If quaint country living and rolling up the sidewalks at night is your preferred way of living have I got the town for you! New Salem, Pennsylvania is my hometown. It is neither well known or a much loved tourist destination but rather it is a small town; one that most people would have to look up on a map to find out exactly where it is. Like so many other small towns that make up rural America, it is a town where everyone knows each other and gossip spreads like wildfire.
The residents of New Salem, Pennsylvania have small town ideals, conservative values and know a thing or two about rural living. The people who live in New Salem, epitomize what it means to be blue collar, working class, Americans. The rural landscape, dotted with small family owned farms and dense woodlands, is a far cry from big city living. And these are just some of the reasons why I cherish my hometown and the memories of growing up there.
I lived in New Salem for my entire childhood, from kindergarten through college. The things that I have come to appreciate about small town living, I hated back then. Kids in New Salem didn't normally cause a lot of trouble because there was always a parent ready to call your mother. Instead we indulged in innocent fun until we were old enough to drive and cause trouble outside of the town limits. The hot and humid days of summer are still so vivid in my mind. We grew up in a time when our mothers could send us outside after breakfast and aside from coming in for a quick bite at lunch, wouldn't have to worry about us until dusk. Mothers didn't have to be afraid of their children being picked up by strangers or being hit by a car. There were no strangers in New Salem and if the neighborhood speed limit was 15 miles per hour, motorists drove 10.
During the hottest days of summer when it was too hot and humid to play tag or ride bicycles we'd cool off in the stream in the woods. We walk through the woods looking for snakes along a path or look for salamanders under rocks. Sometimes we'd walk to the neighborhood corner store to get a popsicle or spend our weekly allowance on penny candy. The games we loved such as kick the can and marbles have been replaced by video games and computers. I don't fault kids for liking such things, as we would have been just as engrossed in the latest high tech thrills, but kids today don't have the same love for the outdoors as we did.
At twilight each night when fireflies began their light dances, my brother and I would head home, often after my mother yelled our names five or six times. We heard her but just chose to ignore her in order to play an extra few minutes outdoors. We'd eventually trudge home, thoroughly exhausted, collapsing in bed after a much needed bath. We'd lie in bed legs aching, from running in the fresh air and sunshine since breakfast.
Summertime in my hometown was full of yard sales and community fund raisers. The firemen would drive through our neighborhood on their biggest fire truck yelling through a megaphone that they were selling chicken. I can still remember the exact sales phrase. "Support the local fire company! Chicken barbeque! Come on out and greet us!" BINGO was another way our community supported the fire company. Wednesday night was and still is BINGO night in New Salem. BINGO not only supports the fire company but it is also called the "weekly hen pecking session" by all the men in town. During BINGO the ladies get together to eat and talk about the men but more importantly to share the latest town gossip.
While high school football is all the rage today, especially in the south, when I was growing up in the northeast, little league was what drew our entire community together. We supported our little leaguers and I am proud to say that my brother was the star pitcher of his team. Every little boy and most of us girls played little league. Weekends my dad used to load up all the neighborhood kids in his Country Squire station wagon and take us to the baseball diamond so we could practice and pretend to play like the pros. I was Johnny Bench; my brother George Brett. We played from early evening until the last of the sun dipped below the horizon leaving only our firefly friends to provide us with enough light to hit that last homerun.
When the days grew shorter and the evenings developed a chill it was time to start school. My brother and I both attended New Salem Elementary. At the time it was probably the tiniest elementary school for miles around. We had one classroom for each grades K through 5. We were with the same classroom of kids from kindergarten through fifth grade so we got to know those kids very well. We still keep in touch with many of them today.
Looking back on my childhood when I think of growing up in this little town I cherish those memories even if we were a little naive. I think kids back then were so much more innocent than kids of today. We knew little of real life dangers, technology or much else outside the world of New Salem. Our town epitomized Americana and it still does. My husband, (who grew up in a small town not far from New Salem), and I have had our share of worldly experiences. We both have travelled and had the opportunity to live away from our small towns. However; a few years ago when my husband and I were looking for a house in an area to settle down to raise our sons where else came to mind but New Salem? It must have been God's will that he wanted to see me reside here again.
So here I am back in New Salem, Pennsylvania, living down a gravel country lane right off the paved road, overlooking my best friend's parents' goat farm. I spent so many summers running through the meadow where my house now stands. I think my best friend draws comfort in knowing that I am here in case his aging parents have an emergency. My sons will attend New Salem Elementary in the fall. It's still the same quaint school, only a little larger to accommodate the influx of Baltimorians to our small town. The time has ended where we know everyone but Marylanders haven't changed our small town. We still love yard sales, BINGO and gossip. And our little leaguers still make us so proud. . .