This past weekend Beth & I made a quick trek to Akron, PA to visit Emily before she heads to Uganda to work for a year with SALT. Along with lots of good time just to chat and an amazing waffle breakfast, Emily took us to downtown Lancaster, PA. To be honest, neither Beth nor I knew quite what to expect, but it turns out Lancaster is quite the happening place. We spent hour wandering through the farmer’s market, museum, local galleries and miscellaneous boutiques. The most quirky, and definitely the most fun to explore, was a shop called Zap & Co that was floor to ceiling with vintage clothes, books, photos, jewelery & so much more. Stuff from the 30s, 40s and 50s mostly. My favorite find was a book titled The Good Citizen’s Handbook. It’s a collection of advice and instructions found in government, civic, and scouting handbooks from the 1920s - 60s that was compiled and re-published in 2001. The owner of the store seemed to think the book was intended to be completely ironic, but I’m not so sure. You should definitely follow the link & browse through the sample pages yourself. Unfortunately the preview cut out the page that reads “A good citizen eats meat…and lots of it.” lol! I was also expecting irony when I started reading and so was a bit surprised that most of the advice seems fairly good and reasonable. However, I’m definitely glad that we, as a society, have started moving beyond some of the stereotypes and miss-understandings also promoted in parts of the book (e.g. eating meat). Thanks again to Emily for such a great Saturday on the town!