[The route. The dark blue line. Disregard the time notation. Source: Google Maps.]

“I remember it was up hill all the way.”

~~ Lenny Schmidt

“There is a cow outside of our tent.”

~~ Patrick Egan

Oh, the exuberance of youth! The innocence of the young! The pure and wild wind in our hair and the open road before us!

This is the story of three boys, who, on the very threshold of their teenage years, undertook a daunting expedition into the vast unknown regions of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Read on, dear followers, and when you are finished, close your eyes and recall the adventures, large and small, that you yourself undertook when you were young–and full of spirit and brimming with a courage that no one could take away from you. Only a hand full of people outside of the beat generation had heard of Jack Kerouac, but, having re-read On The Road recently, he was us and we were him. The call of the open road, a new adventure around every corner. I still have that wanderlust. Lenny does too. It was, in some small way, a defining moment in our childhood. A rite of passage? Coming of age? A step closer to manhood?

Speaking for myself, the answer would be a resounding YES to all of that.

I remember how it started, or at least how I think it started. The date was sometime in early April, 1960…

Our back porch at 420 Front St. was often a place where my friends would gather and make plans about the immediate future.

“What do you wanna do today, Lenny?”

“I dunno, Pat. How about you Pete?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. What about you guys?”

After an hour or two of trading ideas, someone suggested that we might take a bike trip during the upcoming Spring break.

“How about my grandma’s house in Pennsylvania,” said Pat.

That pretty much closed the case. We all agreed that it was a doable undertaking. I knew the route well because we (the Egan family) made frequent trips to visit my grandma and grandpa’s house in Lake Winola, not too far from Scranton.

So we had a plan. an adventure was calling us, and we needed to make a list. I love lists. I remember typing it out on my mother’s Smith & Corona. There is a copy of that buried in my files, somewhere. It read, if my memory is accurate, something like this:

TENT-SLEEPING BAGS-EXTRA SHIRTS-FLASHLIGHTS-FOOD-MATCHES-HATS

And all this was supposed to be tied onto our bikes, somehow. I don’t have to remind my readers that in 1960, kids like us didn’t have Trek 21-speed touring bikes with pannier bags and iPhone mounts. No GPS screens to guide us. I had an Esso Oil Co. Pennsylvania road map stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans. No, we didn’t have any of these devices, back in the day. But we had Schwinn bikes. The go-to vehicle for all kids in the 1950s. The tires were wide and the handlebars were strong. And the plastic tassels that hung from the hand grips were totally without equal, to us.

We packed our camping stuff, greased and oiled our Schwinn’s, and set a date. Now here is where an attempt is made to tell you the story of our trip, but there are problems. As far as I know, none of us kept journals/diaries, (I know I didn’t) making a reconstruction of these events a little dicey. I mean it has been (if my head math is accurate) about sixty-five years since Pete Gillette, Lenny Schmidt and Patrick Egan stood beside bikes and said our farewells.

Part 1- The first day…

{All the directions and route numbers are taken from recent maps. Much has changed over the years.}

There was no Southern Tier Expressway in those days so we crossed the Susquehanna over the Court Street Bridge and headed east on the old Route 17 toward Apalachin. There we picked up Route 41 and peddled south, passing South Apalachin and Little Meadows, PA. At the state line, the route changed to PA 858. About five miles into PA, we came to a junction. I’m unclear about whether we continued on through Friendsville and onto Turrell Corners, or simply stayed on 858 to a junction near Rushville. In either case, we picked up PA 267. (I’m thinking we did the latter). At some point we stopped to eat the (probably) egg salad sandwiches someones mother had prepared and packed. With no Poland Springs, we carried Army Surplus canteens, in Olive Drab canvas, attached to our belts or slung over our necks. Our fluid intake was supplemented, I’m sure, by the occasional Pepsi. The weather was on our side because in the few surviving photos, I see no heavy coats, just regular hoodies, without any brands or rock band logos.

[Lenny Schmidt stands at the PA/NY state line. Photo is mine.]

I am looking at a PA state topographic map (DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer). I trace the 858 route with my finger and see that it mainly follows valleys, along streams and pastures. That’s why I don’t recollect any problems with hills until the final push to Grandma’s house.

[Peter Gillette (R) and Leonard Schmidt at a Pennsylvania state line marker. Note the bike in the left background. Photo is mine.]

Part 2- Later that same day…

I’m thinking. How far did we go that first day? I’ve racked my hippocampus while preparing this post and I simply cannot retrieve any memory of camping more than one night. One would think that I would remember something like that, but no. So, again, how far did we go? When did we lose our youthful energy, that was boundless then, and look for a place to pitch our tent?

