Too Long in the Wind

April 2009

The golden door

[April 30]   Behind the golden door was the school shop, where boys learned to create with wood, metal, and car parts. Boys also had "health" class back there, safely away from girls' eyes and ears.

Halfway down the hallway on the right was the smaller locker room, and the main locker room was all the way down the hall and on the right.

All the way down on the left was an entrance to the gym. From there, if you kept walking toward the back of the school, you'd go through a door and have a choice of walking upstairs to the stage or downstairs to the music room.

But for many boys, the golden door was the only one that opened.

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Hunting geese at Cheyenne Bottoms

[April 29]   It's not everybody who has chased a wounded wild goose and also knows about motel real estate. Leon Miller of Dallas, however, is a guy who does:

I was visiting with my sister from Hays on the phone last night and she was telling me about a new "redevelopment" at Cheyenne Bottoms, where they've apparently put in a lot of money, i.e., visitors center, roads and upgraded facilities.

I still remember a time back in the '50s when Rod Quincy and I spent a Saturday out there hunting geese out there as it was the main flyway from Canada to the Gulf Coast. We were hunkered down in the marsh when suddenly there came a flock of Canadian Honkers who flew directly over us. To me they looked as big as boxcars. We both raised our guns and fired at them but I didn't hit anything. Rod wounded one, which we ran about a half mile before we caught up with it.

By the way, the Comfort Inn mentioned in Great Bend is maybe 100 or 200 yards off 10th street, facing a side street that gives access to the main street. Many chain motels locate their facilities back from the main thoroughfare and save thousands of dollars on site expenses. Land fronting on a main street could be 5 times the cost of that a few feet away. The company then puts up a big sign for the public to see when looking for a place to stay during the night.

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Water everywhere

[April 28]   A couple of years ago I made this photo from my room on the east side of the Days Inn in Great Bend. I had just driven in from McPherson while watching the storm come in from the west. It was the last time I enjoyed a gully washer.

Barton County has had several more toad stranglers since that August evening. One of them was this past week, when the storms came and spent the day and night.

Where I live now gets a lot of light rain and drizzle, with lightning and thunder once a summer but almost never a rain that makes me wonder whether the roof is strong enough. I do miss the heavy rains. I even miss the mud.

Pawnee Rock's forecast for the next three days: thunderstorms.

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Staying in Great Bend

[April 27]   Leon Miller of Dallas passes through Barton County every now and then. In answer to our search for good campgrounds and motels, he wrote:

"Last Memorial Day my family had a reunion in Pawnee Rock and Great Bend. We stayed at a new Comfort Inn in Great Bend which was just opening on West 10th Street. We were looking for a place to eat and ended up at Perkins Family Restaurant, also on West 10th Street. Althoug it wasn't a 5 star restaurant the food was edible. The most popular place in town that day appeared to be Applebee's, also on West 10th Street."

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A bright spot along the road

[April 27]   On a long straight road, amid sections sliced into 80-acre pieces, there was an earnest building aligned with the road. You see this a lot.

It was one of my favorite spots along the route between Pawnee Rock and Wichita: a white schoolhouse -- Class A Elementary School, read the painted-over sign above the door -- a little closer to Hutch than to Pawnee Rock. It sat on Fourth Street Road or on the east-west road that goes through Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, and there was a neatly cut yard.

Perhaps the building was also used as a church or a grange building; someone knows. Whatever its purpose, what impressed me most about the structure was its four-square attitude, which spoke of the township's practical residents.

And yet not everything was angled. On a pipe sticking straight out above the front steps was placed a circular lightshade, and under it was a bulb. Above the light was what may have once been a round window, perhaps a bit of stained glass or another emblem of prosperous times.

One evening I stopped to photograph the place. Now, as I look at my pictures, it seems that the shade and bulb struck me as the most interesting parts of the building. I had never seen the light turned on, but it stood ready for the evenings when the farmers gathered outside after their meeting and chatted under a cloud of moths and june bugs.

I suppose that there's a moral there, about how the unusual item is what catches our eye. Or maybe it's about how the shape of one object is illuminated by a differently shaped object. Or maybe it was just pleasing to see round things in a state drawn with a T-square.

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One spring day

[April 26]   Sometimes, things go well.

Yesterday, I took Sam to hike in a park we hadn't visited before. My wife, who was at a dog agility trial, called us to announce that she had found the F-150 pickup I had traded in four years ago and haven't seen since.

