Corydon is not pronounced like Cory and Don. It’s like corydn. With the accent on Cor.
Ron and Susie live in Corydon. Ron’s a volunteer fireman — not a rescue or recovery diver, he’ll tell you — and retired after 35 years teaching English in Bradford.
Susie is pretty quiet. She comes out here to rehab after repairs to some joints. The little loop is flat and the asphalt is in good shape. Six tenths of a mile.
Today Ron brought me a Ziploc bag of young leeks. They grow wild on the north slopes. In shaded, moist soil. At this point in the climate calendar they’re small and tender.
Chop ’em up and mix ’em up with your scrambled eggs, Ron said.
“That’s the best way,” Susie agreed. She’d finished a couple of laps and was catching her breath in the passenger seat.
Ron is one of those guys. Inordinately proud of McKean County. From the back seat he extricate a plastic case labeled Tourist Information. Nothing in it is about tourists. It’s actually information he thinks tourists should have. “You need a good map.” He’s just happens to have one.
He knows where the Seneca chief Cornplanter is buried. He knows the history of the NE Pennsylvania oil industry.
Every town, every county, should have a Ron, a literate, knowledgeable individual — man or woman — carrying around a case of information tourists ought to have.
Now that I think about it, Mayor Ronnie Spradlin might be that person in Kilgore. He’s even named Ron(nie).