Blooming Glen, R.I.P.

Before the pants factories shuttered their doors and Route 113 became a protected scenic highway, Blooming Glen was the center of a very small, very strange universe.

In this meticulous and affectionate excavation of a mid-century childhood, the smallest textile town around is brought back from the dead. Armed with a map of memories, our narrator walks us down the fast road that bisected their youth, resurrecting the eccentric neighbors, local legends, and quiet mysteries that populated every quadrant of the single crossroad. From the exotic allure of divorcees in the neighboring apartments to the whispered rumors of cigarette-smoking kids on the school bus, the town breathes again through sharp, unforgettable observations.

Blooming Glen, R.I.P. is a geographic preservation of American small-town eccentricity, capturing the ghosts of a place before time and asphalt paved it over.

Step off the fast road, walk back to the single crossroad, and knock on the very first door.

Thomas Jay Rush grew up in Blooming Glen, PA from his birth in 1959 until he left at age 26 in 1986. Rush holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked in the computer industry since the mid 1980s. He also holds a Master in Fine Arts with a concentration in Poetry from Rosemont College. This is his first long-form non-fiction book.