My son called to say they had set a date for the wedding. Then, he told me it would be held in south-central Pennsylvania. Wedding costs being what they are in the metro New York/New Jersey area, my future daughter-in-law scouted out venues that were more in line with their casual, non-city style and more close to being a smidgeon sane in price. It didn’t hurt that the venue was only an hour or so away from where her family lives. My son and his then fiancé were happy with the venue she found. So, I was, too.

As a mom, I want to support my children. I cheer them on. I confirm their excitement. And so I did exactly that when he told me we’d be heading for Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. “It will be beautiful,” I said. “Your pictures are going to be gorgeous! Won’t be a run-of-the-mill wedding, and the venue sounds perfect for you guys.” I meant every word. That was all true. Somehow, this slipped out, “But you know you won’t get the kind of food you’re used to.” My son did agree on that point. Although I had so little concept of south-central Pennsylvania that I could not even fantasize about the area, I did know it would be a long ride for us to get there and even longer for most of our family and friends.

A year of planning and stress and excitement and expense and anticipation and worry, and emotions swelled until the end-of-July day we packed the car to hit the road, and I’m not even sure what road that was. Once we were off the Garden State Parkway, I could just as well have been floating in outer space. I had no frame of reference. All I knew was that I was far from city life, far from New York accents, and far from any hope of a solid-good eggplant parmigiana. But none of that really mattered. My son was getting married and would spend his life with the woman he loves. My son was happy. My prayers were answered. So, what’s a little rural immersion compared to that?

With an almost four-hour drive ahead and the all-knowing lady who lives in the iPhone telling us which open road to follow, we drove on. And drove. And drove.

All that driving required distraction. What I learned after many years of car trips is that highways are highways, and it’s what lines them that defines them. It’s all about the billboards and signs. They tell the story of local life. After all, they are strategically placed to reach their target audience. Because a part of my career was promotional writing and advertising, I can’t help but be curious about what is being advertised, analyze the headlines, read between the words to decipher what they want to say but can’t, and what they are saying to make you think they’re saying something else. I make it a point to read as many billboards as the car’s speed will allow. They’re amusing, clever, culturally informative.

An hour and a half into the trip, we were still in New Jersey, so it had been the usual stuff — Domino’s Pizza, real estate ads, insurance companies, unnerving hospital promises, and one questionable gentlemen’s club. The signs and billboards were familiar. In between the signs, there were some cows and horses. There were farms, silos, barns. No big deal. I’ve seen them in the Empire State. The gas prices were between $4.53 and $4.69 all along the way, so no news there. Further west, however, the new scenery took shape in the form of quadrillions of acres of fields and fields and fields of tasseled corn stalks, more than I’ve ever seen. Stalks that were at least six-feet tall or more. All I could think of was If you build it, they will come. But no Shoeless Joe, not a baseball player, dead or alive, in sight. Not one human being anywhere.

As we passed more corn, open land, and roadside produce stands — still no people which gave things a Stephen King vibe — my eyes scanned the billboards. The plentiful political ads are another story, so I won’t include them here. While some were funny, there was nothing surprising. Among other advertised topics, however, there were some surprises.

When we crossed the border, the first billboard I read as we infiltrated Pennsylvania piqued my interest. “Pagoda City Tattoo Fest 2022.” Hmmm. Not only was there actually a tattoo festival, but apparently there’s one every year, and for 2022, they had a new location, the Holiday Inn in Morgantown, PA. Further on down the road, I noticed outdated signs that were never removed, i.e., “Tattoos, Booze, and Tacos Fest” that happened in April; “Skindustry Tattoo Expo” that happened March 5; annual “Battlefield Tattoo Expo” that happened earlier in July and featured Abraham Lincoln riding a motorcycle, his hat squarely in place even though he was riding against a brisk wind indicated by the illustrated lines coming at his face. There was one tattoo event after another, and I began to wonder if they run out of ink as often as my printer does.

While scanning the side of the road for more tattoo events, the next billboard to catch my eye read “For All Your Firearms Needs” with dancing yellow letters against a black background and a shouting-large font about good prices and variety. I thought, you mean like a Costco for guns? I had never seen weaponry advertised that way. Several gun store signs followed. The next few miles were a little tense for me wondering who might be hiding in the corn. Anxious to see just how competitive the firearms market was in this area, I didn’t even notice the fireworks or cigar billboards anymore. I was editing the signage as we sped by and noted only the ammunitions deals. The guns began to bore me after a while, though. I mean, I’m from New York, where they don’t even call a cease-fire for holidays and bus drivers are lobbying for bulletproof vests. The guns became tedious.

