It isn't often that I hear reference to my hometown and its surrounding areas, never mind all day long. But that's what's going on right now - and it will be over, completely, by Wednesday. Turns out Southeastern Pennsylvania is one key area for the Democratic primary tomorrow - thus the candidates and busy bees swarming around them are dropping in and out of Pottstown and Reading and Phoenixville.
Today on Robin Young's Here and Now, "two farmers from Pottstown" were holding forth on the economy. Actually, there are no farmers in Pottstown, haven't been since before I was born. It's hard to find them even outside of Pottstown without going more than a bit of a distance. But it sounds like there should be, doesn't it? What there were in the Pottstown of my little girlhood and are no more: factories. Bethlehem Steel, Firestone, mondo plants that employed everyone. Made me very sad to drive down High Street a couple of months ago and see all the boarded up stores (though that link in the previous sentence provides a bit of a more upbeat view of the town's economic health).
And lastly on this ephemeral topic: Have you heard mention of Montgomery County, Chester County, and Bucks County as being pivotal in the primary? I lived in all three: Pottstown's in Montgomery County; when I was 13, we moved across the Schuylkill (take a guess on how to pronounce it) to Chester County; and when I was 15, I went away to school in Bucks County. I guess this means I'm deciding the election.
