Pit Stops On the Road Of Life

RON HONTZ

Bea Newberry thinks I’ve lived an interesting life. A year or two ago, she suggested I should write my entire biography but I initially resisted. I thought I’d just talk about a couple of unusual events that occurred along the way. I started with “Dead Guy In the Back Seat” and moved on to “The Wallet Man” and other relatively-short tales, including the time of Hurricane Agnes. I developed a “fan club” of over 150 people around the world and they gave me rewarding feedback. That caused me to launch into a major project, “My Life In the Navy”, which runs some 34,000 words. Again, my work was well received. I’ve now decided “What the heck? I may as well go ahead with a lengthier description of my entire life, beginning with my childhood !” My friend, Sheila, who runs this site for me because I know absolutely zilch about posting HTML language, has graciously agreed to re-organize this home page so that items will appear, more or less, in the chronological order which they occurred. Some items may, for a time, be completely empty, until I get around to producing their contents. As usual, the “fan club” will be notified as each new chapter is ready for viewing.

My writing “career” began with doing some genealogical research which took me to ancestry.com, the US censuses, and other sources. I reached the point where I decided that I’ll NEVER find out which Hontz got “offa da boat” or where or when that happened. (I also ran into a stonewall on my Smith roots up in Wayne County, PA in the 1800’s.) In the course of this research, I ran across the families of many of my Sweet Valley neighbors. I was surprised to learn many things that escaped my notice when I was young. “Dang! No wonder those folks all lived so close together. They’re all cousins!” From learning about Sweet Valley people, it wasn’t a big jump to looking into THINGS that happened in that area. I easily moved into writing some historical pieces which involved trips to the Luzerne County, PA courthouse to study deeds and wills and to the Osterhout Library to view old newspapers on microfilm. I interviewed the oldest Sweet Valley folks I knew, wrote letters, and called complete strangers all over the nation to ask for their help. The results of all this work are found in under this next header

My hometown of Sweet Valley, Luzerne County, PA is near the Columbia County Line. Check out an interesting site by David Kline that often covers both Columbia and Luzerne County areas.

Ronald E. Hontz
33 Whitcraft Lane

Shrewsbury PA 17361

(717) 235-5791

cell phone (717) 309-1402

e-mail: Sweetvalleykid@gmail.com

PIT STOPS ON THE ROAD OF LIFE

FROM THE DESK OF

RON HONTZ

Shrewsbury PA 17361