Reflections From the Leigh

When I was a young boy I spent some time during the summer walking the pastures and woodlands on my uncle Harry's small farm in Somerdale, New Jersey. It was only a short walk from my Grandparents home on Magnolia Avenue. Two blocks. Cross the White Hourse Pike, and go down the steep hill into the Leigh.



The trip was a short walk for my little legs but the time change was enormous. Within minutes I went from my grandparents home where there were things like a telephone, electricity, indoor bath and toilet, and a gas stove. Uncle Harry, my Grandmother's brother-in-law, and her sister Aunt Emma were only two miles apart. However, in what we like to call 'modern conveniences' they were about a half century apart.



I loved going down into the valley where Uncle Harry lived. A few paces down the trail off the White Hourse Pike the sound of the cars and the noise of civilization died off quickly. Of course, I'll have to say that in the 195o's there wasn,t much traffic on the Pike.

As I sauntered down the trail, the trees and underbrush seemed to fold in on me like a lush green cloak. I could hear the birds start to sing , and of course the bugs too. Things scurried in the underbrush, and sometimes it scared me a little. Yet mostly it gave me awarm feeling like being cuddled in a blanket as a child. There was the intimacy of being alone and in a place where I could think clearly with no distractions. It was a wonderful experience for my young mind and soul. Later, when I read Thoreau in school, I could easily identify with how he felt wondering through Walden woods and sitting by that peaceful pond.

Just a ten minute walk along the green path, and suddenly there was a bright sunny clearing which was Uncle Harry's pasture for 'Sorry'. Sorry was a sad looking mule who always looked beaten and tired. Harry kept him very busy, although I have to confess I don't remember my Uncle Harry being that busy himself. My aunt and her daughters did all the work around the house, and got in the daily supply of firewood. I guess I didn't get to that part yet about how my relatives from the 'sticks' lived, so let me tell you.

My Aunt, Uncle ant their family of three boys and two girls lived in a cabin that Harry built in the woods. They had a wood burning stove, no electric or phone, and the thing that was funny to me and my brothers was the out house. Yes. It was 1957 and they had no running water or indoor plumbing or electric.

We all used to have fun pumping the old water pump in the kitchen sink. Actually it was kind of modern for a 'pioneer log cabin' I mean the water was right there in the house and came into the kitchen sink. Just one thing. You had to pump it in.

The pump was a pipe sticking up out of the side of the sink and on top was a large cast iron device that had a long curved steel handle. At the end of it was a rod that was attached to a flat round plate that slid up and down in a 3 inch metal tube as you worked the handle up and down. I lifted up, and the flat plate went down into the water in the pipe, and as I pushed down on the curved handle the water was drawn up on the round plate and came gushing out onto a flat trough looking device [it looked like a flat duck bill] and spilled into the sink or pitcher or glass. There better be something there to catch the water, or Uncle Harry and Aunt Emma would be ready to put a switch across the novice pumpers bottom if the fool kid who make that kind of mistake.

I got in real trouble one time because I forgot to fill the 'prime picher' after working the pump. See, in order to get the pump to work first you had to pour water from the 'prime pitcher' into the top of the pump. This was called priming the pump if there was no water in the pitcher then you had nothing to start with. Forgetting to fill the 'prime pitcher' was a real sin.

"Billy," my aunt screamed at the top of her harsh shrill voice. "you been fooling at this sink again boy, and you forgot to fill the pitcher" Her face was red, and I knew I was in a heep of trouble. "Now you get this pitcher right now and go down to the creek and fill it, or I'll switch your hide so bad it will look like red meat!" I snatched that pitcher fast so I wouldnt get a swat before running out the door, and got over to the creek and back before Aunt Emma could find her switch. Refilling the 'prime pitcher' was one thing I never forgot again.

Aunt Emma made lunch and I tell you it was really good food and so tasty. Everything came from her garden, and for desert we had blackberrys that we picked in the woods that morning.. The milk was fresh from 'Minnie' a spotted heffer Aunt Emma kept out back. In those days I did not know what pasteurized even meant, nor could I spell it. All I knew was that the milk was rich and creamy over those delicious blackberrys. We never saw Uncle Harry until evening.
I was sitting out on the front pourch which overlooked the small pasture, and then through the opeining in the treeline which was the path I had come down that morning, Uncle Harry appeared.

He was not a big man, but he was always so serious, and never laughed or joked. He rarely even gave a smile. In fact, I thought he was very mean, but to tell the truth he never really did anything mean to me, nor did he hit me. However, I heard from his kids that he beat the tar outof them if they didn't have everything done to suit him. If Aunt Emma even hinted that they were misbehaving when Uncle Harry was gone he'd beat them just to keep them in mind to obey their momma.