When we all got together back at home, Nik and I changed out my wife's winter tires and while we were doing that, I found a dust-caked but readable photocopy of a 1954 deed wedged into her front axle.

Later, sister Cheryl wrote from Emporia to describe the Wichita ceremony at which she received a first-place award for column writing. It made me feel good because just that morning I had mailed her birthday card and present.

My guess is that the arrival of full-blown spring is making things happen. I hope the day went splendidly for you too.

Road to recovery: Our friend Peg Britton of Ellsworth has been ill lately, but she reports that she is on the mend. Please send happy psychic energy her way.

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Looking for a campground

[April 25]   Dave from Austin, Texas, wrote yesterday looking for information:

"I wanted to know, is there was any overnight camping at the park? What, if any, are the park hours? I am coming from Austin, Texas and needed to know the parks rules and regulations before I head that way. Thank you for anything you can tell me."

I passed along the fact that there's no camping in the park, which is closed during the night.

Then I began to wonder:

• Where's the closest good campground?
• Which restaurant would you recommend to a traveler?
• Which motel would you recommend?

Send in your suggestions, and I'll post them.

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Hello, Ron Douglas

[April 24]   Ron Douglas, a fellow who grew up across the street from the old Grade School (the block surrounded by Santa Fe, Rock, Bismark, and Houck), writes from Arizona.

Perhaps you remember him or his sister Karen or brother Rusty. Ron says his mother, Frances, is very active at 94.

Ron is now listed in Friends of Pawnee Rock.

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PRHS alumni photos have a home

In 2006, the alumni photos were on the hallway wall in the former school building.

[April 22]   Months after the city sold the school building and the memorabilia was moved to storage in the present city hall, this cheerful news comes from Janice Schmidt:

Want to let all Pawnee Rockers and friends know that the Pawnee Rock Lions Club now has "custody" of the alumni pictures. They now hang on the wall at the Depot. However, we are missing years 1967-68-69-70-71-72. We would like to find them and put with the other pictures.

Community Coffee is second Saturday of each month. Come have coffee and look at the pictures.

Sound of old movies: Check out my sister's fine column, "The Sound of (Old) Music." (The photo was taken in our front yard.) It appeared this week in the Emporia Gazette.

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Life is what we grow up with

[April 21]   I swear. Kids today.

When I drove in to work yesterday morning, I noticed that the neighborhood volcano was erupting with a beautiful head of steam and ash, so I called my wife and urged her to take the boys out where they could see it.

When I got home, I asked what they thought of it. They hadn't gone around the corner to look at it, they said. They'd seen it before.

I guess they have. They're used to seeing things every day that we as kids in Pawnee Rock could hardly imagine -- skyscrapers, salt water, mountains, glaciers, moose, bears, birch trees, salmon, northern lights, ocean-going ships.

But you know what? My boys have never hidden from a tornado, admired lightning marching across the nighttime plains, or tried to count the million stars of the Milky Way, and they've never tracked a jackrabbit, pushed on the stinky end of a cow, scratched a poison ivy infection, dodged tumbleweeds, or waded across a warm and shallow river.

You and I have done all that. We're Kansans.

For us, an erupting volcano is icing on the cake.

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The Dutchman's son, William Werhahn

William Werhahn home, on a windy day in about 1912. These photos came from the "Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas."

[April 20]   William Werhahn's family moved to Barton County in about 1886, settling on a farm north of Pawnee Rock.

The following biography, from "Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas," was published in 1912 and lists "three interesting children" (Bertha Donovan, Hilda Peckham, and Louise Haxton) and four others (Martha Drehle, Erma Dyer, Selma Unruh, and William F. Werhahn) were born later. The last surviving child, Bill Werhahn, died in May 2008 at age 87.

William Werhahn

Farm home of William and Bertha Werhahn, about 1912.

Among the large planters and property owners of Barton County William Werhahn deservedly takes his place, and although not a native born Kansan he is so much a Barton County product that he remembers little prior to his boyhood here. He was born in the Province of Hanover, Germany, November 20th, 1875; came to America the spring of 1882 with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Christian Werhahn of Great Bend, and they settled first near Grinnell, Iowa, on a farm. They also lived in Pouche and Marshall counties, Iowa, for about four years, and then came to Kansas, settling permanently in Pawnee Rock township, Barton County.

