......From "Fishing with my son"

Excerpts from the short story “Fishing with my son”

Joseph Manduke
Spring 2008

That summer of 1965 we packed up most of the pets, my above-mentioned cousin Dave (who was a pure city boy) and we wound our way to the place on dad’s fishing map was labeled “Wild River”, near Towanda, and a place then called Wyalusing Rocks in Bradford County.

It was late June, school out, and very balmy. The area where the river flowed was farmland. Once, Marie Antoinette had been scheduled to relocate here to avoid the issues of the French Revolution. She didn’t make it, but plenty of other French settled here, including one Charles Homet. He is important here as we asked a local farmer, an ancient Mr. Smith with a still out back where we might rent a summer cabin and maybe a rowboat. Well he happened to have a tiny yellow cabin with a big antique wooden radio and a wood-burning stove at the old Homet’s Ferry crossing.

The back road ended there at the river, but the road obviously continued along the other side. So while my mom and sister painted the mountains, round-pebbled beaches we would, my cousin, dad, and I fish the river.

The river was swift and clean with 2 islands just above the old ferry road. Downstream, the river turned sharply east, moved by an ancient Appalachian mountain I have come to call Joe’s mountain, for all the Joe’s of this tale.

My cousin Dave was a skinny, blond boy of 12. This was his first trip to the country and he was staying close to dad, his own father driven off by his greedy and downright nasty mother. I had rowed the little aluminum boat that went with our cabin out and shoved the bow onto an island.

Moments later, in the late morning sunlight, I heard my cousin yell in a nasal, shrill voice “Uncle Joe! Uncle Joe! A muskellunge-the first I had ever seen had taken Dave’s red and white Daredevil spoon and rocketed straight out of the river not 30 feet from me It dwarfed tiny Dave, shaking its head to disgorge the dangling spoon, its dark vertical bars on a greenish background. I had never seen a fish that large. One splash, silent, line broken.

From that day forward, even at that time with 5 years of fishing under my little belt, I was a fisherman. And this spot at Homet’s Ferry is a sacred place of real spirits, ghosts of dad and that fish, that summer of fresh wood-stove cooked walleyes, the smell of manure from the dairy farm, and the smell of a clean, fished filled rural paradise.

We also drove around the area in our green and white rambler wagon looking for other fishing spots. We left the ladies to drive to Terrytown on the other side of the river. The fishing map did show roads along the river course there. We found a spot with a steep bank and caught an almost incredible number and variety of fish. Mostly on the small side, bass, pike, and walleyes, a member of the perch family. We had dinner for sure. Mom would clean, roll in cornmeal and fry them up in nice smelly bacon fat. Imagine these days living thru that to tell about it.


We were getting ready to leave Terrytown to cross back to the cabin when someone drove by in an old truck and yelled. I didn’t hear it, still elated with our catch, but dad said “short pants”. Dad usually wore shorts fishing on warm summer days. Apparently this was a taboo in Appalachia, and the two farmers in the pick up had yelled, “faxxot, short pants “, at dad. This was unwise of them. Very calmly, saying nothing dad took off with Dave and me in the Rambler. He reached under the seat and pulled out a metal hand axe that we used for camp wood, at least we had. Dad, driving madly in the passing lane, left hand draped on the wheel, his right chopping with the axe yelled, “you lousy bastards, I am gonna hack your f’ing faces to bits”. There was abject terror on the farmer’s faces, who went off the road into the ditch. My heart was pounding. Dad put his axe away quietly and we calmly went back to the Homet Ferry cabin and ate a fish dinner.

Another odd thing occurred that trip. My mom’s parakeet “Peekie” had developed some sort of a bird “cold”. Mom sent me to the chicken farm up the hill from the river with two missions, buy a little fresh vegetable to go with our pike and see if they had any bird medicine. Peekie had been an important part of my life as long as I remembered. I would feed him bits of egg and bread at breakfast in the morning, and he would cheerily chirp. Well on approaching the farm I saw a very gaunt elderly man stiffly standing with a rusty hoe. He was wearing striped bib overalls and a cap, like a painting. He was tending yellow wax beans. I asked him how much for the beans, and he gave me a big paper sack full of fresh yellow wax beans for a quarter. Quarters were silver then. As for medicine, he gave me a small bag of red powder and said follow the instructions. He seemed overjoyed to talk with a young person on the subjects of birds and beans. Well our parakeet survived many more years along with my dog Ticky and our cats Mildred and Herman, the other pets that came with us on that trip to the little yellow cabin.

