set for April, in the hopes of seeing some cherry blossoms, because if you're going to go that far, you might as well go... --- - Published: 2017-03-02 - Modified: 2017-06-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/boys-night-out/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: boot and saddle, melrose diner, pennsylvania, philadelphia "Where are you? " Laura said on the phone, through the car's speakers. Busted. So, so busted. Well, there was no denying it. In these days of Find My iPhone, she really didn't even need to ask. "Philadelphia," I said. I was just about to get off on the Broad Street exit of 95. The sun was rapidly declining, and neon magic hour was already in full swing. I was after the Boot and Saddle Bar, which I had photographed previously three years ago: The sign had been restored to its former glory. Laura laughed. She had spent the day shopping with her sisters all the way up in Williamsport, so she had already guessed what I was up to. "I told everybody, 'I'll lay odds he's driving somewhere to take a picture of a sign, and then he'll come home and watch Mystery Science Theater. '" "Wow, that's spooky. You left out the part about me going to John's in South Philly for a cheesesteak, but the rest is dead on. " I got off at the Broad Street exit. It was a gloomy night and it was getting darker. I've learned from experience that neon in complete darkness somehow loses its power, so I had to get there before nightfall. I don't know if you've ever driven up Broad Street in Philadelphia when you're in a hurry from 95 practically to the middle of the city. I don't recommend it. Words fly out of your mouth that you... --- - Published: 2017-02-25 - Modified: 2017-05-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/after-the-storm/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: allentown, pennsylvania, queen city diner We passed by the Queen City Diner this morning. It was packed to the gills with customers. "I've always wanted to get a shot of this place," I said to Laura. "But not like this. At night. After it rains. I think that would be perfect. " "Well, you should," she said. Again, it was just another one of those things that I haven't done and I don't understand why. I just haven't. Well, I should. And then I looked at the weather report for the day. Thunderstorms, in the afternoon. In February. The weather in eastern Pennsylvania this year has been strange to say the least. But no matter, and opportunity was presenting itself. At 4:30, the storm raged through, sending garbage cans and cats and dogs flying, but in twenty minutes it was mostly over. We scrambled together all my camera gear and shot out the door. It was still raining when we got to the Queen City, but not so much to be a bother. I took my tripod because the light was low and I wanted a shot as still as I could get. I'm happy with the result, but I'm happier that we got out and did it. --- - Published: 2017-02-10 - Modified: 2017-06-29 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-way-that-we-play/ - Categories: Lost and Found, Meanderings There are many things that could be said about this year's Super Bowl, but to sum it all up: everyone outside of New England and those without ties to New England wanted to see the Patriots lose. Not only to lose, but to be embarrassed. For three quarters, we, those who could not bear another Patriot win, feasted upon the thought that our dreams would come true. The Falcons? Merely a means to an end. But we forgot, these are the Falcons. Once the lead was squandered, and after it was all over, the faces on the screen began to talk of how this was the greatest ever, and how He Who Must Not Be Mentioned was also the greatest ever. Patriots, Patriots, Patriots. It would take a day before we got back to the Squanderers, with those sad, painful, and somehow irresistible post-game interviews. The one that got my attention the most was the one with Matt Ryan, Falcons quarterback and Chief Among Squanderers. They asked him, predictably, if he thought the Falcons had been, and more importantly, offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan had been, too aggressive. To which he said, "Too aggressive? No. I thought Kyle did a good job. I thought we played the way that we play. " The words the way that we play have echoed in my ears ever since. That's fine, I thought, but that's not the way that you win, obviously. Maybe you might concentrate on the way you win more than "the... --- - Published: 2017-01-17 - Modified: 2017-06-25 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-hydrangeas/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: death of a flower It's an odd feeling, getting flowers for the strict purpose of watching them decay, but by now, having watched a rose and an iris bite the dust, I was really getting into this new project. I walked in to the florist, feeling vaguely like a predator on the prowl, and carefully selected the new subjects. What I chose was a group of hydrangeas, for a number of different reasons. For starters, I had never seen a dead hydrangea. They most often live in people's gardens and spring back up each year. Also, there are so many groupings of small flowers, I wondered what would happen to them. Would they just wilt? Drop off? I set up in the dungeon room in the basement on day 1 and took some shots. I was still getting used to my new Elinchrom flash heads and it went well over all, but these hydrangeas were so puffy and full it was hard to get all three in the same shot. I tried again on Day 3. One of the hydrangeas had already started going downhill a bit, and I got my first glimpse of the inner workings of the flower. All of these wonderful purple veins began to appear, now visibly holding the blue and white blossoms. I had no concept of the intricate system that was created to give these flowers their shape, and now it was opening up to show me. I realized it was a futile effort to try and get... --- - Published: 2016-12-18 - Modified: 2017-05-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/60-thoughts-wonderful-life-not-seen-year/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: some thoughts As most of you do about this time of year, I over-indulge in Christmas movies. Lately we've been visiting the cheesy made-for-TV variety, the hastily-put-together genre that we can't seem to get enough of. After a while of wallowing in that trough, you have to revisit the classics to detox, so, while we wrapped presents, we made our way back to Bedford Falls. Here are my thoughts, in chronological order: (when we paused at the 'Directed by Frank Capra' portion of the credits, to get some clear tape from the dining room table) What is that Santa doing down there, to the left of Capra's credit? Is he in a kick-line? Shouldn't there be four other Santas kicking right next to him? The Angel Joseph is apparently the Constellation Orion. I'm betting that's in the Apocrypha. Word to the wise, kids. Don't go sledding down a hill into a frozen pond when there's a GAPING HOLE IN THE ICE at the end of it. But then again, you can't become a war hero later on in the movie if you don't take risks. So how did Harry luck out and not lose hearing in one of his ears, even though he was foundering in the icy water for at least 20 seconds until all the rest of the kids came over to save him? Story of George's life, I guess. Poor George. Violet Bick: trampiest 11-year-old ever. Creepiest moment: when Clarence declares from Heaven, "I like George Bailey. " What... --- - Published: 2016-11-30 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/pictures-of-cat/ - Categories: Meanderings It used to bother me when I used to see someone's Instagram feed entirely populated by pictures of that person's cat. Or an Instagram feed that is supposedly "the cat's account. " Well, it still bothers me, and that will never change. But now that I am a cat owner, or at least a cat lessee, I can understand the temptation. Cat Cats, of course, are awake only about 7-10 minutes a day, so when they are awake, it is an event. So we document the event. The problem is, cats almost always have the same expressions which are: scared mildly awake half asleep asleep scared again blue steel This does not run the gamut of emotions. Not like a dog, who can smile, flop a tongue out, look sad, etc. "Scared" is too difficult to capture, because lenses fast enough to gather in such information have not been made. "Asleep" is too easy. So when you see an Instagram feed full of Cat, you tend to see "Mildly Awake" and "Half Asleep" in a grand variety of locations. Cat Again This isn't especially fair to Cat. The personality of Cat is not easily reproduced in still images. Cat runs around for no reason. Whenever Laura takes out a nail file, he goes nuts and bats at it. He hisses at his tail. He drinks out of the tub. Video works for these moments, but a picture doesn't tell the full story. So we resist. Not only because of that,... --- - Published: 2016-11-22 - Modified: 2017-06-25 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/death-flower-iris/ - Categories: Photography - Tags: death of a flower After the first few shots with the roses, I moved on to a flower that was growing in our garden. One of the irises in the side yard had been knocked down by a storm, so we cut it away and put it in a vase. My original thought was to get shots with a very dark background, so I was waiting to take shots at night. I also had very little lighting, as I was still using the dorky little floor lamp I bought at Target rather than anything official and proper. The results varied, but I found if I used my remote shutter and kept the camera on a tripod, I could manipulate the light to suit my purpose. The above shot was on Day 5. This was probably my favorite of all the Iris shots I made using this method. But then I decided that dangling a floor lamp with a bare 60-watt bulb wasn't exactly the way to go about this. I also discovered that shooting in the dark could produce interesting results, but I couldn't stop there. So I bought a couple of Elinchrom flash heads with softboxes to control the light better. I also got the idea of escaping the living room to shoot in the strange recesses of our basement. We have a room at the front, underneath the porch, which looks like a good set for a horror movie. The iris was quite dead at this point, so it seemed like appropriate... --- - Published: 2016-11-10 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/another-time-another-place/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: family drive-in, fireworks, redwood budget motel, stephens city, virginia As I mentioned before, it's been really difficult to get out there and get some sign pictures. Vacations always allow me some roaming time, but this year, with our schedule being crazy and Hurricane Matthew and the election and the sun was in my eyes and my dog ate it, well, almost zero planning time went in to this year's trip. Which meant my annual research into signs we might see did not happen. We booked it on down to Daytona, and the plan was to book it on back. We got up at 4am, so by the time it was light enough for a breakfast place to be open, we were already in South Carolina. I got off in Walterboro to get gas, and what did I see next door? The ever-present fireworks stand. Only this one was equipped with neon. I should say, this side was equipped with neon. The other side, the side where the sun was shining, was not. The neon side, however, faces the highway, which makes the most sense. Still, good fortune. It had been so long since I had grabbed a shot of a halfway-decent sign. It got my blood going. We passed into North Carolina, then into Virginia. Since we left earlier than most years, the trip through the Shenandoah Valley was in total daylight. Normally, we'd lose the sun before Staunton (as it did when we made our crazy ride to Wright's Dairy-Rite), but this time we got to see a... --- - Published: 2016-11-06 - Modified: 2016-11-06 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/cleaning-the-ocean/ - Categories: Meanderings Every year, we trek down to Daytona Beach, usually in October or November. It's the time we use to get rid of all the stuff we've been carrying with us throughout the year. We were set to go down the last week of October, when all of a sudden The Weather Channel erupted with talk of Hurricane Matthew. It's always difficult to tell with The Weather Channel, since they throw around words like "massive", "deadly", and "run for your lives" with alarming frequency. The storm passed by a few weeks before our vacation, producing more damage than has been done in years. TWC was probably disappointed that the whole state didn't fall into the ocean, but we can't have everything. The place we normally stay in had a little water damage, so we stayed in another condo in the same building. One of our favorite restaurants, Our Deck Down Under, lost about half of its pier and a ton of roof shingles, but it was open. Tia Cori's, a must-visit while in Daytona, looked like nothing had ever happened. First world problems, we said. Oh dear, our view of the ocean will be sullied by a bit of construction. The first night, we slept in fits and starts, struggling with stressful dreams, while outside, the ocean drifted softly into shore, depositing remnants of the long-past storm in the sand. Our usual pattern is to take the proverbial long walk on the beach in the morning. Every year we talk over... --- - Published: 2016-11-01 - Modified: 2017-06-25 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-death-of-a-flower/ - Categories: Photography Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook or who have been following me on Instagram have seen my latest group of pictures, under the banner of "The Death of a Flower. " This started almost out of necessity, because a) I've photographed pretty much every old sign within a 50-mile radius and b) I travel so much for work I don't really have time to go outside the 50-mile radius to find others. It started back in May. The roses I bought Laura for our anniversary sat on the highest shelf of our kitchen, out of the reach of Cat, who has a tendency to eat plants, particularly the ones that are most harmful to him. The roses were out of sight and out of mind, and before we knew it, they were very, very dead. Laura went to put them in the garbage, and I looked at the one on top and said, "No. Look at that. Isn't that interesting? I should take a picture of that. " So we did some primitive lighting work, which consisted of one cheapo floor lamp from Target. Laura held that and I held the flower with one hand and took the shots with the other. The results were good, but I would have liked to have seen pictures of what we looked like trying to take these. Over the summer, I invested in some actual lighting, in the form of a couple of Elinchrom flash heads, and the results... --- - Published: 2016-10-24 - Modified: 2016-10-24 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/on-the-cubs-in-the-world-series/ - Categories: Meanderings I started out as a Red Sox fan. More or less, I was born into it, since half my family is in the Boston area, and at the time when the baseball section of my American brain began to fire on all synapses, the Red Sox were in the World Series. It was the era of Yaz and Jim