The tenth day of our eleven-day adventure began when Tom’s alarm rang at 6:00am on Tuesday June 13, 2023. Within the next two hours, my companions had their stuff packed, their faces filled, and the three of us were on our way into York, Pennsylvania. Since I had visited Independence Hall with my photographer and Bob Moldenhauer the previous afternoon and spent time in the Assembly Room with the Signers themselves, I looked forward to getting into town where we planned on paying our respects at the gravesites of two Signers of the Declaration of Independence – Philip Livingston and James Smith.
Thanks to our Siri navigational system, and maybe with a little help from our Guiding Spirit, we arrived at Prospect Hill Cemetery in York at roughly 8:15am. Unlike the previous day, when storms had threatened our entire afternoon in Philly, the weather on that Tuesday morning in York was ideal – there were only a few wispy clouds in an otherwise pure blue sky. I had last visited Prospect Hill Cemetery in 2020, and it was great to be back again. This visit to the scenic burial ground was made even more special as it was the first time Tom and Bob were there together since their D of I trip in 1991. Even though my companions didn’t have a map of the huge cemetery, my photographer and his friend found the grave of Philip Livingston after only a short, ten-minute search. As a matter of fact, the grave was in the same spot I had left it three years earlier.
As soon as Tom carried me up to the monument that marked the Signer’s gravesite, I noticed years of pollution, combined with neglect, had turned the once-white tombstone into one that appeared gray with areas of dark stain. My photographer carefully set me on a flat ledge roughly half-way up the eleven-foot-tall monument where I took a moment to reflect on the congressional life of Philip Livingston.
In 1775, Philip Livingston was elected as a New York delegate to the Second Continental Congress, but he was intentionally absent from the July 1st and 2nd debate and vote for independence in 1776. It turned out he was very conservative in politics and at first opposed the Colonies breaking away from Britain. As a matter of fact, Livingston signed the Olive Branch Petition in 1775 as a way to peacefully achieve an understanding with the British Crown. The petition appealed to King George III to end hostilities and restore harmony between Britain and its Colonies. But the stubborn King refused to respond to the petition and declared the people in America as a bunch of rebels. In the Summer of ’76, Phil hemmed and hawed over independence, and New York eventually abstained during the final vote. But when three other delegates from New York signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, Livingston signed his name to the official document as well. Phil was still a member of the United States Congress when those delegates were forced to leave Philadelphia and relocate in the temporary Capitol in York due to British hostilities. On June 12, 1778, Philip Livingston died unexpectedly in York at the age of 62. He was the third earliest Signer of the Declaration of Independence to die. John Morton passed away from tuberculosis on April 1, 1777, while Button Gwinnett died from a gunshot wound inflicted during a duel on May 19, 1777.
I had a moment of twisted humor as Tom removed me from the monument – a thought popped into my resin head. It dawned on me that Philip Livingston was born in New York, and he died in Old York. When the sound of laughter, or should I say lack of laughter, had died down, back in the camera case I went.
Philip Livingston seemed like a prim and proper, stuffed shirt-type of delegate in Congress, one who may have had his own self-interests in mind when the vote for independence was on the table. Not only was Livingston heavily vested in the merchant trade business in the mid-1700s, especially with the British West Indies, but he also financed at least fifteen slave trade voyages from Africa to New York. Even though I like to pay tribute to all 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence for their courage to sign and support that historic document, Livingston is one of my least favorites. While some of the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, were proposing ways to end the slave trade to America, Livingston played a huge part in that disgusting practice, which helped him earn a fortune. And today, nearly 250 years after Phil’s death, we are still paying the price for Livingston’s endeavors.
Tom navigated our Explorer down the hill from the cemetery and into downtown York, where he parked near the First Presbyterian Church on East Market Street in the heart of the historic old city. Throughout the ride, which was just over a mile from Prospect Hill, I was disappointed at what my painted eyes saw. Not only were there a countless number of what appeared to be low-income housing units, some of which looked to be rundown, but some of the streets we drove along gave me good reason to dislike Philip Livingston even more.
