Long shot, but given the possible location of Pennsylvania - maybe Hofmanns Snappy Grillersor Zweigles White Hots?
The Zweigles look pretty close. In my memory the sausages were fatter, shorter, and more curvy, but as I said it has been decades, so maybe my memory is exaggerated.
Yep–that’s the fresh Polish sausage I mentioned. That’s the Polish name that means “white sausage.”
I thought of the white hots, but I don’t think I’ve seen them outside of upstate New York and, even more, specifically Rochester. Another, even less likely, possibility that fairly fits the description is some type of English/Irish banger. Those can come in the shape described, but tend to be difficult to find.
Unsmoked knackwurst is one guess.
But probably just a good brat or polish.
I had THE BEST polish-y sausages from a street cart in Orlando circa 1997. Huge white sausages with a snap, grilled but so juicy, garlic and black pepper galore, with sharp onions and peppers on a crusty po-boy roll. Like a “Maxwell St.” on steroids–I still dream about these. 
I’d lean toward weisswurst as well. I usually boil and grill them and they turn out quite well.
Mmm…that sounds awesome. Weird thing is, here in Chicago, home of Polish sausage and a huge Polish community, it’s pretty difficult to find a grilled or fresh version being sold at fast food stands. In fact, I can’t think of any. It’s all the smoked Polish sausage here (including the Maxwell Street sausages.) I mean, you can buy white sausage, but it’s almost always in Eastern European supermarkets and delis (or those that cater to the community) and you have to grill it up yourself. (Although, growing up in a Polish household, I have to say, we actually never grilled it up. We’d boil it, bake it, or use it in soup generally.)
The description made me think of Weisswurst.
Man, this thread is making me hungry.
I would agree with others and say it was almost certainly Bratwurst.
Also, if you can remember the texture at all, that might be a clue. Weisswurst is an emulsified sausage with a very soft, perhaps slightly spongy kind of texture on the inside. It’s a very specific texture I associate with stuff like veal frankfurters and Polish parówki. I think it’s a combination of both the emulsification and the veal (which weisswurst contains). The bratwursts I’ve had in the US tend to have a firmer, coarser texture, more like your typical fresh sausages. These are your Wisconsin “Sheboygan-style brats,” usually made from pork alone. But there are bratwursts that are both emulsified and made with a proportion of veal. (“Bratwurst” itself is a very broad term.) Those are more one of the German styles.
Let’s split the difference. How about Weisse bratwurst?.
Well, there are 2 distinctly different products in the market labelled as Bratwurst:
[ul]
[li]The long straight version packaged and sold along with the regular hot dogs. These (like hot dogs) are pre-cooked and you really just heat them.[/li]
[li]The raw version usually in the packaged fresh meat area. These are usually boiled then grilled. They end up shorter fatter and curved in cooking.[/li][/ul]
True, but they’re not usually shorter than a hot dog, and they have gentle curve to them. This would be a pretty typical image of your bog-standard US brat. Although this gets closer, but it’s still about the size of a hot dog.
ETA: Although I miss the Thuringer rostbratwurst of Germany. Love the meat-to-bun size ratio. Reminds me fo Midwestern pork tenderloin sandwiches. 
There are other brands of white hots in the Rochester/Syracuse area, IIRC, so it’s possible you had white hots but from a different maker.
Now I really want to eat all those sausages. Last year, this fantastic place opened up near me — Fat Shorty’s http://www.fatshortys.com/ — had an amazing variety of sausages. It didn’t even last a year though. Really miss it.
I was thinking knackwurst as well. The brats I’ve had do not strike me as being short and girthy enough to be worth mentioning. But really they could have been any kind of home-made sausage and wouldn’t necessarily conform to standard descriptions.
the curve of your sausage depends on how fast it fills up and the tightness of the hand grip.
Ah, that reminds me, it can also be a type of bockwurst. Those come in both smoked and non-smoked varieties, tend to be short and stout, and are quite similar to weisswurst, but they are often grilled. (Although that last one is more a standard bratwurst-sized bockwurst.)
YMMV - the ones we get cook up very short and stubby.
Yeah, it’s variable, but typically they’re normal “sausage size.” But any sausage can be made made short and stubby or long and thin or anything in between. (No jokes, please.) This would be the typical style of raw bratwurst around here. Although the Johnsonville ones are a little bit shorter and a little bit stouter. You need not boil them first, either (most people around here don’t. I know in Wisconsin they often do the beer and onion boil and then grill, but they also do the grill first, and hold in beer & onion method, as well.) I support the no-boil method, myself. It makes a tastier juicier brat, in my opinion.
That’s what she said.