When you said home it brought memories of the lake.
Lake Oscawanna was named by the American Indians, and translated, means the Lake of Eight Echoes. I never could count eight, but a shout from its shore would bounce between the hills the lake is nestl
(more)ed in and return sounding almost louder than when it was first shouted. Small tributaries brought water down from the natural springs in the surrounding hills. In spring the lake would swell, sometimes even overflowing into the backyards of the houses that lined its shores. My family bought one of these homes when I was seven years old.
The lake was filled with and surrounded by wildlife. A white crane stepped daintily through the shiny green lily pads. Dragonflies chased each other around the hanging boughs of the willow tree. Frogs chirped and bellowed in the shallow shadowed inlets. Turtles abounded, snappers and painted, and if you were lucky, you might find a baby the size of a quarter in the spring. Of course, there was the story of the giant snapper the size of a small automobile that could overturn a rowboat and bite a person clean in half. Can't say I ever saw one that monstrous, but if you watched the lake on a calm day, you could see the turtles coming up for air and I remember one head sticking up out of the water as big as a spade. And the fish. Plenty of striped bass and pike for the fishermen, and for the kids the common sunny, a small round fish caught with a piece of mouth-moistened bread on a hook, and who would nip at your heels if you stepped in their pebbled nests. The sun would heliograph off of...
Then you asked if I was still listening.(less)
