Off Trail
We walked out our back yard gate in Mayfield and down the alley to Lake Montebello Dr. , over the dammed side of the lake and into the bowl of green below. Turning West at a break in the woods we found a large downed tree that bridged a sluiceway. Crossing was a little hairy, but served to get the adrenalin flowing. We had crossed over to what was a vine drapped peninsula formed by the sluiceway and the Herring Run.
Indulging a favorite passtime and remembering the the long history of 19th century grist mills that were active upstream, we hunted the bank for evidence of the past and then picked a route of stepping stones to ford the stream and expand our search. Came upon a group of kids throwing stones to move a floating ball back to them and a mother from from the burbs showing her son and daughter where she used to play as a child.
There is a decrepid building that looks like something the parks department abandoned years on the West side of Hall Springs. For some reason a pathway of young saplings had been recently cleared from the side of the hill to its delapidated entrance. The lady with the two children said it was abandoned when she was a child and that hill side then was a grassy slope mowed by the city. I tried to imagine.
We returned by way of Hall Springs bridge to Lake Montebello Ave pictured above. Me thinking how fortunate I am to find this moment 1/2 block from my house.
Later, sorting what we picked up found it included two bricks that when paired together reminded me of a love that goes beyond the grave (See pictured below). Additionally an industrial size 19th century brick embossed “TROPOL..” below that the word “CANTON”, and a teaspoon stamped Read’s…
Read’s drug store chain closed in 1974. I attended the final auction of its combined soda fountain equipment centralized at Jack Makowskie’s Auction House on 25th street. From Read’s many locations they had left nothing behind. Acres of glassware for sundaes, milk shakes and straws, stools, all their counters and back splashes. . The lot sizes were huge. If you raised your hand you could suddenly be thinking of serious hauling resources? It was a brilliantly orchestrated auction – overcoming all reasonable consideration among bidders with an irresistable price per unit and No Mixed Lots. If you wanted to serve both sundaes and milk shakes there was no choice, but to over buy or plan on openning an additional ten stores.
In my case, it was one store and Ponfields. 54 boxes of sundae stemware and heavily-footed milkshake glasses were distributed between Beagles Ice Cream Parlor in the 600 block of Fells Point’s S. Broadway and next door on the 3rd floor of Ponfield’s Store for Men. After about three years Mr. Ponfield came over and said the weight of the 30 or so boxes had cracked a joist and that he was not sure how much longer they were going to stay in business. No one to pass the business onto and families who had became Ponfield customers were moving to the County. That sense of loyalty– father to son or mother with son – and where they always shopped withered on a vine that had no takers. Two months later the building was on the market and those boxes were forced into a journey that followed my life for the next 28 years. Always in their original boxes that over the years suffered bad roofs, wrestled up and down flights of stairs by free labor, trotted out to a dozen yard sales and back, retrieved from a string of bad relationships - leaking ice cream ware the length of three decades until 4 years ago. The last of them were left with the last of the bitches, as they say, and I hope and pray.
Luck has passed my way since then; gratefully married three years and now this teaspoon. I think many have their own Read’s Story of useless baggage carried through life to hopefully one day reverse a mistake. By one act of finally letting ago what attrition did not, the job finally gets done and we feel released from all but the why.