Rice and the oft-forgotten Fred Lynn, and Red Sox Nation (before Red Sox Nation was Red Sox Nation) was abuzz. They didn't win the World Series that year, or make it to the playoffs the following year, or the next, and then there was Bucky Dent and Mike Torrez, and that was that. I was too young to understand such anguish. Next year could truly be the "next year" we all waited for, and I could say it without the world-weary skepticism that permeates that phrase. Around this time, my cousin Doc, who came from the Chicago area, came to live next door to us. He had been weaned on the Cubs, and was nourished by a steady diet of broadcasts on WGN and Jack Brickhouse. Nobody believes me to this day, but Doc once fell off his Big Wheel and scraped his knee, and blood the color of Rick Reuschel's #48 came leaking out of the wound. True story. He believed that I should be a Cubs fan, and since I was younger and had no older brothers or sisters to give me such guidance for the first five years... --- - Published: 2016-10-09 - Modified: 2016-10-09 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/we-have-a-cat/ - Categories: Meanderings We have a cat. I never wanted a cat. I’m pretty sure I never asked for a cat. Growing up, my family had dogs. We had a collie named Heather, and then we had a cocker spaniel named Flurry. My grandfather had a dog, and so did my other grandfather. My uncles had dogs. Laura’s family: 85% allergic. They had some barn cats on the family farm, and one cat named Ralph who thought he was a dog. Laura’s favorite pet growing up was Bo, the black Lab with a penchant for bringing dead things home whenever her parents had company. We’re dog people through and through, so this would make you think that, even by some extraordinary accident, we would not end up with a cat. You’d think. Last year, my brother-in-law was deployed to Japan, and it was assumed that sister-in-law Hannah and her cat would come alongside. Only problem was, the cat needed his shots to be let into the country. They were leaving soon, and since the cat also needed to be in quarantine for six months after his shots, there was no way they could put him on the plane. So we got a call, since we happen to be the only twosome in the family blessed to have neither member allergic, to see if we would be willing to take on a cat for six months. “This is only temporary,” said Hannah. “I’ll be back at Christmas to pick him up and take him... --- - Published: 2016-07-27 - Modified: 2017-05-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/some-thoughts-on-back-to-the-future/ - Categories: Meanderings - Tags: some thoughts Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies. It's the first movie I watched in the theater by myself. It had been a while since I had seen it, and I was secretly worried that it wouldn't hold up after all these years. Here are my thoughts, in numerical order: 1985 sucks. No, really. At least this version of 1985. I mean, there's graffiti everywhere, one of the movie theaters is X-rated, they've pasted some monstrosity over the gorgeous Western Auto Parts store sign, and Marty's wearing a padded vest you can get at Chico's. Really, 1955 is much cooler. But that's the big joke, isn't it? History is much less kind to 1985, and it's almost like Robert Zemeckis realized that it would. So kudos to you, Bob. Power of Love: still holds up, somehow. By the way, great cameo, Huey Lewis. Has anybody seen Huey Lewis lately? The Pepsi Free joke ("If you want a Pepsi, kid, you'll have to pay for it. ") really only worked in 1985. Pepsi Free was discontinued in 1987. How many Pepsi references are in this movie? The clunker Pepsi Free joke, there's a Pepsi box underneath Marvin Berry's amp, Marty drinks a Diet Pepsi, the can on Marty's shelf when he wakes up in the morning... By the way, who sleeps with their arm behind their back like Marty does? That just looks so uncomfortable, and he obviously makes a habit of it because he wakes up twice like... --- - Published: 2015-12-27 - Modified: 2017-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/while-i-was-away/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: bowl-o-rama, connecticut, maple motel, newington, olympia diner, U.S.A. Motel Quite honestly, I didn't expect it would take this long for me to begin posting again. I had grand plans of getting together a lot of my summertime signs and posting, but that somehow never materialized. I could come up with some excuses, but as we all know, excuses are tiresome and never matter much in the end, so moving on from there, I might as well share where I've been over the summer and fall. The short answer: not that many places. But, wherever I could, I tried to make the effort to find some new things and new spots. For instance, this fall, we were summoned to the wedding of my cousin in the North Shore of Massachusetts. Due to time constraints, any Boston sign-gathering was out of the question, but we had time enough on the return trip to hit up some places I had researched. My eye fell upon a stretch of U. S. 5 just west of Hartford in the town on Newington. There were several classics along this stretch, the first of which (the Siesta Motel) I couldn't get to because of construction. I was a bit disappointed, but there was no reason to look back, as I came upon a bowling alley that had a sign I didn't even know about. I've shared my frustration with the lack of great old Bowling Alley signs in my area, so I found this one irresistible. I had just bought my Pentax 15mm f/4 and was... --- - Published: 2015-07-12 - Modified: 2024-07-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-spot-bethlehem-pa-cure-for-the-summertime-blues-part-1/ - Categories: Signs and Stories One of the great things about taking pictures of old neon signs is getting close to history. Much more than that, these signs represent so much in a community's collective history. One look at a certain old sign is bound to wake up long-dead memories. Nothing spurs on great memories like the ice cream stand. I've often noted that the best reactions I get from pictures I've posted on Instagram come from ice cream stands. It represents so much: summer, vacation, childhood, all the things we remember as good. Nothing beats good ice cream, not even a good ice cream sign! But here's my start of a series of summertime pictures, The Spot Drive-In in Bethlehem, PA. I took these last summer in the morning. It was terrifically quiet, but even with the lack of noise and foot traffic, these shots create some memories. Heck, I grew up somewhere else and it brings my back to my local ice cream stand! --- - Published: 2015-06-07 - Modified: 2015-06-07 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-missing-ghost-of-pottstown/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: ghost sign, ghost signs, luden's, pennsylvania, pottstown, sears, the very best A couple of years ago I made a trip to Pottstown, Pennsylvania because they had done a unique thing: they hired a local artist to restore some of the old, faded advertising painted on brick walls. These faded ads are commonly known as ghost signs. These shots served as a previous post of mine titled Bringing Back the Ghosts. A few days later someone contacted me to let me know that I had missed one. It haunted me. I knew that I had to go back and find it, but I had no idea where to look. There were four that I saw in plain sight, including a marvelous Coca-Cola ad, but the fifth was hiding. This past weekend we drove around Pottstown and I decided to get a shot of The Very Best, which is a bit of a local legend, while I waited to spot the fifth ghost. If you look carefully, you can spot another ghost. Namely, me. In order to get back in the direction I waned to go, I had to make a turn around the block and down another side street. As we turned and looked back across the railroad tracks, the ghost suddenly appeared, visible behind some buildings. I wheeled around the block and dipped into an alley, and on the other side I came face to face with the remaining restored ghost. At last, the complete set. And just to the left of this one was the rear entrance to the old... --- - Published: 2015-05-25 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/drexel-hill-style-pizza/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: broomall, drexel hill, drexel hill style pizza, pennsylvania One morning on my way to work, I made a detour off the Blue Route (I-476 around the west side of Philadelphia, to the uninitiated), as one often has to do if one has to get anywhere with any sort of speed. Along PA-3 in Broomall, I came across this seasoned campaigner: The Chicago Style Pizza and the New York Style Pizza are well-known variants, and in the upper corners of Pennsylvania, the Old Forge Style Pizza is favored. But Drexel Hill Style was a new one for me. Apparently this is a more Greek style, and a quick internet search yielded this info. Looks pretty good. Sadly, it being the morning, I was unable to partake, and it's not close enough to work for me to hit it up on my lunch break. In the meantime, I'll enjoy the sign... --- - Published: 2015-05-18 - Modified: 2015-05-18 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/in-deepwater/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: deepwater, deepwater truck terminal, new jersey I recently bought a replacement for my aging 75-300 Sigma lens, which pretty much ripped itself a new one from the inside during a photo shoot a couple months ago. I replaced it with a brand new Sigma and I've been pleased with the results. A few weeks ago I skipped across the border into New Jersey and trolled for signs along US 130. Honestly, I didn't find much, but my one discovery was the Deepwater Truck Terminal in Deepwater, NJ. I'll say it before and I'll say it again: I'm a sucker for really big letters. I'm even a bigger sucker for big letters in neon on top of a building. And I'm darn near obscene when it comes to rusty dusty old letters on top of a building. One of my favorite things to do is get some super close-ups going with a long lens when I see such a sign, so I dove in head-first. I just love the kind of tangle of letters it produces. --- - Published: 2015-05-16 - Modified: 2017-06-14 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/tick-tock-diner-and-rutts-hut/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: clifton, hot dog, new jersey, rutt's hut, tick tock, tick tock diner The short version: since I got a new job, I've hardly had time to draw breath, so this is why I haven't posted for a good deal of time. However, I have quite the backlog of sign pictures to share, so I figured the best way to do so is post considerably smaller posts. First off, having returned from a funeral last March, we stopped through one of our favorite spots, Rutt's Hut in Clifton, New Jersey. The dogs are done in the Texas Weiner style peculiar to New Jersey, which is to say that they are deep fried, but rather than coating them with the special Greek sauce, Rutt's Hut makes its own mustard and relish, which makes the hot dogs that much more special. And yes, I ate every single one... Their sign was damaged in Sandy, but they restored it pretty well. It doesn't have that rusty old-world charm anymore, but you can't have everything. Photo-bombed by a bird again... Just down from Rutt's Hut is the Tick Tock Diner. This got in the news in the last year because the former manager of the place got arrested for trying to murder his uncle, but before then, it was justly noted for its food, and for its stylish looks. So that's the short version. That, and this is crossed off my to-do list. More to come, I promise! --- - Published: 2015-04-07 - Modified: 2015-04-07 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-endings/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: ancram, chief martindale diner, cove, cove bowling center, great barrington, massachusetts, new york, west taghkanic diner This winter was harsh and not just because of the weather. In January, I learned that I was losing one of my clients, one that I had worked with for six years. Then February came, and the temperatures plunged below freezing for nearly the entire month. One night in February, our elderly neighbor slipped and fell and we found her a few days later in the foyer of her home, clinging to life. Fortunately, she managed to survive this ordeal, and is currently recuperating. And then March came, and on the 15th, Laura received a text that her Aunt had passed away in the Boston area. The week was full of preparations to go north for the funeral. Laura's sister Hannah was flying in from Texas, and her sister Rachel was driving to our house so we could all head up together. On Wednesday of that week, the fearless weather people suddenly decided that the Lehigh Valley would see four to eight inches of snow on Friday, so we had to make an early start of it. Unlike most of the storms this winter, this one was going to avoid Massachusetts and points north, so I decided to change course. Instead of the direct route through New York, I went north, up to Newburgh and on to the Taconic Parkway. And yes, this provided me with an opportunity to cross a few signs off my list. Both signs along this trail were remarkably similar. Both were diners, and both featured... --- - Published: 2015-03-08 - Modified: 2015-03-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/knowing-leave/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: motel deska, motels, pennsylvania, wernersville Overall, I've had pretty good success as far as getting shots of old signs and not having anyone complain. I probably have more positive stories than negative, because most people recognize the fact that the more pictures are taken of their sign, the greater the publicity. I've been given the raised eyebrow twice, and told to outright leave the premises one other time, and two times total I've felt the need to get in my car and get driving immediately. The first time was at the Nor-Pole Drive-In in Orangeburg, during which I'm reasonably sure my license plate number was noted. This was the second. I was on my way back from Lebanon County when I spotted this old rusty devil along US 422. I did a U-Turn and pulled off to the side of the road. There's a hill below, from which I took some shots. The field was open before me, and I couldn't resist getting some closer shots, including the one above. I took five pictures in all, and suddenly I began to hear this odd snapping noise. I look over at the motel and out of the corner of my eye I see a man bursting out of the motel, his arm raised, his fingers snapping wildly. He didn't say anything, but he had conveyed his message. I dipped back down the hill, got in my car, and drove off. Later I discovered perhaps why the reaction. A quick internet search of this place revealed a... --- > Back in 2013, I fully intended to make a stop at the Georgia Girl Drive-In in Woodbine, Georgia, but unfortunately, I ran out of time. - Published: 2015-02-08 - Modified: 2017-08-09 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/hey-there-georgia-girl/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: georgia, georgia girl, georgia girl drive-in, woodbine My parents didn't live in Georgia for long. In fact, if truth be known, it was the shortest time I've ever lived anywhere in my life. Back in