By John Hall for Blue Mountain Town & Country Gazette
In this community-focused issue, we look at several of our communities from the historic perspective, as well as aspects of health in our communities today. We also offer you our first “Short Getaway:…” article for 2025, and keeping with our ongoing, general focus on health issues, we are bringing you information on two breakthroughs in the area of colon health.
For our first “Short Getaway:…” suggestion we are bringing you everything you need to know about the Antiques Markets in Brimfield, Massachusetts. If you happen to love an amazing yard sale, with real antiques in the mix, then this is the article for you. We are putting this information into this March issue because the Brimfield markets, which occur in May, July and September are the kinds of things you would probably need to do a little advance planning for. See “Short Getaway: Brimfield Antiques Markets” for more information.
The children of our communities, who are in school most of the day, are more likely to be bullied at school than anywhere else. In addition to providing support to their children, parents should work with the school to ensure educators are aware of bullying issues and responsive to students’ needs. We provide eight strategies to use as a parent working with your child’s school to help monitor and protect your child from bullying. See the details in “Parental Response to Bullying.”
Across two articles we are going to put our focus on the history of three local communities. We begin with a look at the history of Palmerton and also Lehighton. One was an old “company” town, the other an early Moravian mission. If this catches your interest, be sure and read “Palmerton and Lehighton Community History” for the details.
Our third community focus will be on Walnutport. Specifically, we are looking at early Walnutport life along the Lehigh Canal and what life was like for locktenders and other canal workers back in the day. It was not an easy life. Please see “Walnutport Life on the Lehigh Canal” for some very interesting information.
And finally, we are very happy to report on some true breakthroughs in the fight against colon cancer. One involves the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to assist doctors when they are conducting colonoscopies. The AI tools act like a second set of eyes during the procedure and allow for a more meticulous examination with the technology picking up on abnormalities the doctor could miss.
There is also a new, advanced blood test for colon cancer screening that has a greater sensitivity to certain signals in the blood that indicate a cancer tumor. Find out about both these breakthroughs in “Two Colon Cancer Breakthroughs.”
So that is our issue this time around. Please join us next time when our focus will shift to gardening and “getting ready for spring.” See you then!
