Eating Words: You CAN Find It On A Map!

Looking at a map of the United States pre-Google Maps (you remember how they used to have maps...on paper?), a person wouldn't find the town of Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania. The more detailed state maps and highway maps always listed it in very fine print. Today, one can easily locate it on Google. Go ahead. I know you want to. Just search "Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania" and you can zoom in as far as it will let you. They even let you do street views now. Just a few years ago, when Google Maps was still taking all the pictures, before they started blurring license plate numbers and peoples faces, you couldn't even zoom in on Johnsonburg. But now you can. And it's pretty amazing for me to examine it from above. I can see myself as a kid, wandering the streets on foot or on my bicycle. Not much has changed from a distant view. When you zoom in closer however, you would see a very different town than the town where I spent my childhood and early youth.

I guess one could say that Johnsonburg, like so many rural towns in the northeast and Midwest, is a town in decline. But that's a generalization. It doesn't sit well with me and I'm sure it wouldn't sit well with a number of people who still call it home. But you'd be surprised--when speaking with folks one on one--how many people from this special place might pull you aside and let you know that they don't like what they see.

There are times when I breathe a silent prayer of thanks for being allowed to experience a childhood in this place in the 1970s. In my mind I'm often transported back there...

I can see Market Street just as clearly as I saw it as a 3rd grader at Holy Rosary School. I've often thought about how, as a child, I was filled with wonder about everything. The buildings of my hometown's "downtown" really fascinated me! At the time, the only bank in town was called Warren National Bank. It was a solid stone structure built on a steep incline, directly below the imposing Romanesque Holy Rosary Church. The stunning red brick of the church contrasted well with the large grey stones of the bank building. Across the street from the bank stood the Johnsonburg Community Building. My earliest recollections of this impressive structure were speech lessons given to me by a Mrs. Schreiber. I could be wrong on that name but I'll fact check later. I would walk from Holy Rosary Grade School to the second floor of this building and I think our meetings would last maybe an hour. I was pronouncing my "s" sounds with a "th" sound. I guess that would have been considered a lisp? Anyway, it was corrected. The lisp, that is. My other earliest recollections were the countless hours I would spend on the second floor in what was the library. There were three rooms: The grown-up library, the children's library and the study/reference room. If I close my eyes, I can still see these rooms. I memorized them. In my pre-teen to earliest teen years, I would volunteer at this library as a page for the head librarian. Her name was Wilburta Nelson. I adored this mildly eccentric lady. If there ever was a librarian stereotype, I guess you could say she fit it. She always wore her hair pulled up in a bun. At various times, this hair bun would serve as a pin cushion for several pencils.

Across from the bank--at the opposite corner from the Community Building, there was a long row of stores known as the "Brick Block" and the second floor of this large brick structure were apartments. There was a newsstand, a hairdresser and several other small businesses. Next to this was a five and dime store. We used to call it "the five and ten" but it was officially G.C. Murphys. It was always a treat to go into this place to buy candy. On one occasion however, me and one of my fellow students (his name was Rich) decided that we would steal a candy bar. We were promptly apprehended and our parents were called. It was decided that a lecture and a lesson on the perils of theft (addressing morals and sin) would suffice. And it did! I never stole another thing until many years later.

Across from the Brick Block and Five and Ten was the Elks Club. I spent many wonderful hours there as well. These are especially cherished memories because my dad didn't spend a lot of time with me as a small child. But, since he would always be attending to some business at the Elks, I would tag along. He served in various capacities in the Elks hierarchy. I suppose that, because his line of work as a railway clerk was a specific skill, they utilized those skills for some recordkeeping duties at the club. I would sit and play with all of the office supplies--especially the rubber stamps--while he attended to paperwork. Later, when he'd finish his work, he'd always stop in for a beer or two and chat with the bartender who was on duty. I was free to explore all of the nooks and crannies of this old building. There was a massive (or what seemed to me as a child to be massive) staircase that lead to a ballroom on the second floor. I would play on that staircase or run around in the ballroom--also the scene of many memorable weddings from my youth. Everything was accessible. I can still smell the stale cigar smoke and beer. I can still see the mysterious windows on the door to the office--scalloped and fuzzy so you couldn't see what was going on inside.

The backdrop to all of this was like a set from a movie. The constantly billowing smokestacks and massive brick buildings of the Paper Mill loomed behind all and churned out not only paper, but the livelihood of so many of the people who patronized and inhabited these buildings.

This was the town of my youth. It's still there. It's in my mind...in my heart. Through the eyes of a child, it wasn't such a bad place, but I knew I didn't want to be there for the rest of my life. These memories are what I want to preserve, before I forget them. They are largely inhabited by ghosts and even those players still living are not the same people they used to be. One thing's for sure. Words will never be sufficient to describe it.