The three of us walked across Market Street and through an iron gate, which took us onto the grounds of the First Presbyterian Church. The grounds surrounding the church consisted of a small cemetery that featured roughly 175 ancient, weather-worn headstones scattered about. The church looked beautiful, but it wasn’t the original 1793 place of worship that once graced the property. In 1860, around the time Abraham Lincoln was running for President, the roof over the sanctuary caved in; soon after, the church was demolished and replaced with the current structure. As we walked around the east side of the building, I looked up and admired the steeple, which rose above the tombstones roughly 190 feet into the air. And one of those tombstones, located not too far from the eastern side of the church, was the target of our visit – the final resting place of James Smith, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence.
James Smith was everything Philip Livingston was not. Smith was a lawyer, and a businessman whose businesses didn’t fare too well. By 1774, he began an interest in the political scene, and wrote an essay which recommended the Colonies boycott all British goods. Smith figured if the Colonists hit the motherland in the pocketbook, they would back away from some of their strict laws and life would be better. But as the tensions and talk of independence grew stronger, James Smith was elected to the Second Continental Congress as a delegate representing Pennsylvania, although he arrived in Philadelphia on July 20, 1776 and was too late to vote on the proposal. During his time in Congress, Smith gained a reputation for possessing a great wit, he was a gifted conversationalist, and at the same time, he was viewed by his colleagues as being a bit different and slightly strange. In my mind, the Signer seemed to possess the same qualities as my photographer.
A few days after the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, James Smith and two of his friends made the 100-mile ride to York with a broadside copy of the document in hand. Smith stood proudly in York’s town square and read the Declaration aloud to the citizens of his town. Less than a month later, Smith returned to Pennsylvania’s State House where he signed his name to the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.
When his congressional days ended in 1778, Smith joined the militia to help back his pledge he made when he signed the sacred document. On July 11, 1806, Founding Father James Smith died in York at the age of 86. He was laid to rest beneath the eight-foot-tall white marble tombstone that I had the honor of posing with.
James Smith 1719 – 1806
As soon as my companions were finished photographing the gravesite of James Smith, the three of us walked through the burial ground on our way back to the Explorer, which was parked across the street from the entrance gate. But when we got to an area where Tom had a good view of the 189-foot-tall church steeple, he lifted me out of the camera case and held me aloft for one final image. I smiled, then I heard the camera’s shutter click.
At that moment, I was startled when I suddenly heard a man’s voice say aloud: “I was wondering if you two wouldn’t mind helping me out.” I knew it wasn’t Bob, because he was standing to the right of my photographer and the voice came from our left. I quickly looked over to where I heard the voice and I saw a shabbily dressed guy who appeared to be in his early thirties. He had long, greasy blonde hair held back by dirty bandana, and there was something in his hands, possibly a backpack or something else to carry his belongings. The guy may have been wearing sandals, or he was possibly barefoot; I wasn’t sure as I didn’t want to stare at his dirty feet.
I could tell my camera guy was furious; I knew it by how tight he clutched my body in his right hand. However, when he answered the man, Tom spoke in a somewhat dignified manner. “Look, we don’t have any money to give to you, so just leave us alone.” In the past, when we’ve been approached by someone looking for a handout, they simply walk away when they don’t get any money. But not this guy. He stood defiantly about five feet from us and said: “I wasn’t asking for money. I was asking if you knew whether or not this church offers assistance to people who need transportation. Why do you think I wanted money?” I looked at the bum, then I looked at my photographer; the two of us knew exactly why a guy in his unfortunate position would want a monetary handout. Tom replied to the guy, and this time in a little bit more pleasant tone: “Look, I’m sorry – I thought you were like the dozens of other people we’ve crossed paths with on our trip. Every city we’ve visited, it seems as though we’ve run into someone asking for money. And quite frankly, we’re sick of it.”
