Raystown Dam
Only a few of us remember The Raystown Dam at this point. But for the sons of Bill and Mary it was a magical summer place full of adventure and new possibilities. Probably not so much for Mary since for several summers she was stuck out there with her brood while Bill was back in NJ winning the bread. Of course she did have several memorable chums who assisted in reining in her boys. Maybe I should say attempted to rein in her boys.
We of course had a grand old time. Not a care in the world except waiting for that hour to pass after lunch before getting back in the water. My mind is misty with memories from those days. The people and places more easily recalled than yesterday's dinner. Chiz and Helen Yocum, the Cliffs, Jim's Anchorage, the Isenbergs, Pelican Thompson, Dottie Mosser, Hawn's Bridge, Paradise Furnace, Andy Biddle, Luke Heffner, The Huntingdon County Fair, Ted Simpson. Yes, the fair mind of a child.
I found this old box of slides and had them put on CD. Most of you recognize this group. The only one missing is young Bill who at that time may have been just a glint in the old boy's eye.
posted by jim at 12/15/2010 01:45:00 PM
4 Comments:
awesome find! are there more? is that barbara in the bottom photo? with who?
mom more than once told me her primary worry in those days was polio.
i recognize the names and places you mention but have only vague memories; my halcyon days were spent on LBI.
Nice haircuts.
That's Susie Simpson playing the uke with whom, I don't know
I like the family shot on the swings. Taken by Mary, I’d guess. Or maybe Barbara; she always had a camera. A happy bunch. Pappy apparently boasting proudly above his brood: “Hey, look what I done.” I don’t remember him wearing sunglasses, ever. I remember all the work he did trying to get that yard into shape. Originally it was nothing but trees and brush. Out front, on the slope to the water, the poison ivy was abundant and pernicious. He and we spent weeks trying to uproot and burn the stuff. He has a serious PI allergy and would suffer for days after getting caught in the smoke. That court in the background was surfaced 6 inches deep in crushed stone. We hauled it around in a wheelbarrow, dumping the loads into depressions, trying to level it up, but to no avail. It was always lumpy and swaybacked and when you dribbled the ball you’d immediately lose control because it wouldn’t bounce true. It was impossible to play a decent game. So all we did was shoot. In the background is the incinerator. It was there that we burned all detritus, including large amounts of plastic and other later-to-be-declared carcinogens, whose noxious fumes we inhaled with happy abandon. The best job you could get in the evening was to burn the trash because it got you out of the kitchen and allowed you to play with fire. Of course there’s John in his Davy Crockett simulated buckskin suit, which he wore for months and bitched like hell when asked to remove it for cleansing. He had a coonskin cap made from a genuine dead coon that he wore all the time too. A lot of coons met their maker during the Davy Crockett rage, one of the earliest movie/merchandise marketing tie-ins to sweep the country and suck dollars out of the pockets of unsuspecting upwardly mobile parents everywhere. I don’t know whose car that is. I don’t remember it. What is it, a Studebaker? I do remember the driveway though, which was covered with 2-inch blue stone, so jagged you couldn’t walk on it in bare feet, which was the way we always preferred to travel. But in our Daddy’s eyes shoelessness was an original sin, so we were required to wear shoes at all times. But for me, as I remember, as soon as the old man was gone my shoes were off and my feet were smiling as they kissed the good green grass. Yep, those were the days... Thanks for the photos, Jim.
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