Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Remember when I said, “If someone comes into your life and you are led to say hello, it was meant to be.” Well that took place this morning Friday, April 28, 2000. I will tell you the events that lead to that meeting.

On Wednesday, I drove by our old first Nebraska home and I saw workers drilling a test well for the favored home of the new water well of Bloomington. I thought to myself, “I need to take a picture of that.”

This old farmstead, 1.5 miles straight north of Bloomington, was our home from 1971-1976. I have written about this place and reported the wonderful stories that were left behind by Joe Hill and his Civil War soldier / grandfather, Marvin Hill. After my morning walk, I stopped in Franklin at a local shop to buy a clothes rack. While in the house wares aisle I saw a man that I did not recognize. I went one way; he went the other. Then again we crossed paths. We both said, “Hello” and I added, “How are you?” He said, “Well we are drilling a well and we are having troubles with the machinery.” That’s all it took. I knew I had made contact with whom I was destined to meet. He is Brett Averett and he works for the drilling company called Layne Western out of Omaha. He told me when they get the rig fixed they will put down the casing and pump for 8 hours to see that everything runs properly and be out of our area, hopefully today. He was a nice man and very helpful when I told him I was going to write about this new well, since we used to live there. We talked on for a bit, but I was anxious to get out of the door to get my pictures while the day was early. I arrived at our old driveway and the sun was shining on the old barn and garage. The spring smell in the yard was as I remembered it some 28 years ago. I now know that the smell is catnip and as you crush it with your feet it gives a strong scent. Once again, I took 24 pictures of what some people might call “nothing,” but to our family, some day they will be precious. I went to the old, colorless and weathered-gray garage and took pictures both inside and out. Then before I walked out the south door I propped up one of the wide west garage doors as I do about one time every year to keep the elements out in order to preserve it for another year. Then I went to its north side and took a snapshot of the place where we kept the chickens and white rabbits. These tame rabbits had babies that sort of went back to being wild. They dug holes in the dirt of the floor and we couldn’t catch them. Right before we moved to our new home in 1976, one of the adult hares got away from us and we never did catch it. I could see it over on the hill to the northeast chasing the wild rabbits. I wonder if there are still white and gray rabbits in the holes over in the draw?

Next, I went to the barn that my three sons used to play in and got photos inside and out. I walked down to the pond to the east and got their place of childhood fun on film. Someday I will tell you the story of the raft and the words, “I think Pat is dead!” and of the stickers in my feet. As I turned and left the pond, I took another picture looking toward the back of the farm. And from that angle it looked as if nothing had changed and I felt I could just walk right up that hill and into that old house and back in time. I could almost hear the sounds that went with the walk: children laughing and maybe a disagreement or two between them, and chickens clucking up towards the barn. Our black poodle dog, Spook, would have been along at the pond, for he loved to hunt and didn’t know he was supposed to be a refined dog. Springtime sounds of tractors in the fields would have been heard and pickups on the dirt road in front of the house. When you live that close to the road, year in and year out, you get to know the sound of neighbor’s vehicles, i.e.: “There goes Frerichs, or Moores, or Robinsons.” By just the speed of the farmer I would know. “There goes Roy Moore or George Strangman.”

Guess what I found on the way up the hill? It was an intact basketball hoop homemade out of a steel rod. I know we had one on the old garage but I don’t remember what it looked like, So, next time the boys are home I will ask them. If it doesn’t look familiar to them, then it must be the one left behind by the Harvey Schriners who lived in the house after the Hills? Maybe Carol Schriner of Hastings will know the history of the hoop and the little boy who wanted one so bad that his dad took a steel rod and a piece of metal and welded it to such perfection that it is still around today and is rusty. I might say I stole this piece of metal, I put it in the back seat of my car and took it, because a few years ago I had found the old cistern cover under the dirt out by the garage, so I leaned it up by the worn wall of that building while I asked the owner of the property, Max Robinson if I could have it. Before I could get back to get it. Some one took it and was I unhappy. I had lifted that old cistern lid so many times to check if I had enough water to run the water or fill Duane’s spray tank. I was always in trouble for not running the windmill to fill the cistern. So, if I ever see that old iron cover I will know immediately for its covered with hundreds of my fingerprints.

Back in the yard, where I heard the Jenny Wren singing for the first time this year, I took more photos of that drilling rig sitting right where our old house was. The well has been drilled right under our old kitchen floor where our pet raccoon used to live. Above that new well, in that now imaginary kitchen space, the spirit of love and happiness still occupy those unseen walls, and the memories of that lost time makes me realize new places and new time will never replace that era. In my heart and soul those were the best five years of my life.

Remember when I said I would go back another day and get those peanut jars out of the cellar that I put down there in 1975 to save for chokecherry jelly? Well, it’s a lesson learned! If you ever intend on going back to any where for something like a used jar, go get it! For I will never go into that old cellar again, my jars of the past are covered with the dirt of that new well. But the dirt can’t cover the memories of that scary but comforting cellar. A hole in the ground is a good place to be when there is a storm brewing outside or when the temperature inside an uninsulated home is 100 degrees. I do hope this test well proves to be the cleanest and sweetest water ever for Bloomington. If it does our old farmhouse will be marked forever and this farmyard will not take the route of other pioneer homesteads. This way, we will always know where this simple kitchen was, that sheltered our family for five very short years. But, this new well will surely halt an ageing mother’s dream; of winning the lottery and rebuilding this old farm back exactly as remembered, for a summer home. Oh, well, dreams can be rid of wells-cant they?

If I knew it could be the last time that I’d see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly and pray the Lord, your soul to keep.
If I knew it would be the last time that I would see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss and call you back for one more.
Hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear,
That you love them and that you’ll always hold them dear. The Internet

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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