Shamokin (Coal) Creek

Coal Creek was bad, I mean REALLY bad. It was deadly to everything, plant or animal.  It came out of the hills somewhere east of Mahanony (pronounced Mock-a-noy) City and twisted west through Schuylkill and Northumberland Counties, supplying water to uncounted anthracite mines and collieries and serving as the repository of raw sewerage from dozens of small towns and hamlets plagued with mine falls and will ‘o the wisps that flared up out of fissures that ran deep down to mine fires over a century old.  All along the way through the hills and narrow valleys of the Western Middle Anthracite Field it picked up mine acid and coal dirt, the latter settling out when the creek slowed down as it came out of the hills.  From Elysburg to Sunbury, the sulfurous coal dirt deposits fanned out, killing trees and burying everything else.  In some places, the sediments covered the entire width of the valley.  At the eastern edge of Sunbury, the creek curved south, hit Kirshner’s Hill, and then ran west all the way to the Susquehanna River, giving the big river the gift of massive fish kills whenever the West Branch ran low and the acid concentration went up into the toxic zone.  Swimming in Coal Creek was a death sentence.  Nobody would even put a boat or raft in it for fear of it being eaten away before you could get across to the other side.  With a resume like that, it became a major attraction for the East End gang.

 

Dead Man’s Island

We spent a lot of days playing on and around the earthen dike that ran south from Market Street towards Kirshner’s Hill. If you went down the outside slope in the middle of the wide curve where the dike turned west, you could push your way through the brush to Coal Creek.  Right where the creek made the same turn to run west along the base of the hill was Dead Man’s Island.  Between the bank and the island was a long, wide expanse of slightly yellow, off-color sand, dry in the summer and fall but prone to being flooded in the winter and spring.

The island was a mysterioso place, covered with trees and brush. No one knew how the island got its name.  It was rumored that there was an unmarked grave and that horrible things had happened sometime in the dim past.  We all played on what we called the sand flats, but no one was anxious to get on the island itself. The older kids never taunted others because they never went onto the island either.  What can be worse than the unknown?

After a year, the older kids got bold enough to not care about scary stories and explored the whole island, which wasn’t very wide and wasn’t very long. They found nothing, not even a sunken spot betraying a clandestine grave.  There was no sand on the side along the creek.  The strong current was hard against the bank.  Of course, the youngest of us had gotten a year older, too.  Not wanting to be left out of whatever startling discoveries might come to hand, the whole gang of us was soon prowling over every square inch.  In one of those compulsions that are inherent in all kids, we built a fire right in the center and fed it every flammable piece of detritus on the island.  That was cool, also boring.  Sitting around getting smoke blown in your face can be entertaining for only so long.

It was then that somebody noticed that a huge tree right on the bank was leaning way out over the creek. My older brother took a long look and decided that, if the tree fell over, it would span the creek, and we could crawl over onto the hill.  Of course, anybody who fell off the trunk would drown in an aqueous suspension of acid colliery washings, coal dirt, and raw sewage.  It was immediately decided that crawling over the tree would be the coolest thing of the year.

For the nonbelievers, here’s the flats in flood with Dead Man’s Island in the background.  It was taken in the spring of 1960 with my father’s brand new Argus C-3 35mm camera.  The tire sets the mood.  With the annual flooding, the flats presented new challenges and treasures every summer.  We would often begin our season on the flats wearing rubber boots.

The Plan

Somehow it was decided we’d help out nature and saw the tree off at the base.  We’d then cross over the creek to the hill and climb to the top using a zig-zag path that ran under a power line that was used to feed the textile mill on the town side of the dike.  We’d then go west along the top, staying out of sight right inside the tree line.  We’d then make a dash across the open fields to a very large orchard and steal all the apples we could carry.  There was no way we could make it back across the tree carrying tons of apples, so it was decided that we’d bush-whack down the hillside to the road that went to Mrs. Arnold’s cabin and then down the dirt road to the Tenth Street bridge and then walk back along the top of the dike.  The fact that we’d be seen by the entire south side of Sunbury lugging bags of stolen apples was given no credence.  What could possibly go wrong??

