09/01/2022
Last night, on the eve of September, thoughts of Fall filled my mind...brisk weather, campfires, leaves, Halloween, ghosts…and this evening, in particular….skeletons. I had come to the river planning to shoot the sunset, but the construction at the site of the old Riverview Inn got me thinking about skeletons of the past…so I walked a little South…down to the abandoned site of the NJ terminus of the old Pennsville-New Castle Ferry. There, I found the real story I wanted to tell. The pier pilings still stand…reminders of a much different time, when motorists traveling between Baltimore and New York relied on US Route 40 to make the journey. This was before the Delaware Memorial Bridge graced our skyline, and well before Eisenhower signed the legislation that would lead to our modern interstate system. Instead, motorists boated across the Delaware. Boats ran 24 hours–day and night–taking cars and their occupants from shore to shore. Now, we have eight lanes of highway to make the journey…without even stopping…well, in theory. But, with the endless construction on our modern twin span bridge, I found myself thinking…”which method of travel is actually faster?” I’m still wondering. But, as the sun sank further toward the horizon last night, I noticed gulls flying in…one by one…and perching on the old pilings…looking out to the New Castle skyline. I guess they were waiting to see the sunset…just like all the townsfolk that line the river’s edge in the park every evening. But in some weird Fall kind of way, they seemed like ghosts from the past…waiting on the next Ferry.