Is sounded mean to me, but it was their way, and the kids all grew up OK. About the 'kids' actually ther were only a few years older than me, but it was strange, because they were my aunts and uncles. It got confusing, because their mom, Emma was Aunt Emma [actually my Great Aunt], and her daughter Sara was Aunt Sara. Their Pop was Uncle Harry, and his oldest son Harry was also Uncle Harry. Harry, the oldest was 18 at the time; Sarah was 17 ;Bobby was 17 ; Danny was 16 and June was 15. I was 10 at the time, but when you are ten 18 sounds old.

My Great Aunt was as old as my Grandmother Amelia. They were twins, but didn't look alike or act anything like each other. My Grandma "Amelia" lived in a big 2 story house on the other side of the White Hourse Pike. It was a 4 bedroom home with a big diningroom, a cool basement I used to play in when it was dry and a nice sunny front pourch that she had closed in all around with windows. I spent a lot of wonderful days in that warm sunny pourch looking through all her old National Geographic magazins, and reading her stacks of Readers Digest books. But that's another story.

Back on Uncle Harry's pourch I was rocking in a big wooden rocker when I first saw him appear. He had on a plad shirt and an old pair of brown jeans. Resting on his shoulder was his ever present shot gun. It seemed Uncle Harry had it wherever he went. I guess Uncle Harry was in his early 70's at the time, and Aunt Emma was in her late 50's. They married late in life where at that time of this tale most people were getting married at 18 or so.

Harry was in the War.. The BIG ONE --WWI. It seems that after the war he came back and wondered the country for a long time. The war had changed him, and he had a definate opinion about anything modern or man made. That is why he was against anything we'd call modern. If he couldn't make it himself he didn't need to buy it.

He built his home in the woods. It wasn't a log cabin like some people said. Uncle Harry had rigged up a motor from his small Ford tractor, and made himself a small saw mill. He cut his own trees, and sawed them into boards. Actually it was a lot of hard work, but he created beams and enough boards to build a 2 bedroom home with a large living room and a wide front pourch. He dug out his own basement, and piled sod and his own brand of a mud-sun dried brick for a foundation. He built the outhouse, and dug his own well. He cleared the pasture, and grew his own crops.

Since New Jersey was famous for sulpplying Philadelphia with garden vegtables he had an easy time making a little money from his farming efforts. Next to the path leading down to the Leigh, and right on the White Hourse Pike was Elliot's Fresh Farm Goods. This was a small wooden stand that sold fruits and vegtables to passers by: usually Philadelphians driving back home from the Shore; since this was the main road from Philadelphia to Atlantic City at the the time. Uncle Harry and Aunt Emma being the main suppliersto Elliot's were just a short distance away. I wonder why they didn't set up their own stand and just sell the stuff themselves ? Uncle Harry was very anti social, and I'm sure he could not stand to sit there and see all the modern cars whizzing by, and once they got a tast of his anti modern attitude there would be no customers.

Elliot, on the othr hand, was friendly and very talkative. A typical business man who loved to shoot the bull and tell you all about the new development and growth that was happening in the area. Just the opposite of Uncle Harry.

Acutally Aunt Emma and the kids did a lot to cultivate the tomatoes, beans, peppers, carrots, and other produce that kept them going. In the harvest season we came over for fun just to pick the vegtables and berries. I can remember spending whole days in the woods picking berries. We'd get baskets of them, and Aunt Emma would give me a penny for each basket I picked, so I picked a lot. Also, if we did real well at the end of the day she had a nice hot rubarb pie baked for us. I still can't believe how she could bake a delicious rubarb pie in a wood stove without it tasting smoked, but she did, and it was always delicious and sweet.

As the sun set, Aunt Sarah and June would go around the house and carefully light the coal oil lamps on each table. They gave off a warm yellow glow to the house, but they also made the place smell of burnt coal oil smoke.

Yes, I remember those days with wonder and joy in my heart and today I don't think Uncle Harry was too crazy for holding 'progress' at arms length.

Europe for the Summer of 2008

I decided to be away all summer. It gets very hot in Florida, so I decided to go to Eastern Europe along the Baltic coast. It is warm here, but with much more moderation than Florida. Besides it is a great way to learn a new language, and enjoy learning about different cultures.

Over the next few months I am going to post my activities from the countries and cities I visit.

Public Pictures are available on some of the travel logs. So you can get an idea of Eastern Europe.
I hope you will enjoy the updates as well as I am enjoying the trip. Also, some off the road reflections are in order, so you'll have to wade through those too.

Have a colorful and wonderful summer where ever you are, and I hope I can bring some Eastern European flavor your way.