Vacation Bible School

I didn't know much about Jesus in the early years. The only pictures I'd ever seen of him were a little plaque my mom had gotten in grade school, and a giant painting replica of Jesus in Gethsemane in the Aaronsburg Library, which had originally been a church. I insisted Gethsemane Jesus was actually named "Harry," and in a small way, still do. Although my mom had given me a vague rundown on religion from an Anglican viewpoint, we never went to church until years later. In the Valley, the primary denominations were Methodist, Lutheran, and Reformed (with a smattering of Jesus Jumpers scattered about here and there).

At some point, because I was so isolated as a kid, one of the villagers suggested to my mom that maybe a good way for me to learn how to socialize with the other kids was to attend Vacation Bible School. I suspect this might have had conversion undertones, as my parents' religious beliefs went suspiciously undefined, and the lady who told her about VBS probably had lofty dreams of moulding me into a wholesome Methodist.

Vacation Bible School was held as a day camp of sorts in Coburn. The 'classes' were in the old Coburn School, an amazing remnant of the 1920s that has since been razed for an ugly post office. Kids got to hang out, make crafts, do stuff with glitter, and learn about Jesus. The highlight of the day, other than getting glasses of Kool-Aid (no joke), was assembling in the church across the parking lot and watching a film. For the most part, we watched wholesome Lollipop Dragon movies.

I merrily took part in the craft making, which was probably making glitter crosses or god's eyes or some crap - I do remember a lot of coloring and I do remember scratch-and-sniff stickers, two things a five year old loves. But two incidents happened that ended my religious education at Bible School forever.

The first was the "I Will Obey" crown. About 15 of us kids were assembled at a large table. I do remember my mom being there. Someone made a paper crown, with the words "I WILL OBEY" scrawled on it in marker. The crown was passed from child to child, and we each dutifully put it on our heads, saying solemnly, "I WILL OBEY." I felt very smug, knowing I'd obey whatever it was I was supposed to obey. I didn't even know what the word "obey" meant.

The ride home that afternoon was weird. Mommy was angry. She said to me something like, "God, I can't believe they made you wear that thing. Look, that's creepy. Would you obey if some bad man told you to get in his van, or if someone tried to hurt you? You'd better not. Don't pay any attention to what happened today. The only people you need to obey right now are Mommy and Daddy."

Sage advice. But the FINAL kicker was the film we watched that WASN'T Lollipop Dragon. I don't remember a whole lot about the movie, because it was boring and probably about 20 years old then, but I do remember it was about the population of Brazil, showed the giant statue of Jesus overlooking Rio, and talked about how only 12% of the people there are true Christians.

Mom realized the creepy religious propaganda they were subjecting me to was anti-Papist, and, horrified, decided it was probably best to just quietly let me forget about my new Methodist brainwashing and focus on something truly wholesome.

Halloween 1984: HOUSE OF HORROR!

Every year, the POS of A in Woodward hosted a Halloween party for all the kids of the village. I only ever remember going to it twice.
This is a picture of my costume. I was a witch this year - not a conventional witch, because I doubt my parents could afford a real witch hat at the Rea & Derrick in Mifflinburg - but a benevolent one that wore a scarf and had a fondness for artificial flowers.

The party was your standard 1950s Halloween hokeyness thrust into the hands of middle-aged Woodwardians trying to entertain a bunch of hick kids. OOOH let's put on a blindfold and feel around in Jean's Tupperware bowls! OOOH peeled grapes - no, EYES! EWW, BRAINS! - no, spaghetti.....bobbing for apples in a galvanized trough! Don't breathe in with your head underwater!

I remember the dank coldness of the old building, the ugly colors inside, the bad linoleum (of which you can see here) - but what I distinctly remember is the terrifying sound effects tape. For some reason, the sound effects had me screaming.

TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFFFF!!!!! and then I burst into tears.

I was one of those bizarre kids who freaked out over sounds. I hated "Romeo & Juliet Suite." I hated "Also Sprach Zarathrustra." and I REALLY hated the moans and creaks of that damn tape. I believe, after my outburst, they turned the tape off to shut me the hell up.

Get Outta My Dark

At the edge of town, next to the POS of A building along the creek, used to sit a tan, tarpaper shack owned by Leah.

Leah wore the same flowered polyester shirt for years, along with some natty polyester trousers. Her white hair was pulled back with metal barrettes, she had large glasses, and she walked hunched over, a permanent scowl and pout on her face. Even when she laughed, she looked angry. She probably WAS angry, because she didn't seem to have any teeth.

Leah was semi-retarded. or maybe just completely retarded. All I know is, she was strange. To support herself, Leah had a tiny business out of her shack - mostly selling newspapers to the Villagers of Woodward, although I vaguely remember tales of 20 year old cigarettes and toilet paper for sale as well. Her nearest paper-peddlin' rivals were the Wee Hoose in Coburn and Greenland's Store in Aaronsburg.