the early 70s, my father got a teaching job in the Brunswick area and we lived in a duplex on Jekyll Island. The job, and the beach home, lasted less than a year, and even though I was younger than three years old, I still remember the day we drove off, leaving the enormous bridge to Brunswick behind. As an adult, I lived in Georgia for about five years, just across the border from Tennessee. I still have my old Georgia license plate to prove it. Nowadays I only seem to pass through there on my way to Florida. In 2013, when coming back from Florida, and we made our mad dash to Wright's Dairy-Rite in Virginia, there was a little part of the story I left out. I fully intended to make a stop at the Georgia Girl Drive-In in Woodbine, Georgia, but I realized that time would not allow us to stop at Bar-B-Q King in Charlotte for lunch, and hit Wright's in Staunton in time for neon magic hour. So, with much trepidation I put it off. Much trepidation because I knew the old place was abandoned, and that any day now someone would get the idea to take the sign down. Or, judging by its age, it might fall down on its own. So I made every intention... --- > Due to the construction in Wildwood last October, we found ourselves diving down streets that we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. - Published: 2015-02-01 - Modified: 2015-02-01 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/wildwood-part-3/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: bel air motel, caribbean motel, lufran motel, mango motel, new jersey, stardust motel, wildwood Stardust Motel, Wildwood, NJ For part 1, click here For part 2, click here Due to the construction in Wildwood last October, we found ourselves diving down streets that we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. We ended up on Spicer Avenue, which held a few more motels of the golden era. Remembering back to the research I had done, I knew the Stardust Motel was there (see the shot above) so I went after it. But on the way there, I saw a neon palm tree that needed to be photographed. I was just the guy to do it. As I stepped out to get this shot, somebody pulled out of the parking lot behind me. The driver was, at first glance, Jersey through and through, and for those of you who don't know New Jersey, this could be either a good thing or a bad thing. Either I was going to get the chewing out of a lifetime or I was going to get a too-hard slap on the back and invitation to the nearest beer. I got the obvious question about what I was doing. He didn't ask me what I thought I was doing, so I took that as a good sign. No pun intended. Turns out, this was the owner of the Mango Motel. And further, the sign had just been restored, and he was obviously very proud of it. He had spotted me taking shots with my iPhone, so I let him know about my... --- - Published: 2015-01-13 - Modified: 2015-01-13 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/say-want-resolution/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: community restaurant, kwik shoppe, sea mist apartments, won lee, wright's dairy-rite Kwik Shoppe, Shoemakersville, PA from January 2014 At the top of this year, as we do every year, we talked about the things we wanted to see and do in the next twelve months. The Big Picture. I suppose we're no different from anybody else, and probably no different in this respect to anybody else in the results department: by February, the cares of life have worn us down to the point where we have completely forgotten any pending Resolutions, and by December we're left wondering where the year has gone. And the Resolution starts over. Which begs the question, has anyone ever successfully followed through on a New Year's Resolution? Don't answer that. I'd hate to think I'm the only one. My favorite Resolution is the resolution of the sensor on my K-5. One of the things that I often try to do when I'm on a sign shoot is to haul out the longest lens I've got and take a few close-ups, put that Resolution to its fullest. Sometimes these are the most interesting shots I take. And it brought up an interesting thought come Resolution time. We focus in on such large things at New Year's, the losing twenty pounds or finally finishing that novel or whatever it happens to be, and it does us a disservice. We can't do it all in one sitting, and the Resolution fails us. The reality is, to make these changes, it takes much more, many small changes that change attitudes... --- - Published: 2014-12-11 - Modified: 2014-12-11 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/wildwood-part-2/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: Jolly Roger Motel, new jersey, Pink Champagne Motel, Quebec Motel, Sand Dune Motel, Sea Shell Motel, skylark motel, wildwood The more you go through Wildwood, the greater the embarrassment of riches. Just going down a side road can lead you to a sign you didn't know existed, one that no one seems to have posted on Flickr or Instagram. The Sand Dune, for instance, which seems lost during the day, caught between a few other motel signs that catch the eye. I got out to get a picture of the Jolly Roger (below), in its Pirate-topped 50's glory, and on the way along the sidewalk nabbed the Sand Dune! The Sea Shell is one of the more well-known, perhaps for its odd shape, the highly-stylized "M" in "Motel", and its visibility on the main drag into Wildwood proper. Right down the street from the Sea Shell is the equally-impressive Pink Champagne sign. The hotel is pure 50's, with pink accents! Another back-to-back grouping was in toward the center of town, with the Skylark, which was a paint-peeling nod to the old days, and the Quebec Motel, with its rooftop sign. At first, I thought I could sneak a shot which got both signs in it, but this turned out to be trickier than I thought. At any rate, the Skylark shot is among my favorites. And we're not even remotely done. My word, no. Literally you can't go to Wildwood for one day and expect to get all the shots you could get. I haven't even gotten to my favorite story of the trip yet! --- > So I said, why not go to Wildwood? It's not tremendously far away, and I had been looking forward to going. - Published: 2014-11-22 - Modified: 2014-11-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/wildwood/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: fairview, harbor inn, laura's fudge, lollipop motel, morey's piers, new jersey, roller coaster, wildwood So where was I? Oh, right. We were in Philadelphia, having visited the Reading Terminal and Termini Brothers, when we realized that we still had more than half a day. So I said, why not go to Wildwood? It's not tremendously far away, and I had been looking forward to going. The neon had been drawing me like a moth to a flame. So off we went. About halfway there, we stopped at the Starbucks on the Atlantic City Expressway and ate the chocolate-banana-raspberry-loveliness we purchased from Termini Brothers. We looked at each other as we ate, confused by its perfection. There had to be a flaw. A sour portion, air bubbles, bones, something to reveal that such transcendence does not exist in this world. Nothing was forthcoming. The one thing we hadn't counted on with Wildwood at this time of year was how few people were there. True, it was Columbus Day weekend and well past the end of their season, but it was still a surprise, considering what a nice day it was. We pulled in and some off-season road construction was going on, which deterred us from going to the first sign on my list. However, the detour lead us down another road where we caught sight of a couple that weren't even on my list: the Fairview (which looked closed) and the Harbor Inn. If this was any indication of how the afternoon was going to go, it was going to be more than worth the... --- > There's also no such thing as the Philadelphia Food and Sign Festival, but there should be. - Published: 2014-10-20 - Modified: 2014-10-20 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-philadelphia-food-and-sign-festival/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: melrose diner, pennsylvania, philadelphia, reading terminal, reading terminal market, termini brothers, Tommy DiNic's, Valley Shepherd Creamery First off, in answer to someone's question when I had four posts entitled "The San Antonio Food and Sign Festival," this is not actually a thing. But it should be. All I'm sayin'. Second, there's also no such thing as the Philadelphia Food and Sign Festival (but there should be), other than the one Laura and I created one morning last week when we had the idea to take full advantage of an extra day off during the Columbus Day weekend. There are two places that spring to mind where food and neon intermingle, the first being the Reading Terminal Market, a foodie paradise unparalleled. Truly, if you cannot find it in the Reading Terminal, it's probably not worth eating. It took us a few minutes of wandering before we felt like we could actually settle in anywhere, but eventually we found a place that stopped us dead in our tracks. Being an admitted cheese snob, I gravitated over to a stand in the back owned by the Valley Shepherd Creamery. They had several cheeses on display, but the one that took center stage drew us in like nothing else could: As it so happens, Laura's maiden name is Ten Eyck. So, after the world's easiest sale and we had procured the cheesy comestibles, we came to find out that this was not one of Valley Shepherd's cheeses, but from one of their partners, Meadowood Farms in Cazenovia, New York. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell us why the cheese bears the... --- - Published: 2014-10-01 - Modified: 2014-10-01 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/new-jersey-expeditions-part-2/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: dunellen, dunellen theater, new jersey, texas weiner, western termite control Autumn arrived, and at the start of it, death visited us on both ends of the spectrum. First it was our 77-year old next-door neighbor, who died suddenly of a heart attack. At the end of the week, my cousin's son, who was just five years old, succumbed to the ravages of Neuroblastoma after a three-year battle. Under the circumstances, it's been very hard to write about my adventures in sign-hunting, because in the grand scheme of things, it is so small in the face of life and death. It disturbed me to discover that I had no pictures of either my neighbor or my cousin's boy. The latter was more understandable because my cousin lives far away, so I never actually met him, but I saw my neighbor all the time, sitting on the front porch, most often reading the Bible with his gun sitting either on the table next to him or in his shoulder holster. He was built along the lines of a greyhound, and he walked up the street with his long, slender legs. He had a small head and a pointy noise, to boot. He would talk to you in a slow, nasal Philadelphia drawl about pretty much anything and everything, and he was constantly aware of almost all neighborhood activities and passers-by. And I have no pictures of him. The day after he passed, a neighbor left this on the porch, right in front of his favorite chair. I've spent a lot of times... --- > This last Labor Day weekend, we headed back from Binghamton. The Red Oak Diner sign on Front Street suddenly sprung to life with new, red neon. - Published: 2014-09-08 - Modified: 2014-09-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/binghamton-night/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: binghamton, greyhound, greyhound station, little venice, new york, red oak diner This last Labor Day weekend, after all manner of family visits, we headed back from Binghamton. It wasn't intentional, but we had left right at neon magic hour (the hour, or minutes, following sundown). Immediately I cast my mind back to earlier this year, when I noticed the Red Oak Diner sign on Front Street, the one pointed directly at NY 17, had suddenly sprung to life with new, red neon. It was too late to catch it then, but it wasn't now, so I high-tailed it up US 11. Previous visits had yielded the picture above, but since then I had figured out the way to sneak back into the adjoining park and get the front side of the sign. The "R" was out, but I think it adds to it... While I was at it, I decided to hit up some other signs I had never gotten at night. The Greyhound Bus station was my next target, but I had a surprise in store. When I went to park along Chenango Street I noticed glowing neon that I had never seen before, or at least, for a very long time. It seems that the good folks at Little Venice Restaurant restored their neon sign recently (near as I can tell, in April of this year). My jaw fell open. There are modern touches to it, of course, but it's very true to what the original sign looked like. The Greyhound Bus Station is just down the street, and... --- > My main target was Hy-Way Bowl in Union, New Jersey. The old US routes, as I've often said, are the best, and US 22 is one of the oldest. - Published: 2014-08-28 - Modified: 2014-08-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/new-jersey-expeditions/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: hy-way, hy-way bowl, new jersey, springfield, union, world of tile There are plenty of things I forget on a constant basis. Among them: The Cubs are not going to win the division. Lid down. Just because a burger is flame-broiled doesn't necessarily make it a good burger. Although that Toyota ad with "Jan" started out with a promising concept, it's not going to be in the least bit funny. New Jersey is within easy driving distance. This last one, of course, is the one I forget the most often, and it's only when I go to Easton and see a sign that says "New York City, 68 miles" that I realize just how close a lot of the places on my to-do list for New Jersey truly are. On Tuesday of this week, I found myself in Easton with some extra time and I realized I was within striking distance of a couple great signs. Considering the recent lessons of the Port Motel and how there's no time like the present to get these shots, I had no doubt what my course of action should be. My main target was Hy-Way Bowl in Union, New Jersey. Bowling signs are some of the best, but unfortunately, most of the best ones are somewhere other than eastern Pennsylvania, and as a result, I have precisely zero classic bowling signs in my collection. Secondarily, I wasn't sure if the Hy-Way was still in operation (They have a Facebook page, but the last post on it is from some time last year), so rather... --- > The news hit me last week that the Port Motel sign has officially disappeared. The Port was part of a bygone era when US routes ruled the roost. - Published: 2014-08-20 - Modified: 2014-08-20 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/farewell-port-motel/ - Categories: Signs and Stories, Updates - Tags: pennsylvania, port motel, port trevorton, vanishing america The news hit me last week that the Port Motel sign has officially disappeared. Built in 1952, the Port was part of a bygone era, before interstate highways, when US routes were the main mode of transportation. This motel was along US 11 and 15 along the Susquehanna in the town of Port Trevorton, PA, and its original design contained an Esso station and the Port Diner. The motel