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Pennsylvania Society: If not then, why now?

Pennsylvania Society: Great idea, wrong time, wrong place

Every year in early December, Pennsylvania’s glitterati and politicos hobnob in Manhattan.

This gathering is known as the Pennsylvania Society, and it’s mostly invitation – only, or you can pay big bucks to throw your own event.

As fun and as useful as this gathering is, and yes, a lot of political sounding boards get twanged, plucked, drummed, and thumped here, it is still at the wrong time and the wrong place.

If you’re a Pennsylvanian, by God, you’re out deer hunting the second week of December. You’ve got no time for more chit-chat in black tie and bow tie inside yet another building (and with due respect to those people who spend their time indoors: Get outside. It’ll do you and everyone else a world of good). You’d prefer to be stalking some steep mountain ledge or sitting overlooking an oak flat, waiting for a deer to jump up or stroll through.

And Manhattan at Christmas time is great. Our family goes every year. Our kids have been raised on Fifth Avenue window shopping and everything that goes with it. Heck, movies have been made about this, it’s so special. It’s a fantastic time for anyone, and if the gathering was fit in to that experience, it’d make sense.

But that best time is at Christmas time. The week before and the week after. Not weeks before. So the Pennsylvania Society is missing the boat there, too, with timing that just doesn’t make sense.

But more to the point, aren’t Philadelphia and Pittsburgh pretty great cities, too? Why can’t we keep the Pennsylvania Society in Pennsylvania? Rotate it around the state, or at least switch between east and west.

I know the folks who really made the Pennsylvania Society take off, and I’m not picking on them. They’re good people, with great ideas. This is just a question of timing, if not venue. And if the venue stays, then change the timing, so our politicians conduct their off-line business in the atmosphere of holiday cheer, giving, forgiveness, and merriment.

Merry Christmas, everyone.