Remembering Wormleysburg, the half-horse town that I called home.

"It's just as if some restless wind blew their dreams away far away
It's just as if those dreams had never been but oh-
I feel their ghosts around me now- I hear them say
They've come back home to dream those dreams again"
Kansas-"Ghosts"

From 1981 to 1994, I made my home with my mom and dad in Wormleysburg, Pennsylvania.


It's motto was "A Capital Reflection", as it is right across the river from the capital city of Harrisburg. This town, although pleasant enough, was not a reflection of the capital. In 1994, the population was 2,643. Today, it is a little over 3,000. To me, it is the strangest town ever.

Keystone marker for Wormleysburg, PA

There is no Main Street, no downtown area, no real industry or economy to speak of. Not many businesses call Wormleysburg home. Only two churches exist in the town. Growing up, I went to service in both of them, and my parents were married in St. Paul's United Methodist Church on Front Street in 1972. Both churches were, and probably still are, quite blah. I think that is why I disliked religion so much until my conversion in my late 20's.


Despite it being a suburban borough in a well-to-do county, Wormleysburg was not idyllic. It still isn't. Even little Wormleysburg had it's street kids, ones who dominated certain neighborhoods and you did not pass through them if you were not accepted. Sometimes I got on well with them, other times I did not. I was beaten up my fair share of times. Honestly, I don't think I ever won a fight in my old neighborhood. Nowadays though, I could hold my own as the scruples I had as a child are gone.


When I return to my old neighborhood, I can drive my car through it in what appears to be only a few minutes. Yet, when I was a child, riding my bike up and down the streets, it seemed huge. As I drive up and down Second Street, the street I used to live on, I still expect to see the same street urchins in the lower end of town playing basketball or street hockey in the court down near the borough hall, police station, and fire house. I know now, that most of them have probably moved on and away. There is really no future to be had in that small town.

North Front Street, Wormleysburg, PA

Yet, I still feel the ghosts and hear the voices from my earlier days.


My old home, in the 200 block of North Second Street, is still there, albeit painted beige as opposed to the blue color it was when my parents and I lived there. A large pine tree, one of the largest in the town, used to be there in the backyard. Now, it is gone. I mourn it's loss, as it truly was the tallest tree I had ever seen. I could see it from the second floor window of my aunt's house, which was a good 3 blocks away in the 400 block of North Second.


For some strange reason, I want to stop at my old home, knock on the door, and pleasantly greet the occupants and tell them I used to live there, so I can see what has become of my old home, and see my old room. I want to feel those innocent memories again. Is that strange, or is it normal?


I feel tears well up in my eyes when I think about the house that used to be next to mine. My first childhood friend lived there, whom I still keep in touch with. Memories, both good and bad, are ones I associate with my house and her house, and the yards that were in back of our homes. Happy memories and painful ones. Yet, to all of the memories, I look back with a smile on my face. Now, there is only an empty lot where that home used to stand. I don't know why it was torn down to this day. Yet, I mourn it's loss. It was my best friend's home.


My best friends growing up...I don't talk about them much. I don't really feel the need to. I don't think I could re-establish a regular relationship with any of them. Other than my neighbor/my first and best friend, whom I love like a long lost sister, I don't even really give much thought to them. The body is not the only thing that grows and changes. The mind also grows, and when the last things you have to talk about are tackle football games you used to play, you aren't going to have much to build on. So, I do not mourn the loss of the friendship of my other friends from the neighborhood. Yet, I look forward to a re-union with my neighbor/best friend, because we have lots of things to talk about, both good and bad, and respective families to meet. I have a wife and daughter, and my friend has a family of her own.

Railroad bridge over the Lemoyne Bottleneck that I used to walk over

I also miss another friend terribly to be honest. We became best buds growing up through high school and spent lots of time together, mostly playing and watching football, playing video games, and going to sporting events. I also became good friends with his wife-to-be. I figured if anyone would become a friend into my adult years, it was him. Yet, we lost contact with each other, and even though we went to a Washington Redskins game in 2006 and I received a call from him about a mutual friend who died a few years later, we lost contact. I wish him and his family the best and pray that God watch over them. Hopefully time or social media will help us reunite one day.


Then, there was another person I was friends with. I took a liking to him because he had a great sense of humor and did lots of things that made people upset with him. I saw in him the defiant personality I wish I was growing up. He ended up becoming my worst influence and someone whom I do not miss. Thanks to him, I got in trouble with my parents a lot, became a thief and a vandal, and took part in many misadventures. He was a manipulator, who was good at holding things over your head and forcing you to their will. In fact, his friendship is prime territory for a discussion with my therapist tonight. We haven't spoken in about 24 years, and to be honest, I have been trying to repress the memory of knowing this cancerous personality for just as long. The only prayer I have for him is that he has changed his ways and made a better person of himself. Other than that, I wish we never would have met.


When I also think of Wormleysburg, I think of the times I've left my blood on those streets. Be it through a fall on the bicycle or being hit by a rock thrown at me, I've left some on the asphalt there. I have been beaten up many times on those streets. To this day, I could walk you to exact places where I was beaten up and tell you who did it. I can even remember the last time it happened, by a wooden fence behind the old convenience store on North Front Street towards West Fairview. That fence is still there, and looking over towards it when I drive past it makes horrible memories flood up.

John Wormley house. My home was two blocks behind it.

I smell the dirt on my face and the grass on my jeans from the football games in the yard. I feel the rain on my face and the sound of the raindrops hitting my yellow raincoat and rolling off my shoulders during the walk to the bus stop on my first day of school. I hear the wheels on my old Schwinn bicycle turn and the gravel shoot from the tires as I would pedal my heart out while riding my bike on another adventure. I feel the aches on my body from the time I was attacked with apples. I see the blood red stain on my shirt from when someone punched me in the nose. I taste the great hamburgers my dad made on our backyard grill. I see the boat we used to have on the trailer in the backyard. I see my first neighbor/first friend for the first time, coming out of her side door. I feel the pain in my skull when someone slammed my head into the sidewalk once while I they were giving me a pounding. I remember hearing the trains on the railroad tracks behind the house and how that would help me sleep at night. I remember many walks on those tracks on summer days. I remember taking the train tracks home to hide from people who wanted to tease me and use me as a punching bag. I even remember two fights I got into on the tracks, and I time I wish to forget that involved the railroad tracks, my manipulative "friend", and stolen baseball cards. I remember riding my bike to City Island to sneak into Harrisburg Senators baseball games, and a time when a bunch of bullies chased me off the island and back home. I never went to the ballpark alone for a while after that.


On days where there is a cold chill in the air, my mind often turns towards my old hometown. There are many bad memories, but also many good ones that I try to wrap myself up in when times get cold. I want to return to the empty lot that was my first friend's home with my wife, daughter, and my first neighbor/friend and her family, so we can talk about the good and bad times.


Wormleysburg. You weren't much. You still aren't. Yet, you were my home.