Early on the appointed Saturday, two of the oldest kids showed up with a large, crosscut saw. They refused to say where they got it but confessed that they had to get it back by the end of the day.  No one pressed them further.  They started in immediately, sawing so hard they soon stopped, sitting down and panting, the saw quivering in the tree.  Two other kids replaced them.  We team-sawed all day, not breaking for lunch.  Around 2 PM most everybody had dropped out from blistered hands or total exhaustion or both.  Most of the gang wanted to give up and go home.  A huge argument broke out.  When the guys who brought the saw tried to work it out of the cut, they discovered that the tree had settled and had jammed the saw.  Neither they nor anybody else could break it loose.  We were all standing around trying to decide what to do when the tree let out a loud cracking sound.  Everybody jumped back.  With another loud splintering sound, the tree slowly tipped over and fell across the creek.

We had done it. The two guys who brought the saw pulled it out from the stump.  Without a word to anybody, Ronnie Beaver jumped up on the tree and scrambled across, weaving around the branches, which were sticking up in all directions.  No one followed.  The tree was rocking slightly from all the limbs that had gone deep into the creek.  Ronnie was jumping up and down, “Come on you wimps!”

“But the tree’s rolling back and forth. It’ll roll us off into the creek.”

“I can’t believe it! Look, I’ll show you again how easy it is.”  Ronnie started back.  The tree gave a violent, clockwise twist, knocking him into a limb.  Luckily, he hung on.

“No way I’m gonna rescue him,” said Barry Badman. When the tree rolled back, Ronnie hustled like mad, made it back across, and jumped down onto the stump in triumph.  No one shared his enthusiasm.

Jim Buch spoke for most of the gang, “I’m not going to get dumped into Coal Creek for a bunch of crummy apples. They’ll all have worms anyway.”  It was a sound argument.  Drowning in a miasma of toxic waste for a chance to steal wormy apples?  The return on investment was shrinking into negative numbers.

The five oldest kids stood shoulder to shoulder, Slim Brocious in the middle. He played the ultimate trump card: “Well, we’re going over tomorrow morning.  The rest of you can stay home and hide in the cellar.  You’re all yellow.”

THAT really hurt. There was some coughing, looking at shoes, muttering.  Finally, Bill Shipe said, “Okay.  But if I fall in, the Old Man will kill all of us.”

Slim looked at everybody in turn. One by one we agreed.  “Okay, everybody’s in.  Be here tomorrow at 9 AM sharp.  And everybody’s gotta bring a couple of grocery bags.”

Well, we brought the bags and something else. And that “something else” precipitated a disaster of epic proportions.

 

The Raid

All were present and accounted-for at 9 AM the next day. Jim Buch arrived with his dog Bullet.  “Bullet The Wonder Dog” was a golden retriever mixed with about eight other breeds.  He was friendly to a fault, smelled awful from constantly rolling on dead animals, barked a lot, and unfortunately had adopted the entire East End gang.  The gang tolerated him because he didn’t wag his tail.  It went in a circle like the seconds hand of a stop watch.  He seemed to enjoy having all of us laugh our asses off at him.  When he ran, he looked as if he had a broken propeller as a booster in his butt.

Somehow, we all made it across. Bullet stayed behind, whining and barking.  We were just starting to zig-zag up Kirschner’s Hill when he did a running belly flop into the creek and started swimming across.  The current was so strong, he made landfall about thirty yards downstream.  He shook off whatever was clinging to him and came running back, his tail rotating at ramming speed.  The kids at the bottom of the line started yelling, “Go away!  Scram!  Arghh, he smells like rotten egg poop!”  Nobody had the heart to throw anything at him, but he somehow got the hint and stayed about twenty feet behind us.

