Happy Birthday Jason!!

 Happy Heavenly Birthday Jason!!!!

Yes, today would have been Jason's 47th birthday on this earth, instead he is celebrating this day in Heaven.  However, we will continue to remember him via his Biking to Buzzards Memoir which you can purchase on Amazon as well as a few key memories that I'd like to share moreso from the perspective of locations.

Within the stories from the book coupled with our many podcasts, I thought I'd share a few key locations with the fans and friends that may not have explored our history with us...in pictures.  As you know, Jason was originally from a small, one-light town called Curwensville, PA.  The title for his Memoir comes from his biking journey to a local candy/general store within Curwensville.  In addition, when he spoke about his neighborhood friend Tim, he only lived a few houses up from Jason.  The photo below illustrates this along with the subsequent photo depicting the town of Curwensville where Buzzards was located.

 

We spoke often about our home county of Clearfield County, PA and we still held on to cherished memories and when either of us would return, we'd rekindle our love and visit various places.  Jason mostly visiting Hoss's Steak and Seafood house, Historica Plus (formerly Leitzinger's), Sheetz, as well as a few places in between.  I would typically visit family with a few casual drives through downtown Clearfield, Curwensville, Grampian, and only occasionally go to DuBois.  In our Memory Jogger the Movie, we drive to various locations to give you a better visual of our beloved home county.  Locations include the following:

- The Clearfield Mall

- Clearfield Alliance Christian School (our school)

- Down River Delite (nicknamed Beef's)

- The former location of WCPA/WQYX (the radio station)

- Wyatt's childhood home

- Jason's childhood home

- Many other sites

Much like the aerial photos above, I've added a higher level photograph of most of the county to show key areas in which DuBois, Clearfield, Curwensville, Beef's, and a few other areas are located in relation to one another.  I included directional arrows to illustrate where Coudersport (the Gross family's home area), State College, and Altoona are located.

Finally, I shared this earlier on our Rediscover the 80s FB page, however I'll repost here.  Our local newspaper, The Progress, in partnership with the Clearfield Historical Society has been doing a negatives project.  They essentially are going through troves of photos and negatives then posting them to the natives.  Recently, I stumbled upon a Halloween picture from 1979.  If you could figuratively ignore the Halloween costumes, briefly, and look in the background at the GC Murphy's.

 

On Memory Jogger episode 19 titled Department Stores and Malls, Jason and I (Wyatt) discussed a GC Murphy's prior to Murphy's Mart, which was out at the Clearfield Mall. I recalled that it was located downtown, across from the Leitzinger's 5-story department store.  As of July 2023, that building is now a State Farm insurance branch.

 

I've included 2 modern day, street view, photos. The first from approximately the same location as the 1979 photo. Note that a few facades have changed but the structures have not. A large, brick building is now on the corner that wasn't there in 1979. That larger building is a pharmacy, however the local bus stop was located at that corner which was a charter bus connector (Not a Greyhound but similarly operated).

And a close up of the building to illustrate downtown Clearfield, PA that Jason and I fondly spoke of. Again, Leitzinger's to the right, now owned and called Historica Plus where Jason often walked through the current thrift store.  The local newspaper, The Progress, is located next to it but was the small Sears store while we were growing up.

 

 

 

Enjoy the article!