Church Path

Church Path

Neither Annie nor Jack had lived more than a short drive from family before. A new job with a better salary and a house in the country was the new start they needed. It was a big step. With their decision they were moving to a new state a few hours away from the familiar settings they had always known. A new home in Pennsylvania was waiting for them. A home very different from the one they were leaving in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

With three children, including a four month old infant, their two bedroom duplex . They started late after quick goodbyes to family and friends. Her mother held back tears as the children waved from inside the car. A knowing look suggested concern. For it being winter, the weather was clear and the roads were dry.

Their route took them from Glen Ridge through western New Jersey along the Delaware River. Eventually they found a place to stop for supper. It was a truck stop diner and seemed as good a place as any. It would be a few more hours before they would get to their new home. The children were hungry.

The ’65 Chrysler, not even a year old, pulled into a gravel parking lot, dark and muddy from truckers maneuvering to find a spot to park their rigs. It was January and half frozen puddles reflected the glow from the diner’s neon sign. The red green light reflected on the faces of the children who looked at their mother for reassurance. This place was different and had a strange feel as they climbed out of the car. Exhaust fumes from diesel belching trucks hung heavy in the frigid dampness of the January air stinging their eyes and tickling the inside of their young noses. The diner’s chrome-silver siding was muted by a brown gray haze. The dull lighting gave the diner a dreary appearance as they made their way in through the entrance.

Without realizing it, the heavy winter coat weighed the boy down complicating even his slightest movement. He awkwardly climbed onto the bench seat next to his father who helped him with his coat. His mother kept his infant brother on her lap as his younger sister sat across from him. His mother seemed tired, almost distant as though she was not there. His father looked at the menu and ordered food for all of them. The boy was given a plate of meat loaf with mashed potatoes and brown gravy. He liked the feel of the cold milk on his throat as he drank it between bites.

From his seat next to his father the boy saw a State Police officer wearing a blue-gray tunic sitting at the counter. The Trooper hunched over as he ate his meal intermittently picking up a white ceramic mug of coffee. The boy could see the vapor rising from the mug which reminded him of the steam from cook pots when his mother or grandmothers cooked. As the family got up to depart, the Trooper backed away from the counter and turned towards them.

The five year old, looked up at the State Trooper in awe. The tall leather boots, the pistol tucked into its holster, and the pointed cap on the top of his head made the Trooper appear larger than life. The boy looked up at the officer as his father ushered him out the door. Little did the boy know it was an impression which would remain with him for the rest of his life.

The father turned the Chrysler out onto the main highway. He knew it would take another two hours to reach their new home. At Columbia, New Jersey the car crossed the Delaware River driving west on Route 611. After a few miles they arrived at the farm situated on the edge of the small village of Richmond, Pennsylvania. It was cold inside.

Once the furnace was started, the children were tucked into bed. Heavy quilts provided warmth for their first night’s sleep. The strange new house creaked and cracked with unfamiliar sounds. As the children slept, the parents sat talking into the wee hours of the morning. Father’s optimism contrasted to mother’s hesitation. This was the first time she was this far away from family in a place she did not know. Many factors contributed to their decision to buy the farm. They both enjoyed the country, but neither of them had ever lived there. They wanted a safe place for their children to grow and the farm seemed to offer the safety of seclusion. Lastly, she knew her husband struggled with his past. The recent discovery of letters written by her mother-in-law as a younger woman shed light onto the true nature of his past. She wanted to support him, help him overcome his hatred of his past and doubts about the future. Buying the farm seemed like a good way to do that.

It was a forty acre farm with a big red barn. The 19^th century brick farm house had a gray slate roof and large round coal furnace in the basement. The white enamel coal stove in the kitchen would be challenging to cook on until an electric stove could be installed. The white trim double hung windows had black shutters mounted alongside. An enormously tall pine tree stood in front of the house towering high above the roof line. A black painted wrought iron fence ran along the edge of the front yard. It would be a new start away from the memories of abuse by others and self. The change would be good, for them, for their children, or so she thought.

The next morning frost sparkled on the windows in the early morning light. The sun’s yellow rays beamed through the bedroom window in a soft golden stream. The boy looked around the room taking in the strangeness of this new place as he woke. There was a chill in the air and the faint smell of a smoky fire. He left the big brass bed to look for his parents. Hearing him get up, they called to him from the downstairs kitchen. He could hear their voices through the register in the floor of the bathroom directly above the coal stove. He made his way down the narrow enclosed staircase.

His mother was sitting at the kitchen table. She smiled a faint smile and beckoned him to come have his breakfast. She grabbed him and gave him a hug. But the newness of the place peaked the boy’s curiosity. He ran throughout the downstairs from kitchen to living room to dining room, looking out each window. As he looked the the surrounding farm land, he wondered where the houses were where the other kids in his new neighborhood lived. In Glen Ridge he could walk a half block to the playground at his elementary school. Perhaps there would be a playground nearby.

