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When I say, “hardscrabble,” what do you think?
Some of you may say, “Yes. I know what that means. I once picked a “q” and an “x” when competing against my cousins Jethro and Copernicus. Talk about hard Scrabble!”
Well, that’s close, but not Parodi.
It seems that when out of town jaspers from the media write about Northeastern Pennsylvania, hardscrabble is our middle name.
Here’s John Baer from The Philadelphia Inquirer, writing about Sen. Barack Obama’s excellent adventure in NEPA:
He went to hardscrabble Scranton, birth and burial place of Hillary\'s father.
Here’s a Washington Post story describing newly-minted Sen. Bob Casey:
In Washington, those used to Santorum will have to adjust to Casey. A native of hardscrabble Scranton and a graduate of Catholic University\'s law school, Casey is quiet rather than contentious, conciliatory rather than polarizing, and can be so deliberative and self-effacing that he gives new meaning to the notion of political humility.
Here’s blogster Clark DeLeon talking about last fall’s “Office” convention in Scranton:
It looked every bit as beautiful as The Office executive producer Greg Daniels had described it minutes earlier in a crowded press conference where he became perhaps the first person , with a straight face anyway, to compare hardscrabble Scranton with the mythical Emerald City. "As we drove into Scranton for the first time it was like arriving in Oz after reading about it all those years," Daniels said. "The surrounding area is so much more beautiful than the dusty brown lots in Van Nuys (California) where we create our show."
Here’s The New York Times, calling out their own redundant behavior:
Mr. Daniels, who helped create the Fox show “King of the Hill,” considered Utica, N.Y., and Nashua, N.H., as possible locations for a branch of the company he called Dunder Mifflin. But the winner — or loser, as it would seem at the time — was Scranton, a city of about 75,000 in northeastern Pennsylvania whose name never seemed to appear in print without the words “hardscrabble former coal-mining town.”
Here’s Irish America Magazine, in a profile of author T.J. English:
He was one of ten children raised in an Irish Catholic family in Tacoma, Washington. His ancestors came to the U.S. during the Famine and settled in the hardscrabble, heavily Irish town of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
How lazy can these writers get? I have spent more than four decades here, and no one in my family has ever used this adjective to describe our existence. In fact, this seems to be a term used by shack dwellers who keep their magazine rack of Sears catalogs in the outhouse.
But, what do I know? I decided to correspond with the most recent offender, John Baer about this situation. Here’s what I wrote:
Mr. Baer,
If you and your fellow journalists agree to stop referring to Scranton as
"hardscrabble," I will stop calling your city "Killadelphia."
I think it\'s fair.
Thanks,
Sue Henry
Lifetime resident of Northeastern Pennsylvania who isn\'t wearing
soot-covered overalls (anymore)
Much to my delight, John Baer wrote back:
susan.....aint happening....i\'ve been to scranton too many times....the rooms at THE hotel facing the culm banks cost more than the room facing the city.....
Despite the fact that John writes like e.e. cummings, I appreciate the response. At first, I was upset. Then, I took a walk through Ashley, a town near my home. It was on this stroll that I noted the interesting way people kept house there. In one yard, a harvest gold toilet sat glowing in the late afternoon sun. On a front porch, a car hood patiently waited for its vehicle to return from who knows where.
I got to thinking that these carpetbaggers with keyboards might have a point. If we are going to stop taking pride in ourselves, maybe these people will be vindicated. So, fellow citizens, I’m asking you to make them stop.
Take your toilet to the dump. Screw your hood back onto your car. Recycle. Stop throwing bottles out your windows as you joyride hither and yon. And, the next time you run into one of those writers who disparage our town, remove the “h” from their keyboards when they’re not looking!
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Rush Limbaugh
