The Riverview Inn Bed and Breakfast, in Sunbury, PA, was built by Ira Thorne Clement--one of at least 3 Ira Thorne Clements in the Sunbury Clement lineage--and until I get better straightened out, I’m going to say that the I.T.C who built the home on Chestnut St. was something like my kids’ Great(x3)-Grandfather who had no clue how busy Highway 147, aka Front Street, would be in 2008. Still, it is interestingly situated with just 147 and a long, narrow park between the house and the Susquehanna River.
Like many such towns, Sunbury has found itself having very little to do with the 21st Century--most evident in the general under-maintained disposition that characterizes it nowadays.
A Christmas light display of skaters glowed cheerfully across the street from the window of the “Overlook Room” where Jeff and I were bunked. That the park’s holiday light displays turned off at 9 p.m. probably reflects the state of the economy.
Rachel supposes that the chocolatey odor which wafted from the first floor in the wee hours of the night (fondue, said Gabe; brownies, said Tracy,) signaled that the resident spirits recognized that kin were filling the house that night, and they were doing what they could to be hospitable.
I was pleased with the trip to inter the ashes of Jeff’s mom--short though it was--and found that I appreciate the richness of human settlements even in the grayness of late fall, and the dreariness of the economy. There is always something to take in.
I wondered if my children felt any sort of connection to the place. The cemetery was quite replete with Clement markers of impressive size, and there they were, Clements every one. I feel such a connection in the hills of SW Virginia, but they did not make frequent forays up the Susquehanna in their childhood, and that may be the key.
1 comment:
i felt connected to it... i especially liked that the ghosts baked brownies. that was my favorite part. and that ira t. clement built the house, and that pop-pop grew up nearby, and granny... and the grave markers. i dunno whether i feel the same way about it as you do in SW virginie since i've never been you in sw va. but the answer to that question is yes, i do.
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