William Werhahn was then but eleven years old. He attended the public schools of the district, chased rabbits, hunted game on the open prairie, broke bucking broncos and helped his father on the farm. His days were passed in the open and the Dutchman's son soon became a full fledged Kansas kid, with all his aims and desires.

It is not wonderful then that he was early bitten by the "land-grabbing" microbe, and soon determined to own and farm his share of the face of the earth. When married and settled he bought a quarter section from his father; later he bought one hundred and sixty acres from Peter Dirks, and still later he rented two hundred and eighty acres adjoining, and today farms a total of six hundred acres. During the time he also acquired by purchase three hundred and twenty acres near Greensburg, Kiowa County, and three hundred and twenty near Offerle. These two last named tracts are improved and rented, and his total holdings in fee are nine hundred and sixty acres of as fine land as there is in the state.

His residence is thirteen and one-half miles west of Great Bend, and the improvements are a two story white frame house, a 32x66x16 red frame barn, having stalls for eighteen horses and twenty cattle. Then there are other small buildings, sheds and numerous windmills, with a nice grove surrounding all.

William Werhahn and Miss Bertha Fleske, of Wausau, Wisconsin, were married on February 1st, 1905, and they have been blessed with three interesting children: Bertha, 6; Hilda, 4 and Martha, 3.

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It's good for the wheat

[April 19]    Pawnee Rock and southwestern Barton County got a nice bit of rain over the past week. The statistics from the Great Bend airport show that about 1.75 inches total fell over several days -- including the .63 that fell on Easter and moved the sunrise pageant indoors.

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More athletes identified

[April 18]    We're getting closer to identifying the girls on this Pawnee Rock track team. Susan Vondracek has a pretty good idea of who's who:

First row, left to right: Tina Bright, Konnie Welch, Robin Pinkerton, Gay Beth Bowman, Tammy Crone, Tonya Bright, Karen Navarro, Kay Pinkerton.

Second row: Coach Mike Simmons, Mandy Myers, Diana Smith, Cindy Mason, Jill Blake, Paula Stiles, Janet Wilson, ???, Tonya Crist, Teresa Unruh.

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Two track athletes identified

[April 17]    Linda Allen wrote earlier this week to identify a couple of the athletes in a photo of the girls track team that is now in the Gallery. She estimated the date of the photo at 1975 or 1976.

Here's what she wrote:

I saw the picture of the track team, and the girl, number 24, on the front row is my niece, Kay Pinkerton. The girl in the center of the front row looks like Karen Navarro.

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Working at the salt plant

Pawnee Rock salt plant, 1972

[April 16]   Brent Bowman, who grew up in Pawnee Rock and now is an architect in Manhattan, gained some experience in the salt plant.

Here's what he wrote in response to my questions about how the plant worked:

I worked in the Salt Plant over a summer during my college years and can share a little of what went on there. The salt was extracted from the ground by pumping water into the salt deposit and removing a brine solution from the ground. This brine was run through vertical evaporators (think 20' tall water heaters with tubes inside) to evaporate the water and leave the salt behind. The wet salt then went through a dryer (think 6' diameter horizontal pipe with gas burners on all sides and sledgehammers welded to pins on the sides so that as the giant pipe turned the hammers would bang against the side to loosen the clinging salt). This was hot and nasty and terribly loud. (Many workers suffered permanent hearing damage.)

The salt was then conveyed to a hopper and dropped in bags in predetermined amounts and the bags were sewn shut at the top by running them through a sewing machine and then they were caught at the back of the conveyor line and placed on pallets for warehousing and shipping.

It all seems a little draconian now, and was long before OHSA regulations were in place.

Salt plant contamination: Brenda Jones of Great Bend and Barb Schmidt of Seattle did some Internet research and came up with a page describing a Kansas Department of Health and Environment investigation of contamination around the Pawnee Rock salt plant.

The description notes that the plant was operated from 1958 to 1973.

In addition, Barb added a link to another photo of the plant and its sign. She wrote:

The link below is to a nice photo of the salt plant that shows the sign better than in my dad's photo (which, by the way, I now realize my dad probably took as a memento because he took it at just about the time he quit work at the salt plant in 1963 and got a "better" job at Marlette Mobile Homes in GB).

Kansas Geographical Survey photo of the salt plant

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Salt plant questions

[April 15]   Vance Houdyshell of Florida put me on the spot yesterday when he wrote to ask about the salt plant. I realized that I wasn't as sure of my answers as I expected to be.