There are three surviving watercolors my mom painted on that trip. One is of the fishing spot at the ferry crossing-near the axe incident. The other is the Homet Ferry store, which still stands but is no longer a store, a short walk from the old cabin. Mom painted another watercolor of me and my sister sitting along route 6 at the Wyalusing Rocks overlook. The river and islands are seen down below in the summer-green valley mists. The distant view of the islands and watercourse where I have fished, canoed, and camped for nearly 40 years still looks the same. There are photos of nearly everyone important in my life sitting in one of the stone gazebos, contemplating the valley below.

The old route 6 cart way is the driveway now, soon to be near a Delaware Nations Nature/interpretive center. I have volunteered to be the geologic/environmental consultant for the project. How my close friends and family react to the beauty of the river valley here, and the nostalgia of Yellow Breeches, speaks of their character.
These are the places that define who I am. If I do go back this spring, it will be with my son and daughter if she wishes.

So I will play with my kids in the sun, God willing when I leave my now nice little place here on the island. But it’s a loveless place, too far from that set of memories. Lifetime grows short and I have to make peace with my infinite truths, introduce the children to them, and decide where I will be. I can only hope that our memories will forge the desires and meanings my family has given me. Time is so short-so much wasted on sad discord, useless empty dreams and greed of them. Take me and mine to where the fishes leap and the osprey flies, and I can today in the summer, wear shorts along the Susquehanna.

Copyright 2008 Joseph Manduke All Rights Reserved

From the short story, "Kinzua Gums"

Excerpt from the fishing short story: “Kinzua Gums”
by:

Joseph Manduke



So we headed out from Doylestown in the leaky mustang on a mission of pure exploration. My fishing pal and high school buddy Joe riding shotgun. I had installed a tape player in my pony and we had one tape. It was an early Beatles tape, and as I write these words I can still hear odes to the Norwegian woods and the familiar voices of Paul and John.

My thrill was to explore extreme northwestern Pennsylvania. The map claimed big fish in wild sounding places like Kinzua, The Allegheny River, and the Clarion River. Wide areas were delineated as native brook trout country, and home of the Pike and Muskellunge, their fierce cousins up to 4 feet long, and both bristling with teeth.
When dad was alive, the annual trek to the Yellow Breeches south of Carlisle was our big trip. That and a summer trip to Bradford County (Wyalusing) on the North Branch of the Susquehanna River. All year, months before these trips, I would clean and organize tackle, study the maps, dream of trout at the Breeches or sultry summer evenings along the then wild Susquehanna with a stringer of walleyes and smallmouth, to be carefully cleaned and cooked by my mother. Either Breeches trout or Susquehanna fish were a sacred meal.

On our summer trips in high school, the few we took, or the many I took alone, I slept behind summer quiet schools on the bus loading platforms, sleeping bag on still warm summer concrete. I caught and ate fish, and begged and borrowed for gas money.

In my fishing-dream- heart I studied and memorized the special map dad brought home years before. Pennsylvania’s route 6 traverses the most Northern part of the state from the New York state line near Port Jervis, all the way to odd sounding places named Kane, Warren, Corry, Westline…or Tionesta. Images on the map showed trout and toothy pike, tiny towns were I imagined Indians still netted fish and carried babies on their backs.

My fishing friend and fellow high school junior Joe and I were now on the road. Joe was a big athletic blonde kid who the girls liked. In fact I was secretly in love with his cheerleader girl and my neighbour Leslie. I think she thought of me as a combination motor head and nerd.

I had just started to get serious with Carol that summer of 1973. Joe simply said, “I don’t want to hear about that chick on this trip, we are fishing.” I had already been ridiculed for taking Carol to a dance.