closed a number of years ago and it had been turned into storage units, all the while the motel sign remaining. From old post cards of the motel, I discovered that the star was added later, perhaps as late as the seventies. If you'll notice on the wireframe below the sign and to the left, that once housed a bit of neon as well, proudly announcing that they had "TV. " This sign was the subject of at least three photo shoots of mine. This last grouping was from August of last year, and as far as anyone can tell, the sign disappeared over the winter. I had previously shot the sign in the morning, and these were from magic hour, as you can tell from the shadows of me and my Elantra above. If anyone has any news about the whereabouts of this sign, it would be greatly appreciated. I would hate to think it's lying about in a junkyard somewhere. Farewell, old friend. Visit this and many other lost treasures in my Vanishing America section. --- > Termini Brothers was my last stop on my tour of Philly signs. It is on 8th Street in Philadelphia, which is a tunnel burrowed through row homes. - Published: 2014-08-06 - Modified: 2014-08-06 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/philadelphia-freedoms-part-3-termini-brothers/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: cannoli, philadelphia, sun ra, termini brothers There is a deep mystery about Philadelphia. I shared with you a little bit of that in my first post from Philly, about my friend who couldn't say enough bad things about the city but still insisted that he loved the place. I was reading up on Sun Ra, the legendary jazz performer and outer space traveler, who came to Philadelphia from New York in the late 60s. In his own inimitable way, he described Philadelphia as "the worst place in America" and "the headquarters of the Devil. " Yet he lived the last 25 years of his life in the city, and enjoyed perhaps his greatest acclaim during that time period. Clearly, there is a paradox. For instance, take my last stop in Philadelphia last month, Termini Brothers. It is on 8th Street in Philadelphia, and if you've never been there, when I say 8th Street in Philadelphia, you're probably thinking of some decently broad street. In fact, 8th Street is a tunnel burrowed through row homes. Not the worst neighborhood that ever existed, but undeniably cramped. You can hardly believe that a legendary business such as this exists here. But eventually, the tunnel came to rest at Termini Brothers, and if you note the picture up top, you'll see that to the right, behind that fence, is an unusually large parking lot. I came for the neon, and I snapped away for a good ten minutes or so, but sooner or later the scent of fresh baked goodies... --- - Published: 2014-07-31 - Modified: 2014-07-31 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/philadelphia-freedoms-part-2/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: boot and saddle, divine lorraine, pennsylvania, philadelphia, philip's For part 1, click here I continued down Broad Street in the hopes of finding two more landmarks from my to-do list. For some reason, I thought both of them were in North Broad Street, but as I pulled up the information in Google Maps, I discovered that they were both on South Broad Street. The first, the Boot and Saddle Bar, was easier to find, since it is still in existence; the second, Philip's Restaurant, closed a while ago. Little did I know, these two were less than a block away from each other! Parking was a challenge, considering the nearby bus station and a few diners nearby. I went around and around blocks and got to know some of the peculiar inner workings of Philadelphia's one-way streets a little more than I would have preferred. Eventually I came upon a spot on the block where Philip's was. This spot was no bigger than my fist, but I somehow managed to jam my Elantra into it. IN so doing, I tapped the van behind me, and when I got out of the car, the driver yelled out the window at me, "Whiplash! Whiplash! " As soon as I looked at him and wide grin on his face, I knew he was just yanking my chain. He laughed and I laughed and I went to the task at hand. Philip's was one of the first places in the city to get air conditioning, thus its placement on the sign. This... --- > There were several Philadelphia signs on my to do list. Despite the fact that it's easy access for me to cross them off my list, I still wasn't doing it. - Published: 2014-07-24 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/philadelphia-freedoms/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: dairy maid, divine lorraine, etkin's, pennsylvania, philadelphia Melino's Hoagies, Philadelphia, PA A co-worker of mine, who grew up in Chattanooga, used to speak of an alternate childhood life he had lived. During periods of time, he would stay with his aunt, who lived in Philadelphia, and he told me many stories of how he was made fun of because of his accent, and how if he went down the wrong street (as he did occasionally) people would attempt to recruit him into a gang, and a host of other stories like that. Invariably, whatever Philadelphia story he told would end with him saying, with a huge grin and without a trace of irony, "I love Philly. " And he truly did. Somehow, even though he really hadn't said anything particularly positive about it, he loved Philly. Tap most anyone who lives in Pennsylvania who has not lived in Philadelphia and environs, and the very mention of the city's name elicits an overwhelmingly negative response. Part of this I can relate to, since I grew up in New York but not New York City, so whenever I told someone I was from New York, people made assumptions. For this completely unfair reason I came to dislike New York City, and only age and experience have reversed this attitude. Be that as it may, my attitude toward Philadelphia was not right. I knew there were several Philadelphia signs on my to do list, and despite the fact that it's relatively easy access for me to cross them off my... --- > I was coming back from the Quakertown Farmers' Market when I saw the sign for the News Agency, pondered its significance and its age, and pulled over. - Published: 2014-07-14 - Modified: 2014-07-14 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/quakertown/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: dimmig, news agency, pennsylvania, quakertown News Agency, Quakertown, PA 2009 In 2009, I had just started my journey. After years of film, I had moved on to digital, which provided me (at least in my own mind) brand new opportunity to take pictures of any and all things that existed. I've said before that the above picture was the first I ever took of an old sign. I didn't even get out of the car. I was coming back from the Quakertown Farmers' Market when I saw this, pondered its significance and its age, and most importantly, the chances that it would still be standing in the future. I pulled over. This was the only picture I took that day. Despite the fact that I was pretty sure this sign would be gone in a few months, here it is five years later and it's still there. Stop me if you've heard this one, too: this sign is on the back side of PA 313 and doesn't often get direct sunlight, so as a result, even though I love this original shot, I have been trying in vain to get another shot of this with better lighting conditions. Last week, the late afternoon sun was shining, I was within striking distance of Quakertown, and I had some time to kill, so I figured, why not? To get to the News Agency, you have to pass the building and hook around it in one of those lovely maneuvers that you only have to do in the... --- > My initial shots of the Turn-In Family Restaurant in Bath, PA were some of the first sign pictures I took, and good ones, too. - Published: 2014-07-07 - Modified: 2014-07-07 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/turn-in-tune-out/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: bath, pennsylvania, Turn-In When I was in college, to get a little extra money, I would loan out my 1984 Dodge Charger to people who needed to borrow it. One of the guys in my dorm was one of my regulars, and although I was reasonably sure that on more than one occasion he spent the time with my car doing donuts in some unfortunate parking lot (I had to have the alignment adjusted three times in college, and always after this guy borrowed it), I continued to let him do so. One day he asked if I could take the Charger to drop him off at the Knoxville airport. He was practically in tears. Not because he had to go the Knoxville airport, which would be bound to affect anybody, nor because of any tragedy in his life that required him getting on a plane, but because he had had a nightmare the previous night. In the nightmare, he had gone to the airport and in the process of doing so, was involved in a car accident and killed. After telling me this, he detailed all the reasons why he should disbelieve everything in the dream, put aside his fears, and get on that plane. It was a matter of faith. So, in conclusion, he understood if I just wanted to let him borrow my car, or even if I didn't let him near my car. Now it was my matter of faith. I did the only logical thing I could think... --- > I went by Shankweiler's Drive-In Theater to get some shots. They have a terrific neon sign out on the road that points passers-by on PA 309 to the drive-in. - Published: 2014-06-26 - Modified: 2014-06-26 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/broadening-horizons-shankweilers/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: drive-in, hollingshead, orefield, pennsylvania, shankweiler's, shankweiler's drive in Last Saturday, we found ourselves in Barnes & Noble, which was not too terrifically unusual. We're often in there swilling Starbucks and poring over the latest issue of Modern Bungalow, Food and Wine, or, on the off-chance they have it, the British Journal of Photography. However, this time, I was there with a purpose. A friend of mine has been reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and by sharing a few passages of the book with me, he convinced me to get a copy. Which, ironically, proves the book's point. So while we were in there, Laura wanted to get something on similar lines, and so we both bought a book to read. Rewind to the previous week. I stopped by Shankweiler's Drive-In Theater to get some test shots, just before I got my new lens. They have a terrific neon sign out on the road that points passers-by on PA 309 toward the old drive-in. Here's the shot I posted earlier: I posted an iPhone version on Instagram, as is my general policy, and continued on as if nothing happened. A few hours later, your friend and mine, Mod Betty from retroroadmap. com, lets me know that her long-awaited series of videos were going to begin taping. And her first location: Shankweiler's Drive-In. So, last Friday, we gathered ourselves together after work to meet up with her, and, for the first time in a long while, visit a drive-in theater. That morning, Laura told me something that rather surprised... --- > I've been going around to signs and places nearby that I've taken shots of before. The most obvious choice for a test was Nick's Diner in Allentown. - Published: 2014-06-19 - Modified: 2014-06-19 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/test-nicks-diner/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: allentown, nick's, nick's diner, pennsylvania Now that I've got my new Pentax Limited lens, I've been going around to signs and places nearby that I've taken shots of before, just to compare. Part of me is saying to myself, is this really going to make a difference? and the other part is saying, Well, I'm going to have fun trying. The most obvious choice for a test was Nick's Diner in Allentown, since I've taken so many pictures there before. I stopped by there yesterday and snapped off a bunch with the new lens. Yep, that'll do. --- > One of the happier pieces of news I have received in the past few days is the sign atop Roadside America in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania has been restored. - Published: 2014-06-16 - Modified: 2014-06-16 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/another-roadside-attraction/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: pennsylvania, pentax, roadside america, shartlesville One of the happier pieces of news I have received in the past few days is the announcement that after a time of disrepair, the sign atop Roadside America in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania has been restored. This was good news for a number of different reasons, not the least of which, because I worked on their website, I would have an official opportunity to take pictures of their sign. But while I'm at it, of course, I might as well share with all of you. The Original Sign, although in March of this year, it looked like this... click here And now today... If you've never been to Roadside America (get ready for the plug), it is the masterwork of Laurence Gieringer, who specialized in miniatures and model railroading in the first half of the twentieth century. Essentially, it's a gym-sized building filled with an electric train set of your dreams: trees, houses, a giant waterfall, several trains running at once and several moving parts. It has not changed since Gieringer's death in 1963, so for instance, the town at the front right-hand corner has an old one-screen movie theater and an Esso station. During the presentation that happens every hour, Kate Smith signs "God Bless America," which forty or fifty ago would be considered rather typical and quite possibly corny, but in this day and age seems strangely wonderful, nostalgic and charming. If you're on your way out of New York City or New Jersey going to points west along... --- > On Saturday, I made good on a promise I made to Laura a while ago, to take her to Hot Dog Johnny's in Buttzville, New Jersey. - Published: 2014-06-09 - Modified: 2021-02-03 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/feng-shui-and-the-art-of-hot-dog-maintenance/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: buttzville, feng shui, hot dog johnny, new jersey About a month ago, we were watching one of those house hunting shows where a couple is ducking in and out of houses, accompanied by an agent, all the while expressing opinions on this and that. The couple in this particular episode featured a woman who was deep into feng shui. Deep into feng shui. Every room was throwing off negative energy and this wasn't right and that wasn't right and everything is just wrong wrong wrong. This was the constant theme. It got to the point where, as often happens on these type of shows, you begin to wonder how the person's poor spouse doesn't hit them over the head with something heavy on a routine basis. Even the host, whose job it is to stay positive and cordial, was very obviously seconds away from some sort of conniption fit. It struck me as great irony that someone who was such a stickler for negative energy was such a free-flowing source of it. I'm a believer in creating a positive atmosphere, which is what feng shui should be about. Our house was getting a bit cluttered and as a result, we decided to see if there were any feng shui tips we could discover on the internet. There were, of course, but it can get hairy