So, I'd like people who know what went on at the salt plant to write a few sentences about it:

• How did the plant get the salt out of the ground?
• How deep was the salt?
• Did the waste water go into that pond east of the plant?
• What was the bagged salt used for?
• When did the plant open, and when did it close?
• How many people worked there?
• We heard banging from the plant. What was that all about?

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The Pawnee Salt Co., 1963

[April 14]   When Barb Schmidt sent this 1963 photo of the salt plant, I felt instantly that it was a treasure. It brings to mind the sound right away, and we see again the tanks and loading dock and of course the steam/smoke being guided away by the south wind. There's the burned patch in the ditch. Even the sign looks Pawnee Rockish, certainly more local than the uptight sign Cargill erected after buying the plant from David Mud and Chemical.

I asked Barb whether her dad, Paul Schmidt, had taken the photo. I already knew he was a shutterbug, but I learned a lot more.

Here's what Barb wrote:

Yes, my dad took this photo. Besides farming, he worked at the salt plant when it first opened and I think for a few years afterwards in the early 1960s. Our farm was just a mile to the west. Dad worked on the night shift a lot so that he could farm during the day.

I remember at night during the summertime lying with my pillow stuffed up against the screen of my bedroom window, listening to the night sounds. Not just the natural sounds like frogs and insects. But also the man-made sounds.

When the wind was from the south, the chug-a-chug-a-chug of the Santa Fe railroad down by the highway, traveling across the continent without stopping in our town, but sometimes blowing its haunting horn out of respect as it passed us by.

When the wind was from the east, the pounding of metal on metal at the salt plant as men worked all night, banging on pipes and pumps and boilers and all kinds of inventive contraptions.

Best of all was the sound of men's voices from the salt plant. I could never make out my dad's voice (after all, it was a mile away!), but there was something reassuring hearing those voices at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and knowing dad was there. He sure didn't get much sleep in those years, though.

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Easter pageant is held indoors

The view of Pawnee Rock about 7 a.m. on Easter. Jim Dye made this photo.

[April 13]   Jim Dye went to a lot of trouble to get the Easter pageant photos that are in the photo gallery.

He wrote that he walked up to the Rock for the sunrise service, believing that a little rain wouldn't stop Pawnee Rock's oldest living tradition. By the time he arrived back in town and went to the New Jerusalem Church, the pageant had already started.

Still, he produced quite a few photos -- including of the program -- to give us an idea of how the pageant progressed. If they're out of order, that's my fault.

Pawnee Rock got a good rain Sunday. I saw that the Great Bend airport got 63 hundredths, and the weather radar showed a lot more rainfall over our town. It was a beautiful spring day otherwise, with a steady 10 mph east wind at 7 a.m. and a temperature of 46 degrees -- and it didn't get any calmer or warmer all day.

There's a 50 percent of rain today.

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A summer poem

Wheat harvest, 1974, west of Pawnee Rock, with the salt plant in the background.

[April 12]   Here's a breath of summer wind, brought our way by Ray Randolph:

You asked for a poem, so I got out my book of poems, and herewith is one:

The Wheat Harvest

About this time in Kansas
The harvest is at its peak
Combines run long, long hours
And big trucks haul the wheat.

To the prairie skyscrapers
Standing white and tall
Overlooking the golden fields
And storing grain for all.

The field boss casts his eye aloft
Scanning sun and sky
Hoping that rain won't come
And watching daylight fly.

This field must be finished
They'll cut far into the night
There's more waiting across the road
The heavy heads are ripe.

And must be cut at proper time
To get the fullest yield
The plague of fire, hail, or rain
Can destroy it in the field.

The operation is fast but organized
Combines unload on the run
Sixteen-hour days bring fatigue
But finally, all is done.

When the last bushel is in the bin
And the end is indeed a fact
Then a tired but grateful crew
Can thank God and relax.

-- Ray A. Randolph
June 28, 1974

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Updated election results

[April 12]   The final results of the Pawnee Rock election identified one of the candidates who received write-in votes for mayor.

Tim Parret retained the seat with 31 votes (63.2 percent), and James Oberle was second with 15 write-in votes. In addition there were three other write-ins not identified by the Barton County Clerk's Office.