Our destination, revealed by the sacred fishing map was the Allegheny reservoir. It was to be by way of route 6, that magical path I had only dreamed about. Real rugged trout country. As the Beatles groaned, we finally made it to Renovo on route 120. A dark nearly abandoned railroad town, where people were playing baseball in the main street at 3 AM. It was an odd scene. Out of bravado we drove up over the top of our world on route 144. I hadn’t known the state was this remote, wild. Finally we arrived at route 6 and went west.

The parking area by the reservoir and Kinzua dam is a wild place. They had flooded the corn planter Indian reservation to make the lake, and it made me feel sad. The loud spillway and leaking gas from the mustang’s rusty gas tank kept us up most of the night. By sunrise, a few sleepy fishermen emerged- out of one truck a bewhiskered scrawny old man. While busy at this early hour boiling camp coffee and breakfast of fried walleyes, we asked about the fishing. We became friends with old Bill, and he told us of Kinzua fish and fisherman. He said to go back into town across the old iron river bridge and make the first right. This would take us to the deep hole on the other side of the dam. We slowly drove up the road, as it became rough, boulder strewn. I swerved to avoid a rock and the right edge gave way and there we hung precariously above the trees and the roaring Allegheny below. Joe said he noticed an old jeep parked at a shack back down the hill. We walked back and found a gray tarpaper shack with half a door, the place moonshine was made and bad things happened to out a towners.

Joe knocked on the door and appeared a wizened old man, unshaven. He looked to be 100 years old and was in fact, quite toothless. We explained our plight and he yelled to someone in the shack (we thought he was alone) a filthy little boy appeared and was instructed by the old man to “go get the rope yea big around as your pxxxr”. In only a few moments the boy appeared and the antique jeep pulled my mustang right back onto the “road”. Joe gave “Gums”, as he has been later called, a dollar and the old man jumped for joy, -kicked up his heels. I had never seen someone kick up heels before. We felt as far from home as Mars, or even Arizona.

As a 10 year old living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, whose fishing exploits then, excited trips with dad to the Delaware Canal, river or Cooks Creek in Upper Bucks County, such places were odd and exotic as the Grand Canyon, or even the Desert and Cactus, or salmon streams in Atlantic Canada or Alaska.

So armed with my car and some gas, that old rusty stove I inherited from mom reluctantly (she still used it when the power was off), I ventured next out by myself to Huntsdale, where I had fished with dad since the spring of 1966………………


Copyright Joseph Manduke 2008 All rights reserved

The Farm, Bucks County, and Childhood

But once again we were on the move to a new horizon. This one, almost 30 miles away in a place called Bucks County was a real farm, with acres and a pond, a barn and an fruit orchard and a stream. It was a colonial manor far from the city. The road was partially dirt, and I could have as many pets as I wanted. I opted for a calf, a goat and geese. My mom wanted chickens and cats. My sister grew pumpkins she sold at a little farm market in the nearest town Chalfont; we picked out my Shepard collie, Ollie from the animal shelter. He was to become my best friend. I would soon first shoot the guns and hunt the farm for Thanksgiving pheasant. Ollie would be my hunting dog and the most loyal friend I ever had.

This is about Stone End Farm on Curley Mill Road, now part of progress, suburban sprawl, and million dollar homes. This is about the best years of life of my family, and how issues and man and the environment, then poorly defined and hazy set my path in life.

Mom wanted me to go to Temple medical school. Dad was almost tearful when I showed no interest in engineering. How proud he would have been to see me rebuild those engines from a tech manual, or manage whole divisions of pesky civil engineers years later, actually having inherited his mechanical savvy and love of design and machines. Although mom; later respected my concern for my streams and fish, our water, and my wealth that it indirectly brought, I somehow always thought she really wanted me to be a doctor. As she had wanted to be, but was held back to due to rheumatic fever, and getting only her B.S. in Medical Technology from Penn.

That fall on the farm I remember very well. The apple orchard was brimming with the fruit of ancient trees. Only much later did I put together the big wooded barrels in the cellar with the fruit trees. As was popular in colonial America, they were making cider.