Once again, I thought that would be the end of the discussion – because at first, the guy didn’t say a word. But then it came – a verbal barrage; an onslaught of profanity like I’ve not heard in a long time. As a matter of fact, I think the bum set a new all-time record for dropping the ‘F-Bomb’ in a five-minute span. “That’s what’s wrong with this *bleeping* country, no one wants to help anybody. You come to this *bleeping* church to take *bleeping* pictures, and you won’t help someone in need? Get the *bleep* out of here – NOW!” Tom instantly replied to the rant: “We don’t have to go anywhere; we’re on church property. We’ll leave when we’re good and ready. Not because you say so, but because we were finished with our pictures.” I started to get concerned, and I think my friends were as well, because none of us knew for sure if the “nut job” had any weapons in his nap sack. I was a tad bit relieved when he left the church property and headed on foot down the sidewalk. During the entire confrontation, I wondered where all the cops were when we needed one? Oh, that’s right, they were hassling innocent tourists on the public sidewalk in front of Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington D.C.
For the next five minutes or so, as the psycho walked away from us along the public sidewalk, I heard him still yelling at the top of his lungs. Over and over he shouted and pointed in our direction: “Get the *bleep* out of here, NOW! I mean it, get in that *bleeping* car of yours and get the *bleep* out of here.” I laughed to myself when I saw an older gentleman standing not too far from where we were parked – the guy looked dumbfounded as he watched the spectacle unfold before his eyes.
Then, just when I thought the turbulent episode had died down, Bob walked along the same sidewalk to capture a final image of the entire church from a distance. When the “nut case” saw our friend, he turned around and headed back towards Bob in a slow and steady pace. The guy’s arms were flailing in the air, and he was still yelling profanities. As a matter of fact, he singled Mongo out in one of his verbal rants: “I said get the *bleep* out of here, and that means you, too.” Luckily, Bob had finished his photos – he immediately crossed the street to distance himself from the dirtbag. When Mongo got to the Explorer, he laughed and said: “Can you believe that? Last year, we ran into the biggest self-proclaimed a$$hole in the state of Ohio. And now we come across the biggest a$$hole in Pennsylvania. How do we get so lucky?” I had one thought running through my resin mind – where in the heck-fire was our Divine Angel when we needed her? Then it dawned on me, perhaps she kept the psycho from reaching in his nap sack for reinforcements. After all, “knives and guns will ruin my day, but *bleeping* words will never hurt me!”
The final site on our agenda in York was located less than a mile west of the historic church we had just visited. As soon as Tom parked our vehicle near the front of the National House, I looked around to see if our “friend” had followed us. Since I didn’t hear any ‘F-bombs’ echoing through air, I figured we were safe.
The National House was a large four-story apartment building, with its first level used to host a bar, restaurant, and retail space. But those entities weren’t what brought us to the historic site. The reason for our visit was Martin Van Buren.
Built in 1828 in the center of downtown York, Pennsylvania, the White Hall Hotel was the place to be if you were staying in town. President Van Buren stayed there during a visit in 1839, while famed British author Charles Dickens, and his wife, spent the night at the White Hall Hotel in 1842. As a matter of fact, Dickens said the hotel featured “the best beefsteak in America”. In 1863, during the Civil War, the building was enlarged and renamed the National House. But like so many other historic buildings before it, the National House was destroyed by fire on September 27, 1879. It took over two decades before a new hotel was built on the site. While the large building in front of me wasn’t the one where Van Buren hung his hat in 1839, it was still the site where he spent the night, and that was still pretty cool in my book. As I stood near the White Hall Hotel and thought about Martin Van Buren’s stay, I wondered if a crazed lunatic approached him on the sidewalk and told him to “get the *bleep* out of York and go back to *bleeping* Washington”?
Our memorable visit to York, Pennsylvania ended at 9:20am and I, for one, was exuberant to get out of dodge in one piece. From the moment we arrived, until the time we headed westward, I was never comfortable in that city. When Tom fired-up the engines on our Explorer, I wanted to shout out: “Let’s get the *bleep* out of here, NOW!”