Because all the switchbacks made us walk triple the height of the hill, we were totally zonked when we got to the top. The older guys would brook no indolence amongst the scrubs, so with tongues out we followed along the top of the hill hard against the tree line.  Most of us had never been up there.  All we could see was a huge plowed field that sloped upward away from the hillside, hiding whatever was beyond it.  After about ten million hours of forced marching, the guys in the lead made a hard left and started up the field, which had been plowed but not disked.  It was like trying to walk across a giant washboard.  Luckily, nobody broke an ankle.

At the top, our quest came into view: down the slope about a hundred yards away, a dirt road made a giant horseshoe, and inside the horseshoe was an apple orchard. The leaders of the pack went down the field on the double-quick.  In no time, we were in the trees, giddy with the prospect of pounds and pounds of free apples.

We were grabbing apples like mad when all hell broke loose at the other end of the orchard. Slim Brocious yelled, “Run!  Bullet’s gotten into a chicken coup.”

Bullet The Wonder Dog heads for the woods while the East End gang keeps the orchard between them and the farmer’s shotgun.

(Rendering by Richard Lytle)

In the few seconds it took to remember that the dog had been following us all the way, we heard a male voice hollering, “Goddamn dog!” which was followed by a shotgun blast. “Oh shit,” yelled Jim Buch as he dashed past, “the farmer shot Bullet!”  It was obvious that Jim was not planning on a rescue mission.  We ran after him.  We were halfway up the slope when we heard another blast.

“If the first one missed, THAT one got him for sure.” Jim’s voice came out staccato from trying to navigate furrows while hanging onto his market bags, which each contained about a million apples.  As the scattered group crested the slope, we could still hear the farmer:  “What the hell!  What were you kids doing?”  It was obviously a rhetorical question, so we ignored him.

I was carrying two bags of apples but somehow managed to outpaced Jim, who was kind of overweight and having trouble with the terrain. Nobody had the presence of mind to head to the rendezvous point.  I had no idea where anybody was because I never looked back.  I went over the edge and stumbled down a ravine.  I made the road, hustled down to the Tenth Street bridge, crossed over Coal Creek, got up on top of the dike, and finally turned around and scanned the hillside.

Nobody. Had they all been killed?  Had they been rounded up by the farmer and were now prisoners?  Were they back on the field with arms and legs blown off?  I sat down between my grocery bags, picked an apple, and started munching.  The first to appear was Bullet.  He ran across the bridge and up the dike.  In his mouth was a very dead chicken, which he deposited right in front of me, his tail revolving like mad.  He was obviously channeling a tiny piece of retriever that had gotten lodged in his DNA.

I stood up and backed away, “Gross! Get it away from me!”  I was about to hustle along the top of the dike back to where we started when stragglers started to appear coming down the road.  First two; then one; then another one; finally, all the rest.  Everybody was in one piece, and nobody was limping.  I couldn’t see any blood.  Jim Buch had to be restrained from attacking his dog, who was still standing over his sad chicken, tail still rotating.  “I’ll kill him.  I’ll put him in a burlap bag with rocks and toss him into the creek.  I’ll cover him in gasoline and set him on fire. We could’ve all been killed by that mayhem-crazed farmer.”

We walked back to the curve in the dyke and then to the end at the railroad tracks, the rear guard walking backwards to see if anybody was coming after us. When nobody appeared, we sat down and assessed our haul.  Amazingly, there were no worms, and just about all of them were ripe enough to eat.  Bullet laid down at a discreet distance, his chicken between his front legs.  Jim threw an apple at him.  It went way over this head.  He jumped up, ran down the apple, and brought it back to Jim, who put his hands over his face and shook his head.

My brother and I lugged four grocery bags into our kitchen. Mom looked at us:  “What in the world am I going to do with forty pounds of apples?  It’ll take hours to pare and core them.”  THAT hadn’t entered into our calculations.  We looked at one another in disbelief.  Instead of admiration, we were met with irritation.  And we had consigned ourselves to days of scullery duty.  The Great Kirschner’s Hill Apple Raid had devolved into a giant batch of apple sauce.