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“Are we almost there yet?” I whined from the
back seat of the Mercury.
“Yes, honey.
Less than one more Brady Bunch, and we’ll be there.”
I loved our visits
with Grandma and Pap, but it took four Brady Bunch’s
(or two hours) to get there – an awfully long time for
a five-year-old. Mom and Dad insisted that my sister and I
entertain ourselves. We’d play ‘I spy’ over
and over again until we’d see the Squirt sign, and then
we’d know that it wouldn’t be much longer. Around
the curve and past that old barn. After that we’d just
go over the bridge, and we were there.
It wasn’t
until I took the trip as a twenty-year-old that I saw things
as they really were. Or maybe, it wasn’t until I was
twenty that I lost that carefree childlike view of the world.
I almost missed
the Squirt sign. We came upon it entirely too fast. Wasn’t
I supposed to be bored and hafta go potty before we reached
this landmark? We pulled off of the road to get a picture
of the sign. Grandma and Pap hadn’t lived in Burnside
for over ten years, and we wanted to save the memories of
what used to be a routine trip in a more reliable place than
in our individual memory banks. A photo album full of childhood
memories. How sweet.
The picture of
the Squirt sign, however, was quite different than the one
in my memory. That beautiful green and yellow glowing neon
– a rescue beacon on a dark, snowy night – was
predominately yellow because of age. Some teenagers…
they couldn’t have known the sign’s significance…
had thrown a rock at it. A star-shaped hole pierced the sign,
leaking a flood of light… ruining its calming glow.
And then, to my
dismay, I realized exactly where the Squirt sign hung. Not
at a tiny corner store that sold Fritos®
and toilet paper to little old ladies, but at a biker bar!
The kind with leather and Harleys®
and wet T-shirt contests every Wednesday night. This was part
of a five-year-old’s memory, not some pre-pubescent
punk’s fantasy.
And so I climbed
back into the car, clutching my camera in my lap…. Around
the curve and past the old barn. And there at the bottom of
the hill was the bridge. It looked older now – a little
smaller and a lot less stable.
After seeing the
damage that time wrought on the Squirt sign, I expected this
mighty river to be a mere stream if not a drybed. After all,
I was so small when we used to swim in its cold waters; sometimes
getting carried half a mile downstream on its wilder days.
And on days when it was feeling a little more gentle, it would
let us pile up two rows of its rocks forming a water slide
where the current ran a little faster.
We peered over the concrete sides of the bridge to get a better
view of the river. It was in one of its wilder moods –
and it hadn’t changed a bit. We stood on the rail and
leaned over, welcoming the familiar river that matched the
one still flowing in our memories.
It was from this happy moment, teetering on the bottom rung
over the mighty river… yelling out with joy… it
was here that my memory had a heart attack. Grandma’s
and Pap’s house could be seen from the river. But, it
couldn’t be my grandparents’ home. This anemic-looking,
cluttered house had peeling paint and runny-nosed kids. The
side door had been “opened” by picking it up and
moving it elsewhere. Its hinges had rusted completely off
of the frame. The side porch steps had rotted away and were
replaced with 2x4’s resting awkwardly on cinderblocks.
A three-foot seedling grew from the roof. Its roots were anchored
securely in decaying leaves and debris, and its newly sprouted
leaves turned defiantly in the breeze.
While everyone else stayed to take pictures, I began the long
trek to the candy store. We used to take off after lunch with
a handful of change and journey to the little store. It offered
such a wide variety of gums and lollipops, chocolates and
caramels. It was a kid’s supermarket, but it took at
least a half an hour to get there by foot.
I got there in five minutes. For a moment I thought that I
was at the wrong place – I almost continued walking
to see if there was another store twenty-five minutes down
the road. But this was it. It had gone out of business and
was boarded up except for one tiny window. On tiptoes, I could
just see in. The store was no bigger than a king-size bed.
The candy case? Five empty shelves each the length of a window
ledge. The owners had left a few items on the shelves: a couple
bags of potato chips, a package of paper plates, and a single
box of Kotex® tampons. No candy.
Unwilling to learn more about this unfamiliar place, I walked
back to the river. I no longer wanted a picture book of Burnside
to show to my children. Instead of pictures that revealed
the sleepy borough of Burnside, I was left with a photo-album
of a town that was just plain tired. I would rather retell
the adventures of Burnside as I remember it, then to show
misleading images of my childhood. Someday, while tucking
my children into bed, I will flip through the aging photographs
in my memory and piece together the true spirit of Burnside,
Pennsylvania.
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