For the past six months I’ve been working sporadically on a “commission†for the Haycock Township Historical Society. The original assignment was to contribute several chapters to a book documenting what life was like before the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decimated the township to build Lake Nockamixon.
What started as a professional writing project soon turned in to a labor of love: Labor because it has taken so much more time and energy than originally anticipated and love because Haycock is where I was born and raised. To me it has always been a mystical “Brigadoonâ€. When I tell people about it, they don’t believe me…they think it’s the softened, rounded remembrances of childhood.
I might believe so myself if it weren’t for all the old friends and neighbors who have come forward to offer their own stories and photos that mirror my own. Memories come into sharper focus when seen through the prism of a friend with whom you have not spoken in 40 years.
Now the deadline nears and there are still many tales to tell. So I’ll be gone for a while on a lovely but sad walk down memory lane, as I try to resurrect a time and place from its watery grave.