Erie - a "grape" place to live

Erie and Erie County are well-known for their cool climate (and lots of lake effect snow).

It's Lake Erie, of course, that causes the climate to be on the cool side, and although many people don't care for the lake-influenced weather, it's an absolute boon to one group of people--Concord grape farmers. Here's why:

In Erie's climate, Concord grapes ripen in late summer/early fall. A frost while the grapes are ripening would be disastrous, killing many of the precious bunches just before harvest. But the summer-warmed waters of Lake Erie usually prevent an early frost from occurring, thus giving the grapes the time they need to fully ripen to a sweet, healthy product.

Concord grapes are made into many products, most notably grape juice and jelly. But they're also excellent, and very good for you, when eaten right off the vine. Indeed, there are many farmers in the area who will sell you fresh-picked Concord grapes, and they taste fantastic when eaten shortly after being picked.

Concord grape farming also creates many jobs in the greater Erie area. My first job, when I was just 15, was combing Concord grapes.

What does it mean to comb grapes? As you probably know, as grape vines grow they become tangled and intertwined. Combing means to walk along the rows of grapes untangling the vines so they hang straight down. This allows more sunlight into the vines, thus improving productivity.

Although a fair amount of Concord grape farming takes place in Erie County, Pennsylvania, many farmers also live and work just over the state line in New York State. All together the Concord grape belt is 50 to 60 miles long and 2 to 8 miles wide along the southern shore of Lake Erie. It is the largest grape growing region in the United States outside of California.

Post-secondary education in Erie

Close to one million people live in the Florida county I live in. There are two post-secondary institutions.

In contrast, about 280,000 people live in Erie County, and there are five post-secondary instituations.

Advantage: Erie County.

There is currently talk in Erie about creating a community college. The argument is that a community college would provide relatively inexpensive education for the first two years after high school graduation.

Is a community college necesary in Erie County? I'm not convinced it is. While there's no doubt a community college is a good choice for many students, there are already plenty of choices for getting a college education in Erie County.

The five existing colleges, all with excellent reputations, are:

Gannon University
Gannon University is a Catholic institution in downtown Erie. It offers associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees, as well as certificates and doctoral degrees. More than 3,500 students attend Gannon.

Mercyhurst College
Like Gannon, Mercyhurst College is a Catholic college. It is also in the Erie city limits, on East 38th Street. The Erie campus offers 50 undergraduate majors with 67 concentrations, as well as adult programs and five graduate programs. Mercyhurst also has one- and two-year programs at its North East campus. Mercyhurst also opened a campus in Girard in 2006.

Penn State Behrend
As its name implies, Penn State Behrend is an arm of Pennsylvania State University. It is located at the Erie city limits near Harborcreek. More than 4,000 students attend Behrend, which offers 32 baccalaureate majors, 22 minors, six associate degree programs and two graduate programs, including an MBA.

Edinboro University
Edinboro University is located about 20 miles south of Erie in the city of Edinboro. About 7,700 undergraduate and graduate students attend Edinboro, which offers more than 100 degree programs. The University also has campuses in Erie and Meadville. Like Behrend, Edinboro is an arm of Penn State University.

Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
LECOM trains Osteopathic doctors and pharmacists. According to the school's web site, they are the fastest growing medical college in the country. LECOM also has a campus in Bradenton, Florida.

For a county of less than 300,000 population, the post-secondary educational opportunities in Erie County are nothing short of excellent.

Erie’s economy

Every time I'm in Erie (three or four times a year) I hear people talk about "how bad the economy in Erie is" and how "there are no jobs in Erie."

I don't believe a word of it.

I think that when people talk about the lack of jobs, they're thinking of manufacturing jobs, which were the staple of Erie's economy for many decades. Those jobs, I agree, are gone for good, just like they are in other northern cities. Those cities aren't called the "rust belt" for nothing.

Why do I think Erie's economy is doing just fine? Every time I'm there I see lots of new growth. Upper Peach Street is almost unrecognizable from 20 years ago, when I moved out of Erie. (My move had nothing to do with the perceived lack of jobs in the area; it was because the Erie winters were detrimental to my wife's health.) It's even significantly changed in the last five years, with all the new businesses in the area. Even when I was in Erie about a month ago, I saw three or four new buildings being constructed on upper Peach Street.

Furthermore, I continually see new, expensive homes being built and, obviously, being sold. For example, check out the homes on Forest Crossing and Stone Creek Drive in Millcreek. These homes currently sell for $250k and up. They're new, they're beautiful, and somebody is buying them.

And those homes are a bargain compared to many parts of the country, selling for perhaps half the price, for example, of what they would here in Florida. That helps those homes to sell, benefiting the entire economy.

I think to overcome the "Erie's economy is bad" syndrome, people need to make the mental transition from the old manufacturing mindset to a 21st century economy. Manufacturing jobs are gone forever, being replaced by jobs in media, informational technology, health, education and other fields.

