Back in the 1990s while living in Philadelphia, every once in a while I'd go up to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, with a handful of English graduate students. It's about a ninety minute drive from Center City. We always stopped at the Sunrise Diner and once, we stayed overnight at the adjoining Hotel Switzerland.
Jim Thorpe, named after the famous Native American athlete (1888-1953), was previously named Mauch Chunk (and East Mauch Chunk) and was a coal center. This is where the Irish Molly Maguires were tried in 1876. Remember the 1970 movie starring Sean Connery and Richard Harris?
My sister Vickie recently emailed about the Sunrise Diner, which reminds me of a Goethe excerpt she used to have mounted in her kitchen:
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant [in time or space], is close to us in spirit - this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
Today's Rune: Wholeness. Photo by Kurt Jackson.
6 comments:
For Pete's sake, you even live about two miles away from me.
Erik, Isn't that quote the truth? I can be happy anywhere if I am with someone I care about, and be lonely in a cool place, alone...
One of the many books I plan on reading when I finish school is Lars Anderson's "Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle." It's about a 1912 game between West Point and Carlisle, a Native-American school. Carlisle was coached by Pops Warner, who the kid football league was named after. Thorpe and Eisenhower actually played against one another.
And btw, I do remember watching the "Molly Maguires" movie when I was a kid. It has been released on DVD, too.
Thanks all for the comments!
johnny, that sounds worth finding, for sure.
In 2008 the Sunrise Diner was moved to Ohio http://bit.ly/celh5Q.
-Diner News and History
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