Montoursville, Pennsylvania

Montoursville is a borough to Williamsport at the mouth of Loyalsock Creek on the West Branch Susquehanna River. Its history has to do with an important Indian path and early missionaries. The principal historical character is a female interpreter of French Canadian birth who was kidnapped by Indians and served as interpreter to the British. Important to the whole area for her mad language skills, she spoke French, English, Algonquian and Iroquoian languages. She was influential in New York by becoming the personal interpreter for Governor Robert Hunter.

She and her husband moved to Pennsylvania. Her husband, a war chief, was killed in a raid against the Catawba people. She continued to have influence with British representing the Iroquois. She was hospitable with whites who were migrating to areas along the river and she had influence with various tribes who were taking the pressure of colonial expansion.

The small town of under 5,000 suffered inordinately from the disaster of TWA flight 800 losing 16 High School students and their 5 chaperones on their way to France as part of a student exchange program.

A memorial was erected on the grounds of the high school composed of a statue of an angel on a base engraved with the names of the victims. The memorial is a circular grove of 21 trees. An angel was chosen because onlookers believed a cloud seen above the high school on July 21, 1996 looked like an angel with 21 small clouds at its feet.

Picture it. One person notices the clouds in temporary formation, exclaims and points, "Hey, look at that cloud!" Another nearby says, "Yeah, it looks like an angel!" Then another onlooker comes up and goes,"What are you guys looking at?"And the two original people go, "The clouds, Man, look at the clouds, it looks like an angel standing on rocks!" And the third guy counts them, "Hey there's 20 clouds, no 22 clouds, no 23 clouds, no 21 clouds! Just like there's 21 people killed in that crash." And all three get excited as the cloud formation dissipates and changes into rabbit stretched out above 13 bushes, and then changes into a whale with a bunch of remoras stuck to it, and they race away from each other and tell their wives and everyone else that they encounter in the town over the course of a few days and the event goes down in Montoursville history eventually realized as memorial statue.

It's a small place. There isn't much going on. Life is sports and the school and exploring the natural area surrounding the town. Not that many people pin photos to Google Earth. And the photos they do pin make the town look a bit sad. One of a fat guy in a kayak. Other of plain ordinary commercial concerns. Nearly zero architectural interest.  When you zoom down to street level you see all the neat tidy houses are all very small. The economics of the whole place is quite tight. The thing that sticks out is the airport.

It's a rather small airport.

The airport serves Williamsport.

And that's where Trump will be tonight. A high energy rally is expected. He's anticipated to address the airliner tragedy that has not been satisfactorily resolved.

Incidentally, you can see the memorial clearly in Google Earth. The high school sticks right out by its football field. And the memorial sticks right out for its trees planted in circle.