Ivy: I was sufficiently moved to send the author an email. For your amusement, here is the email I sent:

I live about four miles outside of Breezewood, PA in Fulton
county. That's one of the "counties you didn't even know existed and which appear to be populated only by birds".

Now, I can understand the "not knowing the county existed" problem. Why, I myself only recently found out that there really is a real Limpopo River. See, I'd been going merrily through life thinking that the great, grey-green greasy Limpopo River (see http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/165/) was imaginary, just
like the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake was imaginary. To my great surprise, though, I recently discovered that a real Limpopo River runs from the South African / Zimbabwe border to the Indian Ocean. There are even pictures of the Limpopo River on the internet. It is grey-green and greasy-looking because of all the silt in the water. Wow. Who knew? Anyway, the 'not knowing' thing is excusable. If I'm allowed to miss a fairly major river in Africa, you are allowed to miss a couple of inconspicuous counties in
south-central Pennsylvania.

However, as a lifelong resident (except for college) of the
area, I can state with certainty that more things live here than birds. For example, we have an extremely healthy deer population. We've got a fair number of black bears, too. :)

You wrote that "the tangible sense of desolation kind of makes you wonder what football team the people out there cheer for". This, I can help you with. As far as Bedford and Fulton counties, it's Steelers country. ABD (anybody but Dallas) is also a popular choice, particularly if Dallas is doing well. As a side note, the 'tangible sense of desolation' is one of the area's more popular exports -- we ship it out along with our more capable young people who leave to find work in assorted big cities.

We do know what football is, though I'd wager that more people here follow NASCAR than follow football. NASCAR is very popular around here for reasons that escape me. To me, it looks like a bunch of guys driving fast and turning left.

You wrote "The only good news is that horses and buggies aren't allowed on the turnpike."

Locally (Bedford and Fulton counties), we don't have the horse-buggy thing so's you'd notice. Sometimes you can see Mennonites (religious folks whose ways appear similar to the Amish) at the local horse sales but not often. The horse-buggy thing is more the Amish who dwell primarily to the east of us, in the flat, fertile lands south of Harrisburg.

-- Jessica