The time is past but the awful smell of ‘Honey' is still here! Honey, awful smell, How can that be you say. ‘They’ still try to call that awful smell ‘honey’ but you cannot fool Murph the Crab. Murph has smelled it, swam in it, and felt it.
The time is the late thirties, forties, and early fifties and the place, the rolling hills of southwest Pennsylvania and there in the mist of a valley stands Montor number one. This small coal mining village has two railroads. One railroad is in front, the Wallbash, and the other on one side, the Montor Line. There are also two creeks, a small creek running in front and one on the same side as the Montor Line. On the other side stands the slate dump and the sulfur pollutes the creek that runs in front. (Point of interest: When heated and in time slate turns red and is called ‘redog’ and used for roads.)
The smell! The houses are lined up in a row up the hill and referred to as the ‘patch’ and behind each of these small houses stands the place to deposit the ‘honey.' They are all two seaters with paper works, the newspaper for Pap and the Montgomery Wards catalog for the little ones. Those slick pages can be ‘hell’!!
Then on a bright spring morning there comes the pungent smell of honey and you know that the Honey Dippers are at work. With their long poles they dip the honey into the truck. Mom says, “its nice to get the honey out of the outhouse." Honey, who is she trying to fool? Murph knows what that is! So they are still trying to call that smell honey, but Murph (Berp) the Crab knows the truth.
The swim! The summer is short but hot and we must find a place to swim. The creek in front has a few wide deep places but the sulfur is just unbearable it has it’s own smell and taste. We try above the slate dump but the stream is too small that far upstream plus we can not get permission to build at the only place possible to build. So let’s go down stream and build at the ‘Camel Hump’ where the creek on the Montor side meets the sulfur polluted creek. Maybe the sulfur will be deluded and we get our tools and manpower and build a dam. The manpower, Slim, Pickle, PeWee, Piggy, Murph (Berp) the Crap, Fish, Minnow, Muzzy, Dum Dum, Frankie, Stan the man, and Raymond. It works and we swim and swim for a couple of years until one of the gang goes skinny dipping off the Camel Hump. Now the hump is a one lane bridge (hump) over the sulpur puluted creek and the incident causes someone to break the dam.
Montour lines come to the rescue and build a dam upstream on their land to refill the water tank for the Steam engines. Lo and behold permission to swim and we swim for years. Then comes the day they break the dam and start using another source of water. The manpower is out and we rebuild. Heaven again until one day this honey comes floating by, someone has an indoor house and are dumping in the stream. But we continue to swim until Minnow loses his false teeth and Mr. T breaks the dam. So Murph knows the fill of honey.
They are still trying to say HONEY but Murph the Crab knows the difference. Don’t piss down my back and tell me it is raining outside.
