ONE DAY WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS ALONE

Recently took this picture downstream from our property

"Conodoguinet" was the name of the creek that flowed adjacent to our property when I was a kid. The name of the creek was given by Native Americans and meant "A Long Way With Many Bends". Starting in Franklin County, PA the creek makes a 104-mile-long journey to the Susquehanna River above Harrisburg, PA. The closest town to our property was called Hogestown, about mid-way between Carlisle and Harrisburg.

As a kid I was fascinated by the history of our property. The farmhouse was built in 1740 and initially constructed out of logs. It remains the oldest house in Silver Spring Township. 

I recall people would often ask to search our fields for Indian arrow heads.  In fact, we had a genuine Indian gravesite nearby a clump of trees on the way to the Conodoguinet creek. 

One day when I thought I was alone I started to dig up the graves, since I heard stories about Indians burying treasures when they died (maybe even their horses). I dug down pretty far but was stopped by my Mom before I found any treasure.

Anyway, I spent hours on the Conodoguinet creek in my special "mortar mixing tub" boat.  The "boat" was molded out of steel and it is amazing that it floated. But it was all I had. That is, until my dad saved up and bought us a family canoe. He told us we could use the canoe on the creek, but it had to be shared between the five kids. 

One day when I thought I was alone I decided to take a solo run on the creek with the canoe.  It was spring and the water was really high from the recent ice thaw. The launch went smoothly, but I had no idea how fast high water current can take control of a canoe. This was a problem, since there was a dam not too far downstream. 

As hard as I tried, I couldn't get the canoe out of the current, and in what seemed like seconds I was at the dam. Normally there was a steep drop from above to below the dam, but the water was so high the dam was completely covered. The only choice I had was to straighten the canoe and try to ride it over the churning water. Not a good plan.

To this day I can vividly recall the canoe going straight up in the air after dumping me into the water below the dam. I recall hitting the creek bottom and cutting my face and hands on the sharp rocks.  I quickly surfaced, only to be hit by the canoe when it decided to come back down and land on the water. I began to wonder if this might be it, but quickly realized I would be in big trouble if I lost our new family canoe. So I worked my way to the surface again.

The canoe wasn't in sight, so I let the current take me until I spotted it about a mile downstream. A good Samaritan stopped and had mercy on this soaked kid. He drove to a phone booth at Willow Mill Park and called my dad to come rescue me. The canoe was damaged, but my dad got a fiberglass kit and repaired it, so it could be passed down through the family to create more memories. Speaking of, I will share one more memory and I am done posting today.

After I was married with our own kids, we had the same canoe stored in a field behind our house. We decided to pass it along to my younger brother, so we loaded it on top of the car and headed to his house near Mechanicsburg, PA. Problem was, I had no idea there was a whole family of mice that had made a home in the canoe. 

The last memory we have of the canoe was driving through Dover, PA, with baby mice falling onto our windshield. My wife was freaking out, so I turned on the wiper blades and the baby mice took off down Main Street in search of another canoe.