How one discovers Scranton (part 1)

This week, Howe Gelb brings us back to 1972, with his tale of the unexpected, ‘How one discovers Scranton (or Arizona)’. Over to you Howe…

When we were 15, we hung out at a local pizza parlour on Friday nights, and used up all our quarters (coins) to play illegal pinball in the back room.

This was ceremoniously done, while playing ‘Sticky Fingers’ on the juke box, and sparking up a Marlboro.

It was 1972.

Socially, we were inherently backwoods.

Our small Pennsylvania town was set along the banks of a river called Susquehanna. What we usually did during the day after school, and on weekends, would be to hang out on a ridiculously dangerous railroad bridge, made out of black steel girders that spanned the quarter mile wide river.

On the second bridge-support from the shore, what we mistakenly referred to as a ‘pier’ (backwoods), is where we would do all the things ya do when you’re 15, and backwoods.

The river was at least a 30 foot drop from the bridge, and the cement pier was without railings, and the drop was seriously sheer.

Because of 15-year-old ‘pier’pressure, we would fish from that height. Learn to drink, too. There’d even be fights up there. But none suffered as much as the bottom feeders (fish like carp and suckers), if they were unlucky enough to be snagged. The more daring kids would take turns handing the rod to each other while dangling on the girders guiding the doomed fish to the shore, where they’d blow the thing up with M-80s (Google it), because the river was too polluted to eat ‘em.

One night instead of hitting the pizza parlor, Bucky and I decided to head across the river in the pitch black. Once across, we then would walk the miles on the railroad tracks that lined the river to where we would then climb up the embankment through the woods to the two lane highway that followed along above. Up there, stood a chrome walled diner called The Lark, which also had a back room with illegal pin ball.

And that seemed like a good idea for a Friday night to a coupla backwoods kids. Sadly.

Now, those machines could win us $5 more if we played ‘em right, which would be celebrated by ordering French fries with gravy… And another pack of Marlboros.

This was backwoods mentality. The only thinking more daft was back-mountain.

Tonight, we would walk the bridge in utter darkness. There was no walkway on the bridge or construction for humans to walk upon. We’d have to walk on the wooden railroad ‘ties’, or maybe the steel rails.

In between the ties, you could see the dizzying river way below with its maniacal current during the day. At night, you could only hear it waiting to swallow you. Your leg slipping between the ties was always a concern, and the rails were too close to the edge to lose your balance on what led straight down to a questionable outcome.

Tonight, however, was made more inky preposterous by the steady drizzle of rain.

Like tell each other jokes, and never own up to how idiotic this idea was.

Once we managed to make it to the other side, we, then, would walk a long ways to get to the highway to find the diner. But, that night, we first stumbled upon a hidden graveyard. There was no way to get there except walking through the thick woods. There was no path leading to it, and everything was overgrown. The dates on the tombstone were ancient, too.

Civil war maybe.

We hurried back up the hill to get out of the rain, and any possible haunting.

The Lark was warm and dry. We went straight to the back room and plunked our quarters in the machine to have better luck than the pizza joint far far away.

Nope.

All outta coins and hungry, it was time to head back.

Tune in, same place, same time, next week, folks, for part 2 of the gruelling, freezing and terrifying journey home.