The boy ran back into the kitchen jumping onto a chair next to his mother. She already had a bowl of hot cereal for him. He liked it when she added a banana to his cereal, but this morning there was only cereal. His father held his infant brother and was feeding him small spoonfuls of a white creamy cereal. Soon his younger sister appeared in the doorway by the staircase. “I’m hungry,” she said as her mother beckoned her to another empty chair at the table.

It was the family’s first meal together in their new home. The previous weeks getting the house ready and set up for the children was proving to have been a good decision. There was not a lot of food in the house, but a trip to the grocery store later in the day would take care of that.

After breakfast the boy explored the rest of the house as his mother cleaned up. He went to the basement with his father where he saw for the first time the large coal bin filled with coal. His father showed him how to shovel coal into the furnace door. The boy tried it, but seemed not do it correctly as his father quickly took the shovel from him to level new coal on the burning fire. He looked at the red glowing fire inside the furnace not realizing the furnace warmed the house on cold winter days.

Once they finished in the basement the boy put on his boots and went outside. He did not stay outside too long as it was very cold. As he was walking along the side of the house he slipped and fell hitting the back of his head on hard patch of ice. Wincing in pain, he picked himself up and walked to the bottom of the yard where another large building stood behind his new house. His father had called it a “summer kitchen,” “a funny name,” he thought, “since it was winter time.”

Going to school was going to be very different for the boy. In Glen Ridge he could walk to his school by crossing the street in front of his house. Here in Pennsylvania he would have to learn how to ride the school bus and to make connections on different buses. It would prove to be an awkward arrangement for the boy as he did not understand why he had to ride the bus and could not be driven to school by his parents. It terrified him when he arrived at school not knowing anyone. It was more terrifying to not know which bus he needed to take to get to school often asking for help from students in the higher grades. As if the bus ride to school was not harrowing enough, he never knew where he was supposed to get off the bus on the way home or what he would do if one of his parents was not there to pick him up. His school life that first year was terrifying each day he left the farm house in the morning until he arrived home in the afternoon. He did not know if he would ever see his family again as the bus took him to places so unfamiliar.

The father traveled for his job often leaving the family alone on cold winter nights. On one night the furnace fire went out and the mother had no idea how to restart it. After some time she stood out on the side of the road in front of the farm house to wave down a passing truck. The truck driver came in and lit the fire for her.

Going to school was a new experience here as it was the first time the boy rode on a school bus. Not knowing where he was going terrified him each day when he boarded the bus.

The boy was placed in a special program at school. Teachers worked with him one on one while the rest of the children did their studies. It was only kindergarten, but it felt to the boy like he was very grown up. He never really ever felt like he was just a child though that is exactly what he was.

At the end of each school day the boy had to find the right bus which would take him home. Many days he had to ask for help in finding the bus. Often he would look out the window for his parents’ car but could not find it. In anguish he would get off the bus not knowing how to get from the bus stop home.

As winter turned to spring, the boy would sit on the farmhouse porch looking at the rolling farm fields behind the house. He was quick to note the silver streams flowing in the fields as the wind blew currents in the tall grass.

On other days he would explore down by the swamp. An old wooden bridge crossed over the stream at the west end of the swamp. Along the banks by the bridge the boy would occasionally spot a weasel. The thick muck of the swamp made it difficult to walk in the swamp and the boy preferred to stay up on the high ground of the old farm track which crossed the bridge.

Often the boy would hike to the top of the tall hill which sloped up from the swamp. He would follow the old farm track along the edge of their property. Often pheasants would explode into the air without warning. At the top of the hill, ten acres of flat ground made a good vantage point to view long distances from the farm. To the north there was the Delaware Water Gap which could be seen in the distance. To the south were fields and hills, with barns and silos dotting the landscape here and there.

And then there was the church path. It began pretty much at the bottom of the front steps of the white clapboard Methodist Church where the family went on Sundays. The tall steeple stretched to the sky above the heavy oak doors of the sanctuary’s entrance. The boy could see the old red brick farm house and big pine tree from the top of the church steps. The tall pine in front of the house showed the entrance to Richmond Farm.

The path meandered past an old cemetery where his antics interrupted eternal rest when the boy would push over ancient headstones. The chalky white lettering of the stones bore the epitaphs of lives gone by which had surely walked this path.

The path was flanked by small green – brown spires of grass jutting from the soft ground along its edge. The boy would hop from tuft to tuft pretending he was a rabbit or a frog as he wound his way up the dell past fallow field along a gurgling stream fed by swampy waters just up the hill.

The church path was the beginning of a time of innocence. Innocent as he was, the boy would grow to understand innocence does not protect one from the evils of the world. His life’s journey of understanding would start here along the narrow dirt track winding its way from the steps of sanctuary through life’s storms which would later define him.

Copyright Harry Vann Phillips 2020