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[I Remember Index]

     I Googled Lopez, Pennsylvania in and came up with this most interesting web site.  I enjoyed so much looking at the pictures, reading the history and most of all, reading the "I Remember" section.  I used to live (for about a year) in Lopez, and don't remember as many details as I would like, including a lot of names.  I was stationed at the Air Force Station a few miles from Lopez, and I lived in a large house on the main street as you started up a hill.  When I came into town that day back in 1957, the first place I stopped was at Dyer's.  I needed some gas (19 cents per gallon).  I asked him if there were any furnished places in town to rent and he directed me to the people who were overseeing the house next to the Vanderpools.  As I remember, it was right across the street from Chesoni's.  I clicked on the one color shot you have of Lopez and showed it to my wife.  She said that it looked like something out of a storybook.  We had a very large back yard (going all the way back to the next street).  We lived next door to a couple named Dick & Julia Vanderpool.  Julia's mother, Mrs. Gulick, lived with them.  I remember Mrs. Gulick making delicious home made bread, and sometimes filled with cottage cheese, pineapple or something else.  When I was reading the "I Remember" section, I was especially taken by an article written by a "Katherine Gulick" and she mentioned "Julia".  I wonder if this could be the same Julia that we lived next door to.  They had 2 boys and a girl at the time (this was in 1957) and I think one of the boy's was named Ricky, and the girl's name was Debbie.  I remember going on leave one time and Julia told me: "you had better remember to lock your spring house" (in the back yard) or it will be empty when you get back. I forgot, and sure enough it was empty when we got back.  It took 3 or 4 days to fill back up.  I remember Dick killing a deer and telling me that it was mine, and put it in his freezer in his cellar.  They were such very nice people, and I loved the time I spent in Lopez.  I had not heard anything from the Vanderpools since Julia sent us an announcement of her daughter (I think her name is Barbara) was born.  It has been a long time and we don't always remember things like we thought they were.  I remember the spring water piped along side of the roadways.  I remember the blueberries I had growing in my back yard (& the mess the birds made of my car when I left it parked outside).  I remember how simple life was in that long ago wonderland.  My wife was sitting in the front porch swing with my daughter who was about 17 months or so, and it was during the homecoming days, and some man came up on the porch and took my daughter from my wife's arms and took off with her.  He spoke no English and my wife nearly went berserk. Mrs. Gulick came running out and talked to the man, he returned my daughter to my wife, and Mrs. Gulick told my wife that he meant no harm, he just wanted her to come down to the homecoming which, if memory serves correctly, was at the fire station, and he was going to carry my daughter for her.  One other thing: When I lived there, I took a picture I think on the way to Towanda, but I'm not sure.  It was of a group of  young evergreens spelling out 1948.  Are they still there, or does that ring a bell?  I guess what intrigued me most about the photo section is the fact that most of them were from 1955 and I was there in 57, so probably little had changed.  On one of the shots of the parade coming down the hill, I could see my front yard, but not the house.  I thank God that my health is good, and I still think my memory is pretty sharp. (If you ask my wife, you'd get a different story.) I had a lot of slides, and a lot of them included Lopez, that I accidentally left when I moved from there.  I never did recover them. There were over 100.  I will add your site to my favorites so I can keep up with things.   It is so nice to remember, and to have found a place to actually write to someone who lives there.  I will always remember Lopez with fondness.  I now live in one of the Chicago Suburbs.  I have lived here for nearly 50 years.  

 Jim Thompson

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