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View from Hickory Heights: Christmas Eve happenings

When I got to thinking about the Christmas Eve celebrations, I realized that I had varied experiences. When I was young, I remember one Christmas Eve at home. I prepared a little service complete with Christmas carols. My aunt and uncle came that evening to celebrate with us since they would be with my aunt’s family the next day. I was taking piano lessons and my teacher got me a book of easy carols to play. I felt so honored to be able to accompany the family as we sang that night. I remember that I picked out some Bible readings too. I asked others to read those. That Christmas my ...

Big, small — and very slow wheels

The one place you won’t find a Subaru is in Dear Richard’s driveway, our everyday car park. He’s a domestic sorta guy. We got chatting about our old car favorites and I realized how much he enjoyed his “big boats” from the 60s and 70s. Back then you could buy 8 horsepower under the hood of your 19-foot behemoth. And probably stash four bodies in the trunk. The sheer enormity of our cars back in the day are a stark contrast to our everyday runarounds today. When you live a long time, there are a lot of automobiles in your memory bank. During our car conversation, Richard ...

Savoring the smell

Breathe in and savor the smell! That is what you do when you enter a bakery. Now I have to admit that scent does not permeate as much in the big box bakeries. I am not sure when they bake things, but it definitely is not during the normal store hours. I remember five bakeries in Dunkirk, but maybe there were more. Those were the ones that we frequented. Each bakery was known for something special. When we wanted kimmelweck buns we went either to the plaza or to the bakery in the first ward. The bakery at the plaza was run by people straight from Germany so they had many of the ...

Christmas elves come in all sizes and ages

My mother considered herself a Christmas elf. She was a no-nonsense, practical woman who also happened to be 5 feet, 11 inches tall. Not exactly a pixie. But every December, as the month wore on, she got a bad case of Elf-ism while scattering her pixie dust. Wearing a Santa hat, she loved to surprise her friends with little gifts or baked goods, or just sit, twinkle, and talk to a shut-in for an hour. Could she help it if she happened to have a banana bread and a dozen Christmas cookies with her? No. She couldn’t help it. Sometimes six or eight loaves of her banana bread went ...

Energy policy needs balance

As the second largest energy producer in the United States, Pennsylvania has long seen natural gas and energy production as key parts of the commonwealth’s economy. More than 250,000 Pennsylvanians go to work each day in energy jobs to ensure the region has the electricity to power our businesses, heat our homes, and gas to fuel our cars. Our region has a legacy of energy production like no other – our oil fields and coal mines fueled the industrial revolution, and our union workers powered the steel mills that made Pittsburgh a global hub of industrial production. These ...

View from Hickory Heights: A recipe from the past

Yesterday I baked molasses cookies. Now you might wonder why I baked early. These cookies freeze very well. I made some in the shape of pumpkins and some trees and gingerbread men. We will have the pumpkins for Thanksgiving and the others will be for Christmas. This recipe has a history. My mother told me she remembered going to her grandma’s house after church and eating them. That means they were my great-grandmother’s recipe. I do not know the history beyond that but I suspect maybe this recipe came directly from Germany. I never knew this great-grandma since she died before I ...