Nostalgia on the Bay

The rain has finally arrived-we need it. My husband is at Hatteras and son in Edisto-they are getting hammered (with weather, that is). They're on vacation but I had to stay due to work/animals/other obligations..which include Pottsville, PA-as I recently bought my grandparents house there (somebody had to do it).So every chance I get,I have to go up there and deal with that. As I said (somewhere) the men were miners and both my grandmothers owned bars-my maternal grandmothers bar in Donaldson got sold many years ago. But in the one I now own, icons, articles and posters abound re the Molly Maguires and the Pottsville Maroons-neighbors/relatives say they are kin of MM's and some get checks from the Maroons (for not playing?)-anyway..just finished Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven..6 pigs vs. 7 sisters.. I recall the hills of Pottsville being called the 7 sisters-very steep, they are..dotted with onion-domed churches, the most incredible courthouse and dungeon behind (where the Mollys were tried) and the Yuengling brewery (and ice cream plant which operated during prohibition). When I took over the bar I found ancient cases of Yeungling & I took them to the Pine Grove dump as I couldn't keep heating the place..sheese, were they worth something on e-bay? Anyway...back to the Rambler/gambler thing..(which was mentioned elsewhere)..the miners made so little money, that they boxed on the side. Both my G'moms bars and every other one hosted boxing/betting. My dad and my mothers brother, Sam, were big winners in their towns & lots of injuries/ailments/later troubles to show. But not before my dad was invited by Conny Mack to join the Lancaster Red Roses (baseball farm team of the Phidelphia Athletics) as a pitcher in '46, I think... then he was bumped up to the A's-on his way home from Philly they got in a car accident-2 killed, 2 survived, he being one-long recovery..but he met my Mom, became a big star in Dauphin County, had 7 kids ( I'm the oldest) and we each became gamblers in our own way..later on that.