The outside temperature is predicted to exceed 90 degrees today, and we are all getting ready for the summer. The central air-conditioning provides cool comfort amidst even the most horrid humidity drenched days of June, July and August
There was a time when it got hot, we all were outside seeking relief. No air conditioned stores, malls or movie theaters, There was no air conditioning in our houses. We had few places to hide from the heat, most often it was the shade of a tree.
As a youngster growing up in Pittston I was exceptionally lucky to live close to an ice cream shop. Lots of people knew Grablicks Dairy as a place along Wyoming Avenue in West Pittston where you could get soft Ice Cream at the window in the back of the store, and sundaes, malteds and phosphates at the bar.
In Pittston, in our neighborhood, we had the Grablick's Dairy Plant, ..........and the factory store. Our Grablick's was not so glitzy or as well known as the W. Pittston parlor. It was a free standing building with an apartment upstairs, and was placed right in front of the Dairy. Grablick's ice cream was the best. (It was all we had, and just about all we knew) My favorite flavor was White House. Vanilla ice cream with chopped Maraschino Cherries inside, was named so, honoring George Washington who chopped down a Cherry tree, Grablick's had many different Ice Cream Sundaes who's names are embedded indelibly in my memory. Pigs Dinner, Bucket O'Sundae, CMP, Dusty Road, Flaming Pinwheel. What in the world was a Flaming Pinwheel? I wonder if anyone every bought and ate one?
As a young boy of 8 or 9, my best friend Michael B. and I would seek relief from the heat by taking a "hike". Our mothers would prepare lunch for us to take on our journey. I had a World War II vintage canteen to carry, which held a pint of lukewarm metallic tasting water. Mom supplied a ham and cheese sandwich, and we were on our way. Down "Pigs Alley", across Radcliffe Street, across Hunter St. and beyond, up onto the hill.
We hunted fossils in the shale, tried to throw rock across the "cutoff", where slow moving freight trains pulled box cars and coal cars to and fro, only God knew where.
It was at the cutoff that an older boy, Freddy S., tried to jump onto one of the freight cars for a free ride, but slipped under the train instead, losing one of his legs. We were sternly advised to keep our distance from the tracks, and we did!
We found a natural spring, a small pond of water bubbling up out of the ground. Older folks told us that there was a reservoir there many years ago, and the spring fed it. All we saw was this puddle, so it was hard to imagine anything so massive and wonderful as a reservoir. In the shade of the well watered trees, we'd rest, and pull out our sandwiches and discuss life as we knew it, on the side of a hill overlooking Pittston. I know now that I should have filled my canteen there, it was probably the best water available for miles!
I also remember occasional family trips to Gouldsboro State Park. About 25 miles east of Pittston, and high atop the Pocono Mountains, Gouldsboro was our family's, out of town heat relief location. There was a medium sized lake with a beach, brown state built outhouse type changing rooms and a snack shack, with picnic tables scattered under tall trees, Gouldsboro had what we needed to cool off. I don't remember the water being exceptionally cold, but it was wet! If we needed cold, there was alway an Orange Cream-sickle from the snack shack.
The need to travel great distances for swimming changed in the early 60's. For about 10 dollar per year, our family joined the Pittston Pool Assoc. We all got an official patch, and it was sewn into our bathing suits. The Pittston Pool was about a 20 minute walk from our house, and well worth the effort. There were two diving boards, a kiddie pool, clean locker rooms and a snack bar. I learned to swim there. Since there was no such thing as sun block, so I learned about second degree burns there too.
The Pittston pool is in dis-repair now, and hasn't opened in years. Ironically I may end up having a role in its resurrection make-over as a spray/skate park. I haven't seen the inside of Gouldsboro State Park since the mid 1960's. I vow to visit there this year and buy LA an Orange Cream-sickle. I'll introduce her to the place where we vacationed when Dad was more than 8 times out.
(Perhaps I'll explain railroad speak on being "8 times out" another day)
The place on the hill and the cut-off have been leveled for a townhouse development. Streets have been paved and named, but most site are empty, victim of the Great Recession. The trees are gone, the train tracks buried. Where once was a grand reservoir, and afterward an oasis for little boys, lies a housing development in distress. No tree's to shade the houses. Compressors running full bore, providing comfort amidst even the most horrid humidity drenched days of June, July and August.