As if offering salvation for pushing firearms, the next few miles featured religious messages giving a whole new meaning to a sign from God. The first, “No Jesus. No Peace.” Down the road a bit, “Know Jesus. Know Peace.” A digital billboard featured the temperature, which was 91º that day. The text read “Hotter than hell? Not even close.” Below it the website for a Baptist church. On the next sign, one side of the ad was blue-and-white clouds, on the other side orange-red-yellow roaring flames. The large copy above, “If you die tonight?” Across the bottom, “Heaven or Hell?” plus an 800 number as if you could make a reservation. Good advertising gets right to the point. I imagine not many motorists missed this one, “Go To Hell,” and in much smaller type, “or find Jesus and be in a better place.” Probably the most appropriate billboard along the stretch was “Jesus Loves You and Your Tattoos.” And a little later on, “Imagine No Religion.”

Nothing out of the ordinary appeared for a while until I saw a giant, white billboard with Yoko Ono’s face, dark sunglasses halfway down her nose, black fedora tilted, strait-lipped and steel-eyed. It read “Would you take energy advice from the woman who broke up The Beatles?” The sign-off, a website for a company whose name implied that the green movement is going too far. Brilliant on the advertiser’s part. Who wouldn’t recognize Yoko and look? Not a chance in hell they got permission to use her image, but it’s a safe bet she’ll never see it. Even if there were eight days a week, Yoko would never use one of them to drive to this corn-smothered wilderness.  

Switching gears, I looked for food ads. Food defines any culture. Judging by the succession of shoo-fly pie signs, obviously, shoo-fly pie defined this area’s culture. No idea what’s in shoofly pie. Looked it up — nothing but sugar, spice, and calories. Not one berry. Apparently, it’s a local favorite, a staple, a tradition even, but it didn’t seem tempting, even to a foodie like me.

The shoo fly pie market is cutthroat in that part of the country, if the road signs are any indication. Every one of them claimed “World’s Best!” I looked for other local food ads and found rhubarb a close second to shoo fly. I know what raw rhubarb looks like. It’s in Stop & Shop. It’s pretty. The first time I saw it, I thought of the tri-colored tourmaline ring I so badly wanted when we were in Maine. Tourmaline is Maine’s state gem stone, especially the watermelon tourmaline, which has the coloring of rhubarb. Unlike the tourmaline ring, however, I never wanted rhubarb. Was never even a little bit curious about cooking rhubarb or tasting it. Anyway, going back to my initial expectations about the food out there in the depths of Pennsylvania, I was expecting beer and pretzels, and I got shoo fly and rhubarb instead. I love surprises.

The food signs just kept coming. Except for a few blueberry farms, all that shoofly was getting monotonous, and I was bored until I saw a sign that made me smile. A sandwich/deli/food mart on the left of the road advertised, “Free sub if your name is Charles or Wanda.”  

Around this point, I thought I might be over-dressed for my son’s wedding.

Though I still had not seen even one person the whole stretch of that never-ending road, I had a picture of who these locals might be — bad-ass looking, church-going, dessert-loving, armed Beatle fans. Good for them. We all need balance.

When we arrived at the hotel and had two days in the area prior to the wedding day, I was pleasantly surprised to find so many art-related events, art organizations, art schools, and art centers. I was not surprised to see there were just as many beer-themed events. There was one for every beer garden. And there were a lot of beer gardens. We did go to one after the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. Super-tourist that I am, I tried to fit in some local sightseeing in between wedding errands, luncheons, family dinners, and the rehearsal dinner. With all intentions of finding anything Amish and a fresh pretzel, instead, I ended up at the home of President Buchanan. A little bit interesting. I did learn something — his presidency was defined by failure. His bathroom was about 40 yards away from the main house. And he had gout. His thumbs-down legacy didn’t end there. The on-site gift shop was a yawn.

When Saturday, the wedding day, arrived, all the previous entertainment paled. The tension and anticipation and planning were about to blossom into an emotional, life-altering event. The wedding venue, a stunning, historic (non-working) farm, was twenty-five minutes away from the wedding-guest-designated hotel. On the way, I couldn’t help but notice a billboard that advertised “The Turkey Hill Experience.” I so wanted that experience. You get to make your own ice cream flavor. We just didn’t have time. I wished I had seen that billboard a couple of days earlier.

When we arrived at the wedding venue — which was easy to miss because their sign, unlike the firearms sign, was discreet and small — we drove through the gates and recognized its three famous buildings on sprawling, grassy fields. One building, the Cottage, was for the groom, groomsmen, and fathers. The Mansion served the bride, bridesmaids, and mothers. The giant barn — featuring glazed wood, fieldstone, exposed brick, rafters, wrought iron, and white draped fabric from vaulted ceiling to floor gathered and bunched with greenery at every wood column —converted to a cocktail hour and reception hall. While still having all the detail and charm of an 1800s barn, it was shiny inside, air-conditioned, beautifully updated and decorated, really quite a unique and stunning venue. There was neither shoo fly nor rhubarb pie on the menu at the wedding, but the night before at the rehearsal dinner, we had a delicious appetizer that I will spend the next few months learning to make: burrata and rhubarb honey jam on focaccia. It was a wonderful blend of south-central Pennsylvania and metro Italian-American — a sign that two unrelated things can come together in such a perfect marriage, just like the bride and groom.

– Maureen Mancini Amaturo