DLK Post

DLK stands for "damn little knitting." After all, today was Red Rose Sunday.

Now not everyone knows what this is all about ... so let me elaborate. I am a10th generation descendant of a gentleman named George Steitz, who was a bigwig in Lebanon County, PA a long time ago (10 generations carry across a pretty long timeline). To read more about George, click here. So what does this have to do with red roses?

Well ...



Nearly 250 years ago, George Steitz gave land to officials of Tabor United Church of Christ for a payment of five shillings and one red rose to be given the first Sunday of June forever. Yes, he dictated that it be given forever. Tabor is known as the Red Rose Church and for as long as I can remember, a member of my family has headed north on I-83, through York, past Harrisburg, through Hershey and into Lebanon to collect this "rent." Sometimes we get some hotel rooms, stay overnight and turn it into a family reunion, with my cousins coming in from San Antonio, my uncle from New Orleans, my aunt from Florida and my father from Maryland's Eastern Shore. Each year, our cousin Gigi and her husband John come with cousin Kyrsten from nearby Reading and we make a nice morning of it. Each year, a young member of the church makes the presentation with the pastor (I mean, most kids these days really wouldn't care). This year, the presented was a gentleman named Mark who is getting ready to graduate high school with perfect attendance for his entire school career (which includes kindergarten). He was enthusiastic and very, very nice to the boys, who thought he was the bee's knees.

Tabor is a pretty church and the people are very nice -- and very good sports about the whole forever thing.

So anyway, this year The Yarn Sniffer (TYS) became the Rose Collector for a day:


TYS really was cute, standing there straight and tall in his dinosaur tie looking very solemn and serious. I think the fact that the presentation ceremony was held in the adjacent cemetery behind their historical marker really threw him. He isn't crazy about graveyards.

I knitted on my pi shawl the whole way up and back. We took the scenic route back, heading west and then South through Hanover. We even ended up in East Berlin and tried to find the spinner's mecca, The Mannings. We couldn't find it without the address, but later took solace in knowing that it would have been closed anway.

And now on another spinning note: I have chosen the wheel I want. (Drumroll, please.) Click here to see it. I know I can get it from my local yarn shop, and even that they have one in stock (I saw it there on Saturday!). Right now. It's killing me -- 'cause they're closed on Mondays and besides, I still have a few hundred to come up with before taking the plunge. It's bonus season ... but I can't bring myself to ask if I'm getting one ... so who knows when the wheel will be mine?