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Summers were the best of times at the old house, not only for the warm weather and no school but because there would be plenty of people around pretty much all the time to take my mother’s eye and mind off of me for a while.  We had our very own swimming hole just down the road at the Darlings’ house where the boys had dammed up a section of Valley Creek and created a deep pool with a sandy beach and a wooden bench nailed between two trees to sit on.  There was fishing to do, and berry picking, exploring the woods or listening in secret to my mother and Janie Thompson gossiping about everybody they knew or hearing my dad cursing like a trucker as he wrenched his finger working under the hood of a ’56 Chevy wagon.  I learned my best cuss words from him.

But the hands down happiest summer memories for me were the big family picnics.  It seemed like almost every Saturday all the aunts, uncles and cousins would align and converge on our farm. Aunt Jeannie, who worked for a beverage distributor, would bring the beer and soda, Aunt Doris would bring macaroni salad, and so on.  Whoever had would bring it along.

            It wasn’t so much the food I remember—although my mother’s potato salad has since attained legendary status—as it was the sheer spectacle of it all.  It was like being plopped down splat in the middle of a colorful circus, and one where I felt pretty safe to have a good time in. 

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The world that once surrounded Warner Company's Cedar Hollow limestone mine is long gone now.  The 145-foot-deep quarry has been filled in with water.  A smoked-glass office building stands where the Warner offices used to be, right across from Solitario's Kennel, now deserted and set for demolition in a turnpike expansion.  If you turn around and look in the opposite direction, you can see the belltower of St. Peter's Episcopal Church of the Great Valley, built in 1744, perched on the very edge of the quarry's southern rock precipice.  We used to live just down the road.

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In 1958, two notable events happened. My brother Bob was born in August and three months later we moved down to the big house on Church Road. That farm is where all of my memories crystallize, both the good and the bad.

At our little twin house in Cedar Hollow, we had no indoor plumbing—running water, yes, but no bathroom. Each home had its own outhouse in the back yard. There’s no nice way to say that, but our next door neighbor, Josephine, had the prettiest outhouse on the block, painted white and all grown over with twisty wisteria vines. When that vine bloomed in April you could not imagine any finer place to take a pee. For the most part, though, having to go to the outhouse was just a step above changing a baby’s diaper.