Slides 23,24,72,81 and 99

Slide 72: Three girls on Main St.

The Date: Summer 1967

The Photographer: My older Sister

My older sister Sally was, I believe, the first person to ever represent our town as a Rotary Exchange Student. Following a memorable and impressive senior year she prepared for her adventure. Besides getting her passport and visa she was required to take pictures representing her life in America to share with her sponsoring Rotary Club in Sweden. The pictures she took are the best on my carousel, vividly capturing our town in 1967. They include shots of the back road to my grand parent’s farm, the pond behind our home and several more, including the elementary school and our church, featured in previous chapters. Sally had aspirations as an actress and a flare for the dramatic, which translates, well into her old slides.

I’m particularly happy with one though it is not one of the better. It shows three girls walking down Main St., smiling toward the camera. Slightly behind them a younger girl stands by some vintage bikes. To the left a row of cars angle toward the parking meters. To the right are storefronts with hanging signs and awnings and a big clock that says 9:15 but the shadows on the sidewalk indicate early afternoon.

I remember the three girls. They were a couple years younger than I and had just finished the seventh grade. After so many years I still remember the tone of their voices—the timbre of their laughter. I had a crush that whole summer on the little one to the right. I’ve not seen her or the others in forty years. It is odd for me to realize that I am not certain all three are still living. I hope they are. And I hope they are well. And I hope they’ve aged better than the town we lived in. One thing is certain. They have aged… a lot. All are now in their mid fifties. If they’ve changed as much as I, they too are now nearly unrecognizable. Sadly, the same might be said of our town.

My father told me that our town’s best years were in the thirties. The flood hurt us bad in ’42. My time there in the fifties and sixties was quite prosperous but everything was aging and much was maintained poorly. I mean no offense to those who remain there but the last times I visited things looked a bit broken.

A memory

When I was five, I lay with my family on a woolen blanket in the back yard, gazing wide-eyed, open mouthed, as one lonely little star made its way across the moonless sky. My father said softly, “Look closely kids. That’s the first satellite and it’s gonna change the world.” His words were prophetic. He badly blew his later prediction about the demise of the Beatles but he sure nailed that Sputnik one. Today there are over eight thousand man made objects orbiting the earth and on top of one a little camera transports me in ways my father could not have foreseen. From my home in Minnesota, staring at my computer screen, I orbit halfway across the country in seconds and descend to about a thousand feet above my hometown. It’s not a live picture. In fact, it was taken five years ago but it captures my town below looking much as it did in my boyhood. The streets are laid out as they were and the houses all where they belong and the Allegheny still flows through, yet I know that much has changed.

I fly over my high school where the track team gathers at one end of the football field. In white hoodies they look like a flock of gulls against the dark rubber track. I hover slowly over the community pool and toward Hillside Cemetery where many of my family are buried. Then I soar above the hill toward my house. This is the hill for generations and for descriptive purposes called Old Baldy. Now the late afternoon sun casts long shadows through Baldy’s stark April forest. Visually it becomes chaotic and briefly I lose my way before climbing higher to regain my bearing. My neighborhood and then the top of my house appear. My parent’s pickup truck still sits in the driveway though they moved to Connecticut three years ago. I ascend. The chaos of forests and shadows reappear and then I stop. There is something in the trees—an odd convergence of shadow. I drop down for a better view but losing too much photographic clarity I rise again. There it is. I know what I’m seeing. I’ve found The Rocks.

They are house-sized boulders, slid about by glaciers long ago and conveniently deposited

high on the hill behind our home. They’ve changed very little since. During the eighteen years I lived in that town and every time I visited thereafter, I climbed the steep trail to The Rocks. Season after season I returned. Many times each summer and several times each deep winter, I went there with friends or family or all by myself. As a little guy climbing fast I could get there in half an hour or so. I doubt I could do it faster now. The more impressive rocks have names. The two largest are Elephant and Bird. On top of Elephant is a large slab called Table Rock. Another is named Pyramid and everywhere are smaller boulders tossed about creating room sized caves and one tight-squeeze tunnel. The tunnel was a frightening rite of passage for every child who found it as was the thrill of first scaling the front of Bird.

A memory

My best buddy lived across a field and over the little creek behind my house. In the late winter of our sixth grade year his parents had to fly to California where his dad was interviewing for a new job. They asked my parents if Craig could stay with us for a week. He and I were thrilled, almost as much as my little sister who adored my best friend. On the way to and from school each day we tried to encourage our hopes that his parents would turn down the job and stay in our town.

One summer night a few months later, Craig and I and our neighbor buddy David camped all night at The Rocks. I was a bit surprised that our parents allowed us to do it by ourselves but we convinced them that it was important. It was, after all, Craig’s going away party. We hiked up there early in the evening carrying sleeping bags, canteens, hotdogs and buns. We collected a lot of fire wood, started a blaze beneath an over hang and waited for the darkness. We didn’t sleep much. I’d never spent a night out in the woods and was spooked by the eerie squeaking of trees in the breeze. Foolishly we’d decided to sleep on the rock rather than the ground but we weren’t planning on sleeping anyway. Instead we talked most the night about all the fun we’d had together and even dared to share that we would miss each other a lot after Craig moved away. We told each other that, no matter what, we’d always be friends. Pretty vulnerable stuff for little boys.

Two days later I stood quietly in the street in front of Craig’s house as he and his three younger siblings climbed into the sedan with his mom. The little ones were all crying and his mom was in a frazzle. His dad was waiting in California already busy at a new job. His mom would drive the family, by herself, across the entire country to Sacramento. Craig was quiet. We shook hands the way men do and I slapped him on the back as he turned to climb in the back seat with the baby. Then they pulled away. I knew they were going to say goodbye to some friends out on the east end of town so I rode my bike as fast as I could to the Tastee Freeze on Main St. I thought I might be able to wave goodbye when they drove back through. I sat at a picnic table for about twenty minutes and just when I thought I might have missed them, I saw the car approaching. Craig looking out the side window lifted his hand. I lifted mine. And then they were gone. It was terribly sad and perhaps the first time I realized that nothing remains the same. Everything changes… except maybe The Rocks.

Nearly fifty years later, staring at my computer screen I can see there has been activity in the woods. A number of new trails are cut for logging equipment and a few areas culled pretty thin so somebody’s making money. Even this economic change for the better makes me sad. I am, however, not concerned about The Rocks. Even in poor detail, the convergence of shadow is consistent with my memory. I can easily identify Elephant and Bird. The last time I climbed her I was surprised to find large trees growing on top of Elephant but she was, of course, still there. The same is true of the little town below nestled in the valley, shining on my screen and imprinted on my soul. It will change some for the better and some for the worse but it’s not going anywhere soon… and that makes me glad.

Three pretty girls walk toward my sister. They’re downtown. It’s a warm summer afternoon in '67. They all know Sally. This is. after all, a small town and well… she was the prom queen. “Smile girls,” she says. They do and Sally snaps the picture.