For those of you who may not know it, the little log cabin at the foot of the Alleghenies is no longer in the family. After several years of costly repairs and almost constant worry, my mother Joyce Smith Templon Anderson sold her lovely 3-bedroom Colorado blue spruce homestead to a young local couple.
This past weekend yours truly took the 5-1/2 hour train ride on Amtrak's Pennsylvanian from Trenton, New Jersey to Altoona, Pennsylvania. Along the way, I recalled many similar trips over the years. The weather during the afternoon ride was very pleasant and almost summery.
We stopped at Philadelphia, Paoli, Lancaster, Elizabethtown, Harrisburg, Lewistown, Huntingdon and Tyrone...
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men,
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles...
(Thanks, Arlo. You're my hero.)
It wasn't all brown thoughts. I also saw sturdy Amish men mowing hay; mules bunched together in the sun; goats baaing, ready to be milked; gorgeous wrought iron stairway tracery in half abandoned stations with brick pavements worn like the waves of the sea; and intent fishermen wading the torrents of Central Pennsylvania cold water trout streams.
In the end, we rolled into Altoona, past the empty freight yard and the shops gone to seed, and below the hospital on the hill where my father died that April day 10 years ago.
Once in town, it was a quick trip with my mom and sister to the homestead, and a wonderful home cooked meal. Then a morning drive down to the Budget truck rental place, where the sales staff were amazingly thoughtful, accommodating and courteous. Then back up the hill and several hours of loading, accompanied by much heaving, grunting and groaning. My thanks to my sister Cindy and my brother-in-law Steve Thurston for their packing skills and sense of humor (nice job on the rear view mirror, Steve!), to my cousin Kevin for ending his spring gobbler hunt early to lend us a hand, and to my niece Lana and her husband James (and to Angelina and Nicholas, of course!) for helping us out.
Also I want to give a special thank-you to my mother's dear friends Rusty and Alice Kensinger for their innumerable kindnesses and assistance through the years. Without their help, my mother would have had to give up her cherished home long before she was ready to do it.
Saturday night was a family dinner at Hoss's hosted by my Mom and John, where we all ate too much
On Sunday, it was a quick, tearful departure and an uneventful drive down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, listening to country tunes on Froggy 98.
And just like that, two trucks and three cars carried 46 years of memories from Foot-of-Ten, Pennsylvania to Pennington, New Jersey and Flushing, Michigan and Alexandria, Virginia and DuBois, Pennsylvania. Almost the four points of the compass.
Mom and John will remain at the house for the next few weeks to oversee the movers packing some furniture for shipment to Florida, to sell the leftovers at a couple of yard sales and donate the proceeds to a local church's summer youth program. Then finally, they will turn over the keys to a new couple, for whom...
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty,
Before the last revolving year is through...
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game...
(Thanks Joni. I love your songs...and your voice.)
