My friend Alan Howe is running for PA 11. (Wlkes-Barre area)

[The Polack MSgt]

He posted this last night:

I spent last night in Lehighton with friends who live just barely outside the 11th District. My former Air Force colleague and I went fly fishing last evening. It has been months since I chased trout with a fly, and I only caught one fourteen-inch brown trout, but it was the only one the two of us caught. (Note: Fishing is not a competition...unless you are leading!) This morning we shot several rounds through his Uberti open-top 45 Colt revolver, as much a piece of art as it is a handgun. Then I drove up through the beautiful Lehigh Valley to have lunch with supporters in Hazleton.

On the drive, I was struck again by the magnificent natural beauty of Pennsylvania. Whether you hunt or fish or hike or backpack or just enjoy driving past deep woods and tall mountains, we are fortunate to have this legacy left to us.

This is not merely a natural condition. We long ago reached a population large enough to eradicate the natural world around us. Indeed, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mountains like those I drove through had been denuded of all trees, local streams were devoid of fish, and game species were hunted to the brink of extinction. When I was a boy, rivers in our land were so polluted they caught fire. What we have today is the outcome of many, many people putting in countless hours to protect, preserve, and restore our natural world.

We enjoy the fruits of our predecessors' labor. And, we owe the same legacy to our children and our grandchildren. Only we can pass along to them a natural world that they can enjoy, a natural world that protects them from harm. We are smart enough to combine economic growth with a protected natural environment. We can grow and still provide to everyone the clean water and clean air they need. We can preserve opportunities to hunt and fish and hike and backpack. We can leave behind beautiful drives like the one I enjoyed this morning.

We can do this. We must do this.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. I have lots of family in Swoyersville and thereabouts. I haven't been there in a long time

I wish him the best, that used to be a very blue area, I don't know what it's like now.

[WhiteTara]

2. Good luck. Wear comfortable shoes

house signs are effective and it's one of the things I really wanted people to help me with when I ran.

[BigmanPigman]

3. I spent my vacations in the Poconos at Lake Wallenpaupack

and it was beautiful. My family visited our former homes and the area has changed so much that I do not want to see what they described. I prefer to remember frozen pipes and shoveling snow off of the roof in the Winter and fending off gigantic daddy long legs in the Summer.