Even the mud puddles are different here in Coloradol

It rained the other night and I have to confess, it scared hell out of me.  Seems like when I was a tot back in Kansas, rain was more frequent and softer.  In Colorado, it seems to be either feast or famine, so to speak.  We lived about a mile from Bull Creek and it always had water in it, but when we got a good rain the little Bull Creek became a raging torrent and overflowed it's banks and came up the highway clear past the sand pit and almost to our corner.  I remember wading up the highway and the crawdads scooting away from me.  The scoot backwards, you know.

Strong Street was dirt.  Well, all the streets were dirt in that area.  Mostly the dirt was soft, but when it rained it would have puddles standing on it.  (Having a little problem here with proper English.  Do the puddles stand IN the road or ON the road?  Since they were on the road that sounds right, but since the actually were a part of the road they could be in the road.)  You choose.

Any way, after a rain the puddles were there and the sun shone brightly on them.  Now I am sure some of the water seeped into the earth, but it took a while and I remember seeing pollywog's swimming in the water, but it could have been mosquito larvae.  Who knows.  There is something so primal about wading in a mud puddle, that it defies description.  To feel the cool mud ooze between my toes was second only to walking on dried mud.

I do know that eventually the water was gone and the sun beating down on the puddle would cause the silty dirt to dry and crack.  The cracks would the curl on the edges and separate.  If I could be really patient, the sun would continue drying and then I was left with a big dried out patch of curled up mud.  The happiest memories are in the remembering, and I can still close my eyes and recall walking very slowly across the dried up mud in my bare feet.  The fragile mud curls made only a tiny crackle and I would walk slowly back and forth to be sure I mashed them all.  I have not had an experience like that since I left Nickerson.

Mud in Nickerson was also good for making mud pies.  The mud held together because parts of the road had clay.  My best friend, Barbara had a brother who nicknamed me "Mud Pie" and that name stuck until we went to high school.  Just happened to remember that.

The reason I am thinking of this is after our rains, there is a place in my driveway that water stands in for a short time.  I was looking at that yesterday, and the quality of the mud is not the same as Nickerson.  And for some reason, I do not see it making the curls like Nickerson mud made.  I suppose there is more gravel in my driveway.  Nickerson was sandy, hence the Sand Hill Plum Jelly that the Amish make and sell.

So as I start my day today, I will put on my shoes and socks and not even look at that puddle over there.  Some things can only continue in our memories and the days of sand and shovels and mud pies are over and are best left in the far recesses of my mind where I can use them as my safe place when life becomes too tedious and I need to escape.

Some things will always be the same.

I lay in bed awhile this morning thinking of something from long ago.  The road in front of the Strong Street house was dirt.  Actually all the roads in Nickerson except Highway 96 and 56th Street (the back road to Hutchinson) were all dirt.  Well, the county road to Sterling and 3 blocks that made up Main Street were paved.  I think they were originally brick, but who knows.  Back to Strong Street.

It was the silty stuff and I can still feel it on my bare feet.  In the summer it was very warm, but the sidewalk was hot, so the sandy dirt was much preferred.  I should explain that the sidewalk of which I speak was a block away over beside the highway.  It was a 2 block long sidewalk that ran from the Fein house, along an empty field and then the block in front of Mr. Kings house, a rental house and then in front of the house where some crazy lady lived that we never saw and she may or may not have actually lived there.  The side walk on that block was pretty cracked and had chunks missing.  So if we were lucky enough to snag a pair of skates we could only skate on the first block.

Three things come to  my mind from the above paragraph.  First, Mr. King (and that may or may not be his actual name, but it works for me this morning.) is the one who slept face down in his garden one day all day long until a black hearse took him away.  Second is the matter of snagging skates.  My friend Barbara had skates and sometimes she would let me borrow a pair to skate home from her house which was in town and where I visited sometimes.  There was always the stipulation that I not skate in the dirt and I not lose the "key".

For those of you who do not know about old time skates, I will update you.  They were made of 2 steel platforms with two steel wheels in front and two wheels in back.  The body was held together with a nut which required a "key" to tighten and loosen.  Loosen the nut and slide the platforms either apart to make them bigger or together to make them smaller.  The front had clamps which were loosened and then adjusted for the tight fit needed to hold the front of the skate on your shoe.  The back had a strap for you ankle.  If everything was not tightly fitted your skate could come off and down you went with your tender flesh skidding along the rough side walk.  Ah, but when everything was perfect the feel of the wind on your face and arms as you sped along at 3 MPH was worth all the risks!  The best way to stop was to steer off into the dirt and that worked every time.

click here to see a pair

The last thing that comes to my mind from that paragraph is that the corner of the sidewalk that was by the Fein house had several steps that brought you up from the highway to the sidewalk.  It was on those steps that my brother brought the news to me that Hank Williams had died in the back seat of his limousine on his way to do a show in Nashville.  He was so young and we could not believe it.  People did not die for no reason, but there it was.  How very sad we were that day.  WSM had announced it.  WSM was the Grand Old Opry station.  I wonder if it still is?  I may turn the radio on some Saturday night and see.  That is if I can find the radio and if I know which button it is.

But what I really started out to tell you this morning, is how clearly I can feel the sandy dirt on my feet from all those years ago.  I used to like to wiggle my toes into a pile of it where it had blown up along side the road.  It felt silky and warm and made me happy.  But when it would rain and there would be puddles, that was fun too.  If the puddles stayed several days there would be little things in the water that looked like tiny dots with a tail.  I soon learned that those were pollywogs, which would turn into toads or frogs in just a couple days if the mud puddle did not try up and we did not step on them.  They were pretty damn fast, so stepping on them was really not an option.

Ah, but the best part was when the puddle dried up if we did not disturb it, there would be a whole new thrill.  If left alone the sun would dry the mud and the top layer would curl up.  When that happened I could step barefooted on the dry mud and feel it crackle under my feet.  That was a whole new feeling and if Jake got to the puddle first he did it and that used to piss me off so bad!  Sometimes he would save it for me and that made my whole childhood worth while.  I do not know the last time I actually stepped on dry mud.

Funny the things we think about in the middle of the night when the world is asleep and we are all alone.  Guess that is why God gave us a memory.  It keeps me grounded.