The fall flowers were splendid. I was 10 now (almost) so dad pulled out the 22 rifle that he had shot with mom, and my son still has. I was a good marksman. He bought a 12-gauge shotgun for himself, and a Stevens 20 gauge single shot for me. After endless hours of safety training, we shot clay pigeons. There would be no hunting until I was a good shot. Dad said all it takes is one shot, any more and you are just lousy with a gun. I hold to this truth today and I am still an expert with anything that holds gunpowder and a bullet.

That January of 1966 I started keeping a diary. It was a little brown one-day one-page book. I kept the habit almost 35 years.

That first diary entry we had just gone shopping on Saturday night, January 22, 1966. Dad had bought a blue Volkswagen Beetle that he loved. He had a far trip to King of Prussia to his engineering job there. It was the first car I later drove on the farm, and almost backed into the barn wall. On this night it was snowing and we had gone to Montgomeryville to an odd place called the Mart. We all packed in to go to this indoor flea market really in the middle of nowhere. There was livestock, chickens and goats, produce; odds and ends-odd food stands run by people speaking German and Polish. Meats, pizza, and drinks. We loved to waddle around with the old farmers there. It was a weekend treat. Today that place is long gone. It was replaced by a modern mall, expensive condos, and lots of asphalt and concrete at the intersection of routes US 202 and US 309.
But I can still smell the popcorn and feel my dad’s V.W. slide off the mart’s driveway into the ditch that snowy night long ago. Not to worry, we all had family fun. It is clear and a great little memory.


More than anything is my memory of my times exploring our 88 acres with Ollie and/or my sister. The rear of the farm was an open field of green lawn, flowers and dogwoods and cherry trees. Beyond was a 20-acre cornfield rented to our dairy farmer neighbour, Mr. Lewis. Beyond that were swampy woods, more fields and ancient colonial structures begging for investigation. Across the road was the rest of our place. A swampy field, a, stream that had small fish and a dense thicket of a wood, brimming with black raspberries, black berries and stickers that coated Ollie and us.

Far in the Northwestern corner of the land was a pond. It had been excavated long ago. The original part of our home had been a colonial mill and icehouse. The pond was dug when Bucks County was still in a British colony. Spring fed and loaded with clear water, colourful water plants and lots of salamanders, frogs, spring peepers and toads, I had my first laboratory. I read every book on pond life and amphibians, and plants that I could.

Once I brought home many salamander eggs to hatch in jars. I had failed and a whole generation of red efts died because of lack of oxygen. I was miserable, remembering the destruction in my New Jersey woods. It was my first lesson. God and nature know best to leave it as it is. Later to my youthful horror I would stock the pond with sunfish, bass, and catfish after intense study. But the pond was too small, ancient, pure and delicate and it actually died, at my hands. I remember seeing a big ball of tiny catfish boil up in what was once my clear pond. Out of balance and control I murdered a treasure. The only saving grace was that this was way before anyone cared but me. They had started to build houses up gradient of my pond and it silted in. Everything but the slime died. I will never forget that sight, only a few years after first studying my pristine pond, it was dead.

In another ill-fated attempt to learn about nature I tried incubating goose eggs in my room, under a bright light. I loved the fat little greenish goslings and wanted to observe their hatching. Well, the light was too bright for me to sleep and I covered the light with a blanket. My room caught fire and almost set the whole house ablaze. I was never so scared and in shock. All of my plastic and wooden models of army planes and navy ships I had built over years were gone, all the clothes, but my wood turtle tut survived hiding behind a door. I had caught him while fishing with dad on French Creek (odd for a land turtle) and now he was like a second dog. It was years later tut would escape and mom feel awful about his box blowing over. It was years later the fire I caused probably caused us to, in an odd way; to have to move from the farm. It was then, after we moved in 1971 dad became sick and died. We all loved that place, to the very core of bone. Mom painted a large oil painting of the beloved flag stone back patio on the farm. It was done with great love, my golden chain tree and its heaven scented blossoms, Ollie and the cats, my sister with fresh sunflowers and a basket of pumpkins grown by her hands, and a little me with my beloved goat kid Hilda on my lap. Both mom and my sister are fine accomplished artists of the Bucks County school, long before its popularity. This painting is missing now and unless it’s hanging in some sharp-eyed Bucks County collector’s room .................others hang in galleries....................