Tome's Lane, York County. Summer 1978
Next to the house where I grew up on Mt Pisgah Road, York County, PA was a long, sloping gravel lane. This was the access road to the Tome farm. Interestingly, it was actually on our property with an "easement". I came to know later in life that the original entry to that farm went to Schmuck Road (much closer to the farm house!). For some reason, prior to the Tomes buying the place, the owners made a longer entry road (up a hill!) to Mt Pisgah Road. I believe the parcel my house sat on was deeded to a child of a previous farm owner. That piece of land was purchased by the Abels and later subdivided to become a little cluster of three homes on Mt Pisgah Road (which included Tome's Lane).
In winters when it snowed that road BEGGED us to sled on it, but the very "unreasonable" Roy Tome for some reason did not want us transforming the sole entry to his property into a sheet of ice. ha! We did manage to have great toboggan rides on our property parallel to the lane in the winter. Those are some of my fondest memories from growing up there.
At the bottom of the hill, before the long flat stretch to the farm there was a gate to the left and a sloping path up toward the right. The path to the right lead to a huge, old apple tree (one of the original "witness tree" boundary markers) and the Lukas farm. When I was too young to walk on the road, I would walk down Tome's Lane and up to the old apple tree and continue on to the Lukas house where I met my childhood friend Joe.
To the left at the bottom of the hill on the lane was the gate to "the meadow" and "the stream" where Joe Lukas, Dennis Tome (it was his farm), Neal Abel (my neighbor), and I used to spend a lot of time messing around. In simpler (and far more silent) days, somebody's Mom would come and yell for them to come home and our fun would end for that day. A lot of good memories surround that little stream and our excursions down there. At one point there was a dam and a pond right down by the farm house. but that cement dam wall was literally broken in half by Hurricane Agnes. Luckily, the original log cabin that stood above it was spared.
When the minibike craze came, Roy Tome let us ride the flat section of his lane back and forth endlessly (no one was afraid of being sued). I remember whizzing along with the meadow below and the fields of corn above. It was, for a kid, the ultimate thrill. I honestly don't see how riding something akin to a lawnmower engine on two wheels back and forth endlessly was enjoyable - but it was and we did it for HOURS.
Now Joe is gone and so is Neal. Dennis ended up building his dream home in an upper corner of the meadow overlooking the stream where we all played. That old apple tree finally rotted and fell down. Innocent memories, however, persist.
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