There was a refrigerator with its compressor on top, a gas stove to supplement the denatured alcohol burner, an old dresser to lend mad scientist flavor.
We just want to know about the chemistry experiments there, and we’re tapping our shoes off. Layers and layers of family life in remnant form. It probably hadn’t been opened since the 60’s, when it joined my personal chemistry lab and darkroom. An ancient bottle of boric acid was still in the hall closet after dad died in 2012. Stuff that a normal mad scientist might miss.Īny other 315 trivia we don’t want to know? Piper provided the exact steps for the sulphur, charcoal and sodium nitrate - including the evaporation and precipitation steps. That story piqued my interest in the flash-points of various combustible compounds. Premise: Pennsylvania highway patrol officer runs into a Möbius warp of the kind that sweeps you into alternate histories - in this case a gunpowder-free culture. Wasn’t The Gunpowder God published in Analog around 1964? Storetown is a few miles northwest of Sacred Mountain, in case that datum helps you orient. A spirited collision of science-fiction reading, household chemicals, periodic table of the elements, sulphur and ignitable materials then sold at the drugstore in Storetown (Greenwell and Delhi area). Mad scientists of 1950’s film fame inspire young mad scientist wannabes such as this writer. Holy crap, finally, a hint of your topic. There was an amazing toy department that stocked chemistry sets. Now long gutted and converted into upscale condominiums.
Well it stopped at the John Shillito Department Store. Seriously, you could see asphalt passing below the bus. So, back to the fuming bus - don’t confuse it with yellow Kissel Brother school buses of rusted-floorboard lore. Since we’re not on topic, was that in the days before studded tires made tire chains as obsolete as laser discs? Whoa, or something my brain cells are suffering frostbite.
When the car made it to sidewalk level we watched dad drive the rear tires onto chains. Envision shoveling from the top of that stone wall down to the garage door. Look at the photo above and imagine the steeply descending driveway chock-full of snow. My memory-favorite is the schoolbus-yellow ’55 Chevy. Hey Bill, you haven’t even started to talk about chemistry and the microwave is beeping.Īnyway, dad drove 100,000 miles a year for Pittsburgh Paint and Glass and he liked to park his car in the toasty garage. It might not ever be a good time to read about Schroer, unless you have four minutes remaining ’til the microwave beeps three times… But you might not want to look at a topographic map of 315 geography to discover something the contour lines reveal - water flows downhill. There was a corner house with detached garage and level-as-a-dream driveway - more on driveway slopes in a minute. God spare us, every one!Ī green and yellow exhaust-fuming bus stopped at the top of Glenroy Avenue, just across from the mailbox (still painted red, white and blue) - a very short walk from the Poe house and across from the once and future Haneberg house of Rick fame. A merry chemistry-set Christmas to all and each.