What if you invested a sizable portion of the household budget on a washing machine, but after you got it home and did the family laundry a few times, you discovered, much to your chagrin, that you bought the wrong model.

It was quintessential Americana: Norman Rockwell and “Father Knows Best” with perhaps some Theodore Cleaver thrown in. There they were, Charlie Herlocher and his sister, Phoebe, selling lemonade to patrons of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.

Compared with the current plan to vastly increase tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and add tolls to Interstate 80, a lease of the turnpike would generate more money at less cost to residents and businesses.

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Three years ago, Ray Gricar, Centre County’s district attorney, vanished — murdered, perhaps, or committed suicide, placed in a witness protection program or simply ran off to a tropical island to start a new life, depending on the theory.

For three years, the Penns Valley Area School District had the highest property taxes in Centre County — at least, that’s what the highly visible sign, erected in 2005 along state Route 45, said.

We have nothing against tribute bands. There are a number of good ones out there in music land, and they often provide a rollicking good afternoon or evening of entertainment, especially when their acts are more reverence than rip-off.

One need not be the country’s first MBA president to realize that times are tough. Gasoline prices, food prices, credit-card bills — they all speak eloquently and personally of the economic condition.

It’s no wonder Americans are cynical about their government and the career politicians who run it. The system itself invites cynicism and corruption.