It’s March at last! The last days of February were pleasant – until the final day. It was in the 50's on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Then on Thursday, Leap Year Day, we dropped into the 20's and it snowed – February’s bitter last hurrah. And then March blew in, and I mean it blew. The wind howled on Wednesday and Thursday. It shook the house and brought down branches from the old maples. But by Saturday things calmed down, we were back to 50°, and the snow melted away – again. That’s how it will be now for a while – back and forth, warm, cold, rain, snow, ice, mud – as winter tries to hold on and spring tries to push him out. March brings very unreliable gardening weather. I have to resist the urge to do too much, knowing how unpredictable it can be.
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| The last day of February. |
On Monday and Tuesday while the weather was nice, I did some garden tidying, preparing the long border for the emergence of the early spring flowers. I cleared away winter debris and pulled up winter weeds to make sure the crocuses, daffodils, and other things were still there and their blooming would be unobstructed. It wasn’t really strenuous work, but my body is not in gardening shape yet and I felt it. In an act of hopeful defiance, I also set up the rain barrel down at the barn. I’m sure it will get iced over a few times, but I think it will not freeze solid and I’m tired of carrying water down to the barn every day. I also brought the garden cart out of its winter retirement. I will need it in the days ahead. Other than that, there still isn’t too much that I dare to do outdoors. It’s too early to even think about planting anything, even the hardiest things like spinach and lettuce. In a week or two I’ll start my first seed trays. But I have to be patient. Don’t jump the gun. I have to remind myself how tenacious winter is and how fragile spring can be.
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| Clearing out winter debris in the long border. |
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| My trusty garden wagon. |
Early Wednesday morning, we had a thunderstorm, a rare thing for the end of February. Around 4:45, the thunder and lightning woke me up. The rain was pounding on the roof. Their might have been some hail, but it was too dark to see. The day was warmish but dismal and wet and I couldn’t do any work outdoors, so in a fit of rainy day boredom, I went upstairs and opened the big chest where I keep my ancient artifacts – memorabilia from my earliest days, my school years, and my mission. I like to look through those things from time to time. There are some real treasures in there. Well, at least they are treasures to me. While rummaging through old notebooks, letters, photos, and other keepsakes, I came across two items, a photograph and a handmade booklet, that sent me on an extended reverie.
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| My treasure chest. |
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Fourth grade was a very good year for me. I think it might mark the pinnacle of my academic career. It was the 1967/68 school year and I was nine/ten years old. I knew it would be a great year from the moment I found out which classroom I was assigned to. There were two fourth grade teachers at Hillside Elementary School. I don’t remember who the other teacher was and I didn’t care. The only teacher that mattered was the one I got, Miss Charlotte Conley. Miss Conley was in her mid-fifties then. She had been teaching long enough that she had once been one of my father’s teachers when he was in high school, and my older sister Hollie’s fourth grade teacher. I considered it a family tradition, almost my right, to have Miss Conley as my teacher. I loved her from the very first day of school.
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| Fourth grade me. |
She was kind and clever. I flattered myself that I was her favorite student, but I think she probably made every child feel that way. That year under her guidance, I mastered my multiplication tables, excelled in spelling (most of the time) and handwriting, and learned to love poetry. Every week we selected and memorized a poem that we then recited in front of the class on Fridays after our afternoon recess. I can still recite many of the ones I memorized. We also had a quiet time every day when we put our heads down on our desks and she read to us. She loved the Twins books by Lucy Fitch Perkins. I remember The Dutch Twins, The Eskimo Twins, and The Japanese Twins. I also remember when she read Pimwe, Jungle Boy to us. I was utterly fascinated by it. I still remember odd little bits of it like Pimwe using blow darts to catch food and his mother preparing manioc roots to eat (probably because I found out then that that’s where tapioca comes from – and I love tapioca).
As part of our fourth grade curriculum, we studied Pennsylvania history. As we learned about different parts of that history, we wrote out notes with illustrations that we put together into a booklet titled Living in the Keystone State. It is in a delicate condition, being almost sixty years old now. It is full of interesting information, all of it written in my neat fourth grade cursive handwriting.
It focuses mostly on the history of New Cumberland, where we lived. There is a page on the Shawnee Indians, who lived in the area, and Peter Chartier, who operated a trading post on the Yellow Breeches Creek (called Callapus Knick by the Shawnee according to my notes, but it’s really Callapatschink). There are sections telling about the lifestyle of the early settlers, what they ate, and their occupations. There is a tribute to John White Geary, who lived in New Cumberland when he was elected sixteenth governor of Pennsylvania in 1867. [Gov. Geary’s home was still standing when I was a child. It was on the corner of Market and Third Street right around the corner from the barbershop where I got my hair cut. It was later torn down and now it is an empty lot next to some shops. There is a historical marker nearby.] Miss Conley made sure that we included a paragraph about Geary Street, named after the governor, which was the street on which she lived. [I began writing letters to her in 1968, after we moved away. We corresponded until around 2004, a few years before she passed away. I still know her address by heart – 412 Geary Street, New Cumberland, PA 17070.] There is another section in my booklet on the churches and one on the schools and the fire companies of New Cumberland. My favorite part of the booklet is titled Unusual Facts. Here they are, complete with my spelling errors, and with current statistics.
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| New Cumberland as it appears on Google Earth. |
Unusual Facts
Fact: My county (Cumberland County) is toched [sic] by the biggest stone arch railroad bridge in the world. [That bridge, the Rockville Bridge, built in 1902, is still the longest stone masonry arch railroad bridge ever built, at 3,820 feet. It crosses the Susquehanna River about 5 miles north of Harrisburg. Every time we drive south on Route 15, I always point out the bridge to my fellow travelers and recite this fact that I learned in fourth grade.]
