warm summer night, one on which the hot August wind had whimpered into a refreshingly cool evening breeze 45 minutes before sunset, just like it’ s supposed to. I debated partaking in conversation with the locals on a barstool at the Pastime against sunset over Mirror Lake, and decided the locals would still be there after dark, so I set out to walk around the lake, something I hadn’ t done in many years.
I crossed the railroad tracks and wandered into Mirror Lake Park, then headed west to see the improvements made in the years since I last walked this path. The trail led to a suspension bridge over the west end of Hiddenwood Creek where the creek entered Mirror Lake, backed up behind a railroad dam
built early in the century to provide water for the trains’ steam engines, snug up against the town’ s south side.
On summer mornings when I was a boy we rode our bikes down Main Street, casting rod across the handlebars and a soup can full of freshly dug worms from the garden dangling just above the front tire.
The walking bridge, built long after I’ d left home, works, but I’ m not sure how it survives. In my day, it would have been vandalized every Halloween and fixed the following spring, I’ m certain. After crossing the bridge, I continued along a path that eventually led to the road on the south side of the lake, the road that heads back east to the dam and the spillway.
Halfway down the
road, just below what used to be Tank place, before Floyd Chalcraft built his house on the hill and they renamed the whole area the
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