For the next three hours, as we drove west along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I listened as Tom and Bob rehashed their ‘Close Encounter of the Weird Kind’ at the First Presbyterian Church in York. I tried hard to put that episode behind me, but when we pulled into a gravel parking area in the small town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, I got to get another “Close Encounter”. This time, however, the encounter was of a different kind. After all, we were in what’s known as “Pennsylvania’s Roswell”.
From our vehicle, Tom carried me up a small incline and towards an object that appeared to be a giant, tan-colored acorn with hieroglyphics inscribed along its bottom edge. The acorn sat on a ten-foot-tall platform that featured a sign that read: ‘KECKSBURG UFO DEC. 9, 1965’. My initial reaction was: “What the *bleep* is this? It looks like a poorly made Hollywood prop.” It turned out I was right; the acorn was a prop used in 1990 for the TV show ‘Unsolved Mysteries’. The real acorn-shaped object, or alien spaceship, has been the subject of debate and research since the day it fell to Earth in 1965. Ironically, the crash site was in a wooded area just over a quarter mile from where we stood. In other words, the acorn didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Around 4:45pm on December 9, 1965, an extremely bright fireball burned through the atmosphere over Detroit, Michigan; its path continued over Canada and Lake Erie, until it crashed into a wooded area near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, which is roughly 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. While most scientists, astronomers, and NASA officials said the object was likely a meteor bolide, or perhaps a doomed Venus probe sent up by the Soviets that didn’t make it out of Earth’s orbit, the townspeople living in and around the tiny speck on the map known as Kecksburg believe otherwise. Immediately after the object crashed, state troopers and Army personnel arrived on the scene and searched the woods – only to say they found “absolutely nothing”. However, witnesses testified how the military arrived immediately after the crash and removed a large acorn-shaped object in the middle of the night under the cloak of secrecy. A ten-year-old boy named John Hays said he watched as a flat-bed truck emerged from the site near his house, the truck was hauling something “the size of a VW”.
Since the 1947 Roswell UFO incident in New Mexico until today, the U.S. government has been reluctant to divulge any information about possible extraterrestrial objects or beings – and that included the crash in Kecksburg. Was it a meteor, or a Soviet planetary probe, or maybe even a wayward NASA satellite that went out of control? Or was the acorn-shaped object a craft from another world? As I posed for a few photos near the UFO prop, I waited for a three-foot-tall green person with huge eyes to walk up and say: “Get the *bleep* out of here, NOW!”
Tom, Bob, and I left Kecksburg and its infamous acorn behind and headed towards Turtle Creek, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Throughout the 35-mile-ride to the Betty Rosenberg/Parkway Jewish Center Cemetery located in Wilkins Township, which was just north of Turtle Creek, I couldn’t get the UFO incident out of my mind. Once again, it reeked of a United States military coverup and conspiracy to hide the truth from the citizens of this great nation.
Once we arrived at the quiet, residential area near the cemetery, the three of us made the short walk to the burial ground where we instantly found the final resting place of Allison Krause. I recognized the headstone immediately because it was my third visit to Krause’s grave in the past two years. But this visit was special – my companions had set a goal to visit the graves of all four of the Kent State massacre victims, as well as the site where they were killed at Kent State University, all on the same trip. Two days earlier, we had paid our respects at the first of the four sites – which was where Jeffery Miller had been laid to rest near Hartsdale, New York.
When Tom set me onto Allison’s polished red granite headstone, I was once again saddened by her inscribed quote located just above me on the large stone. On May 3, 1970, Allison and her boyfriend, Barry Levine, set out on foot to talk to some of the National Guardsmen who had taken over the Kent State University campus on orders from Governor James A. Rhodes. After a pleasant exchange with one of the soldiers, whose M-1 rifle barrel featured a lilac placed there by another student, Allison Krause said to the young Guardsman: “What’s the matter with peace?” When the soldier turned and started to walk away from them, Allison and Barry followed, which was when she said to him: “Flowers are better than bullets.” Allison Krause had no way of knowing how prophetic her statement was.