I contacted Lenny to confirm certain details about the trip (and to inform him that I was finally going to do justice to what we did). These days, he divides his time between Owego and Leesburg, Florida. He recalled some things and I recalled some and most of the time, we agreed. We both had the ‘big picture’, but spans of time, however one measures it, often lead to lapses in remembering the little picture.

This much I do remember:

We made it to Meshoppen. I just checked MapQuest and found that that would be a 45.1 mile first day. The tiny icon of a tiny person on a tiny bicycle at the edge of the map informed me that that distance would take 4.0 hours. I think that’s an accurate figure. We started in Owego in mid-morning, we took numerous rest stops for photos and a long lunch break. That 4.0 hour time was not our reality. We had bikes with one speed. You didn’t read that wrong. One speed! And the brakes? That required one to push down on the back foot. Hard. 15 years later, I came to own a 12-speed Gitane that actually had brake pads. On many rides on that Gitane, I often would cruise along and ask myself: Did I really ride for two days on a Schwinn?

But I digress.

Meshoppen. I think there was an ice cream cone stop on our schedule. Maybe not. But probably.

It was approaching dinner time when we pulled out of that little village and the geography changed abruptly. We were now on route 6. And there was a hill facing us. A big hill. Time to look for a place to camp. We spotted a pasture just off the road on the left. Cows and a small pond. I knocked on the door of what looked like the house of the farmer who owned the pasture across the road.

“Mister, do you mind if we camp down by the pond tonight?”

He looked at me, then Lenny and Pete and then squinted as he looked toward his pond. He looked back at me and said:

“Just don’t bother the cows, son. Hear me?”

“We won’t.”

We dragged our bikes over a fence and through the pasture, avoiding the curious brown piles that we didn’t see before. We were not big city kids, like those guys from Binghamton or Endicott. No, we were Owego’s best. We knew what those brown piles in the pasture were. And we stayed clear.

We pitched a small two person ‘pup’ tent. Built a small fire and heated up a big can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I may be wrong about that dinner but if it wasn’t Dinty Moore, it was something very similar.

[The only known photograph of the campsite just outside of Meshoppen. The angle of the bright sunlight indicates to me that it is the morning of the second day. Pete on the right and just behind the tent rope, is Lenny. Is that a box of cereal? Is that a price tag on the tent? Where are the cows? Photo is mine.]

Part 3- The second and final day…

There we were, fresh and fed after a night in a pasture with cows mooing all around us. Back on the bikes, we were faced with a long uphill slog that took us to Tunkhannock. From there, it was across a small creek and along the Susquehanna until Osterhout. Then another five miles, uphill again, but we didn’t worry. We caught sight of Lake Winola through the trees. Half way around the lake was a large white three story house. Waiting inside that house was my grandmother, Mary Hotchko and her husband, George. Actually, grandpa was likely in his garden tending to his grafted apple trees and potato mounds.

While we waited for my parents to come down from Owego to retrieve us, we had the best chicken soup on the planet. I know because my grandma made it, and it had been simmering for at least two days.

This was not a Dinty Moore meal.

Part 4- The aftermath…

One sweet afternoon in Owego, NY, in mid-April, a few weeks following the return of our heroic travelers, a 12-year old boy walked down Front St and turned right on Lake St. He was nervous because he didn’t know how he would be received by the secretary at the front desk of the Owego Gazette. But he had a story to tell. A few minutes later, he was sitting at the desk of the editor (or one of the reporters) and told him a tale of how three local boys peddled their bikes 60+ miles into Pennsylvania to grandmas house.

I was very uncertain about what would happen next. I didn’t have to wait long, a few days later, this hit the newsstands:

[The article, in part. I had a copy of this for decades but was unable to find it for this post. Thanks to Jen Chapman of the Tioga County Historical Society for locating this in the archives.]

That’s the story, dear readers, of how, at least in 1960, adventure still did call to us in our youth. Not so long ago, I read about a 16-year old boy who sailed alone around the world. Very impressive for sure. But for me and my friends, it was totally awesome. We do things when we are young. Sometimes crazy things, silly things, and sometimes unsafe things. Most of these events are forgotten to make way for new experiences, new undertakings. But, certain memories etch themselves, indelibly, into our souls. For me, this was one of those tiny bits of life that will stay with me.

Once again, speaking only for myself, I realize that we only covered a few dozen miles. Not a lot when you stop and think about it. But, on another level, we did travel a long distance. Much longer than a mere map will inform you. We looked and acted the same when we got back to Owego, but we weren’t the same.

Not totally.

Sadly, of the three of us that rode off that spring day, only Lenny and I are left to tell the story. Pete Gillette, so much of a friend to us, passed away in the last few years.

This is for you, Pete, and for all those who follow the call…

[Photo source: Google search.]