Pennsylvania

Any of the times I've flown coast-to-coast, east to west, I've looked at the floor of the plane after a few hours or so of flight. I've imagined a long line of covered wagons slowly, very slowly, making their way west. And how what took them months, will take us hours. It almost doesn't seem fair.

And that's of course assuming they made it. Indians, disease, weather, any number of things could create a grave marker somewhere. Flying may not be fun anymore, but it's proven itself to be safe.

I'm sure this comes from a boyhood of watching television in the 50s when there were plenty of Western themed shows. There was of course even a show called 'Wagon Train,' with episodes first introduced by Ward Bond, then John McIntire. Life did look tough.

I've seen Conestoga wagons in museums. They are huge, and heavy. It's hard to believe they could roll over anything not paved, and if stuck in mud, it would seem they'd stay there. And then there's the flat, or broken wheel. The skilled wheelwright, hopefully still alive, was needed to fix it. We now live in a fast-forward world.

At the same time of watching Westerns on television, I was also introduced to mowing the grass. And we did have grass, even if we did live within the city limits of New York City. Queens County was the suburbs of the city then, and we had a front and back yard that needed to have the grass cut.

This job wasn't thrown at me as soon as I could walk. But, like most boys, I loved to imitate what my father was doing. So, when he mowed the grass with the reel mower we had, I "helped" by reaching up to the handles and adding a push.

Where I live now, perhaps because of single motherhood, there are several women in the neighborhood who cut the grass. It's with a power mower these days, but there is still a little boy who want s to help his mother push the mower that's whirling away with an engine. I cringe at this for safety reasons. But, the desires play out.

The reel mower we used had a green metal plate that held the wooden handles. The plate, on both sides said 'PQ PAT. 1918.' I never asked what the 'PQ' stood for, my father never mentioned it, and no one ever came by and talked about it.

As I got older and bigger and was pushing that mower myself, I never cared what 'PQ' stood for. All I knew was that I was being kept away from something else I wanted to do because I had to mow the grass on a Saturday. And the handles wobbled.

Eventually, the reel mower gave way to an electric mower my mother got my father for Fathers Day. This gave way to a gas-powered mower I moved the family up to when I got tired of constantly flipping the long cord to keep it out of the way of the blades. The reel mower stayed in the garage, out of the rain, but no longer used.

When my parents died and I eventually sold the two-family house, I took the reel mower with me. I displayed it in a corner of the backyard where we now lived. I thought of it like the old farm equipment you'd see when you went through rural areas. Hard to get "bulk" sanitation to remove the old harrower, so it was left out to rust in the rain.

Because of limited storage space I had to leave the reel mower outdoors in the rain, snow, etc.  The handles always wobbled, even when I used it was a kid. Now, after many, many years of outdoor exposure, the handles completely rotted out of the plates, the shaft rotted way from the brackets, and the rolling pin was nearly gone. The mower no longer turned, But, it still looked like a mower.

Because of mergers and acquisitions, I now have time. I've created a new shaft, new rolling pin and new handles. I've painted the plates green, and fitted the handles in tighter than they ever were. They do not wobble. I'll knock off as much rust as I can, but even if I don't get it to spin, I'm not asking it to cut the grass. It'll go back on display. It is old farm equipment. I will cover it in the winter now.

PQ. But what does it stand for?

Years ago the answer would have disappeared with the last owner who knew and didn't tell anyone else. Now, there's the Internet. It almost doesn't seem fair.

It didn't take much to learn that PQ stands for 'Pennsylvania Quality.' And they produced the model we used so many years ago in 1918. And, If I'm interested (I was) there's a replica of the magazine ad that boasted of the mower that had handles that didn't wobble, (when new) and blades that didn't need sharpening.

Pennsylvania. In New York again. There was always Pennsylvania Station in the middle of Manhattan. Why Pennsylvania? Because the  Pennsylvania Rail Road built the station. The coal that once heated our home came from Pennsylvania, chuted from a truck that backed down the driveway.

Jet travel and the Internet. Distance and time. Shortened.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com