Memories

Last summer I cleaned up on all of the boxes in York County. York happens to be my hometown, I lived there for over 40 years until a job transferred me to Reading. It is the town where my heart belongs, I still have trouble after all my years in Reading referring to Reading as my hometown. I had considered moving back there a few years ago when my place of employment closed but when Laura moved to Downingtown, I knew that I had to stay closer to her and York was just too far to drive to get to her easily. So I stayed in Reading and found a good job here.

I think that York has some absolutely beautiful locations and on Saturday I managed to visit a few of them - although I was very unsuccessful with the boxes, the day was quite memorable for me. My first visit was to JBZFarm's Keystone #2 letterbox. I didn't manage to find the box but I did witness a beautiful sunrise over the Susquehanna River.

After giving up on the box, I sat at a picnic table and did a lot of reminiscing about my high school days. I had two really close girl friends in high school, and as I sat there on that bench, I was looking at the summer home of Lyn, which is located right on the edge of the park. Lyn was the only person I knew at the time who had a summer home. Lyn also had a brother, Joe, who was the love of my high school days. Unfortunately, to Joe, I was just his little sister's friend. But fortunately for me, I did spend a lot of time at this house which overlooked the river and to me it was another world away from my normal life. Joe would drive me home late at night with the three of us piled into his little two seater convertible, top down, speeding the windy roads back to York. Really good memories for me.

Two years ago Lyn and our other friend, Bobbie, and I reconnected at a class reunion. The day after the reunion the three of us met at this house in Long Level and had a wonderful time comparing stories and lives. Lyn's mom, who had moved into the summer home permanantly after she retired, served us a wonderful brunch. Sadly, Joe had passed away a few years earlier from pancreatic cancer and many of our stories were about him. The day proved to be so memorable to me and a lot of it was the magical location from my youth. Lyn's mother passed away shortly after our get together after she fell and broke her hip and never quite recovered. But as I sat there at that picnic table Saturday morning, so many emotions passed through me that not finding the letterbox was quite inconsequential.

I moved from Long Level to my next set of memories at Rocky Ridge to look for Pink Panther and Black Swan's Spotted Elephant and Sam the Snowman . But on the way, I had to stop and watch this hot air balloon rise over a Hellam farm.

Rocky Ridge is about two miles as the crow flies from my parents' house. So I was traveling through more memories on my way to this park. Rocky Ridge didn't exist when I was a kid. I am not sure what was there, if it was privately owned or if it was just undevelopled land because I never remember going the whole way back the road to explore. I do remember that right on the corner of Mt. Zion Road and Deininger Road there was a little ice cream store. Just a one story room is all it was. And I remember my dad piling all of us kids, there were five of us, into the car and driving up for a cool treat. We would sit at the picnic table there and look down into the Codorus Creek valley and think that we were in the mountains. We didn't travel much and Mt. Zion hill was a mountain to us! And I had a grade school girl friend who lived on Deinginger Road so I also visited that area to play as a little girl. It is unbelievable to me how many new houses and developments have sprouted up on the way back to the park.

Oh, yes, I DID go there to box, not just to reminisce, didn't I. Well, I was successful in finding the little Spotted Elephant but did not have any luck in locating Sam. I think that means that I will just have to make a return visit when it gets a little cooler and some of the growth dies back so that I can locate the twin moss covered logs. And I also noticed a tree which will certainly get a giggle of rememberance out of some of my lady boxing buddies.

My next set of memories took me to Lake Redman to look for a newbie's box, The Lake Redman letterbox. Again I was unsuccessful even though this box had just been hidden the prior weekend. Maybe it was the heat which was causing my brain to not interpret clues. Or maybe it was another set of memories at this park. This lake is part of the reason that I love getting out into nature as much as I do. There was a time when most of my free time was spent huddled up in a comfortable chair with a book. Reading was my passion and also my escape from a lot of tough things that I was going through. Then I met a man who loved to be outdoors, to camp, to hike, to canoe and he pulled me into his world. He owned a canoe and we would go to Lake Redman after work with a bottle of wine and a picnic lunch and sit out on the lake and have lazy magical picnics, watching the sun go down. The relationship ended after five years but the love of being outside and enjoying Mother Nature remained to this day.

I decided to call it a day by this time, the humidity and temps were reaching levels that were not good for me to be out alone so I began my drive back to Reading. Along the way, I remembered that I might have a chance to capture one more box, The Stitch 'n' Box right outside of Lancaster. I had tried for this box three other times but each time the store was closed. But not this time! I did get it this time and in addition, I was able to purchase a set of magnifying glasses. My main issue with carving stamps is that I need to be at my desk with a magnifying lamp because my eyesite is failing a bit. I always listen enviously to stories of people who see something memorable and stop and carve a stamp on site and hide a box spontaneously. I have never been able to do that. But these glasses are 4X magnification and they clip on to my regular reading glasses and now I can also be more spontaneous. I don't think I could wear them for normal carving for a long period of time because the magnification distorts everything except the carving medium and would probably cause a headache and eye strain after a while. But I did test it out and went outside and carved and was quite successful at it. So not only did I get this box but I also got the glasses.

What a day - but it was not quite over. A new memory was about to be created! After dinner that evening, Bill, the couch potato who hates letterboxing, agreed to drive for me so that I could take the photographs for my new box Signs . I am really happy with the way the clues turned out for this one - do you think that my clever friends, True Indigo and Lightnin' Bug are beginning to inspire me?