In addition, updated results were provided for the two city council members who ran, and who both retained their seats: Nicki Roof got 45 votes, and Gary Trotnic got 42 votes. There were four write-ins.

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LaWanda Hendricks dies

LaWanda Hendricks in 2006 with a copy of the Pawnee Rock News.

[April 11]   LaWanda Hendricks, who was the Pawnee Rock city clerk for many years and the mother of a busy family, died Thursday in Great Bend. She was 85 years old and less than a week short of her birthday.

LaWanda was born on the Mausolf farm west of Great Bend and went to school in the county seat. She was a secretary for Petroleum Inc. and a member of the New Jerusalem Church, the Ladies Service Alliance, and the Half Century Club. She married Tag Hendricks in 1970, and they moved to Great Bend in 2004. He survives her.

She had four sons: Randy Unruh of Hays, Lanny Unruh of Ness City, Doug Unruh of Texas, and Kevin Unruh of Great Bend; a daughter, Candy Conwell of Great Bend; and a stepson, Larry Hendricks of Topeka. She had a dozen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Her obituary doesn't mention the Pawnee Rock News, which I think she created. The newsletter, published by the Ministerial Alliance, has kept Pawnee Rock residents up to date for many years.

The funeral for LaWanda will be at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the New Jerusalem Church, with Bill Wolf and Vivian Bright officiating. She will be buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. (Obituary)

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Tobias McGill

Members of the McGill (including Tobias, Farilla, Elva, and Crandon McGill) and Youtsey families are buried in the southern center section of the Pawnee Rock Cemetery.

[April 10]   Some time ago I wrote a piece about George McGill, who lies in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery after a long career of public service that included being a Democratic senator from Kansas.

Here's a bit of history about his father, Civil War veteran Tobias McGill, and the rest of the family, which arrived in the area in 1884 and set up a home about a mile west of Dundee. This information comes from the "Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas," published in 1912. The photo is of the family farm, and the detail photo shows George McGill, about age 30, holding a bicycle.

Tobias McGill

Farm Home of Tobias McGill. From left to right: Geo. M'Gill, Crandon O. M'Gill, Mrs. M'Gill, Elva M'Gill, Tobias M'Gill

Tobias McGill was born November 9, 1837 in Bartholomew County, Indiana. He remained in his native state until 1858 when he went to Iowa and remained for twenty-six years. He then continued his way westward and arrived in Barton county in 1884. He bought land near Dundee, the quarter section formerly belonging to J. B. Williams, and later purchased another quarter from John Lile. Mr. McGill was actively engaged in farming until 1897 when he retired and moved to Great Bend. He still superintends the work on his farming land which is worked by renters.

Mr. McGill was married September 6, 1860, to Miss Farilla Youtsey near LaGrange, Iowa and they are the parents of nine children, six of whom are living. Hilas N. is farming in this county; Etta, is now Mrs. J. H. Harris of Great Bend; Charlotte is now Mrs. Sherman Mosbarger of Pawnee Rock; Crandon O., is now an attorney at law in Idaho where he also teaches school; Elva is at home and George is county attorney of Sedgwick county, Kansas, and lives in Wichita.

Mr. McGill is a veteran of the civil war and is a member of Pap Thomas Post G. A. R. He enlisted September 6, 1864, in Company G. Sixteenth Iowa, known as Crocker's Iowa Brigade. He served until the close of the war and was mustered out July 19, 1865. He was with Sherman's Army from Atlanta to the Sea and took part in the battles of Fayetteville, Bentonville and was present at the siege of Savannah. He saw much active service during the time of his enlistment.

Since coming to Barton county Mr. McGill has always taken a great interest in affairs of a public nature and held township and school board offices as well as having been assessor for his district and justice of the peace. He is one of the men who had so much to do with the development of the county's resources and saw it grow to its high standing among the counties of the state. He came here at a time that it required men of strong nerve to combat the adverse conditions with which they had to contend.

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A handful of summer, soon within reach

[April 9]   April is the cruelest month, one poet said. When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd, another poet wrote. And so on. Fine. Let's move on.

In two months, we can forget all this transition-of-seasons business. It'll be summer, and wheat harvest will be creeping northward from Texas. In four months, hedge apples will hang heavily in the shelterbelts. The air will be light, and lilacs and the humidity of spring will be far from our thoughts. It will be pure summer, the essence of Kansas. Let's hear a poem about that.

