Living in Beartown

For the past several years, and much more deeply in the past few weeks, I have been living in the fictional town of Beartown. Hockey is the passion and a rivalry with the nearby village of Hed is the setting for all that happens here. This town, in the far north woods, was created by the writer Fredrik Backman. His writing makes you feel like you live there and that you know and love the people who live there with you. It’s a town where you learn life lessons. These characters just draw you in and make you want to live in Beartown forever. But, alas, it’s time to move on. Beartown was the setting for the Beartown Trilogy, and I just finished book three. I will miss these people. I will miss this town. I will remember them fondly for the rest of my life. Yes, the books were that good!

So where do I go now? My consistent readers can guess. I’m going to Slatington! Yes, non-fictional Slatington where I grew up and where I learned many life lessons. Was Slatington anything like Beartown? Not much. There is no town passion like Beartown’s beloved hockey. I guess we all like slate a lot. But let me take you back to my high school senior year, 1969-70, the year the Slatington High School Bulldogs went undefeated in football. The town was in a frenzy. We were beating teams like Parkland and Northampton and Whitehall. I thought then that every citizen lived and died by Friday nights’ scores. I realized years later that a majority of the town didn’t follow us at all. But they should have. We had players who could have been destined for pro football, like Ivan Weiss and Karl Andreas, and who did play Division One college ball. We didn’t have a rivalry like Beartown vs Hed. Our rivalry was with Palmerton, a borough as far from us as Beartown was from Hed. It came down to beating Palmerton on Thanksgiving Day 1969, in the year’s final game, to claim the undefeated season. We won! “Thunder, thunderation. We’re the Bulldog generation!”, my favorite cheer from that magical season.

Here I am, fifty-three years later, missing both fictional Beartown and the Slatington of my youth. But just like I will remember the characters of Beartown fondly, I will always remember and cherish Slatington. Small towns rule!