This is a true story which took place in the borough of South Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania beginning on Friday, October 19, 1973.
GEOGRAPHY & DEMOGRAPHY
South Williamsport is a small town across the Susquehanna River from Williamsport. The population was less than 6000 in 1973. You can look it up on Wikipedia. You might have heard of South Williamsport as being the home of Little League Baseball International and the Little League World Series that takes place each August. That's our claim to fame. Other than that we're a pretty laid back little town wedged between the river and the foot of a mountain. US Route 15 runs through going north bound as Hastings Street and southbound as Market Street. We're known for our spectacular view of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River Valley if you go south and up to the scenic overlook up the Montgomery Pike.
We don't all know each other well, but many of us do as generation after generation has grown up and stayed here. We've got our local haunts and hang-outs for the young and old alike. The Hum-Dinger drive-in and Humpty Dumpty Sub Shop are a couple of our favorite restaurants. Our grocery store was the SuperDuper back then, I think there was a Curchoe's too. Barr's Hardware on Southern Avenue has been here seems like forever.
Some of us go to church at St. Lawrence Church and the Catholic kids go to school there on West Central Avenue just down the street from my parents' house. Most of us went to public school though, home of the South Williamsport Area Mounties, royal blue and white. There's Noll's Funeral Home at the corner of Hastings and West Central. And there Poole's Sunoco further south on Hastings Street, just after you round the bend coming off the Pike.
Every October we have our own version of the Mummer's Parade, its not like the one in Philly; this one is just whoever wants to get dressed up for Halloween goes in the parade. It was held at night back then.
Down along the River to the east, there's the Sylvan Dell Road, which sort of follows the River a ways and comes out further south on the old Pike. There's a couple of oil tank farms down there and some farm land, cornfields and the like.
There's a Google Map that I've marked with all of the places mentioned in the account of what happened, so if you're not familiar with South Side, you can look at the map.
Now that you've got the lay of the land, I'll continue with the real story…come on and Meet the Players.
