Writer, actress and singer Colette Funches at Lake Emilie in McKeesport.

Photograph by Jennifer McCalla

When we were asked to think of a favorite spot or place that we like to go to or want to go to – I thought of the duck pond known as Lake Emile in McKeesport in Renzie Park. The park itself is a community treasure. It has a wading pool, baseball field, the McKeesport Heritage Center, and the Lions Bandshell.  It offers spots to picnic, summer concerts, a rose garden and festivals. I love going there, especially during the summer.

People come there to sit near the small pond. There are two highways that join and cross in front of the pond.  Older people stand with fishing rod in hand while waiting for fish to bite. Fathers and mothers walk along with their children or sit along the pond, enjoying the summer weather.

The whole area is filled with tall, green pine trees which drop pinecones to the ground.  I really should pick up a few of them and take them home to make a Christmas wreath. Several busy squirrels with bushy tails bounce up and down across the grass and a cool breeze touches your face.

If you drive up Eden Park Boulevard, pass the Fire Station and turn right and you will see it. Then make a left turn and drive slowly down a gravely road into the park area.  The pond sits in the middle of many trees which offer both shade and a breeze to cool you off in the summer.

As you are driving in, you will see a picnic shelter made of wood with wooden tables and benches to sit on.   I love them!  It takes me back to another place and time.  I’m sure that if I had lived, oh, say back in the late 1860s, I would have had a little log cabin. Or as my great-grandmother would have called it, a shanty. There would have been a pile of wood, just outside the door, that I would have used to heat the kettle at the fireplace made of stone.

Why I would have cooked up a beef and potato stew with cabbage which my farm hand husband would have helped an old farmer carved up. A hefty side of beef, come straight from a cow grazing on his farmland.  We would have lived a ways down from his farm.  We are still there. Breathin’ free, even though now my old aunties died years ago, working the land as slaves for no pay.

Now I jus sits lookin’ out my door, hear chickens  squauwkin’ up a storm, and lookin’ at the little pond. My husband, Jobah,  well , he be  walkin’  back slowly from the pond to our hand built shanty with his homemade fishin’ pole – no fish,  jus the thought of one.

Our old horse, Cotton Ball with his outstretched belly, would be beating the horseflies off his back with his tail.  Then I’d get up from my rockin’ chair, walk outside and say hello to my onliest neighbor,  a mama duck, we named Lady Quack-Quack, prettiest,  shiny brown feathers on her back,  you ever did see,  and her five baby ducklings, waddlin’ along for an evening walk.

This was just a fantasy, I guess, cause in real life it’s about time for me to be on my way.  Reality beckons me home, so I wave good-bye to the ducks sitting there in the grass near the pond. I make my way back to the car, climb in, and soon I’m driving back down the gravely road, back to the modern day, well-paved highways, a real fire station, city noise and lots of traffic. 

You know, it’s nice to know that visiting a pond and just sitting near it, can make you transcend time – even—if only for a little while.

  - Colette Funches