Twenty-four hours later, on Monday May 4, 1970, Allison was demonstrating with a large group of students who had retreated to the parking lot of Kent State’s Prentice Hall. Suddenly, 13 seconds of pure mayhem erupted. Nearly 30 of the 70 Ohio State National Guard soldiers, who were over 300 feet away on a hill, opened fire on the unarmed students. Krause was hit with a single shot that pierced her left arm, then the bullet fragmented after entering the left side of her chest. In a flash, a protest had turned deadly as Allison’s life’s blood flowed onto the pavement. Minutes later, 19-year-old Allison Krause died in the arms of her boyfriend as she was being transported to the hospital.
At roughly 1:40pm, the three of us left the Jewish cemetery outside of Pittsburgh and headed for another Jewish site in Pittsburgh – and this one had a Presidential connection. Even though the Rodef Shalom Congregation was only eight miles from where Allison Krause was buried, it took over a half-hour to make the trip due to the early afternoon traffic on the east side of the Steel City.
When we arrived, Tom wasted no time – he quickly carried me along the public sidewalk, past the synagogue, and up to the ornamental electrolier located near the side of the building. Even though I was stunned by the massive size and was impressed by the ornate beauty of the structure, it was the electrolier we had come to see. That’s because President William Howard Taft, along with his entourage, were photographed in front of the ornate outdoor light during his historic visit to the Rodef Shalom Congregation on May 29, 1909. After the photo-op was finished, Taft entered the synagogue through a nearby side entrance where he addressed the large crowd inside.
At that moment, William Howard Taft became the first sitting United States President to speak from the pulpit of a Jewish house of worship during a regular Sabbath service. Taft stood in front of the massive crowd and delivered a short speech – one that emphasized his intentions to be the President of all the American people. While he didn’t announce any new policies during his speech, Taft did make a very noticeable and embarrassing remark when he referred to Rodef Shalom as “this beautiful church.”
Our stay at the Rodef Sholom synagogue lasted less than ten minutes, which was about the time it took President Taft to eat a full course meal. When I heard my photographer tell Bob we were only thirty or so miles from our next stop, which was a cemetery in Evans City, Pennsylvania, I wondered which famous person was buried there. I knew for sure it couldn’t be a President, as there’s only one buried in the Keystone State, and that was James Buchanan over in Lancaster. For some reason, the Evans City Cemetery seemed awful familiar to me – but during the forty-minute drive north, I couldn’t put a resin finger on why. I started having a flare-up of déjà vu.
As soon as Tom drove through Evans City and he turned south onto Franklin Road, it dawned on me which famous person was buried in the cemetery we were headed towards. There wasn’t one. However, the cemetery itself was the star of the show – and that show was the 1968 horror film ‘Night of the Living Dead’. Over eight minutes of the first ten minutes of the movie was filmed in Evans City Cemetery, which began when a brother and sister were attacked by an undead ghoul, or zombie. By today’s cinema standards with CGI and other special effects, that ’68 cult classic seems pretty lame. But when the movie premiered on October 1, 1968, some theatergoers ran out of the show screaming and crying. Kids were afraid to go to sleep at night. The 96-minute motion picture is now widely recognized as the first modern zombie film, and one where you might hear someone say on an overcast and dark evening, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra!”
Tom drove onto the cemetery’s roadway and headed up the steep hill into the famous and creepy burial ground. Once we were near some of the headstones used in the film, my photographer parked our Ford SUV near the Cemetery Chapel, close to the same spot where Johnny parked his 1967 Pontiac Lemans in the movie. For roughly forty minutes, Tom and Bob snapped pictures; while at the same time, my photographer forced me pose where some of the scary scenes were filmed. There were also moments when my friends re-enacted some of the scenes from the movie, although it quickly became very evident Hollywood won’t be calling either of them anytime soon.
Please sit back, grab a bag of popcorn, and let me take you back in time to a night in 1968 – a Night of the Living Dead. “If it doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead!”
