It used to be a more user friendly world.

Back in Nickerson in the late 1940's life was so simple.  We did not lock our doors.  Oh, we could lock them, we just did not.  We had a key called a skeleton key.  Our key fit every other lock on every other door in town.  The lock was not so much to keep anyone out as it was to keep the door from blowing open while we were gone.  Do not think we were gone very often, because we were not.  Nor was anyone else, so the "key to the front door" was more a symbol of status then actually meaning anything.  If, perchance , the key was misplaced one could simply go to the local hardware store and purchase another one for just a few cents.  I do not know at what point in time someone came up with the idea to have a lock with a special key, but it was some time after life on Strong Street.

Another thing that was in every yard was a pump for water.  Ours was a "pitcher pump" which held its prime which meant we did not have to pour water in it to get it started.  There were 2 things that were always located on the nearest fence post and those were a can of water just in case the pump did lose it's prime and  a tin cup.  The tin cup was for drinking the water that came from the pump.  If we were playing and got thirsty, we simply went to the nearest pump and got a drink from the pump.  It was the neighborly thing to do and back in the day the house that did not let you drink from their pump was avoided at any cost.  Water was free and everyone was a neighbor.  Oh, there were a few houses that had dogs and sometimes the dogs were not so friendly, but usually the lady of the house would holler at the dog and then you could get a drink and be on your way.  I do know that the water that was pumped up from deep in the earth was so sweet and cool that it must have been the elixir of the Gods. 

I did not know about hoboes growing up, but I had heard of such things from my brother, Jake.  He was friends with a man who lived down on the Arkansas River when we were on the Stroh place.  Seems his name was Blackie Joe or something like that.  He worked with silver and turquoise and sold his wares around town.  Mother did not like Jake hanging out with anyone who lived on the river, but Jake was always one to sneak off and not tell her where he went.  I saw Blackie on the bridge once and he was scary.  His clothes were black and his face was very weathered.  I did not get close!  He was not on the river in the winter and Jake said he "went south" and that he had family down south.

When I started high school I had to walk down main street to school and then back up main street to go home.  The railroad tracks ran right through the middle of town and sometimes the trains would block the way.  This was back in the early 1950's and the box car doors were open and we could see  the men "riding the rails."  Mother always cautioned  us about these men and I was scared to death of them, but secretly I sometimes thought how much fun that might be to just go where ever the train took me.

Another thing that mother was always adamant about was the eating business.  We had a big round oak table.  Of course I think that is all that anyone had back then.  If we were eating, we were eating at the table.  Homework was done at the table.  Sometimes she would make us hot chocolate and that was drunk at the table.  On Sundays we sometimes went to Plevna to Great Grandma's house and had fried chicken dinner at her big round table.  She lived with my grandma Haas who had a stroke and could not walk without a walker.  I lived with them my freshman year of high school until grandma died and great grandma moved to Coldwater.  That was the best year of my whole life.

Well, I am rambling.  The cat is rolling a marble around my feet.  It is 4:00 AM and the rest of the world is asleep.  And yet here I set, thinking of how my mother would come to my house and set at my big round oak table and reminisce of the time all decisions were made at the table and how the table symbolizes the center of the home.  She was right. 

Course, my momma was always right!  RIP my sweet mother. 

See this?  This is the new hydrant I installed early in the spring.  The old one quit working completely .  So we dug down, took out the old one and installed the new one.  Worked perfectly until day before yesterday when the pump went south.  

So now, if I want to water I have to hook a hose onto this spigot on the side of the house.  Not thinking that is going to happen with that spider web down there.  I am scared spitless of spiders so I must decide if I want to spen $500+ to fix the well or touch that web!  Oh, wait a minute.  

What is this just inches from the web?  It is a hornet nest.  Damn the luck.

The choice is becoming very clear.  I am going to call the pump man.  He will come and have me running very quickly and the spider web will be a moot point as will the hornet nest after I spray it in the morning...Live sure does get tedious here on the Mesa on my little acre.  The quiet nights and lazy days are what it is all about after all.

I sometimes think I should sell this place and move into town.  Then I go to town and I hurry home to my little piece of  heaven.  It is secluded and people can not even find the house  when I give them detailed directions.  So here I will stay all by myself until they carry me out feet first. 

