TinbugsArt

Yesterday, I stood near the Hammer Creek and looked down the road at Snavely’s Mill and my mind took a step back in time. My aunt passed away last week and though she she wasn’t raised with memories of this place, her husband was. I remember many a holiday afternoon listening with longing to the stories told around her table and living room. Memories that gradually disappear into time as the generations before me pass away. It now falls to my generation to remember and pass on those stories and truthfully I don’t remember the details well enough to do them justice. My great-grandfather bought the mill from his uncle and raised ten children in that house. My great-aunt lived there till she was 95, but from this vantage point my mind can trick me into thinking that I can walk up to the door and knock and chat about stories of fishing, boating, and ice skating on the mill pond, while sipping on homemade grape juice or snacking on freshly picked blackberries, but I can’t.

Today, I can’t escape to memories of family stories, my immediate families closest link to that home place slipped away. My dad is still living and his sister, and he has many cousins still around, but they seem to disappear into time one by one these days and his sister lives in Canada and he lives in Ohio and my cousins are spread out across the continent and further. There will be much less of a reason to sit around a table anywhere near the Hammer Creek and tell stories of days gone by. We carry our memories with us and can remember anytime we want but it is not quite the same as seeing the land. I will return. My mom’s family still lives in the area, but theirs are different stories.