Happy Earth Day

We found these stickers at the Hometown Farmers Market a few weeks ago.  I had completely forgotten about these, but I remember that they were something that was handed out to my elementary school class back in 1988.  I think there might have been a coloring book as well, but I'm not sure.

A Coke And A Slice With A Side Of Cheese Fries

Four D's Pizza

Hometown Farmers Market - Tamaqua, PA

There's so many good things to eat at the Hometown Farmer's Market that I sometimes overlook the very tasty pizza stand in the center of the lower building.  This tastes very much like the pizza that we used to get after a ballgame when I played Little League in the 80's.

The cheese fries were also very tasty.  They came from a different stand that's a little further down in the building.

You can keep your high-end restaurants.  I'll take a pizza parlor, diner, or food truck every time.

The Perks Of Living Near The Amish

Steve's Chicken Stand
Hometown Farmers Market - Tamaqua, PA
Jeez, this guy isn't going to write about that Amish chicken stand again, is he?  Yes he is.  This was $11, which is about as good of a deal for a chicken dinner with a baked potato and a side of homemade stuffing and buffalo chicken mac & cheese as you're going to find in 2025.

Here's another tip if you live in the area.  It isn't very busy at the Hometown Farmers Market on rainy days, and if you stop by after 5:00, the Amish bread and pastry stand will usually have a buy one, get one free deal.  I wouldn't recommend this breakfast bread if you have celiac disease, but for everybody else, it's freaking delightful.  Makes a good bun for a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich too.

Leave The Gun, Take The Cannoli Bar

Cannoli Bar
Cannoli Bar Corp (2025)
One of the most interesting new candy bars that I've found in a long time were available for sale at The Gumbas Company store at the Hometown Farmers Market.

The Cannoli Bar is white chocolate that has the flavor of cannoli cream with bits of cannoli shell mixed in to give it a little bit of a crunch.  These are incredible!  I could absolutely see these taking off and becoming a big hit across the country.

Amish Chicken

Steve's Chicken Stand
Hometown Farmers Market - Tamaqua, PA
I've written about this place before, but it's worth repeating because Steve's Chicken Stand really is the best tasting chicken that I've ever had.  It's leaps and bounds ahead of places like KFC.  The prices here have increased over the years, but they don't seem to have gone up as much as the other restaurants in our area, so it's now not only the best tasting option, but also one of the most affordable.

If you live within driving distance of the Hometown Farmers Market, this place is really worth visiting.  They have more than just chicken, but it's so damn good that I haven't wanted to try anything else... yet.

Video Poker Archaeology

Double Up Draw Poker
Merit Industries (1982)

One way to hide all of the weight I've gained over the past few years is to only be photographed behind the plexiglass of a 41 year old video poker machine.  I found this for sale at the Hometown Farmers Market.  I didn't buy it, but all kidding aside, it probably would make a cool picture frame for a family that's really into playing cards.

Source: Flyer Fever

The plexiglass came from a Double Up Draw Power arcade machine.  It was produced and sold by Merit Industries in 1982, along with a line of other card games that were "for amusement only", but were still used as gambling machines.

My grandparents used to play machines like these around town when I was growing up in the 80's.  I don't think they were any of these particular machines, but they worked pretty much the same.  The computer would deal you five cards, you'd press the buttons beneath the cards that you wanted to keep, then you'd press deal and your score would increase based on what hand you ended up with.  The poker machines that I remember the most were at the Blue Comet Diner on Route 309 in Hazleton.  If they did well, they would tell the hostess.  She'd come out and check the machine and literally pay them out of the cash register.

 

The laws in Pennsylvania have changed a lot over the past forty years, but using one of these for gambling was highly illegal in the 80's.  That didn't seem to matter too much in my hometown.  It wasn't like they kept these machines hidden in the back room of the Blue Comet.  They were the first thing you saw when you walked in the front door.   The only place I see old poker machines like this today are in arcades like Playland at Knoebels, and they pay off in prize tickets instead of cash.

A Good Dude Who I'm Going To Miss

Ken Box
1956 - 2022

The Hometown Farmer's Market is a place I've been coming to since I've been old enough to walk.  It's only open on Wednesday and a lot of the vendors set up their shops outside, so it's a place that we typically go to quite a bit in the Spring and Summer but not so much in the Fall and Winter.

It was 66 degrees yesterday, which is not at all typical for mid-February in Northeast Pennsylvania, so we decided to stop by after work.  It's the first time that we've been here since last summer.  One of the shops here that I was looking forward to visiting was a used bookstore that's in the back of the main building.  I've found a lot of awesome things here over the years, but the main reason I wanted to stop was to talk with Ken.  He's a hell of a nice guy who I've spent hours talking with about books, movies, and baseball, but especially about music and concerts that we've been to.

The store is still there and it's still open, but Ken wasn't there.  A sign was tacked up out front to let his customers know that he passed away on September 24th of last year.

I didn't know him well, but I'm going to miss him.  I don't make friends easily, but he was an extremely nice person who was easy to talk with and very knowledgeable about rock and new wave.  Every time I came to the shop, we'd end up talking for an hour... and then hour and a half... and then two hours... and it felt like only 10 or 15 minutes had gone by.

In addition to being a bookseller and an encyclopedia of knowledge about rock music, Ken was an artist and he created a lot of framed collages that are still hanging in the store.  The one that caught my eye last year wasn't really a collage like some of the others, but it was a framed collection of The Far Side comics that he cut out and arranged.  I'm a big fan of Gary Larson's comics, and when I noticed this resting on a pile of books last summer, it started a conversation that Ken and I had about The Far Side, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, and other newspaper comic strips.  It was still there in the shop last night, so I bought it off of his friend who is now running the shop.  I'm in the process of remodeling an area of my basement as a rec room to read, watch movies, play video games and listen to records, and I'm going to hang this on the wall above the table that's next to my recliner.  

Thanks for being a good dude.  Hope to see you on the other side someday.

Hometown Farmers Market

Hometown Farmers Market
Tamaqua, PA

This has been one of my favorite places to go on a warm summer day for as long as I can remember.  A lot of the photos of strange foods and products that I've shared over the years have come from here, including Four D's Blueberry Pizza, Steve's Chicken Stand, and random toys, shirts, clothes, groceries, and other products.

I've been going through some of the photos I've taken over the past year and a half and found quite a few that I've taken at this place, so if you're the kind of person who enjoys looking through random photos of products for sale at a small town farmers market, enjoy.