Sixty degrees, sunny, crisp, clear, blue skies and a full tank of gas. I am not a fan of hot humid weather, so the weather was ideal for me. After running a few errands, I hit the back roads. It wasn't actually a road trip because I had no particular destination; there were a few roads that I was curious to take just to see where they went, and to pass through a few places whose names I'd seen on directional signs for decades, but had never been.
So, with my trusty Sheetz coffee in the cup holder, off I went.
When you're using a PA road map to navigate and the back roads aren't numbered on that map, you can miss a few turns because the roads you want aren't marked in real life, either. Many country intersections have no signs at all. GPS wants to send me directly to a place by the main roads, which is not what I wanted. So I had to turn around a few times to get to the places that I did want to go, which weren't even really villages, just crossroads or wide spot in the road with a couple of houses - blink and you miss them unless there's a sign.
I meandered along enjoying the beautiful scenery and the wind and the sun and the coffee (with strategically planned pit stops!) and eventually decided to loop around and head back towards home. I did have a specific route in mind for that. However, I took the left fork at one country intersection where I should have gone for the right fork.
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
That led me to Putneyville - a little village on the Mahoning Creek, deep in a valley, somewhere I probably never would have gone otherwise...but it was a delightful detour, and after a few miles I found myself right back in Dayton, where I had passed through earlier. What the heck, I got to see some stunning views, and now I know where Putneyville is located.
Now, because of my job as an insurance agent, and my interests in real estate, architecture, and such, I notice certain things when I'm out and about:
- fire hydrants, especially in proximity to properties out in the country
- roofs and siding and the conditions thereof
- types of building construction
- types of architecture
And I noticed something that was markedly different all along my route from the last time I had passed through some of those areas, 4-5 years ago on other weekend driving jaunts: there was a drastic increase in economic prosperity.
Along the rural roads and in the villages and towns, there were countless houses, garages, barns, sheds, and businesses with brand new roofs. Most of the roofs were metal or 40-year shingles- both types being rather pricey compared to regular shingles. There were many buildings with brand new siding and/or fresh paint. There were more businesses. There were more new cars, motorcycles, campers, and boats parked outside of homes and businesses. I saw a lot of people mowing their lawns on new riding mowers and garden tractors (and those ain't cheap). I saw a lot of remodeling going on and additions being built. The overall air of shabbiness, deferred maintenance, and economic struggle, as I'd seen in certain areas on my last drives through, was gone.
"The economy, stupid." - James Carville, campaign strategist of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign against sitting president George H. W. Bush.
Looks like #MAGA ain't just a hashtag or a tagline to these folks. They matter just as much as the coastal and urban elites.
