THE DEEPS: Becky Yunkun of Laurel, Md., remembers Fathom Deep as
“the place my brother Dan Close and his friends ruled during their
growing-up years! They would play pick-up baseball at Hobson Place
Field and then get on their bikes and head to Fathom Deep to cool
off. No girls allowed!”
She adds, “I remember when they would come riding back on their
bikes they would have their towels wrapped on their heads like
turbans! I remember his buddies Carl Ferro, Ricky Wareham, Bob and
Steve Longnecker riding back with him from the Deep!”
“The memories of this always remind me of the movie Stand by Me.
What a great era to be a kid. Bradford was definitely a great place
to grow up!”
We also heard from David Caldwell of Bradford: “I was reading
in RTS about Fathom Deep and/or Maple Deep. As a teen-ager I
remember swimming many times at a place called Maple Deep which was
in the creek very close to and behind where the Lions Club is off
West Washington.”
OIL NOTES: Another cautionary tale for young people re-learning
the hazards of the oilfield. Judi Robinson writes, “When I was
quite young and was living in East Bradford and there were wells
off Euclid Avenue, one of my girl friends tried to hook up an oil
pump and she lost her thumb.”
Speaking of the oil patch Gus Gocella thanks Bob Slike, who
recently wrote about an oil well being “shot” behind the Derrick
City School.
Gus tells us the story “brings back my days in the oilfields. I
wasn’t around during the ‘shooting’ days but remember the stories I
used to hear around the potbelly stove at the old Oilwell Supply
Store.”
Meanwhile, we again encourage old oilmen to jot down a few
memories and send them along to us. Bob, too, said he’d like to
hear from other who, like him, “have Bradford crude circulating in
our veins!”
Bob puts his nostalgia eloquently: “Would like to go back in
time for a day or two visiting the rigs and watching the drilling
operation, hearing the big timbers under the rig creak and groan
when the tools were being lifted and lowered by the walking beam
and breathe in the smells of the rig and just listening to the old
Buffalo engines as they did their job.”
