Echo

The Swamp Road Chronicles^®

"Echo"

Dear Swamp Road Chronicles,

I have a mystery for you. I hope you can help solve it for me. I know that Swamp Road has many mysteries, but I have one that I doubt anyone else has reported to you.

When I was a little girl we lived in Hebron, but Daddy passed away and my mom remarried. Her new husband was a radio announcer and he had to move fairly often to work in larger markets for more money. We lived in 6 different states in 10 years.

Now, 20 years later, I have moved back to the town I love so well. I have many wonderful memories of my dad and myself in this area. One of my favorite memories involved an Echo on Swamp Road.

When I told Daddy about a book our teacher had read to us about echoes, he told me about an echo that he said "lived" on Swamp Road and he offered to take me there to hear it. There is a small bridge that is right in the middle of Pigeon Swamp (As I have learned it was called.), if you stand right in the middle of it and face east, the Echo will call back to you loudly and clearly. Mom, Dad, and I took turns calling out to the Echo and were delighted to hear it call back to us. It was great fun! We went there 3 or 4 times before he passed away, and I always enjoyed it. It is a precious memory to me.

My dad told me that the ancient Greeks believed that Echoes were living creatures that would call back to you whatever you called out to them. I asked him if it was true and he said that scientists said no, it was just the sound waves bouncing off of things like cliffs and returning to you. But, he also said that he rather enjoyed the idea that living Echoes might really exist in some rare, special places and, like mockingbirds, would please us with their voices. I can still see his smiling face and twinkling eyes as he said those things to me. I miss him so!

My mystery is this: I have returned to that bridge twice since I came back to Ohio, and I have called out to the Echo in exactly the same spot with no response. Nothing in the distant landscape has changed at all since I was a little girl, but the sound does not return! I honestly don't know what to think. I do wonder, could it be that there really was a living Echo and it has left or died? With no little girls calling out to it, did it leave?

This is a great disappointment to me. I cherished that Echo. Can you or your readers help?

(Editor's Note: If you, Dear Reader, have any insight into this situation, kindly email this editor and I will pass on to Emily any pertinent information. digbythesexton@gmail.com)

As submitted by Emily Doan 5-4-2023 Hebron, Ohio

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