Spider webs, hornets, weeds, snakes, centipedes be damned

OMG!! I can see the rocks on the bottom!

So you know how you get when the world is more than you can handle and it looks like the time  (to quote yogi bear) to "Exit, stage right!"  Friday after work I made good my escape to the high country and partook of just a tad bit of hiking in the warm sunshine of the Salida, Buena Vista, Coaldale area.  I also was shown a part of Buena Vista that I did not know existed, the Water Park.  This is an area built on and along the river.

This is the Collegiate Peaks.

This is the hiking area.  Avalanche Trailhead.  That sounds a bit ominous, doesn't it?

It proved to be beautiful and not really cold.  I had to hop over a couple babbling brooks, but what are friends for if not to help me?

And the trees are showing new growth.  If Winter comes, can spring be far behind?

So then to the River Park.

And across the bridge and look down at that water and see the rocks in the bottom!  I can see through the water and there is no sludge or moss or cans and botttles and other litter.  What happened!

So I took a little stroll up the mountain on the other side and there is my car, way down there.  It looks like a Hot Wheels car.  Mine is the tiny one in the middle.

And speaking of tiny, look at those little people below me.  I am Queen of the mountain!

So, back to earth and back across the bridge.  There I met two lovely ladies who asked me to take thier picture.  So I did and then took one for me!  They are from Denver and Kathleen is a Spritual Conselor and Tracy's grandma lives in Pueblo.  Of course, I lost thier card.  Not really lost, just lost to me at the moment, but it will turn up.  In the meantime, you should know that it is chance encounters like this that make my life worth living.  It is so great to meet friendly people when miles from home and exchange a few words with them.  Sorta like ships passing in the night, only it is day!  Thanks, girls!

And then it was time to head back down the mountain to life in the big city of Pueblo.  Time to put the geese away, pet the dogs and cat, eat a bowl of cereal and go to be to dream of what a wonderful Valentine Day this was.  If you want to see the full video ( and it is very long and I put classical music to it), just click here.

The Outhouse seems to be a thing of the past!

I fell to reminiscing today with a fellow and how we got on the subject of outhouses escapes me.  We did seem to be of the consensus that we did like the fact that they now seem to be a thing of the past that will not be repeated in today's world.  For those of you who do not know what an outhouse is, let me tell you.
Way back in the days before indoor plumbing the restroom "facilities" were located in a small building out back which was perched over a deep open hole in the ground.  Inside the building was a raised plank which had one hole cut in it and you can just imagine what went on in there. Some of these were constructed to be very sturdy and actually had hooks on the inside of the door to keep intruders out while you did your business.
Ours usually had a Sears & Roebuck catalog on the floor and that was what became known as "toilet paper."  Now, I am here to tell you that I much preferred the old catalogs that were printed on cheap paper as opposed to the newer ones with colored pictures.  Colored picture are slick, in case you wondered.  My brother could often be found gazing at the section where the women were modeling bra's and such.  That was his idea of pornography.  It was my idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up.  No, not a model, but a woman with those bumps on her chest.
I did not ever spend much time in that little "outhouse" as I lived in mortal terror of many things in that building.  The first was that I could be attacked by a giant spider and I had seen black widows out there so I could only guess where they were lurking when I was at my most vulnerable.  The second was that you can imagine how fragrant the whole mess was.  And thirdly, there was always the possibility that the floor could collapse and I could plunge into that mess and die a very untimely death.
This trip was always made its most horrific by the setting of the sun.  I would wait until right before the sun went down to make my last trip out.  I have heard that motto of the mailman about how neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night shall stay the faithful mailman from his rounds.  I adopted the same as my mantra for my last call of the night.  It was always a good thing to have a full moon.  Course then I had to worry about vampires and werewolves.  And snow.  No one ever seemed to shovel a path "out back."  At our house, nobody ever shoveled a path anywhere.  Just put on your old buckle up galoshes and hit the trail.
Why am I telling you all this?  Because it is the truth and the truth is often brutal.  Outhouses were a way of life back then and I remember my joy when we moved to Hutchinson when I was 16 and we had an honest to God bathroom with running water and a flushing toilet, and all of it was inside with a door that closed and a lock that kept people on the other side of the door.
And a stove that was powered by gas that came into the house through a pipe from the street.  Lights were turned on by a switch on the wall.  I was amazed to find that other people had these things for a long time and took them for granted.  Hutchinson even had parks where we could play instead of playing in the cemetery.
Don't know what brought all this to my memory tonight, but just wanted to share it with you.