Her prize possession was a Mickey Mouse phone. Lord, that woman loved her phone.

Leah lived a quiet life for the most part, complaining about most things, eating Spaghetti-Os out of a can. Somewhere there exists a strange photograph of me wearing horrible grey moon boots, my mom talking to the guy dressed as Santa who arrived in Woodward on a fire truck, and LEAH chortling in a shabby pea coat. God, I wish I could find that picture...

Anyway, one of the neighbor kids spent a lot of time harassing poor Leah with a tape recorder. With little else to do out in Woodward, I suppose it makes sense. The Leah Recordings are legendary among a select few Woodward Diaspora, mostly because she came out with the weirdest, almost medieval sayings. I'm not sure if this was on a tape or if it was just a story that got repeated, but two phrases I remember best are

GET OUTTA MY DARK!!!

...and the story about the "blow viper in her coal pile."

I'm sure there will be more about Leah later as I remember more stories about her, but I will start off with this:

One evening, Leah came into the store and asked me to count out 200 lottery tickets. She'd just gotten her relief cheque and was in a hurry...to her sister's funeral.

Old Darryl

There was an old semi-retarded man who lived somewhere near Woodward in an old shack. His name was, aptly, "Old Darryl." Old Darryl spent much of his spare time, which was all of his time, "feeshin'. Or talking about going to go "feeshin'." Old Darryl smelled like stale urine and didn't have many teeth. I don't know his last name, or if he ever actually went fishing.

Old Darryl usually wandered up and down Route 45. I can't remember him too clearly, but I do remember he usually had on a hat. One time we were coming through the Narrows and came across him wandering the road. Dad pulled the truck over and rolled down the window, asking if he needed a ride.

Old Darryl poked his grimy head in the window at me.

"YEWWW GOIN' FEESHIN' LEETLE GUUURL? GOIN' FEESHIN'!!!!"

I can't remember my reaction to this, but I do remember the vision of this smelly old man with no teeth. We might have had him ride in the back of the truck to his destination, or maybe he just preferred strolling to the "crick," but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that he did get a ride once.

Barb, out of the kindness of her heart, decided to give him a ride one day - I think he was going to the medical center. I believe, at the time, they drove a little Volkswagen Beetle with a plaid blanket (I remember the blanket, it was probably for their ancient dog Nellie). Old Darryl got in and looked a little uncomfortable.

"What's wrong, Darryl?" asked Barb.
"Uhhhh....I got....the diarrhea!!!" he responded.

I'm not sure what came of this condition, I never asked.

Dolls.

Meet my friends Beatrice, Abigail, Daphne, and Caroline. They're sisters.
Beatrice is on the far left. She enjoys going to the ball. She has the same name as my great-grandma and she has a very pretty bonnet in her collection. She often gets in fights with Daphne.
Abigail is grouchy. She doesn't smile a lot and she's shy. She doesn't have dresses that are as pretty as the other ladies'.
Daphne is really mean to the other girls and she is always changing her dresses so she can go to different dances. The prettiest is the black one with all the roses.
Caroline is sad because no one wants to marry her even though she has pretty dresses. She doesn't like to wear pants.

None of the dresses fit on the other ladies. I know because I tried, but they only fit on the ones they were designed for.

My friends came to me from Barb's daughters. I think they came in a box that also had the Millennium Falcon. Her kids were about a decade older than me, so when they cleaned out their closets, I inherited the paper dolls. Most of my toys came to me from older relatives or friends of my parents. I had a great-grandmother who collected dolls, but they terrified me with their creepy glowy eyes reflected off the TV and their unexplained 1900s style overbites. Paper dolls were the only kind I liked to play with.
The ladies lived in a manila business envelope in reality, but a mansion in my head - where they did nothing but go to balls and change dresses all the time. I spent time with them in "the green room," the spare bedroom. They fought a lot in dialogues in my head, but they always ended up going to the ball.

The ladies died in a traumatic mass beheading one night in 1984 at the murderous hand of my 3 year old cousin Ben.

Ride

One day, when I was about four, my mom and dad decided it would be fun to go for a ride. We frequently went on rides as a form of cheap (nearly free) entertainment. So we hauled up in the truck, and drove over to, I believe, Brush Valley, and took a mountain road back through to get to Woodward. To this day, I have no idea exactly where we were, but we ended up near Hairy John's Park.

I do remember several very important things about this ride. The first was, we found a lovely little one-room schoolhouse. I was wearing a little yellow jacket and red overalls (I distinctly remember the overalls, and I will explain why...). Mom had her Instamatic camera that could only take outdoor pictures, and she told me to stand on the porch of the schoolhouse and look inside. I saw desks and I think I asked her if I would go to school there. (Unfortunately, I never would and would instead attend the Third Ring of Hell the following year.)

