Geographic memories

Sometimes it seems as if I have a whole, separate geography stuck in my memory: Places that used to be but now have disappeared, existing only as ghosts.
That thought came to mind last week when some Penn Township folks expressed concern to the county commissioners about the impact of a growing sand and gravel business.
Among other things, they said, Twin Hills are endangered.
In fact, Twin Hills aren’t twins any more. One of them is gone and the other one is a shadow of what it used to be.
But for kids growing up in Jay County, a trip to Twin Hills was a real treat. Located north of what I think of as the Gordon and Sparkle Crowe farm, the hills were dune-like piles of sand, left behind by ancient glaciers.
It was never really clear who owned the property back in those days, but now and then someone would get permission to let kids run up and down the sandy hills, or roll down them, getting sand in their hair and clothes.
Inevitably, because the sand had value, much of it was removed over the decades since that time.
So Twin Hills goes into that geography of memory along with dozens of other places.
Places like:
•The Twin Bridges, which can refer both to a spot on Blaine Pike where two old iron bridges were required to cross the Salamonie River and to a spot in the Godfroy Reserve northwest of Pennville where two other old iron bridges stood as twins.
•A dozen old school buildings, ranging from the original Judge Haynes School, which was closing out its life when I was an elementary student, to Dunkirk High School, where I have vivid memories of watching a basketball game at about age 10 with my buddy Neil Frank.
At the old General Shanks building, you could slide down the fire escape during the fall carnival.
•The Key Theatre in Redkey, back when it was a moviehouse. I saw West Side Story there with my dad, although I’m not sure why we picked that place to see the show. The Hines and Princess moviehouses in Portland also make the list; the Hines for its bat, and the Princess for its rats. I’ve always regretted that I never saw a movie at the Main in Dunkirk. Today, it’s part of a parking lot for a bank that has closed its doors.
•The Smith Department Store in Portland, which used to oil its floors for some reason. Any kid who was barefoot — that would be me much of the time — had blackened soles within minutes.
•The Boundary General Store, which today would be a historic landmark if it were still standing. I was on hand with a camera the early morning that a fire gutted the place. Some of the bricks from the building are now part of the patio in our backyard.
•Indiana Glass Company’s expansive industrial site in Dunkirk, which today is just a piece of bare ground, all evidence of the hundreds of thousands of man-hours worked and millions of pieces of ware produced gone, evaporated, living on only in memory.
And on and on.
With each year, the geography of memory grows and the real world continues to be transformed. That’s just the way it is.
But just the same, I’d love to have one more, long, sunny afternoon climbing and playing in the sand at Twin Hills. Just for old time’s sake.[[In-content Ad]]