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| The Rockville Bridge. |
Fact: Enola has one of the world’s greatest railroad yards. [The Enola Rail Yard, located in East Pennsboro Township, was built in 1905 and expanded through the 1930s. It was the world’s largest freight yard in the 1950's. It is still in operation today, but it has long since been eclipsed in size and traffic volume by other rail yards. I also point this out as we drive past it on Route 15. I wonder if I bore my fellow travelers with these fourth grade facts every time we drive south.]
Fact: The boils of Boiling Springs bubble out of the bottom of the lake about 18 in. They are forceful. Warter [sic] covers the boils. [I probably wrote “warter” instead of water because that’s how I pronounced it. Don’t get me started on South Central Pennsylvania pronunciations. Boiling Springs is located in South Middleton Township. The lake I mentioned is Children’s Lake, a 7-acre lake formed by damming a brook fed by thirty natural springs. It feeds into Yellow Breeches Creek. The water from the springs is pushed up from an artesian aquifer, giving the impression of “boiling” springs.]
Fact: Unusual Indian names in my county are Kittchtinny [sic] Mountains, Big Springs, and Mountain Creek. [Those mountains are actually the Kittatinny Mountains. I’m not sure how Big Springs and Mountain Creek qualify as unusual Indian names.]
The last pages contain a very brief history of the founding of Pennsylvania by William Penn and then some facts that prove what an excellent state it is (or was in 1967). These include:
∙It has the world’s largest chocolate factory. [It was Hershey then, but the world’s biggest now is the Barry Callebaut plant in Wieze, Belgium.]
∙It is number one in making ice cream. [Not true anymore. But Penn State’s Ice Cream Short Course is the oldest, best-known, and largest educational program dealing with the science and technology of ice cream. And we do have some excellent ice cream in Pennsylvania.]
∙Pennsylvania produces more iron and steel than any other state. [It looks like Indiana now has that honor.]
∙Pennsylvania leads the world in the manufacturing of false teeth. [Ivoclar Vivadent, based in Schaan, Liechtenstein, is now the world’s leading manufacturer of false teeth. Sorry Pennsylvania.]
∙The largest farm show building in the world is in Harrisburg. [As far as I can tell, this is still true. The Farm Show Complex covers 60 acres, spread throughout eleven connected buildings including three arenas.]
∙Pennsylvania leads the world in the making of pins, needles, hook and eyes, and zippers. [It looks like all these honors now belong to other countries, mostly China, India, and Japan.]
∙Pennsylvania has more chicken hatcheries than any other state. [This might still be true, but Iowa might have us beat.]
∙Pennsylvania is first in making sausage and scrapple. [Not true for sausage, but probably for scrapple. Scrapple (also called pannhaas) came to the colonies via German immigrants and is famous as a regional food in Pennsylvania. It is made from pork scraps cooked with cornmeal mush and formed into a loaf that solidifies and is then sliced and fried. It might sound gross, but it is delicious. I like mine served with maple syrup. My Grandad Rathfon ate his with horseradish sauce.]
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| Scrapple. |
In 1982, while staying with Grandma and Grandad Rathfon for a few months, I went to visit Miss Conley. She was in her seventies then and long retired from teaching. We sat and talked for an hour. She told me that she always enjoyed reading my letters, but that my handwriting wasn’t as good as it once was or as good as she expected from one of her students. We laughed about that. I told her that after all the years and all the education I’d endured, she was still my best and favorite teacher. She thanked me and chuckled and said that I must have had some pretty poor teachers. I wanted her to know the profound influence she’s had on me. She passed away in 2011 at the age of ninety-nine. I will always think of her with great affection.
Everything changed for me after fourth grade. In August of 1968, my family moved from New Cumberland to Tallmadge, Ohio, and my world was altered forever. Where before I felt I was master of all I surveyed, I was now a stranger in a strange land. All the children I’d gone to school with since kindergarten were gone. The town whose every street, sidewalk, alley, and yard I knew was gone. The house that was my home and fortress was gone. Everything was new and different and I was suddenly shy and uncertain. Where I was at the top of my class in fourth grade, I now became a mediocre student. I didn’t feel like I really belonged in this new place. If my world could change so drastically once, it could do it again. And it did, again, and again. Those first ten years of my life ending with the fourth grade took on a nostalgic glow. They became my Golden Years, my Age of Innocence.
The things I learned in the fourth grade had a great impact on me. They made me, and I still am, a proud son of Pennsylvania. My roots run deep in the state. My mother’s people arrived from Germany and settled in the south central part of the state before the Revolutionary War. My father’s people took a little longer. After living in the New England states for over two hundred years, they came into northern Pennsylvania, Potter County in particular, in the 1830's. Even after my family moved out of the state in 1968, where for the next thirty-two years I would live in Ohio, Illinois, and California, I always thought of Pennsylvania as my home state. I was thrilled to move back in 2000, a native son returning home.
So in a few days’ time we’ve gone from spring to winter and back to spring again. Another February is gone and another March has come. I’m remembering the almanac predictions and the woolly bear caterpillar’s stripes and the groundhog’s missing shadow and hoping they were all right and that we’ll have an early spring. I placed my seed and plant orders last week. My garden plans are in motion now. That feels like a sort of triumph to me, a fist shaken at old man winter. Let him blow and snow, his days are numbered.