We drove over the mountain in that truck, checking out the lovely fall trees, and ended up on Fallen Timber Trail. Dad and I posed for a picture for my mom.

Soon after that, I peed my pants on the way home. This is why I remember the overalls so well.

Chevy Truck

The first vee-hickle I remember my parents owning was a 1972 Chevy truck - I am 90% sure it was yellow. Dad had bought it off the milkman, and it was legendarily shitty. Jokes flew around Woodward about how I'd learned to count by looking at the dashes in the road through the hole in its floor. Its transmission was goofy. My parents were smokers, so the interior reeked of old cigarettes, gasoline, and dry-rotting vehicle upholstery. Dad hauled firewood in it, and he hauled Amish people in it, and sometimes, if I was really lucky, I'd get to ride in the back of the truck from the barn to the house.

One day, the transmission probably blew on him again, and he had to take it to Cowher's Garage, about a mile away at the edge of Woodward. Trouble was, he could only use two gears: first and reverse. He decided it was probably easier to get to the garage in reverse, all things considered. I crawled in the truck with him and off we rode. Backwards. Down the lane the quarter mile to Pine Creek Road. Through the track of woods to the edge of Woodward. Through Woodward, past front porches. Double-takes and laughing people gawked at us careening by as I giggled in the front seat with my father. Left, no, right onto Route 45. Backwards up the highway through Woodward Proper, and finally, during a ride less than five minutes, we landed safely at the garage, everyone roaring with laughter at that damn truck.

The truck was soon retired. Apparently it reached a point where it couldn't pass inspection, so for some time it sat abandoned in our lane and it became my truck. I played in it all the time, driving in my imagination to nowhere I can remember anymore. Giving my imaginary friends rides in the back (I'd look out the window to make sure everyone was sitting down). Yelling at our dogs, Nicky and Max, from high atop the window. I'd seen The Dukes of Hazzard at the Boyer house one night, and I wanted to jump in and out of the window, but Mom wouldn't let me. In fact, she was a little uneasy about me playing in the truck in the first place, and said I could only sit in there but was not allowed to touch the gears.

I can't remember the truck going away, but I'm glad I got to never drive it backwards.

These Birds Are Moonstruck

Our house was nearly a mile from the closest highway. Between our farm, nestled at the base of the mountain and Route 45 was a small enclave of farms along Fiedler Road, most of them owned by Nebraska Amish. The Nebraska Amish are known primarily, in the Penns Valley accent, as the "Dirty Aw-mish," and often referred to as a butt of a joke. You drive like an Amishman. You smell like an Amishman. When you grow up you're gonna marry Amish. Most "English" people associate these folk with really slow, white buggies that crush dreams of speeding along Route 45, and the heady aroma of manure and Prince Albert pipe tobacco. When my parents moved out to this relative seclusion in the mid-70s, fresh out of college and newly-married, my mom mistook the Nebraska Amish women out in the fields, in their long purple skirts, black headscarves and filthy pinafores, for sequestered nuns.

A family lived down the hill from us by the name of Hershberger, in a sprawling old farmhouse just past the turn and over the hill. My parents soon befriended the Hershbergers, and Enos, the patriarch, would often kick their asses in cutthroat games of checkers. I remember Enos fondly, with twinkly eyes behind his little round glasses, and his black coat, and his big bushy beard. Enos was a friendly, mischievous man. Becky, his wife, was rather odd. Some of my earliest memories involve my parents taking her in our truck to various dry goods stores so she could buy a corset (she'd had at least 11 children), and the ridiculous amount of candy she'd consume. To even a 3-year-old's palate, an entire tray of Reese's peanut butter cups seemed like overkill, but I can still hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of her gobbling down that candy.

One day Mom needed to get some eggs, so she walked down to the Hershberger farm to buy some off of Becky. I can't remember if I was along with her when this happened, but the story goes vaguely like this...

Mom came across Becky and her assorted offspring, plucking freshly-butchered chickens.
Becky looks up and said, annoyed, "These birds are moonstruck."
Becky continued plucking the chickens.

Mom had no idea what that meant. Thirty years later, it's still a mystery.

Introduction

"It's definitely a place with a lot of beauty, but not an awful lot of eye for beauty." - Holly Koegler

In a sequestered hollow in the middle of Pennsylvania lies a charming valley. Included in this gorgeous place are the towns of Centre Hall, Spring Mills, Millheim, Aaronsburg, Woodward, Coburn, and several tiny hamlets with no official zip code.

We grew up in this bucolic wonderland as native foreigners, frequently observing our surreal surroundings with bewilderment. Little television, vaguely archaic upbringings, and parents who desired a back-to-the-land lifestyle made us misfits of our greater generation. In turn, we've often found ourselves mystified by our generation.

This is a collection of our memories growing up in this wonderfully eccentric place. They might not be 100% historically accurate, but they're what we remember..or try to forget.