First Snow Of The Season

Wissahicken Creek 12-4-2005



December 4th, 2005 brings us the first snow of the season and with this first snow brings memories of other past winters that were filled with the visions of children sledding, fireplaces crackling and men shoveling. One such man was my grandfather who at the age of seventy thought he should be shoveling the sidewalks of those ten or twenty years younger because he thought those neighbors were "too old to do it". This morning when I awoke to the season's first snow on the ground and to the excitement of a four year old (at 5am) who could not wait to play in it, I could not help but remember when I was the grandchild and someone else was the grandparent.

Not much has changed here in this small Wissahickon neighborhood in the last hundred years. Most of the houses here have been built well before 1939. The park can still be accessed by walking down the historical Hundred Steps which lead to the same tree covered grounds and trails. The creek is still filled with the native catfish and the waters still run over the falls that drain into the Schuylkill river below. You can almost imagine the days when this neighborhood had carriage houses instead of garages and horses instead of cars. The same streets I walk on with my four year old grandson are the same streets my grandfather and probably his grandfather walked on with their grandchildren.

I remember the days in my early childhood when grandpop would gather up his fishing rod and pail, take a blanket and off we would go before the light of dawn down to the Wissahickon to fish in the creek. As grandpop set up his rod, I found myself a comfy spot nearby and wrapped the blanket around me and slept until well pass dawn as grandpop caught pails full of catfish.

I never was one to catch the fish. But I was one to play with the fish once caught. Grandpop was a true outdoor sportsman. If he was not hunting in the mountains for deer and bear, he was fishing in the creeks and rivers for fish. I spent many a childhood year cuddled upon his lap as he told stories of his adventures in the woods as he and Uncle Coll tracked deer and more then once mistakenly crossed the path of a unwanted bear.

Today as I walk in the shadow of one who has long been gone from this world I hold onto the hand of my grandchild, Shaun Patrick as we walk the same paths together that were walked forty years ago.

Shaun Patrick Zysk ( age 4) 12-4-2005