But jobs in Erie, in many cases good-paying jobs, are available for those who are well-educated, ambitious and willing to work hard.

Food unique to Erie

My wife and flew into Pittsburgh this summer on our way to Erie, Niagara Falls and Binghamton, NY.

We stopped at a grocery store, and knowing my mother enjoys ox roast, asked around at the store for some.

You would have thought we were asking for Martian meatballs. Nobody, at least nobody that we talked to, had apparently ever heard of ox roast.

What is ox roast? It's not ox. Ox roast is simply beef, spiced and slow cooked, then cut into very thin strips. It's delicious.

Ox roast isn't the only food one can buy in the Erie area but not in many other places.

Ever hear of Smith's? No, I don't mean the family down the street from you. Mention Smith's to anyone in Erie and they'll immediately know you're talking about the company famously known in the area for their hot dogs, ham, bologna, and other meats. Many native Erieites, including me, buy several pounds of Smith's meat when in the area and take it home with us. You just can't buy hot dogs like Smith's anywhere else, although you can now buy from them on the Internet.

Finally, how about elderberry pie? Elderberries are small, round berries grown on bush-like plants. They tend to be a bit sour, but made into pies they make an excellent dessert. Even in Erie, it can be hard to find elderberry pies for sale, probably because shucking the considerable number of berries needed for a pie is labor intensive. I've never seen elderberry pies anywhere else.

No doubt many areas of the country have their own special foods that are hard to buy elsewhere, but I'll stack up Erie food against any other region nationwide.

Erie's infamous winters and lake effect snow

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

That old Christmas carole wasn't written about Erie, but it might have been. Erie is one of the snowiest cities in the continental United States, averaging about 88 inches (more than seven feet!) of snow each year.

Why? It's the lake effect. Here's how it works.

It's well known that land masses warm and cool more quickly than bodies of water. So in late fall and early winter, Lake Erie stays relatively warm while the land in and around Erie cools. That disparity in temperature causes wind to come off the lake and onto the land. The wind picks up moisture from the water, then drops that moisture on the cool land as snow. The same phenomena occurs when a cold front moves over the lake.

It can be difficult to predict the amount of snow from the lake effect. Many times meteorologists predict, say, two or four inches of snow, but the Erie area gets much more. This is not a reflection on the meteorologists' forecasting skills, but on the uncertainly of how much moisture the winds will pick up.

Lake effect snow tends to fall heaviest a few miles from the shoreline. In the Erie area, areas south of Interstate 90 usually get the most lake effect snow. Many people think I-90 is a dividing line, causing most snow to fall south of the road. But of course, it's just coincidental. I-90 is just far enough away from the Lake Erie shore so that the heaviest amounts of snow tend to fall south of it. In most years, Lake Erie freezes over and the lake effect is minimized. Once that occurs snow tends to blanket the area more evenly.

It's not unusual for lake effect snow to bring a foot or more of snow to parts of the Erie area. These events cause major headaches for the region, including widespread school and work closings and many auto accidents. Snow removal crews often have difficulty keeping up with the snow--as fast as they plow it, more snow falls.

The snow, of course, isn't all bad. Just over the state line, near Findley Lake, NY, there is a fine ski resort, Peek'n Peak. Even though the resort has snowmaking equipment, they still of course rely on Mother Nature to do her part in making snow, and most times from mid-November through mid March or later, skiers aren't disappointed.

How much does the lake effect account for the amount of snow Erie gets? Consider this: Chicago and Detroit are at roughly the same latitude as Erie, but those cities average only about 38 and 40 inches of snow, respectively. The difference is those cities aren't on the leeward side of a great lake, as Erie is.

The Erie area isn't the only place where lake effect snow occurs, of course. Cleveland, Buffalo and Syracuse also experience this phenomena.

Little known facts about Erie and Erie County

Did you know . . .

Former astronaut Paul J. Weitz is from Erie County. Weitz commanded the space shuttle challenger on its first trip to space and also spent time on Skylab.

Despite its reputation for nasty winters, Erie averages less snow per year than its bigger neighbor, Buffalo, NY.

Erie was named after the Eriez Indians. The tribe no longer exists, having been wiped out by other tribes.

Presque Isle State Park receives more than four million visitors each year.

Presque Isle is French for "almost an island." At times, the peninsula has been an island when lake waters swamped its narrow neck.

Erie gets its water not from the Presque Isle bay, but from the lake. An intake pipe runs under the bay, under the peninsula and into the lake.

Erie had only two television stations, CBS affiliate WSEE and NBC affiliate WICU, until 1966, when ABC affiliate WJET signed on.

Erie is Pennsylvania's only Great Lakes port, and one of the oldest cities on the Great Lakes, having been founded in 1795.

Attention, polka fans! Erie's Mercyhurst College broadcasts a polka show every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern Time at Erieradio.com.