A trip to Pennsylvania. Two stops on the way to Farmington. First, Intercourse. I’m sure it was not done on purpose, but the name still makes me laugh. Kitchen Kettle is a a village of shops with locally-made goodies and eateries – touristy but great for lunch and snacks.
Early evening in Gettysburg. One could learn everything about the American Civil War by walking the streets of this lovely town. Or just take home a little nothing for fun. Until recently, I thought one could meet Greeks everywhere; now I realize that it is Poles who hold this record. No matter where we go, all kinds of Polish shops keep popping up. 
The building you see above, is the Gettysburg Lincoln Railroad Station where President Lincoln arrived the evening before he delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg Soldiers’ National Cemetery.
It was November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. It is one of the best-known speeches in American history.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.“
—Abraham Lincoln
September 1st, 2018
The Humble Fabulist 