| We'd walk to the east past James Street in Byrnesville where narrow dirt roads and paths led us to and across a large flat area of crushed coal. We would play baseball here. The outfield was bordered by a creek and a few trees under which guys old enough to have them would come to wash and wax their cars. On Saturday nights these same guys would bring their girls to this spot to watch for fireflies.
With a bucket filled from the stream and soap to make suds you'd slather up the vehicle and then rinse it by throwing water on it from the bucket dipped in the creek. You'd then dry the auto with a chamois if you had it or an old towel if you didn't. Once dry you would Simonize your ride with paste wax applied in careful circles using a small piece of rag. When the wax was dry and chalky you would buff off the wax leaving a shine at least three inches deep. |
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Monday, June 15. 2009
The Monkey Drifts
Saturday, June 13. 2009
Searchable Platt Family Tree
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The John Platt Family Tree There exists a wonderful John Platt Family Tree on paper; it is a drawn tree with family names representing the branches and limbs. It was created by Charles Vignos in 1950. Charles Vignos lived in Canton, Ohio and so does at least one of his grandsons, Joe Wagner. I met Joe Wagner and family in 1979, Joe has continued John Platt (1747-1850) research and has written several excellent papers about the life and Revolution War travels of John Platt. John Platt was born in 1747 in Littlestown, Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1775 at a tavern in Gettysburg John Platt volunteered for duty in the Pennsylvania Militia and served in the Revolutionary War. Five years later John Platt was living in a part of Huntington County, Pennsylvania which later became a part of Cambria County. It follows that many of the individuals on this tree are from Cambria County, Pennsylvania. See the Surname List below. The grandson of Charles Vignos, Joe Wagner showed me a great photograph and as I remember, it was of Charles Vignos working on the original tree. A standing person would have had to reach up to touch the top branches of the nine foot tall tree. The completed tree was photographed and Mr. Vignos sent copies to many relatives. Click HERE to go to the searchable pages of the John Platt Family Tree. Continue below for notes on using the web version of the tree. |
Monday, June 1. 2009
Mine Shafts, Ponds & Frogs
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[Byrnesville Area, Cambria County, PA, Early Summer, 1960]
We'd walk from Byrnesville through Allport and up across Municipal Road to the farms and woods way up in the hills over there. The dirt roads we followed, which connected farms, creeks, abandoned mines, and undisturbed woods became narrower the higher we went. At one spot, in the middle of the woods was a bunker, a small structure with a door and window made with cement walls two feet thick. It was a flooded abandoned mine shaft; a dangerous place, half surrounded by a bottomless pond the other end of which formed a similar pond in China. |
| Submerged and hidden in the main, except for three red-brown islands of hide; a dead horse floated in the pond. On those spots of hide sat a half dozen dark green frogs seemingly secure with the knowledge that we could not, actually would not, reach for them with our nets. | |