In the movie, after the ghoul killed Johnny, Barbra ran towards the Cemetery Chapel and jumped into the Lemans to escape the approaching zombie. When she discovered the keys were still with her brother, Barbra put the car in neutral and she steered the vehicle as it rolled down the hills towards the entrance. Since the hill was fairly steep, she lost control of the speeding Pontiac and it careened into a tree – causing Barbra to flee on foot to escape the living dead.
At 3:45pm, my companions and I returned to the Explorer to begin the journey towards Ohio. But when Tom and Bob buckled in, I heard my photographer say he wanted to replicate Barbra’s scene and use gravity to coast out of the cemetery; mainly to see if the movie was accurate or not. Tom drove to the spot near the chapel where the hill began, he put the Explorer in neutral, and we began to roll. My camera guy left the vehicle’s engine running so he’d retain the power steering feature, which was something Barbra might not have had in the ’67 Pontiac. Seconds into the unpowered ride, we began to pick up speed – faster and faster we went down the hill; a hill which featured a couple of curves. At one point, when the speedometer reached 30mph, I heard Bob chuckle and say: “I don’t think the zombie is going to catch us!” A few moments later, Tom pumped the brakes as we went around a turn on two wheels at nearly 40mph. I heard my photographer yell out: “Jesus Christ, I can see why she sideswiped the tree!” The pair of goofballs laughed because they had proven the movie scene was accurate – and thankfully, my photographer didn’t hit a tree in the process. In my mind, I felt the only thing missing was from the re-enactment was not hearing the pursuing ghoul yell out: “Get the *bleep* out of here, NOW!”
Back on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which took us into Ohio, we headed directly to the Congregation Ohev Tzedek Shaarei Torah Cemetery, which was a few miles northeast of Canfield, Ohio – a suburb of Youngstown. Unlike our 2022 visit, we found the cemetery and the gravesite of Sandy Scheuer without any problems.
Twenty-year-old Sandra Lee Scheuer was an honor student at Kent State University and refused to participate in the Vietnam War protests that had besieged her campus during the first few days of May 1970. At 12:24pm, on May 4, 1970, as Scheuer walked across the Prentice Hall parking lot towards her next class, a bullet from the rifle of a National Guard soldier 390 feet away hit her in the neck. The M-1 bullet severed Sandy’s jugular vein, and she died within minutes from loss of blood while lying in the campus parking lot of the college she loved.
When Tom placed me on the four-foot-tall, polished granite headstone that marked Sandy’s final resting place, I quickly became angry all over again at the two people most responsible for her senseless death – Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and President Richard M. Nixon. They were the ones who decided to squash the nationwide college protests by any means possible – and that included an armed assault by American soldiers, on an American campus, to injure or kill unarmed American students. What were those *bleeping* idiots thinking?
The second to last day of our amazing trip was nearing an end. It was roughly 5:20pm and my two companions had planned on finding a hotel near Kent State University where we’d be in position to visit the campus first thing in the morning. We no more got on the road, however, when I heard my photographer say to Bob: “I’m getting very hungry – let’s stop at the next Texas Roadhouse we see and have dinner.” I laughed as I thought to myself: “He must’ve worked up an appetite from our encounters with the psycho, extraterrestrial, and the ghoul. Maybe we’ll see Bigfoot on our way to the restaurant.”
Tom and Bob found a Texas Roadhouse north of Youngstown and not too far from William McKinley’s birthplace in Niles. While we didn’t see Bigfoot during the short 12-mile trip to the restaurant, I definitely saw a Bigbutt eat a big steak during the forty-five-minute feed bag. While they had dinner, Bob secured reservations at a Fairfield Inn, which was located in Streetsboro, Ohio and not too far from Kent State University.
The dashboard clock read 7:33pm when we pulled into the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn. Tom unpacked their gear for the final time while Mongo took care of the registration. Once in our room, my photographer placed me alongside the TV set where I spent the night. It had been an exhausting day, and one I’ll likely never forget. After Tom extinguished the lights and I was left alone in the darkness with my thoughts, the vision of a paranormal visit during the night crossed my mind. But what would I say should I happen to see a ghost? I know – “Get the *bleep* out of here. Get the *bleep* out of here, NOW!”
