Short and Long Walks and Other Journeys

Some of us were lucky enough to have our homes close to Wagners. Others lived further away.

In this photo from 1972 we have both the lucky and the unlucky.

In the foreground is my friend Glenn who was luckiest of all. His house was just across the intersection from Wagners on Manor Ridge Drive.

Standing in the back is me, I was next closest - I lived just up the street on Hawthorn. For me, a trip to Wagners consisted of walking one full block.

At the far end wearing the life jacket is my friend Matt who lived two blocks away on Manor Ridge Drive.

The guy holding the board (which were our makeshift paddles for our inner tube journey down the Conestoga River (Conestoga Creek is what we all called it, and still do) is my friend Norm who was the unlucky one. He lived all the way south in Fairway Park. For him, and kids like him who did not live close, a trip to Wagners was a real journey.

In an age where our parents did not drive us where we wanted to go, our only means of transportation was a bike, or our feet.

If we road our bikes, it was not uncommon to see the front yard of Wagners store five deep in various kinds of bicycles of the day. Mine was a blue Schwinn 3-speed. Glenn's was a green Sting Ray with banana seat. Matt road a red Schwinn with racer handle bars and I can't remember what Norm rode.

More often than not, we walked to Wagners, especially in the summer vacation months. Unlike today where kids have busy summer schedules, we had next to nothing to do all summer vacation (except form maybe the one week family trip to the mountains or the shore). Therefore, we were in no particular hurry to get there, or back. Besides, it was far easier to eat a bag of penny candy walking home from Wagners than riding a bike.

Summer vacations for us was a fantastic month of June where the weather was still not too hot and muggy and the newness and joy of being out of school for the summer was still fresh. This was followed by the slow, hot, but still fun month of July which we spent a lot of time playing board games, exploring the neighborhood, and playing flashlight tag at night.

If not at Wagners, many a hot summer day was spent in the relative cool of family basements, especially my basement because we had a pinball machine. A real "Williams Jungle" pinball machine. My dad got it second hand from some guy in Lancaster city my grandfather knew. My grandfather knew everyone in the city.

In an age where no one even thought to make any fun for us, we were left for three glorious months to make our own fun. Which brings me to the photo.......

It was the summer of 1972. That June, Tropical Storm Agnes devastated Lancaster County and much of the eastern USA. Especially hard hit was eastern Pennsylvania.

That July, after days of playing Risk, we needed something new to do. That's when, sitting at Glenn's house - we conjured up an idea for a real adventure. We would use several large inner tubes his family had and float down the Conestoga Creek! We spent days planning the expedition, using pieces of wood for paddles, getting life jackets, even fashioning our own anchor out of an empty gallon milk jug filled with gravel and tied to a rope.

But first we had to find four of our friends who would (and could) make the trip. Glenn, Matt and I were instantly in, but the other two members of our "gang", Tim and Greg, were not allowed to go. For some odd reason their parents must have thought it unwise to let a bunch of 13 year old boys risk their lives floating down a river. But not our parents!

Still - we needed a fourth friend for the fourth inner tube. One of us, probably Matt, came up with the idea of asking Norm who lived all the way up in Fairway Park. So the three of us walked or rode our bikes to Norm's house. His mom answered the door that sunny summer afternoon (as mom's always did when moms were almost always home makers) and we asked if Norm was home. She said he was and fetched him for us. We proposed the idea to Norm then and there and being the sport that he is - he promptly posed the question to his mom - could he risk his life and float with us down the Conestoga? His mom said - yes he could. That was it! We now had our full compliment of mariners.

We christened our inner tube raft "The Titanic" and set the day. Matt's father had a station wagon, standard suburban transportation in those days, and he agreed to transport all of us and the inner tubes to the Conestoga Country Club where we would put in at one of the foot bridges (for golf carts) over the Conestoga. He would also pick us up at our expected finish point - Groff's Sporting Goods store (what is today Scheid Funeral Home). It is Matt's father who snapped the photo of us on the bridge just before we put in.

Being 13 year old boys, we knew where the Conestoga Country Club foot bridge was, and where Groffs Sporting Goods was, and figured - how long could it possibly take to go from point A to point B? The distance as the crow flies between the two is only four or five miles. Of course we neglected to take into consideration the fact that rivers and creeks don't flow in straight lines. In fact, the Conestoga takes a huge sweeping turn away from Groffs Sporting Goods before doubling back - making out watery trip three times as long as we had calculated.

But no matter - hope springs eternal and we had all the confidence in the world of our ability to complete the journey.

We set off and the first "big" set of rapids we encounter was a hard left hand turn the creek makes in the Conestoga Country Club. It was thrilling to go through this fast water and The Titanic managed just fine. Later on, near what is now the Manor Township park on Charlestown Road, we encountered a tree that was blocking the entire creek except for the one side. This made it just possible for us to raft through, and the water fast. It to was thrilling and fun.

Little did we know that not only the distance of the journey would confound us and our best laid plans, but also the slow current of the Conestoga in other parts. We drifted along slow, sometimes hardly moving at all.

But the worst miscalculation of all was deciding to set out on our journey after Agnes. The storm had knocked down what seemed to be dozens of trees, fully blocking our path. Time and again we had to ford around these blockages, scampering up muddy and burn hazel infested bank, porting our inner tubes across land, to put back in. Then, a short time later, another tree blocking the creek and we had to do it all over again.

But press on we did.

The dangers of drowning in the Conestoga in late July are minimal because the water depth is seldom about three feet. In fact, many places were so shallow our tubes would bottom out and we'd have to push ourselves along with our improvised paddles, or stand up and walk the inner tubes to deeper water.

As the hours passed we had no idea where we were or how much longer it would be until we got to Groffs. We would try to stand on the tubes and peer over the creek banks, trying to get a fix on our location, but it was hopeless. All we could see were trees and endless fields of corn.

Then we realized we failed to bring food or water. Matt had brought along a bagged lunch, but it became water logged and unfit to eat. This left only Norm who had the sense to bring a can of Potato Stix. Dry, salted, Potato Sticks. But it was all we had, so we ate the salty snack food.

Finally, somewhere near what is the Bowling Green housing development off Charlestown Road, we decided enough was enough and got out of the water one last time at a huge tree blocking our way. We carried our inner tubes up and out of some farmers corn field, not knowing where we were or where we needed to walk to find civilization. We stumbled out onto a road, figured out where we were, and somehow called Matt's dad to come pick us up, which he did.

We figured me must have gone, what? Easy twenty, thirty miles? In fact, in the many hours of floating we had covered a distance of barely two miles as the crow flies from where we put in.

We never did reach our goal of Groffs. But the following year - Titanic II did make it all the way to Groffs!

That is the story behind the photo, a story of kids entertaining themselves over summer vacation. A summer vacation made all the more wonderful by the presence of Wagners.

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