Assorted Pennsylvania

Stealing shamelessly from Hopkins' regular feature, Clippings (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!):

~ The pictures, above, are Pennsylvania Dutch drawings from the Philadelphia Museum of art.
The explanation on the wall maintains that the Adam and Eve subject was "particularly popular among Pennsylvania Germans both as an explanation of original sin and as a means of emphasizing the importance of marriage."

~ The Paris Review has a piece about Centralia, the Pennsylvania town that is on fire underground, and has been for decades. The piece focuses on the places that Centralia shows up in fiction. Homeschooling in Pennsylvania requires a certain amount of credit hours in Pennsylvania history (good, localist state that we are). As a result of that and my mother's love for history, we took a field trip to a coal mine near Centralia, where we road a train underground. Passing Centralia itself, though, we saw the smoke coming up from the ground in random spots. My mother told us about the people who refused to leave their homes, even though the government tried to make them (liberty-loving people that we are).

~ Weird!: Amish men with beards are being attacked by men with scissors:

"The Millers said they were the fifth Amish family in the last several weeks to be terrorized by what the Millers believe is a group that once was Amish but is now believed to have formed a cult in nearby Bergholz, Jefferson County." More here.