In the Boonies

Where I grew up wasn’t quite in the sticks or the boonies and I wasn’t a town or even a village kid. Our home was about halfway between Normalville and Indian Head, Pennsylvania along Route 711, there was a distance of two miles to either village and because I was a lazy kid, I chose to walk or ride my bike to Indian Head. That route was downhill most of the way and the trip to Normalville had two steeper hills. The trip was always profitable and I would collect pop bottles along the roadway, then cash them in at Resh’s Red & White store for money, which I promptly spent on another bottle of soda, sometimes there was enough change leftover to buy a candy bar and a small box of matches. Usually the candy bar was a “Lunch Bar.” Why? It was only three cents. It was approximately the size of an almond Hershey chocolate bar now, but it was filled with peanuts. I remember its wrapper was dark green with its name printed on the outside in lighter colors: red, yellow and white. Going home I’d stop in the middle of the bridge that crossed Indian Creek and pull out the box of matches. Holding the box in one hand, I’d rest a match head against the sandpaper “scratcher” and flick the match with the index finger of my other hand. The match would ignite and spin over and over as it dropped into the water below. Not really exciting, right. But for a young kid, it was fun and something to do.

I used to tell people that I lived so far back in the boonies that we hauled in the sunshine and sent out the moonshine. That response wasn’t too far from the truth. Approximately five miles from my home,   the “Revenuers” discovered and then blew up one of the largest moonshine stills in Pennsylvania. The site of the moonshine still was close to the field where our family gathered wild summer strawberries. My mom Sybil Miner Beck would make preserves for winter. My dad, Edson Carl Beck often teased her, “No wonder the strawberry jam always tastes so good.”

Being a “mountain” kid in high school I was sometimes teased, “Does it hurt your feet now that you have to wear shoes?” It didn’t bother me, but I often replied, “Do you know that we have signs we have posted in our bathrooms? Flush twice. It’s a long way to Connellsville.”