and confusing very quickly, so we figured it was best to stick to basics. On Saturday, I made good on a promise I made to Laura a while ago, to take her to... --- - Published: 2014-06-01 - Modified: 2014-06-01 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/testing-testing/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: cortland, harrington music, hellertown, new jersey, new york, olga's diner, orefield, pennsylvania, phillipsburg, shankweiler's drive in Allow me to get technical for a moment. It's been an odd year for us this year. It started out with two months worth of interviews for a job that would have uprooted us to live in frozen climes, only to see it end ingloriously with a job offer that fell below the radar, followed by a trip to San Antonio, followed by taking turns with the flu. In the midst of all this, I finally decided it was high time to upgrade my lens from a kit and a few old manual primes to something better. Mine is a Pentax K5, which has been a treat. The Pentax "limited" lens group is well recognized for its build quality and sharpness, but unfortunately, funds are just as limited and I can only afford to get one at a time. Which brings up the messy business of figuring out which lens, in fact, works best for my purposes. In that spirit, I decided to go out to some of my favorite local spots to see what focal lengths I normally use. My first thought was that I would need something more like a portrait lens, perhaps the 70mm from Pentax, or if I felt like laying down some good money, the 77mm that everyone raves about. I came to a different conclusion on my first stop, The Movies in Hellertown. I put my 70-300 zoom on the K5 and stood across the road, knowing the results of the shots I've taken... --- - Published: 2014-05-21 - Modified: 2014-05-21 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/out-of-the-past/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: B&M Restaurant, bessie mae rawls, charles "teenie" harris, pittsburgh As you might imagine, I have a pretty sizable love for old stuff, so on occasion I've been known to stop by an antique mall or two. A couple weeks ago, I went with a purpose: my nephews were having a costume birthday party and I was going to go as a spy. So naturally I needed a spy camera, because that's how this spy rolls. I ended up in the Black Rose in Allentown because I was pretty sure I could find a cheap, old, plastic number that would fit the bill, and sure enough I did. It was an Ansco (made proudly in Binghamton, NY, as was I), and it even had a case to go with it. But in the meantime, as I wandered from booth to booth in this massive space, I came across a booth with three photographs, all black and white, all mounted on foam-core. The first, which caught my eye, was of a piano player, resting on top of the piano, lazily pressing his fingers to the keys. The second was of four women in identical white dresses, arranged in a semi-circle, and who should be in the middle of that semi-circle but Mr. Ray Charles himself. And then a third, which seemed to have very little to do with the others. But that was the one I bought. File under: must have I didn't know anything about it, where it came from, where it was taken, if it still existed, but I... --- - Published: 2014-05-19 - Modified: 2017-06-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/update-on-ellis-brothers/ - Categories: Uncategorized - Tags: binghamton, ellis brothers The good news first: since it was the Contemporary Furniture store owned by Ellis Brothers that burned down, and since there is an alley that separates Ellis Brothers' two stores, reports of Binghamton's long-standing furniture store's demise have been greatly exaggerated. The bad news is that half of Ellis Brothers' business will have to be rebuilt. But, they're fairly confident they can restore what was lost. More here. --- - Published: 2014-05-12 - Modified: 2014-05-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/where-credit-is-due/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: helmrich's, jean francois porchez, pennsylvania, tobias frere-jones, williamsport Hand lettered sign, Helmrich's Seafood, Williamsport, PA One of the coolest things to happen to me in a while happened to me last week: it seems that the type designer Tobias Frere-Jones was writing an article for his blog on the subject of regional type. The main body of the article is a list he composed with others of photostreams, blogs, personal sites and such, showing off "type in the wild" in a variety of countries. As it so happens, Jean-Francois Porchez, the French type designer, is a follower of mine on Instagram (which is impossibly cool all in itself), and he suggested my feed to Tobias Frere-Jones. The article is here. These shots, showing off some of the best hand-lettering I've seen, are the decorations on the side of Helmrich's Seafood in Williamsport, PA. I took these in May of 2012 and they remain some of my favorites. Following Frere-Jones' lead, it occurred to me that I have a lot of people I'd like to acknowledge. Whereas I am a great believer in happenstance, I have discovered that this crazy thing I do is so much easier when I get some inspiration. Here are a few sites and streams that I always go back to when the well runs dry: Retro Roadmap: Another impossibly cool thing that as happened since I started this site up a year ago... Beth Lennon (Mod Betty, to us mere mortals) of Retro Roadmap was one of my early supporters and shared an article... --- - Published: 2014-05-05 - Modified: 2014-05-05 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/at-the-last-minute/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: binghamton, ellis brothers, new york Let's back up a bit. A few months ago, I put out a post called "Tales of Philly Sales," about a dear departed department store in the city of Binghamton. The response on that particular post has been tremendous, which led me to think about writing a sequel to it, sharing some of the memories that had been shared with me. I decided to use a trip to Binghamton as an opportunity to get a few more sign shots to back up the story. A few things got in the way. First, our trip to San Antonio yielded much more than I imagined, and so for a months I posted little else. Second, the flu hit us, and I wasn't upright long enough to sit in front of a computer to type it out. And then, all of a sudden, I knew why it was taking me so long to get this story together. Early March: The first night I was in town I got in a bit early. Don't ask me why--maybe I was bored and needed something to do--but I decided to go by Ellis Brothers and take a shot of the sign. I had gotten shots of this sign before. Twice before, in fact, but something compelled me to go by. I snapped off a few, kind of half-wondering what I was going to do with these shots. It was kind of a dull evening, and cold, and the first grouping of shots I got four years... --- - Published: 2014-04-23 - Modified: 2017-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-the-leftovers/ - Categories: Signs and Stories As I said before, the weather turned nasty the last few days we were in San Antonio, so there wasn't a whole lot of photography going on, but there were plenty of pictures I left out of my posts from the first three days just simply because I didn't have enough room! This ghost sign was across the street from the Alamo. I still can't really make out what it was, but the shapes and hints of colors make me believe it must have been quite grand in its day. This was actually the first shot I took that week. Art Corner, Universal City, TX We spotted this one on our way through back streets to get the picture of the Randolph Cleaners on Day 2. It was difficult to tell if this place was still open. I love the shape of this sign, and it's a rare sight to see one of these corrugated signs still standing. I'm always fascinated by signs that were repurposed, and then the repurposing has, in fact, decayed more than the original. A certain justice that the sign above, around the corner from The Pig Stand in San Antonio, has shed its slapped-on skin in favor of its original metal. We passed by this on Day One, and I got this single shot from a moving car. Threadgill's, Austin, TX Threadgill's is actually from 1981, but the signs look considerably older. It's one of many legendary Austin music locations. We came upon it during... --- - Published: 2014-04-16 - Modified: 2017-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-day-3-austin-bound/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: austin, austin motel, capitol, freddie's, joe koen and son, kruger's jewelers, la condesa, roadhouse relics, san antonio, state theater, texas Here's what's great about my sister-in-law Hannah: on the day that we had planned to make the drive up to Austin, she couldn't sleep. So, instead of doing as the rest of us would do and lay around in bed waiting for something drowsy to happen, she got up and started surfing around the internet for places to eat in Austin. What she discovered was La Condesa, a Modern Mexican place nominated by the James Beard Foundation for Best New Restaurant. As we struggle down to breakfast she tells us this, describes the menu, and suddenly I'm counting the hours until lunch. But first, Austin itself. Let me say this: I don't like the heat. I grew up in a city that gets 80-plus inches of snow a year. I lived in Chattanooga and that was too hot for me. We met several people in Chattanooga who moved from Texas to escape the heat. I HATE heat. So bear this in mind when I say this: Austin is totally worth the heat. Obligatory Looking-Up-at-the-Top-of-the-Dome Shot Now, of course, Austin has so many signs worth photographing that I couldn't count them all. In fact, I had to give some a pass just because there just wasn't time. The other unfortunate thing about this particular trip was the fact that it was pretty overcast much of the day. We walked the streets and I wandered off to gather all the best signs in. Two jewelers sit across from each other on Congress... --- - Published: 2014-04-07 - Modified: 2017-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-day-2/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: san antonio, texas We woke up on our second day in San Antonio to homemade granola and Cafe de Olla. This was going to be a day of homemade food, and when you consider our hostess' prowess in the kitchen, restaurants could stand to take a break for a day. Hannah works at Central Market in San Antonio, so we'd be going there for some lunch and to gather in the ingredients needed for dinner. Along the way, to placate my sign addiction, we'd hit a few high spots. Before that, though, Hannah took us over to Randolph, where Dan is technically stationed while he is doing his residency. On the way over, I spotted something poking out of the buildings across the street from the base, and after we had taken a drive through the facility, I saw that I had not misjudged what I had seen at a distance. It was the sign for Randolph Laundry & Cleaners, a neon sign on top of the building. Happy circumstance: no one had any idea it was there. If you'll notice, I got photobombed by a bird up at the top near the "R". It was an angry bird. Very angry bird... So rather than face the wrath of this bird, we decided to go toward Central Market. Along the way, though, Hannah had a sign location in mind for me: Bun-N-Barrel has been around since 1950, and it's definitely a testament to the kind of roadside architecture we've come to know and... --- > For a number of years, Laura's sister, the esteemed Chef Hannah, has been living in San Antonio with her husband, the esteemed Dr. Dan. - Published: 2014-03-30 - Modified: 2017-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-san-antonio-food-and-sign-festival-day-one/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: alamo, big red, casa rio, mary ann's pig stand, riverwalk, samuels glass, san antonio, texas, the granary, the luxury For a number of years, Laura's sister, the esteemed Chef Hannah, has been living in San Antonio with her husband, the esteemed Dr. Dan. We've been meaning to go down there to see them since they married and moved there in 2010, but doing so would have meant a couple of things: a) that we would have to get on a plane, and b) that we would have to arrive at such a time when the weather was not 145 degrees. Not that either of us has a fear of flying, but that at least one of us has a dislike of airports. And the heat is something neither of us enjoy. Fortunately, San Antonio is not yet brutal in March, and having endured this past winter in the Northeast, even if it was 145 degrees in San Antonio, it would have been welcome. So off on a plane we went. Three weeks earlier, this phone conversation took place between the four of us on speaker phone: Laura: We're so looking forward to coming! Hannah: Great! And I don't want to say that everything we're going to do revolves around food... Dan: ... but it does. And so, to vindicate herself and to do the admittedly "touristy" thing, our first day we went down to the Alamo. Now, if you're like me, and have spent your days relatively Alamo-free, and you come in contact with another person who is experienced in the care and feeding of Alamoes, they will no... --- - Published: 2014-03-08 - Modified: 2014-03-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/surrounded-by-reality/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: cayuga, chanticleer, ithaca, new york, state, state theater From time to time I find myself in the confines of Ithaca, New York, that stalwart college town at the foot of Cayuga Lake. Ithaca, for those of you who have not had the pleasure, is a treasure trove of natural beauty laced with all the Bohemian atmosphere the best of college atmosphere can harbor. While many of the cities in the area have been decimated by the loss of industry, Ithaca remains unaffected, and has perhaps even grown over the years. All of this was encapsulated by a bumper sticker I once saw on a car at the Farmer's Market in Ithaca one day, which read: "Ten Square Miles, Surrounded by Reality*. " At the same level as Cayuga's Waters... I took the above picture five years ago when Laura and I were driving around and found ourselves in Sherman Park. We had stopped in a cool used book store along the way that was part catacombs, part library, stopped here for a photo op, and ended up at Buttermilk Falls. Beautiful weather for May, sunny and in the sixties. A fantastic day, and one we'll always remember. But during my last trip to Ithaca, considering I was by myself and it was freezing cold and I didn't have time to stop and look at used books, I had other matters on my mind: namely, the neon chicken known as Chanticleer. Chanticleer is a bar in the center of town well known to generations of Cornell and Ithaca College... --- - Published: 2014-02-13 - Modified: 2014-02-13 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/different-signs-different-seasons/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: buttzville, delaware, hot dog johnny, hunter's lodge, new jersey During one summer day last year, I found myself with a bit of time, a bit of hunger, and proximity to New Jersey. I also had my camera with me, and a sign on my New Jersey to-do list. It all came together in the