NOW...and then

Last evening Char and I attended the annual dinner of the Johnstown Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). At this dinner, NOW honors someone as the Person of the Year. The award winner for 2009 was Dr. Susan Anderson, superintendent of the Westmont Hilltop School District (from which Matthew and I graduated). Susan and Char graduated in the same class at Conemaugh Township High School and were friends a few decades ago.

Also at the dinner, Char gave a little talk about the Witnesses to Hunger exhibit that she is spearheading. The exhibit will be in Johnstown for almost three weeks this coming February. For someone who doesn’t like to speak in front of large crowds, she did an excellent job!

Another highlight of attending the NOW dinner each year is sitting with Alice and Kathleen, who never fail to provide an evening of entertainment with the stories of their real-life adventures.

On the “then” side of things…I just finished reading a book that is mostly about our area’s heritage, history, and culture. It is Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains: The First Frontier, by Dave Hurst. Last week I attended a discussion and book signing with the author at the Johnstown Area Heritage Association’s Discovery Center. The book is small and easy to read – it must be if I read it in a week in my spare time. It’s filled with a lot of interesting information about our area, though, and I enjoyed it.

Dave Hurst writes a regionally syndicated newspaper column. This book is a collection of some of those columns that have been reworked so that they won't go out of date being in book form as time passes.