The rolling ridges and valleys of southcentral Pennsylvania and northern Maryland and Virginia have always been a battleground between the forces of the North and the South.   It was that way during the Civil War, it is that way with species of trees and plants, and it is that way with the day-to-day weather.

For three swelteringly hot days in July of 1863, the combined forces of Lincoln’s Army of the Potomac and the Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, chanced to meet at a little known crossroad town called Gettysburg in a valley between two ridges.  The army of the South was attempting to invade the North.  The North would have nothing to do with it.  By the time both sides limped away, a combined total of almost 50,000 casualties were suffered by both sides. This scenario was repeated over and over in southern Pennsylvania and northern Virginia. To a large degree, the Civil War was contested within a few hundred miles of the Mason-Dixon line. The North would eventually win the war, but there was never a winner to the individual battles.       

The jet stream marks the site of the constant north-south planetary struggle between cool, dry polar air and hot steamy equatorial air.   To a large extent, the Mason-Dixon line represents the battle line between those forces and as the eastwardly flowing jet stream slides north and south like an undulating serpent, it drags violent weather with it.  When the jet stream is to our north, we bath in searing heat and stifling humidity.  When it is to our south, we luxuriate in sweet, cool, fresh Canadian air.  And when it is overhead, we turn on the Weather Channel and watch the western horizon cautiously for powerful, black storms of lightening, wind and hail.

Even the trees and plants of southcentral Pennsylvania have a hard time making up their minds.  Only in a thin strip of the mid-Atlantic do you find the northern Yankee regime of oaks, maples, beaches and pines growing side-by-side with Johnny Reb sycamores, rhododendrons, dogwoods and mountain laurels. The northern species are able to ignore the heat, while the southern species have agreed to withstand the cold. Unlike their Civil War counterparts however, the trees of the North and South are able to coexist amicably.   

America originally dabbled with New England but ultimately we found it just a tad too “northern” for our collective taste.  Eventually we settled down in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., formed our Union and then moved outwards from there.  Along the Mason-Dixon line, the weather continues to oscillate between fresh, cool Canadian air and thick, soupy Gulf of Mexico brew.  And when the air masses collide, as they often do, the trees of the North and South hunker down and lean into the wind, hug their buds close to their trunks, and cower from the hailstones that pellet them from all directions like lead shot.