Westylvania’s Ghost Town

June Green trees on rolling Appalachian hills
Double wides.
Little red brick farmhouses.
Amish built barns 30 years in disrepair.
With faded advertisements that read,
“Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco
Your mouth deserves the best!”
I pass a small high-school with a large sign in front of it that reads,
“Save Our School Band.” In bright red paint.
There’s an old coke machine from the 80s sitting outside a crumbling garage underneath a
“Welder for hire” banner.
All along the light poles and telephone lines are the pictures of the towns veterans.
Every other pole has an american flag displayed proudly atop the faces of war.
Two stops lights and I’ve left the town.
A dead deer is smeared along the side of the road.
It smells like it has been there for two days and no less.
I can’t help but to think how this rotting carcass sitting on the roadside is representative of this
dead town.
Left to fester with its guts strewn up and down the shoulder of the highway
Ignored by everyone that drives by,
Including myself.

A Summer Drive

There’s construction on this road every summer.
Its a 4 lane highway but I’ve only ever driven on two lanes between June and October.
The road hasn’t improved, in fact it’s getting progressively worse every year!
All the asphalt patches have made it bumpy and uneven.
Pennsylvania might have been the first state in the union to put rumble strips along the sides of
the highway
But, what good does that do us when we have to drive on them the only time of the year they’re
not covered in ice?
They do a pretty bang up job keeping the roadkill cleaned up around the construction site.
That’s the only bang up job they do.