Full Circle …

One night, I believe it was August of 1957, I decided to “sleep out” on what we called “the island.” It was an island in a little creek that flowed behind our house. To be honest, the creek had long since changed its course, and only on rare occasion did this place become an honest to goodness “Island,” completely surrounded by water.

At 2AM, having no luck with sleep, I crawled out of my tent and walked to the garage. There, I retrieved my bicycle and headed downtown … actually, in Clearfield Pennsylvania, we called it “over town” … I have no idea why.

In Clearfield, two bridges cross the West Branch of the Susquehanna River … and I no longer remember the route that I followed that morning, but, I eventually found myself peddling up Front Street … the air warm, the smells sweet, the darkness gently modulated by light from the occasional street lamp. As I arrived at the intersection of Front and Market streets, I looked up to see another cyclist, just clearing the Market Street Bridge … I waited. In short order, we were sitting front wheel to front wheel … greetings were exchanged.

I didn’t know this particular kid all that well … but, it seems that he couldn’t sleep either and had chosen, like me, to ride “over town.” We’d seen each other in school … but the time before was hazy. That night, in Upper Witmer Park we sat on the swings. What was it, that thirteen year old boys talked about? I have no idea, but we did talk, and when enough had been said, we proceeded east on Market Street, then north on Second to the end of the Nichols Street Bridge. There, in the glare of a streetlight, we saw the largest moth … or something … that either of us had ever seen …

It’s funny what you remember …

I remember none of the trip up Nichols Street to Turnpike Avenue, but I do remember parting, at the point where I turned up Martin Street and he continued on Turnpike to McBride.

That meeting would change something. I would hang out in his third story bedroom, and he would hang out in mine. We would conceive of adventures together, we would set up an intercom, across the one quarter mile that separated out houses, and … he would be drawn to my interest in amateur radio. I’d met Jan Clifford Hubler … and there would be much to follow …

Was it a perfect friendship?  No … but … in the end, I stood above the grave of a friend and a lifelong memory.

There are things that we did and things that we laughed about, that today … few survive to remember …

A Testors Glue commercial (and … if you were “cool,” you could recite the whole thing) …

The recorded promotion for a carnival sideshow that could be heard from his bedroom window (we could recite that thing verbatim … until I would see him no more)…

And Mad Magazine … “Two Game Wardens,  Seven Hunters,  and a Cow” …

A carnival stripper named Bubbles Darlene … we never did find out how much she took off … because we never paid to go inside …

White belts, white bucks, and white knit hats … yes, long ago, all three of those were totally “cool” accessories … and equally totally essential …

The amateur radio “novice era” … May KN3OMD be long remembered … but of course, he won’t …

A trip on an old Vespa motor scooter … with a victory lap around the town square in Andover, Ohio … All the way to another state … Wahoo!

Mile high ice cream cones (or pretty close) … when Jan had the good fortune of working in a dairy store …

A state policeman … who … could not arrest others for “things that he would do himself”…

Someone who, as an adult, even more than Elvis, had to do absolutely everything “his way” …

One who mourned the loss of his only son (sound familiar)?  But the circumstances were entirely different…

Someone who, when “his way” yielded far too little retirement income, followed another guy’s lead … it seems that he had discovered a way “out” …

And that “out” was an exit indeed …

Now please …

Fast forward sixty-five years … The date is 19 August 2022. I am watching two young men on the swings in Upper Witmer Park … and … in that moment, I am remembering a summer night, long ago.  My mind flashes over the good and the bad … mostly the good … That’s how one remembers “a friendship” …