Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania (3 page)

No matter what restaurant you choose, you'll want to keep some things in mind:

1.
Order efficiently. Natives just name the cheese and whether they want their steaks “wit” onions or “witout.” A standard order would be “Whiz wit.”

2.
There are variations on the traditional cheesesteak. Any of the following is acceptable:

The cheesesteak is no longer just a humble sandwich—not only is it known around the world, it has also found itself at the center of several political scandals. While on the campaign trail in 2004, presidential hopeful John Kerry visited Phila delphia and ordered a cheesesteak . . . with Swiss cheese. The
Philadelphia Daily News
wrote, “In Philadelphia, ordering Swiss on a cheesesteak is like rooting for Dallas at an Eagles game.” A few months later, George W. Bush said in a speech that he liked his cheesesteaks “Whiz wit.” But a Philadelphia newspaper discovered that the president actually preferred American, prompting speculation about why he wanted to hide his cheese preferences.

Finally, in 2005, before Super Bowl XXXIX, Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell bet Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney a Philly cheesesteak against a Boston lobster that the Philadelphia Eagles would beat the New England Patriots. Romney turned down the wager, saying the cheesesteak “had no nutritional value.” The Steelers took the title, but some Philadelphians are still smarting from the slight.

Have you ever looked closely at the symbols on Pennsylvania's state flag?

 

The Pittsburgh Steelers got off to a slow start, but by the 1970s, they were an NFL powerhouse
.

I
n 1933, Pittsburgh resident Art Rooney paid $2,500 (the standard fee at the time) to begin a football franchise with the NFL. Legend has it—and Rooney has never denied it—that he won the money just days earlier betting on horses at the Saratoga Springs racetrack in New York.

The team's original name was the Pirates, the same moniker as the city's professional baseball team and in whose stadium the new football team played. Rooney changed the name to the Steelers before the 1940 season, in honor of the Pittsburgh steel industry.

The Steelers were ranked low in the standings for a long time. In their first 40 years, they made it to the playoffs just once, in 1947. During that time, they also had only five winning seasons.

But things changed in 1969 when Rooney hired Chuck Noll as head coach. Within a few years, the Steelers were a much better team. They made it to the playoffs in 1972 and 1973 and then, in 1974, won the AFC Championship game—and beat the Minnesota Vikings in the Super Bowl. Over the next six years, the Steelers made it to the Super Bowl four times . . . and won them all.

Since 1979, the Steelers have made it back to the Super Bowl twice: in 1995 (they lost to the Dallas Cowboys 27–17) and in
2006, when coach Bill Cowher, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, running back Jerome Bettis, and wide receiver Hines Ward led the team to a 21–10 win over the Seattle Seahawks. The Steelers are one of only three teams in NFL history to win the Super Bowl five times. (The San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys are the other two.)

Here are six Pennsylvania roadside attractions worth stopping for
.

Ernest Helm originally built Tiny World as a place for his cats to play in the backyard. The first structure: a Victorian house with a scratchable carpeted staircase. Since that first house, he's added many others: a church, a train station, a courthouse, a Texaco gas station (complete with little cars filling up), and more neighborhood houses. There are also two landscaped paths for visitors, and the whole thing is set on a hill, which Helm thinks adds to its appeal. According to him, “If it was on flat ground, it wouldn't look so good.”

You can't miss the 17-foot-tall building shaped like a coffee pot on Route 30. Built in 1927, it used to be a quick stop for travelers on the Lincoln Highway—a place to get a cup of hot coffee or buy gas. But over the years, the enormous coffee pot fell into disrepair and nearly ended up being demolished in the 1990s. A local grassroots effort managed to save the structure, one of only five coffee pot–shaped buildings left in the United States. In 2004, it was completely renovated and relocated. Today, the Coffee Pot sits at the entrance to the Bedford Fairgrounds.

Mad Anthony Wayne was a Revolutionary War general, born in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, who served mostly in Canada but also had a brief stint at Valley Forge. In 1796, he died of a severe case of gout at a military post in Erie and was buried in a wooden coffin near the blockhouse—a tall, wooden defensive structure that often acted as a guard tower. That should have been the end of his story, but 12 years later, when his daughter was on her own deathbed, Wayne's family dug up his remains to transport the bones to Radnor for reburial in the family's Philadelphia plot about 400 miles away. But when they opened his coffin, they discovered that the body had hardly decomposed at all. Instead, it was almost perfectly preserved (save one foot). Moving the whole body so far would be difficult because the roads were rough and unpaved, the body was cumbersome, and the Waynes had only a small wagon. So the family's doctor came up with an unusual solution: he'd boil the body and then cut it up. The bones could go on to Radnor, and the flesh would be reburied near the blockhouse.

Over the years, the original blockhouse burned down, and the general's remains were accidentally dug up again. But finally in 1880, the State of Pennsylvania decided to erect a memorial at the spot of Wayne's death. Today, the blockhouse has been rebuilt and the structure dedicated to the general. Inside are a handful of exhibits, including a dummy in Wayne's likeness with an overturned bottle of whiskey (one of his favorite drinks) lying near his head.

Tom Mix was a Pennsylvania-born Western movie star who made more than 300 movies—mostly in the silent era—before he died in a freak accident in 1940. (While driving in Arizona, he hit the brakes hard to avoid crashing into a ditch; a metal suitcase
in the backseat flew forward, hit him in the head, and killed him.) Today, the Tom Mix Comes Home Museum in his birthplace of Driftwood includes all kinds of Tom Mix movie star memorabilia. Our favorite: the outhouse from his boyhood home.

Frackville's 15-foot-tall Pioneer Woman (holding a pie) has developed a roadside reputation as one of Pennsylvania's creepier attractions. Wearing a blank stare and a bright green dress, she stands outside Granny's Restaurant on West Coal Street. The child who clutches her skirt mostly looks like a young girl (in a dress and apron), but her face is that of an older man—and the toy she's holding is missing its head.

In 1948, millionaire shoe manufacturer Mahlon N. Haines built this white house in the shape of a workshoe as an advertising gimmick for his company. It was a five-level working house—25 feet high, 48 feet long, with three bedrooms and two baths. Haines invited his employees to stay in it for their birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions; he also offered the house to any honeymooning couple from a town whose stores sold his shoes. (Nights in the shoe included full maid service, butler, cook, and chauffeur.)

Over the years, the Shoe House changed hands several times—it was an ice cream parlor for a while—but in 1987, Haines's granddaughter bought it and turned it into a museum dedicated to her grandfather.