form of Hot Dog Johnny's in Buttzville, New Jersey, along US 46. It was a gorgeous day, and Hot Dog Johnny's is located in a cool spot along the river. The place was packed, despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon, and I had to wait in line for a couple of dogs. They cook their hot dogs in the deep-fry style, which seems to be a New Jersey thing, and it is a lovely thing. Rutt's Hut in Clifton was my first introduction to this delicious culinary mutation, so that particular location holds a special place in my heart (and perhaps, my arteries). Overall, my trip to Hot Dog Johnny was terrific. It was only sullied by the fact that I had another place on my list, Hunter's Lodge, a motel also on Route 46, and I didn't have the time to hit both. A few weeks ago, I had the chance to go again, and this time, I was all about Hunter's Lodge, and it was my hope that the cover of snow that has blanketed the Northeast this winter would add to the photographs, just as the greenery and sun brightened my Hot Dog Johnny shots. It was a little farther up... --- - Published: 2014-02-06 - Modified: 2014-02-06 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/at-first-you-dont-succeed/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: movie theater, neon signs, northampton, orefield, pennsylvania, roxy Tuesday ended up being a very interesting day. I had planned to take Laura in to work on my way, but she remembered she had a hair appointment north of town and it made more sense to take both cars. Then, on Tuesday morning, when we saw all the accidents that were going on in Allentown that morning due to the snow and ice on US 22, it suddenly became more sensible for us to revert to our original plan. So I drove her in, avoided all manner of accidents. But it left me waiting in the salon for an hour and a half that night. Armed with the copy of Killing Floor by Lee Child, I was prepared to wait things out if it took all winter. I sunk into a zebra-stripe chair and dove in to my book. People came and went. The sun set. No snow was falling, but it was on its way that night. My mind wandered: could I go anywhere? Normally I'd find a sign to photograph, but I had pretty much tapped out the north end of the Lehigh Valley. Except... The Roxy, June 2010 Those of you who follow this blog will know that there is one sign I have been dying to get all lit up: the Roxy in Northampton. I've chronicled my woes surrounding this location before. I'm always there at the wrong time. Just a few weeks earlier, I spun by there again, only to be at least an... --- - Published: 2014-01-23 - Modified: 2025-01-06 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/what-gets-you-through-the-winter/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: allentown, kwik shoppe, neon bullet holes, neon signs, pennsylvania, schmoyers, shoemakersville, winter It was cold today, which officially makes the winter redundant. The Northeast has been brutal this year, with wind chills in to the negative degrees. I haven't been as active as I would have liked in the last two months, due to one thing or another, but somehow when I do manage to find a good sign to shoot, I manage to choose the absolute coldest of cold days. Earlier on in January, I got shots of the Kwik Shoppe in Shoemakersville. Beautiful sunshine, wind chills below freezing. The needle didn't hit double digits (that's Farenheit, metric system fans) until I got back home. It was so cold during this shoot, I was trying, with varying success, to hit the shutter button on my K-5 with my heavy winter gloves. Oh, was this a cold, cold day... But I couldn't argue with the results. There's something about the winter sun that is noticeable in photographs. A harshness, hyper-contrast. Yesterday was such a day. Not a cloud in the sky, brutal sun, and the freezing point of the extremity of a female occultist's mammary gland. Check the picture below. I was just starting to take shots of signs in the summer of 2010 when I came across Schmoyer's Dry Cleaners in the Mountainville area of Allentown. The building, I could tell, was closed, and in my mind I had to get a shot of it before the sign came down for good. Nearly four years later and the sign still stands,... --- - Published: 2014-01-06 - Modified: 2014-01-06 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-learning/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: allentown, lehigh structural steel, pennsylvania A friend of mine once said that he liked the fall because it reminded him of going back to high school. I thought about that for days after, and even now I still remember it. It serves as a reminder to me that I don't ever want to be so caught up in the past that I wander through my present and future. I understand the feeling he felt, though. Change is difficult, even when we want it. As human beings, we are so geared toward holding on to what we have that it is hard to let go of something, even when it's already gone. Some have worse trouble than others and are selfish in all things; some have the ability to let go in certain areas and free themselves. One of the things I love about photography is that it is always the present. But the irony, of course, is that once this moment of the present is captured, immediately it melts into the past. This is why I like to take pictures of the same thing several times: the present changes, making the subject darker, lighter, unbelievably cheerful or dreary without hope. And some things are just varying degrees of one or the other. One location seems to be just the dark and the dreary. Three times I've gotten shots at the Lehigh Structural Steel in Allentown; the first, on the hottest day of the year in 2009: The second shot was taken on a bright, clear... --- - Published: 2013-12-18 - Modified: 2013-12-18 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/reinvention/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: bloomsburg, capitol restaurant, coopersburg, harrisburg, neato burrito, pennsylvania, the inside scoop Stop me if I’ve said this before, but it had great impact: a few months ago I was listening to “Fresh Air” on NPR, my favorite return-home radio program. The interview was with a college professor and social media expert. She was talking about how her students, in this age of social media, were not able to reinvent themselves in college as prior generations had, because Facebook and Twitter and Instagram followed them around, keeping them anchored to their past. Whereas I’m sure that this college professor’s students felt that pressure to remain in their past, the ones who make the hard decision to shed the past and move on are going to be all the better for it. Bear in mind this comes from the man who earlier this year said to himself, “Huh. It’s been 25 years since I graduated high school. Wonder if there was a reunion. Oh, well. ” It sounds strange coming from someone who takes photographs of old signs, but there is an impossible danger to living in the past. I have an appreciation of the past, which is not the same thing. Ever had a friend who wished he was still in high school? Genuinely frightening, right? I appreciate my high school years for what they were, but put a bullet in my head if I had to go back and relive them. Things are changing and changing rapidly in my life, so in honor of that, I decided to throw together some... --- - Published: 2013-12-12 - Modified: 2013-12-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-end-of-limbo/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: bea butler, brooks, danville, henry voelcker, montgomery, pennsylvania, pike drive-in, shamokin dam, sunbury, sunset rink, susquehanna valley For the last few months I've been trying to concoct a post on signs in the Central Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania, where I spend a good deal of my time. Due to economic reasons, four days and three nights I spend working in the Lewisburg area. Away from my wife. It's been like that for nearly three years. It's been difficult to write about, because to be quite honest, I'd rather talk about travel and signs and inspiring things instead of whining about my own problems. And then I found out this week that I'm going to be able to do work from home at the start of the year. So now that I've reached the end, it seems this the perfect time to bring out some of the signs I've taken shots of during the last few years. Henry Voelcker, Danville, PA This beauty is down a side street in my wife's hometown. I stumbled upon it one day in 2011 and got a few shots of it, but being the pronounced goof that I am, wanted to get a shot of it lit. Every time I was in Danville about dusk, I would drop down the side street and see if it was lit. And if it wasn't, I'd drive off and come back a little later. No deal for the longest time. Finally, I decided it was high time that I forget about it happening naturally and stepped inside one day. The guy working there was very... --- > Philadelphia Sales Company, or Philly Sales as they were more commonly known, was the Wal-Mart before there was Wal-Mart, and I loved it. - Published: 2013-12-04 - Modified: 2021-02-03 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/tales-of-philly-sales/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: binghamton, compettition kitchens, ellis brothers, greyhound, greyhound station, philadelphia sales, philly sales, red oak diner During this last week I had a great conversation with someone I met on Facebook who lives in the Charlotte area but grew up, as I did, in Binghamton, New York. We got to reminiscing about some things that are no longer in the area, such as the signs at Walter’s Shoe Store and Elgin Rugs, and stuff every good Binghamtonian should know, such as where to get the best spiedie. Asking yourself, what’s a spiedie? The native food of Binghamton. The nectar of the gods. That which I must eat every few months or so or I start to twitch. More here... So in amongst the conversation was a mention of Philadelphia Sales Company. Alas, I have no pictures of this place, since it closed before I ever owned a camera, but it’s an important component of why I do what I do. While I tell you all about it, I’ll scatter in some pictures of other Binghamton landmark signs I did manage to get in time. Greyhound Station (restored), Binghamton, NY Philadelphia Sales Company, or Philly Sales as they were more commonly known, was the Wal-Mart before there was Wal-Mart. They had everything for less and you didn’t question its origins. Four floors of random stuff from ball gloves to fabrics. The building it was housed in was not in the best neighborhood, and when you entered from the parking lot, you were greeted by the view of the back side of some ancient tenements which had somehow... --- - Published: 2013-11-27 - Modified: 2013-11-27 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/mission-accomplished/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: bar-b-q king, charlotte, curb service, north carolina, staunton, stonewall jackson hotel, virginia, wright's, wright's dairy-rite The sun was at our backs, slowly disappearing behind the comfort of Virginia hilltops. We hadn’t said anything to each other in about a half hour. Somehow to talk would slow us down. Laura driving, me in the passenger’s side, messing with my camera gear. We had twenty-five miles to go, and the darkness was already creeping in. I had given up and had my hopes raised three or four times in the past ten minutes. Nagging doubt. I was going to miss out once again. A week earlier: the opposite direction, another time of day. Morning, 7am. I’m driving, clutching the steering wheel. The sun was reluctant to remove itself from the same Virginia hills. It had been raining since we had left in a crazy fit of vacation-fueled excitement at two in the morning. But now, for the moment, the rain had subsided and there was a chance. Clouds had swallowed the light of the sun and the skies were still practically dark as night. Three miles from Staunton, Virginia. My goal was Wright’s Dairy-Rite and the Stonewall Jackson Hotel, two terrific landmarks in the same basic neighborhood. Three years before, when my sister-in-law got married and they were to drive down this same highway to get to their eventual home in Texas, I suggested Wright’s as a possible stopping place. Car-hop service. Drive-In. Grand old sign. How road food used to be. I had never been there, but they stopped and enjoyed. Next year, on our way... --- - Published: 2013-11-19 - Modified: 2013-11-19 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/a-bit-of-old-florida/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: boulevard motel, daytona beach, daytona beach shores, deland, florida, hawaii motel, our deck down under, won lee When my grandparents moved to Florida in the mid-80s, it was inevitable that we would go down to visit them. At the time they had a trailer they had used to take a trip around the United States, and it was just lying around in the parking lot of their housing complex gathering dust. Either my parents put two and two together, or they had two and two together for them, and in the spring of 1986, I went on my first trip to Florida, spending a week in a camper on Flagler Beach. To date, this is the worst trip I have ever been on. Day 2: while splashing about in the ocean, a riptide catches my father and sends him out to sea. Only by the grace of God, a past life as a lifeguard, and the ability to wait until the pull of the current subsided before trying to swim back to shore kept him from drowning. Day 3: I got sick. Scratch that. I became Sickness itself. The collected solids and fluids I had gathered in the previous 15 years decided to vacate my body via any available opening. This continued for a majority of the week. And then we went home. We never stayed in a trailer again as a family. Not that I have any quarrels with Flagler Beach, which was simply an innocent bystander to my teenage angst, but I have never been back there since. But the one thing I got to... --- - Published: 2013-11-12 - Modified: 2013-11-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/what-is-to-come/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: daytona beach, desert inn, florida It was windy on the beach at Daytona during the middle of the week. Not nasty enough to pick up the sand and hurl it in your face, but enough to question why you're walking on the beach in the first place. Laura and I had walked for a good distance, past several mostly-empty hotels until we got to Treasure Island, a behemoth of a hotel that closed down after a hurricane several years ago and never re-opened, making it a Mecca for birds and graffiti artists alike. As were looking this over, seeing the half-collapsed Tiki hut, the cracked concrete, and the sagging metal fence surrounding the area, intended to keep the general public out, I said, "Do you want to turn around and go back? " She said, "Let's keep going. Forever. " And that's when I lost it. It's always a long trip down from Pennsylvania, but always well worth it. Even our worst trip, which included blasting in Roanoke, accident delays in Charlotte and Jacksonville, and an incident where several cars were broken into at our hotel in Columbia (but not ours), has been a blessing. I love the road. I love seeing everything along the way. Sure, a plane can get you there faster, but you miss so much. Hard year. My job is so distant from home and spending three nights apart is painful, no matter how many phone calls and texts you send to the one you love. The first year defined how... --- - Published: 2013-10-30 - Modified: 2013-10-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/gone-fishin-for-signs/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: daytona beach, florida, hawaii motel, new smyrna beach I suppose the mark of whether you are a good employee is the amount of work that piles upon you the last week before you go on vacation. