Tour of Pennsylvania

We've got the Tour of Pennsylvania coming in to town today. I think I'll play hookie and ride out to Latrobe this afternoon for the finish of the race. Latrobe has a few claims to fame. It is the real birthplace of Professional Football (Canton was able to pony up the money for the Hall of Fame though). It used to be the home of Rolling Rock Beer, though I'm not sure that is something to be too proud of. I know what the mountain spring water they used was like. The third is it was the hometown of everyone's (at least people from my generation) favorite toddler TV personality, Mr. Fred Rogers. My dad grew up there and he had quite a few little anecdotes about Fred. One of my favorites was how his father, Jim Rodgers, who was a blue collar type steel mill owner (he married into the one of the richer families in the region which wound up giving Fred a hefty inheritance - yes, people, in case you didn't know it, Fred was loaded. So was Mr. McFeely. Come to think about it, am I the only one who is a bit creeped out by that name?) who was not overly happy about Fred's, shall we say, wimpy mannerisms. So in order to try to change that, he actually paid some of the local bullies to beat him up to try to toughen him up. I'm thinking he should've asked for his money back.