Then and Now

by Donna Poole

“Mom! You don’t have to hike every trail in this park!” our confirmed bachelor son, John Jr., said.

His much younger sister, Kimmee, looked up at him with grateful brown eyes; she was exhausted too.  

“Yes,” I answered, “I do. You kids don’t have to come, but I have to hike every trail in this park.”

“Why?”

The question was logical.

My answer wasn’t.

“Because I always hike every trail in the park.”

Huge sigh from confirmed bachelor son. Small groan from little sister.

“Okay. If you and Dad are going to hike every trail, we’re coming.”

“Why?”

My question was logical.

His answer wasn’t.

“Because.”

Times change. This camping trip we didn’t hike any trails.

Times change. One day, in his late twenties, John Jr., the confirmed bachelor son came home from church.

“Mom, have you ever noticed Katie Smith’s eyes?”

And that was the beginning of the end of the bachelor days. John Jr. and Katie now have six children. All four of our children are married now, and we have thirteen grandchildren. That’s our wonderful now.

Sometimes it seems like yesterday I was a child. Occasionally I take a walk down memory lane in my backroad ramblings. It’s fun remembering my Uncle Tom. I had two Uncle Toms, and I loved them both. My tall, Italian Uncle Tom looked startlingly like Dad, except he was a foot taller. My mother’s only sibling was also named Tom.

Mom’s Tom was the fire chief of the Philadelphia Navy Yard and that made him a hero to us kids. When we went to visit him, he introduced us to downtown Philadelphia and street vendors. Uncle Tom bought me my first soft pretzel; I can still taste it. Dad was horrified. How did we know if it was clean? I didn’t care about clean; it was delicious. Uncle Tom was fun; and life was wonderful.

Uncle Tom took us to our first amusement park and went with us to Niagara Falls. He taught me to swim in the Atlantic Ocean.

 We kids loved the yearly visits from Uncle Tom and Aunt Virginia. Uncle Tom was larger than life in more ways than one. He was a big man with a big heart, and he loved big. Best of all, he was on our side always, like a giant champion. Mom never spanked us when Uncle Tom was visiting.

Every visit, before he left, Uncle Tom bought us a present. Presents were a big deal in our family in the 1950s. You got a present for your birthday and for Christmas but never for any other reason.

One year when Uncle Tom came to visit, he didn’t seem to regard my sister Mary, and me, the way he usually had, as his little angels. Our other siblings still had his favor, but Mary and I troubled him.

We lived then near Taberg, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondacks Mountains. Our trailer park was in an isolated location and the only other children near our age in the trailer park were boys. Mary and I could outrun and outplay almost every boy at whatever sport there was. The two of us road our bikes for miles and swam in creeks. We took pails and climbed the hills searching for wild blackberries, coming home with heaping pails of them that mom made into mouth watering blackberry pies. Sometimes we roamed the foothills for hours. It was a wild, free, Tom Sawyer kind of life.

Uncle Tom did not approve. We heard him tell Mom, “Donna and Mary Lou are growing up like wild Indians. The only time I’ve seen them in a dress this whole week was to go to church. They act more like boys than girls. I’m worried about them.”

He talked to us too that week, about being more lady like. We listened politely and nodded. He was, after all, our favorite uncle, our beloved Uncle Tom.

Too soon, it was time for Aunt Virginia and Uncle Tom to head home. It was bittersweet though because we knew present time was coming.

“Donna,” Uncle Tom asked me, “what would you like for a present this time?”

“A baseball bat! I don’t have one, and I’d really love one!”

He sighed. “I’ve been talking to you all week about being too much of a tomboy. I’m not buying you a baseball bat! Mary Lou, what would you like?”

“I want a baseball to go with her bat!”

If I remember correctly, Uncle Tom told us to choose a “girls’ gifts” and we refused. We didn’t get presents that year. But we didn’t lose our love for Uncle Tom and had many more wonderful visits with him.

The Tom Sawyer days Mary and I shared only lasted a few years; for me it was fifth, sixth, and half of seventh grade, but they were my favorite childhood days. I could write a book about our adventures and the trouble we got into and out of!

Perhaps that’s why I felt like I had to hike every trail in the park. It’s something Mary and I would have done back then.

Someone said not to spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror, because we aren’t going that way. That’s true, but it’s fun to look back at the then and see how it shaped you into the person you are now.

Well, dear Uncle Tom, you knew Jesus as your Savior. I know you’re in heaven waiting for the rest of us to join you. You’ll be glad to know I acted quite ladylike this vacation, but only because my body was too tired to cooperate with my spirit. I did spot a new trail on one of our drives though.

“John, do you think we could hike that trail next time?”

“That one? No! It would kill us. That trail is two times longer than the one we hiked last year that did almost kill us. It goes down that mountain, comes up another one, and it curves around there, and . . . I’ll show you where it comes out.”

He drove quite a distance. “See? This is where that trail ends you want us to hike. Still want to try it?”

I just smiled.

Some people didn’t grow up Tom Sawyer, and it shows.