Pennsylvania Fantasy

October 14-15

I was in Parsippany for a week and it’s like all the American suburbs, a tangle of highways, housing developments, and strip malls. And it’s younger than I am.

I wanted to try something somewhere else, like maybe an elk burger in Clearfield, Pa. That’s what brought me to East Stroudsburg, Pa. 

Stroudsburg and environs were new territory for me. I’ve often come near it and always kept going on I-80.

This time, when I came through the Delaware Water Gap, my route wasn’t south to Easton, north to Dingman’s Falls, or west direct to Clearfield. About two miles after the bridge, I left the interstate highway and almost immediately came to the Days Inn.

I hadn’t stayed in the Stroudsburg area since I was maybe 10 or 12. My family visited a distant relative who lived in a house on a country road. It was fascinating. 

The white-haired lady of the house showed me Shawnee arrowheads that had been found in the neighborhood. There was a raging creek out back and a cave that my cousins and I could walk in.

I had a plan to build a raft to run the rapids. That never happened. 

Anyhow, I had to ask Google about things to see in East Stroudsburg. It told me about the Pocono Indian Museum, another museum devoted to a legendary fantasy illustrator named Frank Frazetta, and to top it off, a waterfall.

I had intended to start with the Frank Frazetta Museum on Friday, but it was pushing three by the time I checked in and the museum closes at four.  I wanted to give it more time than that.

The Indian Museum is easy to find, if you know what you’re looking for. So I missed the turn and had to drive a mile or so up the highway to find a side road wide enough to let me turn around.

The museum focuses on the local people, the Lenape, but it also contains some illustrations and artifacts from Plains and Desert cultures. They include a gift box containing a presentation scalp, which according to a nearby sign, was later found to be of “non-human” origin.

For seven bucks you get a device that plays a walking tour. The narrator points out features in the displays. 

One is a miniature showing the layout of a typical village. 

There’s a life-size representation of how the Archaic Period people lived. It shows a cave dweller at home working with a mortar and pestle. 

I liked that one, but it was too dark to photograph. You can see it in better light on http://poconoindianmuseumonline.com.

One exhibit explains the technique for making pots without a wheel. Another recaps how arrow and spear points were made. It has a line-up of the different shapes from different periods. 

I was crazy about American Indian lore as a kid. The Stroudsburg relative gave me an arrowhead that I treasured. I may still have it somewhere, probably in a box at the shed.

I still have fondness for the subject, so this place reminded me of things I’d forgotten and gave me new information. Very simple, a bit slapdash at times (especially with the mannequins), but still fun.

A quick search back at Days Inn turned up Momento. The place is owned by Chef Nicola, a veteran of big-time dining in several European cities and in New York. I think he was the man who came from the kitchen in a T-shirt that read, “A meal without wine is called breakfast.”

I opted for penne marinara with a side of sauteed spinach. 

The spinach was very good. It was done with large chunks of garlic cooked until they had just started to brown. The result wasn’t garlic overkill, but a fine background flavor.

The surprise was the marinara. All I could see was tomato and basil. There must have been wine in there, too. Red sauce needs wine. Those ingredients alone would have been good, but this was more complex. 

There was a hint of licorice. There were no fennel seeds evident. Maybe the cook used a touch of them ground up. Or was it Thai basil? That has a hint of licorice in the leaf. A mystery, sure.

This wasn’t breakfast, and the wines were very good.

Franco Serra Pinot Noir Piemonte was like velvet with a bite, and very dry.

La Valentina Spelt Montepulciano d’Abruzzo had even more flavor than the Pinot Noir. Did I taste cherry or plum? Maybe, or maybe I was making it up.

Next morning I went to the Frazetta Museum. 

You take old Route 209 to a one-lane blacktop turnoff called Sweetwater Lane. That turns left after a 10th of a mile and becomes Museum Road. 

You pass the dinosaur on the rock, and around the bend the roadway widens. 

There’s a house on your left and in front of you, a turreted structure that has to be the museum.

The house is the Frazetta homestead. The artist got tired of the crowds and noise of city life and bought an old farm in the Poconos.

According to the website, the place is run by one of Frazetta’s sons, Frank Jr.; his wife, Lori, and their son William. 

When I paid my admission fee, the lady at the register said her father would be giving a guided tour soon. So there’s at least one daughter who works at the museum, too.

It was a lucky break that I waited till Saturday to visit. Frank Jr. has a day job and only does tours on Saturday and Sunday,

I had seen Frazetta’s work on book and magazine covers. I’ve seen prints in gift shops. And so has just about everyone. He created the look of Conan the Barbarian, for instance. Only in Frazetta’s fantasy art, Conan is a little bigger than Arnold. 

A few of his paintings were used on Molly Hatchet album covers, which are on the wall. So are the originals.

According to Frank Jr., originals of his father’s artworks have sold for prices in the millions. Many of the works in the museum are originals. In a few cases the originals are lost.

“Cat Girl,” which appeared on the cover of an issue of Creepy magazine shows a naked blonde woman surrounded by panthers in a jungle. 

The painting on display is a reproduction, Frank said. That’s because his father changed the painting later, making it darker, changing the woman’s hair to black, and removing a few panthers. 

He painted the later version over the original.  

There were a lot of personal observations in the presentation. Frank Jr. was amazed at the speed with which his father could turn out drawings. 

Frazetta was drawing recognizable images at age 3. There are a few samples on the wall. He got his first job in comic books at 16. He had a stroke in his 70s that rendered his right arm useless. He developed a pointillist technique that let him continue painting with his left.

I’m amazed, too, Frank.

Next stop was Resica Falls. That, I learned, rhymes with “Jessica.”

It’s on the Bush Kill inside a Boy Scout Reservation. I found it on the third try.

I missed the headquarters building the first time. Coming back, I was going to make a left into the driveway, but it looked like a private home, so I went straight.

Third time there was nowhere else to try, so I went up the driveway and parked.

The Bush Kill runs right past that house, and the falls are there. 

They don’t have height or the volume of the Great Falls at Paterson. Still, it’s fun to watch water fall. Like watching a wood fire burn. Continuous and yet never the same.

East Stroudsburg is a college town. It has one of the campuses of the Pennsylvania State University system.

As a result, the bars are a cut above what you’d expect in the usual country town.

Case in point is the Derailed Taphouse. I parked in a lot and crossed the old rail tracks to get to Crystal Street and the Taphouse. It was around four on a Friday, and the bar was almost full. There was already a wait for tables.

I took a seat at the bar and started with an amber ale from ShawneeCraft Brewing, which is just a few miles away. Beer rarely gets fresher than that. It was OK, a bit light on flavor but bitter enough.

There was long wait for the food to come out of the kitchen. I was waiting for mussels with chorizo. 

They came out while I had just started to nurse a New Trail IPA. It had a bit of fragrance and a lot of hops. It went very well with the spicy mussels. 

Chorizo has a little heat, and the kitchen had added slices of jalapeno to the dish. There were also slices of onion. All in a red broth. For all I could tell, there could have been cayenne in there, too.

I had a third pint before I left, Troegs Perpetual IPA. I recalled Joanna’s remark when she sniffed the aroma of an India pale ale—“like drinking perfume.” Perpetual has a mild fragrance. The hops are bitter, and malt flavor still comes through.

I spent about three and half hours traveling to what used to be the Comfort Inn in Clearfield. It’s now branded Wingate by Wyndham.

This is enough for one dose.

Be well, all.

Harry