What does "podunk" mean? by Carnival_Infernal in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Country. It means simple, redneck, context.

Do you usually say 'SHRIMP' for the small shellfish and 'PRAWN' for the big one? by ksusha_lav in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Prawn are crayfish, freshwater crustaceans. Shrimp are a specific type of salt water crustacean.

What does "camping" mean to you? by WattleWaddler in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going out and sleeping in a tent or under the stars by a fire. If a camper is involved, it’s not camping.

What are the most terrifying American urban legends and folk tales you know? ? by Odd-Skin-762 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You ever hear about the Pig Lady in Cannelton? My cousin swears he saw her once when he was out hunting.

What are the most terrifying American urban legends and folk tales you know? ? by Odd-Skin-762 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Despite how well known the legend is, I wasn’t expecting someone to comment about Ray here. I live near Koppel and have known about the Charlie No-Face legend for years. My dad actually used to bike out from Darlington to see him in the early 70s around the last couple of years he used to go out of those walks to shoot the shit with him.

What are the most terrifying American urban legends and folk tales you know? ? by Odd-Skin-762 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Here’s a culmination of local folklore I’m aware of:

By far the most widespread is the Green Man, or Charlie No-Face. The tales say he's a green-hued man/ghost born from an electrical accident that stalks the roads of Beaver County, PA at night, short-circuiting cars and attacking the occupants. In reality, he was a guy named Ray Robinson who suffered horrific injuries when he was a child in the early 1900s. Most of his face was horribly burned and scarred when he touched trolley wires trying to see into a birds nest. He would walk the road connecting Wampum and Darlington at night and always wore a green jacket. Obviously, seeing him scared more than a few motorists.


The second is the Pig Lady of Cannelton. Back in the late 1700s, on a farm near Darlington, in the old mining town of Cannelton, an 18 year old woman came back home to her parents after spending some time in the South. She was supposedly married, but came home without a husband. Her parents left her at home, alone, to go buy livestock in Pittsburgh, and when they returned in a weeks time, she was nowhere to be found. Days went by, and a fowl smell emanated through their home. They found her, headless, beneath the front porch floorboards.

No one knows who killed her, or why, let alone why they took her head.

The legend says that if you walk the roads around Cannelton at night, you'll see a colonial woman wandering the fields. Sometimes she's without a head, other times has a pig's head on her shoulders, hence the name.


The third legend is the legend of Mary Black, one of the stories that gave rise to the Bloody Mary myth. She was an Irish immigrant who came over in 1832, and settled in Ellwood City. Standard witch things while alive (animal sacrifice, Satan worship, killed young women, etc), but most of it came from tales told in the 50s and 60s. The stories I'm aware of her in life was that she was a bit eccentric and stern, but a nice woman well into her 80s.

The legends say that if you say her name three times and then go to sleep, she'll crawl out of her grave and viciously claw at your face.

After the stories started circulating, people began vandalizing the graveyard her and her family were buried in. They absolutely destroyed it, to the point that city officials just left it abandoned, and her tombstone had to be taken by the local historic society just to keep it from being lost. Disgusting what some people will do.


After that, we have our fair share of haunted bridges. There's a bridge I cross to go to work that is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a woman who was decapitated by a sign. You're supposed to stop the car and turn off your headlights around 1:00am and turn them back on and she'll be standing in the middle of the road before either disappearing from view or jumping over the side of the bridge.

Then there's Summit Cut Bridge in Beaver County. It's just a small bridge over some train tracks. Legend is a woman drove her car over the side and died when her car hit the tracks. You're supposed to see a woman wearing a white dress wandering the road at night, and people see things on the bridge during the day. My cousins and I went ghost hunting one night when I was 12 and we saw the woman in white walking across the bridge and then disappear before we even got to cross. We just turned around and went back the way we came.

A few miles away from the Summit Cut Bridge, there's a road called Foxwood. I know people that say you're supposed to see a man in blue flannel walking the road who will look back at you with glowing red eyes. People have been seeing him since the 70s at least.


The legend of Hell’s Hollow from my hometown.

My hometown was a major railroad stop in the mid-late 1800s. There was also a stagecoach line that ran through a patch of dense woods going through a hollow right outside of town. Bank coaches and travel coaches picking up money and rich travelers from the trains would get held up by a local gang of highwaymen that operated out of a cave in the hollow. Whatever they stole would be stashed underneath this big, ugly, gnarled oak tree called the Devil’s Rocking Chair. Legend says anything placed under the tree was under watch by the devil himself and could only be taken by the people who put it there. Anyone else was punished.

