Harrisburg Weather: partly cloudy with temps in the 50s. Yesterday it seemed the world was lit by a forty watt bulb, the kind of day Emily Dickinson referred to as one where "shadows hold their breath."

Harrisburg is in the news again. Today's paper features a piece on an area free-lancer who has a contract to write for Jay Leno. Before noon each day he writes 25 "TV quality -- TV clean" jokes and e-mails them to California. His jokes go into a pool from which the night's monologue is extracted. Next time you watch Leno listen carefully -- some of those jokes were born here.

I wrote about my home town last week, the day PBS aired a special about the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Today I learned that Harrisburg is the setting for the crime being investigated by Nicolas Cage in his new movie Eight Millimeter. The local reviewer said that the area gets a few skyline shots but otherwise nothing is really recognizable.

I don't actually live within the city of Harrisburg. I live in a suburb, a township that hugs the northern city limits. I've been here, in this house, since 1976. Before my house was built, the land on which it sits was part of a large family farm. My neighborhood was its first subdivision. About five years ago another chunk was given over to development, and then a third. 

The old farmhouse was torn down, and what is left is the fifties-style ranch house occupied by the farm's current operator, and the old barn. The old cattle crossing sign has been replaced by one that says "Cattle Area," presumably because the cattle are now confined to the remaining acreage behind the new house.

My neighborhood comprises three main streets and several culs-de-sac containing maybe a hundred and fifty houses on under-an-acre lots. Most are modest two story brick and aluminum models with three or four bedrooms, 2.5 baths (as real estate ads now say), a formal dining room, and a family room. A stepdaughter who lived here briefly once called it "hopelessly middle class." I call it comfortable.

I can't imagine leaving this house for anything other than a nursing home. Like a cat, I regard this place as an extension of myself. We've remodeled once, a kitchen redo with a breakfast room addition. I dream about another project -- my personal studio/office/classroom, perhaps above the garage. (If my husband reads this, that will be his first notification of this particular fantasy. I know his response -- "GEEZ!" Bringing it to reality would mean, among other difficulties, relocating the pond.)

But that would change what I call The Vista, seen here this morning. If I sit just so at my kitchen table, this is what I see. Our property ends at the little playhouse you see to the left, that my daughter is now too tall to use. Beyond is the back lawn area of a neighboring church, with their prayer gazebo just visible at the edge of the woods. It's a peaceful, soothing view, one which I would give up with great sadness.