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but since I've been vertically and horizontally swamped this week, I choose to believe that my work will be missed. Which brings me sideways to my point: next week I'll be on vacation. My family has been vacationing in Daytona Beach since the mid-80s, when my grandparents moved to nearby Ormond Beach. The last two years have been spent in New Smyrna Beach (please read as New Sa-myrna Beach, to sound like a native). And last year, we ran into one of the drearier Novembers Florida has had in recent memory, so there was little beach time and much more fishing for signs. During a brief amount of sun I managed to get to Shangri-La. Or at least, the motel version. This was a real old "motor court" style of place, with the individual cabins a la It Happened One Night. While I was snapping away merrily, a woman came out of one of the cabins. Turns out she's one of the owners, and she let me know a little bit about the place. The sign has been out of order since a hurricane hit the area a few years ago. It might work, but when they tried it, there was some electricity arcing going on, so they felt it best to leave... --- - Published: 2013-10-22 - Modified: 2013-10-22 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/uglybeautiful/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: 11-15 Fuel Stop, abandoned, allentown, Izzy's, Liverpool, pennsylvania, The Orange Car What is it that draws us to abandoned and broken places? Is it simply just because they are different from the everyday, or do they cause interesting questions in the mind of the viewer, or is there something within us that feels a kinship with its lonely and broken appearance. Perhaps all three. Izzy's Allentown, PA (post-fire, now torn down) The Orange Car, Allentown, PA It wasn't a good weekend last weekend. My computer of six years took a sudden and irrepairable nosedive on Saturday. On Sunday, my car started hesitating while shifting gears and my check engine light came on. The fun continued yesterday, which started with me in the dealership, went on to work, where everyone else was also having a bad day, and finished off with me dropping my B&H catalog in the toilet (don't ask). My brother-in-law posted something on Facebook about having a horrible day as well. You never wish a bad day on anyone, but it was nice to know that I wasn't alone. 11-15 Fuel Stop, Liverpool, PA A few months ago, I stopped by an old gas station along US 11 and 15. It's been closed for as long as I've been driving along that stretch of road, but its hand-painted sign along the top has always intrigued me. I finally had the time this trip through so I pulled off, and for the first time, I took a good long look at it. Pretty desolate outside, but inside was a scene... --- - Published: 2013-10-16 - Modified: 2013-10-16 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/save-the-drive-in/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: auburn, drive-in, drive-in movies, fingerlakes, fingerlakes drive-in, montgomery, new york, pennsylvania, pike In passing by a storefront in Lewisburg just recently, I saw a flyer for Project Drive-In, an initiative started by Honda. Many of the few existing drive-ins have found themselves in a good amount of trouble lately, owing to the fact that the film industry is ditching film in favor of digital. The two closest drive-ins to Lewisburg, the Pike in Montgomery, PA, and the Point, in between Northumberland and Danville, are among those in danger. Also, another one of my favorites that I just went by this last weekend, the Fingerlakes Drive-In just outside of Auburn, NY, finds itself in the same predicament. Kudos to Honda for championing this cause. You can visit their Project Drive-In site at projectdrivein. com Somewhat related is my latest video, taken this summer. I took a trip down US 209 from the Lykens Valley to Tamaqua and stopped by to see if an old buddy of mine was still around. The sign for the Temple Drive-In caved in more than a year ago, and its twisted appearance is absolutely fascinating. The Temple has been closed for some time now. Its last-gasp effort to keep itself open was to start showing X-rated movies in the late 80’s. I guess they over-estimated the market for outdoor porn and soon closed for good. --- - Published: 2013-10-10 - Modified: 2017-06-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-heart-of-easton/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: easton, horns, lafayette, lafayette bar, lafayette coffee shoppe, northampton national bank, pennsylvania, state cafe grill For the last four years, I’ve had cause to go in to Easton, PA once a week. It’s the hometown of former heavyweight champ Larry Holmes, who was apparently nicknamed “The Easton Assassin,” although I had never heard such a nickname until I moved to the area. It has a certain reputation, deserved or not. It’s quite hilly, and the serpentine drive along US 22 is much like a trip on the Wild Mouse at the State Fair. Lafayette Bar and Coffee House, June 2012 Over a year ago, I posted a photograph on Instagram that I took of the Lafayette Hotel/Bar/Coffee Shop in downtown Easton. So I related the story of the picture’s origins: I drove up and parked in front, got out of the car with my Pentax k20d in one hand and my iPhone in the other and snapped off a few shots. A couple of guys were moving a ratty-looking couch out of the building. Another guy asked me what I was doing in that kind of city-dweller way where you’re not sure if the person is looking for a) a friend, b) a couple bucks, c) a good conversation, or d) a way to rip my camera from my cold, dead hand. I presumed it was somewhere in between a and b and left after about ten minutes because I was doing more talking than snapping. A few days later, I tell this story to my friend Oscar. And he tells me a hair-raising story... --- - Published: 2013-10-08 - Modified: 2013-10-08 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/the-long-lost-video-of-auburn/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: auburn, auburn floors, bee line, daut's fine food, genesee, ghost sign, ghost signs, hunter dinerant, new york, video While I was digging up stuff for the last post, I finally got around to editing the video I had taken while trying to get the Genesee sign, the Hunter Dinerant, and the ghost sign. So here it is in all its splendor and glory, and the few surprises I found around the corner. Be kind, gentle reader... --- - Published: 2013-10-01 - Modified: 2013-10-01 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/an-engagement/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: aubutn, bee line, daut's fine food, genesee, hunter dinerant, new york, skaneateles Last year at this time, my sister-in-law Rachel wanted to know if we would be available to take some engagement pictures. After all, she and her finacee Derek were going to get married in October of 2013, so why not to take engagement pictures that reflect the season. She also wanted to know where would be best to take them. Laura and I did not hesitate. We chose our favorite spot, Skaneateles, NY. The trip coincided with something I wanted to cross off my to-do list, a spot in nearby Auburn, New York that I had been just itching to get. The confluence of the Hunter Dinerant, a great ghost sign behind it, and the Genesee Sign in the distance. In the process, I found two other great signs. So, since quite honestly I'm rushed with all the wedding preparations this week, here's a selection of these: We found this one just down the street... And this one around the corner... Happy wedding week, guys! --- - Published: 2013-09-26 - Modified: 2013-09-26 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/neon-dreams-and-neon-missions/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: allentown, allentown rescue mission, news agency, pennsylvania, pentax k20d, quakertown, zandy's Closing Up at Zandy's in Allentown, PA, 2009. A few days ago I had a dream. Don’t laugh, but it was about a sign. I was driving down a familiar road, or at least, a road that was familiar in my dream. I passed by a large and impressive sign, one that I must have passed by a thousand times and somehow never noticed. It was lit up in the middle of the day and had all sorts of neon and bulbs and all the bells and whistles. I pulled the car over and realized I was still far away, so I turned around and parked in the lot. By the time I got to the sign, the lights had gone out, and I could see that there was this odd LCD sign bisecting the great old neon one, stuck in the middle of it as if it had been thrown there with great force. The people who worked at that business, which was beauty salon, were leaving to go to lunch. Two women and a man. They walked up the street and I followed them, figuring when they would get back they would turn the lights back on. The people stopped to eat at someplace that I knew was not a restaurant. It resembled a college dorm. They sat down at a table and blabbed to each other and paid no notice of me telling them they weren’t in a restaurant. I woke up the next morning and told... --- - Published: 2013-09-23 - Modified: 2013-09-23 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/happy-birthday-to-my-oma/ - Categories: Uncategorized Completely off the subject of signs and completely on the subject of stories, here is a very special happy birthday to my maternal grandmother, who is 95 years old today! Oma in 1930, Amsterdam, Holland Her life is simply amazing. So amazing, in fact, that about five years ago, when she turned 90, we decided to record several of Oma's stories for posterity. It got somewhat out of hand and turned into an hour and half long documentary. The short version: Oma grew up in Amsterdam, married my Opa during World War II (where he was working in the Fokker Airplane plant, repairing/sabotaging Nazi planes), emigrated to Australia in the late 40s, then emigrated to America in the late 50s. We lost Opa in the early 90s and for several years, Oma lived quietly in Beverly, Massachusetts. She remarried an old family friend, Dr. Grady Spires, when she was 87 years old. Well, that wasn't quite the short version, but it'll have to do. Here's a sampling of the documentary, a favorite old story about Opa's car during the Australia years: Happy Birthday, Oma! And many more... --- - Published: 2013-09-19 - Modified: 2017-06-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/old-friends/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: marlton, new jersey, olga's diner, red top market Picking up where I left off last week... New Jersey is strangely familiar to both of us. After all, Laura’s parents both came from New Jersey and both of my paternal grandparents grew up in Woodbury. We had both made several trips into the state as children, and every turn seemed to conjure up some vague memory. This week, when I told my father-in-law about this trip, he recalled his many trips to the Jersey shore and what it was like when he was young. One night, wanting to save the expense of a motel, his father drove them out into the piney nether regions just inland and settled the car into one of the sandy access roads that cut into the miles of forest. It was too hot to sleep with the windows closed and too thick with mosquitoes with the windows open. “So we didn’t get too much sleep,” he laughed. As we discovered, that area off the beach hasn’t changed over the years. Route 72, the most direct route from LBI to the Philadelphia area, has no turns in it. No houses or landmarks. The sandy inlets that creep back into the trees still exist, as, I’m sure, the descendants of the mosquitoes that bit my father-in-law all those years ago. Miles and miles of this until we came to one of New Jersey’s many traffic circles, then more road and another traffic circle. My objective: Olga’s Diner in Marlton. It had closed quite a while ago... --- - Published: 2013-09-12 - Modified: 2013-09-12 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/this-week-on-jersey-shore/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: barnegat, barnegat lighthouse, howell, jersey shore, lakewood manor, moon motel, new jersey “It was an education,” Laura said, when the day was all over. Like just about everyone we know, we have a list of things we’d like that we would probably like to do one day if the weather is not too bad and it’s not too far away and my cousin isn’t coming to town and Aquarius is in Saturn and I’m not too gassy after that burrito and... Well, in short, a maybe-do list. A list where hardly anything is ever crossed off. For us, one of the things on the maybe-do was a trip to the Jersey shore. We both had been when our ages were just out of single digits but we had never been back as adults. We were wondering if we were foolish for not going, since it’s so close. The day before Laura’s birthday and I figured, what the heck. It’s technically off-season, and when do you ever cross something off the maybe-do? Hardly ever. I thought it would be cool to go out to the Barnegat lighthouse, perhaps eat some french-fried lobster at at Howard’s (a slight bit more about this place and a hint as to my father's obsession with this place here). And you know me. I had some signs lined up. It was slightly out of our way (but not five hours) to visit the Moon Motel in Howell, New Jersey. The Moon is right out of the Space Age, complete with a booster rocket that proudly announces “TV”. What... --- - Published: 2013-09-04 - Modified: 2013-09-04 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/highway-61-revisited/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: enterprise, garfield diner, hooven, pennsylvania, Pottsville For a number of years, we would travel along PA 61 through the heart of Coal Country to get to my in-laws' house. It was always an interesting trip, and was another source that fed my love for signs, especially the old ones. It also fed my love for preserving the memory of these signs: when we first started making the trip, the hulking remains of the Deer Lake Drive-In sign still existed. Even though it was in my mind to take a picture of it every time we went by, I didn't do it. After a couple of years of this sorry state of affairs, the Deer Lake Drive-In sign was torn down. This still haunts me a little. I had the opportunity to drive along PA 61 again this week. They've been tearing things apart in that same Deer Lake area, and it was because of this I managed to see a sign that I had never seen before, for a long-departed company called Enterprise Homes. The neon is almost intact: Just up from here is the town of Schuylkill Haven. Through here, 61 is one of those stretches of road that looks like it had thrived at one point, but that one point was long, long ago. Normally, this is where my Spidey sense for old signs starts to kick in. However, I've been through here before, and I know that the only real old one is at the Country Squire, and old restaurant/bar/motel at the edge... --- - Published: 2013-08-28 - Modified: 2013-08-28 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/roads-slightly-less-traveled/ - Categories: Signs and Stories - Tags: lebow, lebow furniture, McKissic and Sons, pennsylvania, philadelphia, plotts' oil, route 1, royersford Signhunting is not an exact science. