Welcome my friends. Welcome to beautiful Taylorsville, right in the heart of the Delaware Valley. We are surrounded by rolling hills and farmland. Little towns are scattered around and hide in the woods. I 95 is north of us, Route 1 south and on our east side you will find The Delaware.

It’s a comfortable, cozy little town. Currently we have about 2000 citizens but we are growing. Some locals don’t like it that they are developing the area around Route 1 to attract commuters who work in either New York or Philadelphia. But hey, you can’t stop progress.

Me ? I don’t care. I have seen too many changes in my life to be bothered by it. I was born in a time where nobody ever heard about computers or the internet. In my days a phone was for the rich. I remember we went to neighbors to watch TV and it seemed like magic to me.

I am born and raised in this area, never felt the need to leave like others did. And why would I ? Look around and see for yourself. In the spring and summer time the hills are covered with trees creating a patchwork blanket of all sorts of green, yellow and red. The Delaware swirls between them and used to be our biggest source of entertainment. We would fish every day catching carp, stripers, suckers, trout and bass or we would take our boats and sail to one of the little islands.

The best thing to do was to take your lady up there. She would be sun bathing and you would be catching a few fish and grill them over an open fire. You would eat them together and talk about all kinds of little things and when the sun began to set you would snuggle up to each other staring in the bonfire and then maybe…. Just maybe you would get lucky.

But now-a-days… Now-a-days they text each other and hang around one of the malls. I never go to that Oxford Valley Mall. Too big for me and I can get anything I want right here in Taylorsville.

See that old water mill over there ? It’s not working anymore but Thomson Creek still runs alongside of it. It’s now a bakery, Elli’s Bakery Boutique. Elli makes sure that her goods are freshly baked every day. I go there every morning to get a cup of coffee and a muffin and I dare to say she has the best muffins in Pennsylvania. That little corner is our own little mall.

Next to it you find Shoprite and next to that Wells Fargo. On the other side of the parking lot we have CVS and The Taylorsville Grill, a small restaurant. We have a Rita’s, a pizza shop and many other little shops and of course we have The Drunken Sailor.

The Sailor, as we call it, is the local bar. We only have one so you can imagine how busy it can get. Alex took over that bar about 15 years ago, first he did everything but now he has a bunch of bartenders that takes care of the customers.

Some say, but I must admit that it is just a rumor, but some say that one of the bartenders takes care of her customers a little bit too much. You know what I mean, right ?

Amanda is the bartender that I’m talking about, a single girl…. working in a bar…. meeting guys all the time…. you get the idea, right ?

Yes we are a town like any other town and, and like in any other town we have some crazy stories going round. Miss Jenkins for instance our sixty year old librarian. I remember when she was a little kid, the cutest girl you ever saw. She would be playing with the other kids, her tails dangling on her head and she was pretty smart as well.

She ran from home in the late sixties and I heard she went to New York. Not sure how long she has been away, twenty years or so ? I’m not sure but when she came back, she came back with a daughter and no husband. We were not shocked or anything, but soon after she returned some stories started to buzz about how she got that beautiful girl. Lisa, Miss Jenkins first name, did the smart thing and ignored all of the stories and slowly they faded.

You came her on I 95 right ? New york side or Philly side ? Jersey side, o.k. When you left I 95 you made a huge turn, almost a 360, that took you on Taylorsville Road. If you would have looked to your left a bit you would have seen a big carpool parking lot hidden behind the trees.

Stories say, and again it might be just rumors, that this parking lot is NOT only used for carpooling.

They say that some folks meet each other there and you can imagine why they meet on a dark parking lot where no one can say you, right ?

If you would have taken an exit earlier, you would have passed that parking lot going north. There’s a traffic light up there and sometimes you can see two cars coming in, not at the same time of course. But they come in, park next to each other and if you’re lucky you see one person hopping from one car to another. Not sure what they do next, but I’ve got a few ideas about that. Anyways, later you can see that person hop back to his car again and both take off with the appropriate delay.

Now we are speaking about that traffic light, if you turn left there it take you on Woodside Road. The road swirls up the hills and you vanish in the woods, after two miles you can turn left on Mansion Hilltop Road. That road is a dead end road and at the end you will find a house, locally known as “The Mansion”

The original house was already there when I was born but the owners abandoned it in the sixties. Slowly it changed from a beautiful mansion into a desolated ruin. They tried to sell it, owh they tried it for sure. But who buys a mansion that you first need to take down ? no one in their right mind, right ?

It might be the best spot in Lower Bucks though. It’s on top of a hill and looks down on Taylorsville. Almost like that mansion is looking out for us… guarding us… protecting us. It’s set on 400 acres of land and like I said, it slowly fell apart until some guy bought the whole lot in the nineties.

We were all surprised, the guy came out of nowhere, bought the mansion, tore it down and began to rebuild it. Frank, the guy’s name is Frank.

They say he comes from the west-coast, they say he made a fortune with computer stuff but if you ask others then they might have different stories. Whatever it may be, Frank is a nice guy and we don’t consider him an outsider anymore and that might be his biggest accomplishment. You might think he is some flashy guy, waving his money around but he doesn’t. Owh he sure spends it, don’t get me wrong but it seems he is spending it on Taylorsville itself.

He saved the girls soccer team with his money, he boosted up Miss Jenkins library and I even heard he helped out our high school with generous donations. But still…. there is something about this guy…. something that doesn’t add up.

Frank is now in his forties and still single. I don’t care, live and let live I always say. But the thing that bothers me is that there are NO stories buzzing through Taylorsville. Isn’t that weird ?

You would suspect some juicy gossip about Frank and one of the single ladies who are attracted by his money. You would suspect some rumors about Frank dating someone and that it all blows up with all the possible drama. You would suspect some kind of talk about the guy but there is none…. none what-so-freaking-ever.

I talked to Rachel, she is our local post officer, but she can’t tell anything. I talked to Tom, but nothing. Tom worked at The Mansion for months so he should know if there is something going on. Tom is a landscaper, a true artist and he re-did the gardens which took him six months to do.

There must be something going on, there has to be. Frank has a butler and a maid. I know the maid, Debby. She works there seven days a week. She is now in her third marriage and has three kids, all equally divided over her husbands. She keeps her mouth shut but it wouldn’t surprise me if she does more in that Mansion then just cleaning, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

I am ashamed to admit it but once I started a small rumor. It’s bad isn’t it ? A minor thing, just to see how people would react. People refused to listen, they even defended him and the story vanished before it even started.

It’s strange isn’t it ? Sometimes I get this creepy feeling that everyone knows what is going on and that, for some reason, everyone keeps their mouth shut. Awh well, I am too old to be really bothered by it. Eventually time will tell , it always does, it’s just a matter of time before someone starts talking…..