Pennsylvania Parks and Diners

Part Four

There are some places left in America where time stands still. One such place is found in the middle of Pennsylvania. It is a town called Shamokin. Shamokin is an old mining town, and driving through it is an eerie experience. I made my way through the city's streets early in the morning, and it was rather unsettling to pass house after house, building after building, that all had the same chimney-sweep look. The entire town seems to be covered in soot - wooden boardwalks and steps and trimming are no longer pristine. Instead everything is blackened from coal dust, a testament to America's industrial age. The mining business has all but dried up in Shamokin, leaving nothing but the remnants of a town that probably prospered quite well during its heyday. It is a town that I immediately fell in love with, for it is not an ugly town at all but one with enormous character and charm. And Shamokin has something else that I fell in love with, Palmer's Diner. Photo courtesy of Roadside Magazine Palmer's Diner is not your typical diner. In fact under most circumstances I would not consider it a diner at all. Palmer's Diner was not manufactured somewhere, transferred by semi-trailer and then set in a foundation on its property. Instead it was built on site by the property's owner, Paul Palmitessa. I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul, who inherited the property from his father. He built the property to resemble a 50's style diner. The outside resembles little more than your typical roadside restaurant, but indoors the construction and theming is all 50s kitsch, with tons of memorabilia adorning the walls and a vintage jukebox in the corner. There are also jukeboxes at each booth and along the counter. The atmosphere of Palmer's is pure friendliness. This was very much a local's favorite, as evidenced by the friendly banter going on back and forth among many of the customers. But it also seemed to attract a fair amount of walk-in business from people travelling along Rt. 61. In fact the place seemed very popular, more popular in fact than the Burger King next door! My waitress walked up with the most sincere smile I have ever seen on an employee and said "Hi! What'll you have!" I was immediately taken with her. "What's scrapple?" I asked. "Hmmm...." she said. "You know, I really don't know, let me go ask." She returned a moment later and sat down across from me at my booth. I was momentarily startled by her casualness and then immediately fell in love, both with her and the place. "Okay," she said. "Are you SURE you want to know?" "Yes," I said wondering how bad it could be. "Well, basically it's the hoof of a cow, the snout of a pig and part of some other animal, basically it's all the parts of an animal you don't normally eat, and it's all ground up and mixed with spices and cornmeal, then they fry it in a pan and then they slice it and put it on a plate. And then they expect you to eat it." "Oh." "Oh yeah, and they serve it with syrup." OH YUCK! After being so capitivated with this place I'm afraid I'm going to vomit right here in Palmer's Diner. I asked the waitress if I should try it. "Well," she said, "I've never had it, I *WOULDN'T* have it, so I couldn't say. But people order it here all the time, supposedly the people who like it say it's the best." OH MY GOD. "Okay, I'll try it" I said, remembering that the priviledge of life is to TRY NEW THINGS. "And I want a mexican omelette." "Okay! Good!" she said as she got up and went off to place my order. Less than ten minutes later she came back with my omelette. One bite into my mexican omelette and I could understand why this place is so popular. Oh my goodness this was a yummy omelette. All of Palmer's eggs are pan fried - nothing on the grill. He rolls his omelettes in the pan and serves them with a side of home fries. The omelette was topped with a homemade salsa that was just firey enough - this would never be served in Minnesota. And then my waitress brought out the scrapple. Okay, this doesn't look so bad. It reminded me a little of the mush my dad used to fry up for breakfast. This was a brown square slice of fried, rather greasy looking meat mixture. What looked odd was the individual serving of maple syrup sitting on top of it. Now I have a real problem with breakfast items touching on my plate to begin, I just can't handle having pancake syrup invade my eggs. So I knew right away there was absolutely NO WAY I would ever allow meat and syrup to marry on my plate. I set the container aside, trying my best not to gross out at the thought of putting syrup on meat, and psyched myself up to eat this scrapple with an open mind. I took my fork, cut a small but decent sized piece from the corner, and took a bite. Yuck. Mooshy. Nasty. Oh, this is gross. Scrapple reminds me of liver. I hate liver. Liver tastes like dirt to me - not that I'm a big conossieur of dirt, but rather I imagine liver is what dirt must taste like. Oh my God this is just nasty! Scrapple is really very gross, this is not the best representation of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. I ate one more bite just to see if I could acquire a taste for it. I couldn't even swallow it, I had to spit it out in my napkin. Scrapple may be an acquired taste, but it's going to have to be acquired without me because I will never put that vile concoction in my mouth again! And that syrup would have only made me vomit. Luckily, my waitress didn't see me spit out my scrapple, but once I finished she took one look at my side dish and said "not good, huh?" "No," I said. "And what's with the syrup?" "I don't know!" she said. "I think it's bizarre that anybody would want to pour syrup on meat!" "ME TOO!" I said. "Is it so wrong to want to keep your meat and syrup separate?" "I know!" she said. "And don't let it touch my eggs either!" I immediately wanted to stand up and embrace her. I'd found my soul mate. "You're getting a huge tip!" I said. I told the waitress I was a diner buff and had come from Minnesota to eat there, so she called out the owner, Paul, and I stopped at the counter long enough to chat with him for awhile and buy a company shirt. Paul is a very nice man and I really like the way he does business. He's very genuine in his demeanor, he thinks about what the customer would like and he hires people who know how to make you feel comfortable. Even though it isn't your classic diner architecture, I admire the diner-style qualities of Palmer's. It represents the very best of what a diner is all about, and Palmer's is high on my list of favorite diners. Following breakfast I headed to Knoebels. I met the Alvey's there, Robb and Sarah. They were camping with their kids and Sarah's father, John, who was visiting from Greece. We had a very nice time, but the atmosphere was rather laid back. We really didn't do much riding at all that day. Most of our time was spent at their campsite, just sitting around talking. Robb and Sarah sometimes like to take it a little easier than most parkgoers - sometimes they just want to enjoy the atmosphere and not do so much riding. I didn't mind it so much on this day as I had been going rather strong up to this point and was a bit tired. We had dinner at Knoebels' Alamo Restaurant, where I had chicken and waffles. Knoebels chicken and waffles isn't the best, but it's certainly not bad, and I think it's so great this park has a nice sit-down restaurant. Photo courtesy of RideZone I find the weather in this area really enhances my mood, and on this day it was fairly overcast and at times drizzly. In this area of Pennsylvania a drizzly day really creates a somber, almost spooky atmosphere, particularly after driving through Shamokin with its coal covered buildings and houses. The weather seemed to have the same effect on Robb and Sarah, so I just decided to go with it. I took it easy for the day, relaxed with them, enjoyed a nice dinner, and left the park feeling somewhat melancholy but unconcerned with the goings on of the outside world. Whenever I'm at Knoebels, I haven't a care in the world. UP NEXT: Food, food, and more food!