Time marches on, but nostalgia lingers on. That truism wuz revealed to me last week when ol’ Nevah and I drove to southeast Kansas — Moran, Bronson and LaHarpe — on a personal history trip to see some of the rural homes of our youth.
First we drove south from LaHarpe and drove by ol’ Nevah’s former rural home. It’s still occupied and is well cared for, but the old milk barn where she and her sisters milked the family’s Brown Swiss cows is no longer there. Nevah lived there through her stint at the Bethel one-room schoolhouse, through high school, two years at the Allen County Community College, until we got married in 1964.
From there, we drove east to where my parents moved to my first rural home 3 12 miles south of Bronson on the Bourbon County side of the Bourbon County/Allen County line. The family moved there from Kansas City. I wuz only three years old but my first memory wuz as a wide-eyed tot seeing the wide expanse of yard and barnyard. First impression? What a big yard and where’s the people!
We lived on that rented farm for nearly 8 years and many of my fondest childhood memories occurred there. Down through the years, I’ve driven past the place out of curiosity and there wuz always someone living there. But this trip wuz a bit of a nostalgic shocker. There wuz no more home, no more barns, no more machine shed or coal shed, no more stave upright silo, no more fences/corrals and few signs that there had ever been a farmstead there. Instead, there were the still smoldering ashes from where the current owner had burned the surrounding pasture, which burned through the old home site.
In March of my fifth grade year at the South Fairview one-room schoolhouse (which we drove by and it’s still standing in a dilapidated state) our family had to relocate to another rented rural homestead three miles from the first home. I knew from previous drive-bys that all the improvements at that site were gone.
When we drove by this time, the only sign of former human life wuz the old storm cellar. I recalled nostalgically that me and all my mom’s extended family watched fireworks on July 4 while sitting on top of that old storm cellar.
After driving through the countryside a few miles, we drove by another farmstead that the family rented during my 8th grade. All the improvements on that place were gone, too, but a nice newer home is now occupying the site.
What people forget about time and change is that even familiar landscapes change significantly, mainly from age and abandonment of buildings, and from the growth or removal of trees. Trees keep growing and change the look of the countryside. You don’t notice it unless you visit a locale infrequently.
Although sort of sad, it wuz still a nice trip down Nostalgia Lane for us.
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We’ve had ample signs that spring is just around the corner. The birds that have arrived for the summer are the robins, blue birds, mockingbirds, and meadowlarks. The red-tailed hawks have paired off. The killdeers and the purple martins are expected any day. I still need to request help from a young neighbor to help me get my purple martin houses back up before the scouts arrive.
The migrating Canada geese have headed north, with only the lingering resident geese paired off and getting ready to nest soon. There’s also a few year-round ducks in the area and on my pond.
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During the nice weather this week, I got my gardening started — planted radishes, lettuce, and snow peas. Plus, I got all my elevated garden beds tilled for the first time.
Also, got clovers and alfalfa overseeded in my chicken/wildlife food plots. It wuz so dry last fall that I kept that seed in the bag. I also tilled under the sorghum stalks from last summer and planted a mix of spring grains and legumes in them. It’s still dry as popcorn, but the forecast is for a good possibility of rain for the next five days. So, I took the “farmer plunge” and planted.
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It’s been years — decades, really — since I had a toothache. Well, I can’t say that anymore. One of my molars started aching two days ago, so today, I went to my dentist, ol’ Dr. Polk N. Prodd. He doesn’t think the tooth is infected, so he’s trying to save it with modern tooth maintenance and antibiotics. If that doesn’t work — it’s bye-gone for that 78-year old tooth.
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It’s been a long winter, so I’ve had the time to read a lot of important books about work, careers, economics and life in general. I’d like to share my reading list, just in case you’re interested.
• “The Cat’s Revenge,” by Claude Hands
• “Success in the Seed Business,” by Kleenan Baggitt
• “Success in Dairying,” by T. T. Puller
• “Keys to Efficient Bovine Artificial Insemination,” by Dr. Armin Cider
• “The Bankrupt Sheep Shearer,” by Nick deHyde
• “Outdated Energy,” by Phil Tanks
• “It’s All in the Cards,” by A. C. Deucy
• “My Feet in Clay,” by Myris Snipedown.
• “Old-Fashioned Child Discipline,” by Dr. Spanky D. Heine
• “Hard Knocks: The Life of a Rodeo Cowboy,” by Buck Ed Hoff
• “A Farmer’s Guide to Bankruptcy,” by M. T. Pockettes
• “Differences in Boys and Girls,” by Dr. Janet Talia
• “The Most Successful Birth Control Method,” by Dr. Nevah Givinn
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My words of wisdom for the week: “You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think about you, if you realized how little they did.” Have a good ‘un.
