Susquehanna endangered

I've been feeling very nostalic about the Susquehanna, then I run across a report naming it as this year's #1 Endangered River by the conservation group, American Rivers.

Now that I think of it, I remember Monday mornings on the shore at Shady Nook, when masses of bubble scum came floating down the river in mid-morning. Grandma used to say it was the soap bubbles from everyone in Sunbury doing their Monday morning wash. I wonder if people in all the other little towns along the lower Susquehanna also did their laundry on Monday morning, spewing more and more foamy wash water into the stream until huge bubble islands eventually floated into the Chesapeake every Monday evening?

Skipping stones

On the way back home from my grandmother's funeral two years ago, we stopped at the Millersburg ferry crossing on the Susquehanna and skipped stones. There's an art to picking the right kind of stone--smooth, round, flat, not too small, not to heavy. And there's an art to skipping the stone--three, four, five clips in a wide arc before it slices beneath the surface. Of course, the North American Stone Skipping Association explains that it's also a science.

Summers on the river

I learned how to row a boat before I learned to ride a bike. When I think of growing up, I remember summers at my grandparents' cottage on the Susquehanna. I lived from summer to summer to be on the river. It was wide, dotted with islands, stone shallow in many places in the summer, with deeper green channels where barges used to run.

For many years, two paddle-wheel ferries crossed the Susquehanna at Millersburg--the Eagle and the Falcon. This crossing carried a Mennonite family.