DUSTY'S THEN AND NOW

            Not in our house. It seemed to me, that fall was panic time ! Pop would go into the mountains and bring “things” home. Grammy was in the kitchen ,yep you guessed it, making jelly for canning. It seems that pop knew the location of several nice apple trees higher on the mountain past the reservoir.

            One day,as I was playing under the willow tree with Pal,he called to me. “Hey,you want to come on the mountain with me?” Naturally I did not say no. I got up,and followed. Pop called to Grammy that he was taking me with him. “Wait,you need another sandwich. You won’t be back before lunch.” She stuffed another sandwich into pops pocket and off we went.

            We went to the end of our street and into the woods..this way and that way we went and all of a sudden Pop said “look over the wall and tell me what you see” “I walked closer and looked over. The entire city of Bethlehem laid at my feet I could see over the Lehigh River and onto the North side and past.

            I had never been that far up the mountain before. “ Pop, I can see forever” The city was so beautiful with all the colors of fall.I could see the bridge where the big tree would be,Hotel Bethlehem,the railroad and the steel mill where the family worked, I could see the house on the Northside and some houses on the southside. Pop being Pop just laughed. He was standing next to me and started pointing things out to me.

            “ Will you bring me here at Christmas time?” “We’ll see,we’ll see.” We started walking again,but not to far,and we stopped again. “Are we here?” “No ,it’s time for a drink of water” “Water?” “Water?” “Water!” We broke through the brush and in front of me was a stream. It tumbled down the rocks and I kept looking at it and was so amazed that this was here. It appeared from under and outcropping of rocks. It made such a beautiful sound.

            Pop reached into his pocket and pulled out a tin can, filled it and handed it to me. The water was icy cold and so good. Pop took a drink and we just enjoyed the moment,. We started walking again. Higher and Higher. “Pop,where are we going?” “Well,almost to the top” “Why?” “Well grammy wants to make apple jelly and I know where the perfect apples are. “Oh” I knew the jelly was good but never knew what pop had to go through to get the apples.

            “Pop,I’m hungry!” “Well pretty soon we eat.” We walked some more and finally Pop said “ Ok we eat here” We had come to a clear grassy spot and we sat down on a tree trunk. Grammy had made ham sandwiches on homemade bread with Guldens mustard and butter. My very favorite. “Pop,we have nothing to drink” “ Oh wait I’ll get us something and he disappeared into the woods and was gone a few minutes and was back with ---MILK?,

            “Now you don’t tell Grammy we had milk!” “Ok.” The milk was good and cold and it was goats milk?” “Pop, I know where we are” “No you don’t” “Yes,I do. We are near the goat lady’s place !” Pop just laughed.”OK so you still don’t tell Grammy!” We finished our lunch and started to walk again. We finally came to the special apples. You guessed it. We were at the goat lady’s farm. She had several apple trees and there were bags already waiting for us. Now this I could figure out.