For more than a century the blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel have loomed over the south side of the company’s hometown, towering icons to the Industrial Age and one of the toughest, most dangerous ways to make a living ever conceived by man.
From a distance, they are inspiring.
Up close, they are impressive.
Standing just yards away on a steel-grate walkway 45 feet in the air, they are downright awesome.
That’s the point of the Hoover-Mason Trestle – a 2,000-foot long walkway that gives visitors a view of these massive artifacts previously seen …

You’d think that a building big enough to hold a couple dozen Mack trucks would be easy to find. Uh-uh. The Mack Trucks Museum is hidden away on the back side of Allentown’s Queen City Airport, nestled on a hilltop overlooking the scenic Lehigh Parkway.
There’s a reason for the subterfuge that makes finding this gem a little like participating in a road rally where you have to find and follow clues to reach the prize – it used to be the Test Center and Track where Mack developed their new …

There’s an old joke that holds that when Squanto saw the Mayflower drop anchor off Plymouth Rock, his first reaction was “There goes the neighborhood.” I’ve never believed that Native Americans lived in peace with each other before the white man arrived, and we destroyed a paradise. There is ample evidence that the original tribes had their share of problems and wars. We just brought better weapons.
But there is also ample evidence that they had an extensive civilization that matched anything the Europeans brought to the North American continent. They …

My friend Theresa is a Musikfest junkie. Seriously. The woman schedules a week of vacation for the beginning of August each year, books a room at the Hotel Bethlehem and wanders from platz to platz all day long. The scary thing is, she’s not alone. Musikfest has its own groupies just like many of the bands and artists that play there every year and they all swear it is the best thing to hit the Bethlehem since a now-departed steelmaker set up shop on the banks of the Lehigh River.
“To …

Ever look at the calendar and say, “Oh, crap, where did the time go?” Happens to me all the time. I think it’s true that time moves faster when you’re getting closer to being over the hill. For instance, I realized last week that it was August and the last time I posted here was April. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to May, June and July. (Heck, I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the 1980s and 90s.) Truth is, the paying side of my …

Pass the Corona and don’t hold the lime. Allentown is celebrating the arrival of spring (Finally!) with the return of the popular Deck parties at a “Cinco Deck Mayo” party from 5 to 7 p.m. May 5 on the roof of the 8th and Linden street parking deck.
“Cinco Deck Mayo,” will feature live music by Ola Latina or “LATINWAVE,” and salsa dancers from Lehigh Valley Salsa Connexion to entertain and educate for those who want to learn the moves.  Adult refreshments, food samples from local restaurants and a great view …

I read a story recently bemoaning the fact that the northern states seem to have forgotten the Civil War, aka the “War Between The States,” the “War Between Brothers” or the “Great Tea Party Rebellion.” Ok, I made up that last one.
But seriously, “northern states” in the context of this story must mean “states that are not Pennsylvania.” Because, and we’re not just whistling “Dixie” here, you can’t raise the Stars and Bars at a redneck revival in this state without seeing it flap over a Civil War memorial, graveyard, …

Days before he died in September 2010, Allentown’s Jack McHugh summoned Joe Garrera to his home. McHugh, a beloved principal at the city’s William Allen High School for years and an equally admired community leader during his long retirement, was also an amateur historian and an inveterate collector of presidential memorabilia. He had already bequeathed a substantial amount of material about Franklin Roosevelt to the FDR Library in Hyde Park, N.Y. and now he wanted to make sure the rest of his collection was properly preserved.
He knew that Garrera, executive …

Eastern Pennsylvania just got a dumping of somewhere between 9 to 18 inches of snow, depending on where your shovel hit the pavement, and to be honest on days like this I don’t like to travel farther than the wine store down the street. I’m a warm-weather person. If I go out in the snow and cold, it’s usually to some place with a great heating system and some warm spirits.
I know I was in the minority last summer when many people were complaining about the constant heat and string …

It’s after noon on Dec. 21 and that means there are only about 48 hours left to finish your Christmas shopping. Guys, we better get started.
I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between men and women when it comes to shopping. I’ve found that guys don’t shop, they buy. I wrote once that if you send a Fortune 500 CEO in the middle of a mall, in 20 minutes he will have bought the place, laid off half the staff, changed three leases and rewritten the rental codes. Put him …