Les Tits

We drove from DC to Bradford, Vermont.  Not wanting to hazard the I-95 corridor, we veered far to the west, almost to Scranton.  It was a mostly pleasant ride.  Travelers, remember the Taconic State Parkway --  it's underused, neatly landscaped, truck-free.  Along the way, a road sign which said, Lititz, Pennsylvania. 

Lititz.  I know that name.  How?  Have I been there?  No.  Did I have a friend from Lititz?  I searched my mind.  Some famous person come from Lititz?  No.  It bothered me.  Something in my mind connected with Lititz but I can't recall it.  Is it LIT-its?  Luh-TITS?

We arrived here in Bradford, Lititz still puzzling me.  What kind of word is Lititz? Time to fire up the wikipedia.  OK, here it is.  "Lititz was founded my members of the Moravian Church in 1756, and was named after a castle in Bohemia named Litice....  For a century, only Moravians were permitted to live in Lititz, and until the middle 1800s only members of the congregation could own houses.  The lease system was abolished in 1855."  Nice little exclusivist Pennsylvania Dutch town, but still the question lingers  -- how do I know it?

"Lititz is also home to Linden Hall School, the oldest all-girls boarding school in the United States, founded by the Moravians in 1746."  That's an interesting piece of news.  Did I know someone who attended Linden Hall?  No, I don't think so.

I went to sleep, puzzled.  Why is Lititz, PA so familiar to me? 

Next day, we started spring-cleaning the house and ran into distinct signs of recent mouse habitation.  I got out some mousetraps, the kind with the spring that I've been baiting with peanut butter at various catless times these last 50 years.  They're Victor mousetraps.  Printed on each one, in small letters:  "Woodstream Corporation, Lititz, Pennsylvania." 

Mystery solved.  Next time through, perhaps we'll stop at Lititz, check out the church, the school, and the mouse-trap factory. 

 

Comments

[spike D]

This reader, seeing 'tits' in the title, though this would be the sort of post unreadable for a person such as myself. Luckily, I read on. And was able to enjoy.