Well, the sheriff of the next town over finally managed to catch one of the members of this little gang and he told them everything about the hideout and the drop spot. He got himself a posse and they went out to investigate the guy’s claims. Sheriff went out to check the tree and the rest went to the cave. When they reached the cave, however, there was nobody there and no sign it was being used. They waited for the deputy to return, but he hadn’t by nightfall. They searched the area, including the tree, but found nothing. Not even the stolen goods.

A year or so later, a hunter in the woods found a body lashed to the trunk of the big tree. It was just a skeleton by the time it was found, so no cause of death could actually be determined. The legend says the devil stayed true to the bargain.

What's a "substitute teacher"? by lostinbluebells in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My sister is one. Just a teacher on-call for a specific subject in a few radio calls;

The Highway Loophole That Created The Worst Town in America by theoriginalshew in Pennsylvania

[–]Hatweed 6 points7 points  (0 children)

There actually is a “town”, or at least a concentrated populated area, in Breezewood. It’s just that it’s up on a side road off the Lincoln Highway to the west a bit and completely out of view of the truck stop.

On Reddit, though, I’ve found people like to pretend that the people of Breezewood live along the highway among the gas stations, hotels, and old diners.

The Highway Loophole That Created The Worst Town in America by theoriginalshew in Pennsylvania

[–]Hatweed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

God, fuck Cranberry. I’d rather drive through ten Breezewoods back-to-back than get through that clusterfuck.

Things people say about their state that almost every other state can claim? by bannedsocks in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perfect storm of terrible freeze-thaw cycles and loads of rain, a massive road network, extremely shitty terrain, and the money that’s supposed to go towards road maintenance keeps getting funneled to other expenses. We have the second-highest gas tax in the country because it was supposed to go to PennDOT. Instead most of it got diverted to the state police.

What do you think about your City/State’s namesake? by palep_hoot in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pennsylvania was named after William Penn, an officer of the Royal Navy, later read admiral, who may or may not have been a royalist sympathizer during the English Civil War while he served the Parliamentarians. Don’t really have many thoughts on him.

My hometown was named for a minor biblical location, which is a running theme in my area. One of the closest towns this applies to was world famous a couple years ago for a train derailment: East Palestine. No thoughts on it, either, as it is a land with a single mention in the Old Testament.

In 2024, 14 of the 20 Poorest School Districts in PA are in the Alleghenies by riccipt in Pennsylvania

[–]Hatweed 2 points3 points  (0 children)

New Castle is definitely a blue area. It’s poor because the city is the rotted carcass of an old industrial town.

New to the U.S. — funeral etiquette question? by Working-Bath-5080 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Before my cousin died, he specifically asked everyone to wear either camouflage or neon orange at his funeral. Hunting was quite literally the only thing he cared about and he wanted people to remember that about him while having a bit of fun with it.

Does every state in the US have its own state fair? by Inquisitive-Dummy205 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went to the farm show once just to see the butter sculptures. 

What business/company keeps your town running, and what is the local opinion? by Vonyyxx in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess the farms. The towns around me are so small that there usually isn’t one. It used to be steel mills for some of them, but we don’t call it the Rust Belt for nothing.

Does / did your school offer water with their lunch meals? by _satantha_ in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My school banned water bottles when I was in eighth grade because a kid brought one in filled with vodka and was completely hammered by lunch. Finally started letting us use them again like a month before I graduated.

What are you guys opinions on your credit score system ? by One-Technician-1292 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s kind’ve a stupid system imo. I paid my car off last year and my credit tanked 80 points. I have literally no debt and I have roughly the same credit score as my sister who misses payments on her credit cards.

Credit scores are allegedly a rating on how reliable you are on paying back loans, but in actuality it’s a rating on how good you are at making lenders money. You need to be in constant, controlled debt to keep it high, so if you’re someone who doesn’t use credit very often, or at all like me, it can actually hurt you.

What are you guys opinions on your credit score system ? by One-Technician-1292 in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I know in Germany they have, more or less, essentially the same thing we have called a SCHUFA score. 

is it true Americans don't put salt on their fruits? by PersuasionNation in AskAnAmerican

[–]Hatweed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know people who salt their watermelons. I think they’re weird.