What Keystone?

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ought to be ashamed of itself.

In 1776, fifty-six men gathered in Philadelphia and declared their colonies to be free and independent from the tyrant of England. One of their major complaints was taxation without representation. Today, Pennsylvania taxes its citizens to death with more little taxes than you can count on one hand taken from your paycheck. It’s going to take me an entire weekend to fill out all the tax forms just for Pennsylvania alone.

It’s called “The Keystone State” because it was the center of the thirteen colonies – the part of the arch that all the other parts depend upon. It was certainly the best centralized location for the Continental Congress, but I’ll side with Texas in calling their Alamo the “Cradle of Liberty” more than Philadelphia today. Texans remember their battle for liberty. I imagine most Pennsylvanians couldn’t tell you where Valley Forge is.

Who knows when the “keystone” began to crumble. When the British occupied Philadelphia and brought so much commerce the citizens didn’t seem to mind? Or when the rising industrialists in Pennsylvania of the 1860s put Lincoln in the White House so the government would leave them alone but tyrannize the South? The Southern defeat at Gettysburg? Brutal fights over coal and steel? Perhaps no one event did it. All I know is, I’m beginning to think you have to be crazy to choose to live here.

Not only will I get to spend hours with tax forms, but PennDOT has been the bane of my life since my arrival here. Personally, I have fought every step to get my name changed the way I want it. Professionally, I have spent hours (with hours more to go) trying to get an “overhead rate” from them for the company I work for. The website I have to use is anything but user friendly. Expired passwords have required several phone calls. And someone dropped the ball on some resubmitted paperwork. Them or us, I don’t know. I was living in Texas at the time, so it wasn’t me. But that has required even more hours just trying to find the phone number of the department I need to call, only to have to leave messages anyhow. And, I have a feeling, it is going to require quite a bit of paperwork before it’s all completed. After which they’ll probably spell someone’s name wrong and I’ll have to start all over again.

But you have to find something to laugh at in the midst of all of it. So, we’ll laugh at how archaic PennDOT is to start with. Not only is the website anything but user friendly, when you call them they give you the option of staying on the line if you’re dialing from a rotary phone. A rotary phone? Really? Do you still sign your paperwork with quills? They also provide you with a number to call in pot holes on state highways. I am sorely tempted to write that number down and start bombarding them with complaints every moment of the day just to share my headaches with them. Since they’ll never fix them anyhow, I can keep calling till Doomsday.

The Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves. Although, maybe the fact that Benjamin Franklin was one of Pennsylvania’s was a sign of the future of this commonwealth. After all, he came up with the United States Postal Service. Which can’t get a letter to my house in Pittsburgh without me personally walking them to the front door.

In that sense, even Massachusetts is smarter than Pennsylvania: they sent Ben Franklin here.