CHAPTER ONE
Nestled in the hills of western Pennsylvania, approximately eighty miles east of Pittsburgh. There is a burg known as Patton. Whether it was known for the famous general, I’m not aware of. I believe it was named before he was well known.
I was born just after my mother had moved back from Pittsburgh. I had been conceived there. My mother was against the move back to Patton. She had no love for Patton. She had been born in nearby Cresson, which is nearer to Altoona than Patton is. My father was born in Punxytawney, which is to the north of Patton. My father’s family had a grocery store called Natrigo’s grocery. It featured food imported from Italy. My mother’s clan lived on this big hill overlooking the village below. It looked like a town in Vermont. There was a church with a big steeple lending to a New England type view. These were the rolling hills of the Alleghenies. They looked lovely in all seasons, but they were even more so in autumn. I can remember my many outings in these scenic hills. We would take many a hike on the back road to St. Lawrence. This was a small enclave of town. There were horse stables, and one could rent a riding horse. I had ridden on a few of these. The rides took place on a dirt road next to a creek called St. Lawrence creek. The town’s prominent people would have their horses boarded there at the stables. We would often go into the woods and build huge fortresses out of the branches we could gather up. There were planty of white aspen and cherry trees. A town nearby was named Cherry Tree. We would sometimes play hooky from school and go on these excursions. We would sometimes get caught and there would be a big fuss over this. The parents would sometimes get together to discuss this mass truency and how to prevent it from happening again. During these treks we would have to cross this big creek and in the spring this creek would be a little river. This creek would be moving quite fast and would be much deeper than in the other times of year. We would sometimes lose our balance and fall in the raging water.
Sometimes we would venture into the hills above the clay works, a pipe and brick plant at the end of Terra Cotta avenue. The journey would take you up a steep hillside. There would be small traversing tracks up the hillside to the areas in the woods where they dug up the clay. The clay would be loaded into these cars and railroaded to the plant below. The plant would hold its summer picnics up in these hills in the middle of the woods. These were very popular with the townfolk. The food and refreshments were plantiful. There were lots of hot dogs and burgers and sausages cooking. A good time was usually had by all. It was kind of a magical place of never ending free goodies.