Ten years and holding....

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of my late husbands passing.  While acceptance is a given, it is still a date that is marked and called an "anniversary".  Suffice it to say I still miss him, but years have changed the sharp cutting pain to a dull ache of every day existence.  I am just thankful every day that I had the time with him and know that it was a special relationship that can never be duplicated, nor should I try.  I am the product of all my past experiences and I thank God for that!
That being said, I laid awake late last night thinking of things and it seemed that my mind wandered back to Nickerson, Kansas.  I think in my last post on Nickerson, we had just moved to 709 Strong Street which was the house my father bought on an acre of ground.  Might have been 2 acres or 3.  No way of knowing now.  It had a front and back porch and a root cellar.  Now that root cellar was some place I would not have gone for love nor money.   It was just a hole in the ground with steps chopped into the dirt and a wooden door.   It was accessible from the back porch and more dirt was piled on top of it so it appeared to be fairly stable.  Mother said if a tornado came we were to run down there and close the door behind us.  I am here to tell you that not a way in hell was that going to happen in my life time!
Ever seen one of those things?  There are spiders down there that have teeth and crawly things that could stop your heart just by looking at you.  When I exited the back door I always ran across the front of the opening in case some of those things had decided to march on us.  Tornado?  I laugh at danger, but not the creepy things.  To this day I can go into convulsions thinking about that root cellar.
Mother raised rabbits and other fowl, so chicken poop between our toes was a given rather than an exception.  We had the one pair of shoes when school started in the fall and by spring we were grown out of them and since we were not going any where we did not need shoes.  One day I spotted a chicken that had apparently swallowed something that had a string attached to it.  I suspect it was a button.  I tried to catch it and pull it out, but the chicken was having none of that! 
We had a sink in the kitchen that drained through a pipe that ran through the wall and emptied in the back yard.  Mother had Muscovy ducks and that was their favorite place to gather.  Now that was a nasty mess and had the health department (had there been one back in those times) ever ventured by I fully expect there would have been some prison sentences handed out to our parents for child abuse!
But what I was thinking about mostly last night was a big cactus that was in our front yard.  Lord that thing had needles on it over an inch long and sharp as a mother-in-law's tongue!  All we had to do was walk past that thing and somebody was going to have to dig the sticker out.  What we really liked to do that was the most fun, was try to throw each other into the heart of the cactus.  The simple act of trying got our little fannies warmed good.  Mother had no sense of humor at all on that.  And dad was never home because...who knows.
And we had a mulberry tree that was the really good kind that produced black mulberries.  Those were fun to walk barefooted on because in the summer they were cool.  Not very good to eat unless you picked them at the precise moment when they were at the peak of sweetness.  If you went 3 seconds past then they were rotten.
And the currant bushes!  There was another fruit that had to be eaten right as soon as it turned black.  A second before and they puckered you up and a second after and they were worthless.  Birds liked them.    Course the cats liked birds and the bushes were low so picking was easy for the cats.  And we learned the cycle of life up close and personal more than once.  That coupled with the fact that my dad still farmed with horses and they were getting very old and dying made us rather callous to death.  I remember when a horse would die, someone called the "dead animal wagon" so they could be taken to the glue factory.  A man showed up with a big wagon that had a winch on it.  This was pulled out and secured around the neck of the hapless horse and a motor rolled the cable in and the horse ended up unceremoniously on the top of the heap of dead animals.  Sometimes their feet ended up sticking out over the top and that was rather sad.  These were animals who had once been very vibrant and dad usually kept their tails braided and tied with a ribbon.  I think about that a lot as my road gets shorter, but only in a fleeting moment and never with any great sadness.
And so I bid Nickerson adieu for the day.  I will be back.  There are a lot of memories there of things that will never be again and can not ever be forgotten.  Until then I am recalling something that goes "May the road rise to meet you and may the wind always be at your back!"  God only knows where that came from.