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of resources out there for discovering where the good ones are, but at the same time, not everything has been photographed, and Google is only as good as your keywords when you’re looking around on the internet. I like to use “neon sign” along with the city or town that I’m researching, but invariably I come up with a Bud Light sign or the ever-popular “Bimbo en Repose” for you art and mud flap aficionados. So, every once in a while I kick it in American Pickers mode and just hit a road I’ve never hit before. Returning from the Llanerch a few Saturdays ago, we headed up route 1, hoping to find something more. However, that area, as interesting as it is, contains no neon or anything old and interesting. Somewhat disappointed, we decided to head back via the Schuylkill Expressway. “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s Saturday,” I said. “How bad can it be? ” I said. (Philadelphia natives who are reading this: I hope you were not injured when you hit the floor laughing) After spending three lifetimes to drive the space of two miles, we were allowed to go free. And being somewhat frustrated and being the proponent of the road less traveled as I am, I followed my nose. My nose told me to go up 422, because I had some unfinished business in the town of Royersford. We had been through... --- --- ## Movies - Published: 2025-04-20 - Modified: 2025-04-20 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/annie-hall/ "We needed the eggs. " It's the punchline of the joke Woody Allen tells at the beginning of the movie, the one about the man whose brother thinks he's a chicken, and the doctor eventually asks him why it's taken so long for them to bring him in. He eventually relates this joke to relationships, and how, despite everything, we need them. I was short for my age. From the time I was eight years old, I wore glasses. I was an only child. Throw this into the mix: I started kindergarten a year early at age 4, and I also started late in my first year, so when I walked into school on the first day—my first day, anyway—full of a class of staring eyes who had been present for nearly a month, I might as well have spoken in a series or grunts and screams, while preening the impressive set of antlers sprouting out of my forehead. I took my place at a desk too tall for me and tried to fit in, which is to say, I tried to disappear. But despite my best efforts, my position as an outsider was sealed from the moment I arrived, and it became more and more clear as years passed at that school. At a time when the movie-going public still thought fondly of John Wayne, in the direct middle of Burt Reynolds' reign as the top box-office draw, there was Woody Allen, a former stand-up who had become the... --- - Published: 2025-03-06 - Modified: 2025-03-06 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/the-french-connection/ It's been about a week and (as of this moment) there hasn't been any significant development in the death of Gene Hackman, who died at the age of 95. As a tribute, I figured this was the best place to start, the movie that truly made him a front-line star. Prior to this, he had been a great character actor and second lead, doing some great work in Bonnie and Clyde and I Never Sang for My Father, receiving Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor in each, but he never really got top billing until now. For his performance as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, based on real-life detective Eddie Egan, Hackman received a Best Actor Oscar, and he continued to be one of best-known and respected actors in the business for another three decades after it. Plot: Narcotics squad detectives Jimmy Doyle and his partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are tracing a shipment of heroin from Marseilles, hidden in a car owned by a French TV personality. They trace the ring to Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), who they refer to as "Frog One. " As they recover the drugs and close in on Charnier, nothing goes as expected. Certainly there's a lot to like about this movie apart from Hackman's virtuoso performance, not the least of which is the justly-famous "car chasing an elevated train" sequence, which is made all the more breathtaking when you realize that the movie's director, William Friedkin, not only failed to get the proper permits... --- - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2025-02-26 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/titanic/ When I was ten years old, my uncle decided to take me and my cousin fishing in Boston Harbor, which sounds a lot better than it actually was. For some reason, I had pictured us going in a little boat with an outboard motor, put-putting gently along the waves, not getting too far away from shore. My uncle had a speed boat, and drove it accordingly, so fast that the front of the it raised up several feet, to the point where it felt like we were on top of a stone, skipping across the water after being tossed by a giant. To complete the picture, it was almost dark out, and there was a thick fog everywhere, so it seemed as if there was no way of knowing where we were or if we would plow directly into something as we slapped and smacked our way along the ocean at top speed. Years later, I'm in a pontoon boat on Raystown Lake with family. My brother-in-law is at the helm and he's pushing the speed a bit, and I realize that I'm practically gripping a hole in the upholstery underneath me. Honestly, I didn't really put two and two together what had happened to me until I got back to our rental property that night and drew up that memory. It wasn't the cold ocean on the grayest, bleakest, foggiest day, but the reaction was just about the same. So Titanic. For years, I wasn't exactly sure why I... --- - Published: 2025-02-15 - Modified: 2025-02-15 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/the-pink-panther/ Over the last few years, this movie's rating on IMDb has slowly gone down, and it seems apparent why: it's very different in tone and mood than any of the others in the series, and is, in effect, a romantic caper comedy more than anything else. Originally this was a vehicle for David Niven, and almost literally the film is exactly what Niven drives, a Ferrari 250GT, whereas the later Pink Panther films are vehicles for Peter Sellers, very like the 1963 Mini Cooper he drives in A Shot in the Dark. This was made in a transitional time for the movies, where you could get away with a few things more than in previous years, but the floodgates hadn't completely opened up. Older, established, and bankable stars like David Niven and Cary Grant, who had been playing roles far too young for them most of the time, were finally giving way to younger talent. Most movies, if they had a large enough budget, were in color. But due to years of restrictions, the writing and direction, outside of a handful of exceptions, were stuck in an earlier era. This movie, for instance, could easily have been a masterpiece by Ernst Lubitsch in the 30s. Plot: British aristocrat and amateur cat burglar Sir Charles Lytton (Niven), aka The Phantom, is seeking to steal The Pink Panther, the world's most famous diamond, which is owned by Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale), the ruler of Notappearinginthismoviestan. Aiding him in this is Simone Clouseau... --- > David Lynch just passed away yesterday. He will probably be best remembered for Twin Peaks, but he is also responsible for four movies on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, including Mullholland Drive, The Elephant Man, and Blue Velvet. - Published: 2025-01-18 - Modified: 2025-01-18 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/eraserhead/ David Lynch just passed away yesterday. He will probably be best remembered for Twin Peaks, but he is also responsible for four movies on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, including Mullholland Drive, The Elephant Man, and Blue Velvet. And this movie, his first theatrical release, which continues to baffle and amaze viewers to this day. As it was his first full-length feature, Lynch made this on a shoestring budget, produced through help of the American Film Institute and donations from cast members. Jack Nance (pictured on the poster) was hired to play the principal role of Henry Spencer in 1971, six years before the film saw the light of day. During the years-long production, Nance kept that same hairstyle to keep continuity. Lynch wrote, directed and produced, basing the look of the film on the five years he spent in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia. Sun Ra once referred to Philadelphia as "death's headquarters" in the mid-60's, and Lynch was true to that vision. To describe the plot is a bit of a challenge, but all you really need to know is that Henry is told by his girlfriend Mary that she is going to have a baby. She gives birth, but it's not exactly human, but more of a thing, The constant noise the "child" makes drives Mary crazy and she leaves Henry to take care of the "baby" himself. Then he starts to see visions of a woman who lives in his radiator, who... --- - Published: 2025-01-15 - Modified: 2025-01-15 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/airplane/ When Airplane! was released in the summer of 1980, it followed a trailer that was totally in keeping with the spirit of the movie. It was dead serious, cut in such a way that if you hadn't seen the movie, you would be unaware that this latest offering was anything other than another example of the disaster genre that had dominated the box office in the late 1970s. I was nine years old at the time and really hated the idea of a group of people being put in danger, much less standing by and watching people on a screen being put in danger, so when my Dad suggested that we go see this movie while we were on vacation in Virginia, I chose to stay in the hotel room with my thoughts. "This movie is not what you think," he said. He was almost laughing. I had just spent the morning watching my parents ride the Loch Ness Monster at Busch Gardens, fully expecting to see them fall to their deaths on the loop, so I had already dodged a few bullets that day. That was enough, as far as I was concerned. Dad shrugged. It was rated 'R,' anyway, so it was probably going to require parental guidance at the very least. I'm sure he was relieved, so he and Mom could watch in peace, while I stayed by myself in the hotel room. Again, it was 1980. Those of you who have not watched it (and just... --- - Published: 2025-01-01 - Modified: 2025-01-01 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/jules-and-jim/ When you start getting deep into the great movies of the past, eventually you're going to run in to the name François Truffaut. He is justifiably a legend, arguably the best France has produced, and there are several movies for which he is remembered, this being one of them. François Truffaut is a name you bring up when you want to sound smart, like Noam Chomsky or Immanuel Kant. I really don't know anything about either Chomsky or Kant other than their names, but I sure sounded smart there for a second, didn't I? But I have acquainted myself with François Truffaut, if for no other reason, because other people have considered him a genius. For a French class, years ago, I had seen Small Change and I didn't really get a lot out of it, particularly because I wasn't sure why were watching it, and I had watched a bit of The 400 Blows and it really didn't stick with me, but I chalked that up to a lack of seriousness on my part. And I wanted to be serious about studying film. The story of Jules and Jim is simplicity itself. Two men, one woman, in a love triangle, over the course of several years. Jeanne Moreau plays the Catherine, the object of their desire. They manage to co-exist without an excessive amount of jealousy, and then *spoiler alert* she drives off a bridge with Jim in the car. The End, be sure to tip your waitress. I'd... --- - Published: 2024-12-29 - Modified: 2024-12-29 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/star-wars/ I don't sleep well, and I never have. Even when I was very small, I would very often get out of bed and wander around at three in the morning. This is true, still to this day. As you go through a lot of these movies, you'll begin to notice that a good amount of them were watched between the hours of midnight and 4 a. m. , in the midst of a normal bout with insomnia. Which makes this story all the more strange. I can rightfully say that I have seen Star Wars in the theater, first run, even though I slept through most of it. I was six years old at the time. Shortly before the droids hit the sand, the Sandman hit me, and literally I remember nothing of the movie until about twenty minutes from the end. If I had to take a guess, it was Luke's strained cry of "Noooo," upon the loss of Obi-Wan Kenobi that woke me up. To the best of my knowledge, I have not fallen asleep in a movie theater before or since, and very rarely fall asleep at a movie at home. Since that time, I've wondered why, of all movies, this is the movie that I chose to fall asleep to. While it's true that I dropped off during the least stimulating moment in the entire movie, you'd think I'd have woken up to the sound of a light saber, or the futuristic bar band, or to... --- - Published: 2024-09-30 - Modified: 2024-09-30 - URL: https://sandersmeanders.com/movie/blow-up/ It's been a tradition of ours to eat pizza, drink a cocktail, and watch a movie together on Friday nights. This tradition is about five or six years old at this point, and we've covered a lot of ground. I learned fairly early on that I can't just pick any movie, even if I had seen it before and liked it. I totally whiffed on The Great Escape, for instance, which I thought was a great movie in my twenties. And it is totally a great movie for a man in his twenties. But *spoiler alert* most of them get caught, or shot, except for James Coburn, who used his terrible Australian accent to get to freedom. Laura reasoned, and it is logical, that it can't be a Great Escape if only two people make it out alive and uncaptured. For us, The Great Escape has now become a code word for "movie Laura doesn't want to see because everyone dies in the end. " So my bad. Even more difficult, we've tried to make it a movie that neither one of us have seen before. Therefore, in selecting a movie, I have to walk the tightrope and do my homework. Is it sad? Hard pass. Does it end in a terrible way? Again, hard pass. Gory? Don't even think about it. For that reason, I started using a method I cobbled together from an HGTV show we watch, utilizing three styles of design (or, in this case, movies): the... --- ---