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Election results

[April 8]   The results of Tuesday's election are in. Tim Parret will remain mayor, having collected 30 votes to 17 for one or more write-in candidates.

The two open city council seats will be retained by Nicki Roof and Gary Trotnic, who ran unopposed. Nicki got 43 votes, and Gary got 40 votes. There were 4 write-in votes.

Congratulations to the candidates.

The district clerk's statistics showed that 20.3 percent of Barton County's registered voters turned out, which doesn't seem like a lot. Even in Great Bend, a county seat with several thousand adults, the race for mayor was decided by a vote of 1,312 to 849. (Barton County elections site)

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James Nairn dies

[April 8]   James Nairn, who was born in 1937 and raised in Pawnee Rock, died Monday in Great Bend. He was 71 years old.

He was the chairperson and instructor in the business department at Barton Community College for 30 years. His survivors include sisters Linda Slavik of Pawnee Rock and Sandra Haun of Larned. His funeral will be Thursday morning in Great Bend. (Full obituary)

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Election Day

[April 7]   Today's city election in Pawnee Rock has three positions: mayor and two city council members.

Mayor: Tim Parret is running for re-election. He was appointed from the city council in 2007 after Mayor Mike Kirkman stepped down.

City council: Nicki Roof and Gary Trotnic, who were appointed in 2007 to fill vacancies, are running for re-election to their two seats.

Voting will be in the Lions Club Depot on Centre Street. (City office holders)

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Any stories about the Easter pageant?

[April 6]   Barb Schmidt, who grew up northwest of town and now lives in Seattle, asks questions that I think many of us expatriates would like to have answered. We're looking for someone who knows about the Easter pageant.

The pageant is at 7 a.m. Sunday on the Rock.

Here is Barb's e-mail:

I would like to hear more about the history of the Easter pageant held at sunrise (more or less) on the Rock every other year and wonder if your readers could help.

For example, is it true the pageant has been presented for about 70 years now? Is it true that only two people have played the part of Mary Magdalene in all those years? Wow -- that is dedication!

Anyway, I understand the pageant is being held again next Sunday morning, so maybe this week would be a good time for those "in the know" to be so kind as to share a bit about the history of the pageant. And I bet there are many priceless tales that could be told about things that have happened at past pageants.

For those of us who would like to but cannot come, it would also be great to hear who the current "cast of characters" is, who directs it, etc.

I remember the pageant fondly from my youth and always thought the Rock was the perfect setting. Plus, whenever the pageant was held, I knew spring had really arrived.

Finally, what's the weather forecast for PR on Sunday, April 12 at about 7:00 a.m.? Glorious, I hope.

Thanks.

Barb Schmidt
PRHS Õ69
(asleep in Seattle at sunrise PR time)

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Pond of my dreams

[April 5]   Every Sunday our family would drive to the Mennonite Church, and as as teen I'd go there again for Christian Endeavor on Sunday evenings. My favorite part of the trip was seeing the farm pond, trees, and corrugated metal equipment shed on the property east of the road across from the church and Deckert farm.

I wanted to fish in that pond. I wanted a house built into the slight hillside. I wanted a metal shed.

Now, with the benefit of a few years, I realize that fishing in a pond that cows soil wouldn't provide either the best sport or the best eating. And the trees (osage orange?) I would have had weren't quite as shady as city elms, although they certainly were tougher and would have come in handy had I needed new fenceposts.

There are a lot of pretty pieces of farmland near Pawnee Rock, and I might have been happy on any of them. I probably liked this pasture most only because I saw it frequently. Still, on nights when I dream of living back in Barton County, there's always a pond, a muddy pond.

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Maybe you knew the Zieber house

[April 4]   You saw the house on yesterday's homepage, and maybe you recognized it at once. I, however, had a mental block even though I took the picture.

I knew that I had taken the photo in October 2003. I went back through my yard-by-yard photos taken in 2005 and didn't see the house anywhere. It was driving me crazy, and I began to wonder whether I had found the house in a different town.

Susan Unruh Ellis broke the logjam when she wrote asking which house it was. And then it occurred to me -- it was the place I knew as the Popp/Davidson house. It stood on the north side of the street a block and a half west of the post office.

The house no longer existed when I made my 2005 photos. All that was left was the foundation.

Susan, of course, knew the story of the house as soon as she was reminded which one it was. She sent its history, mentioning several other houses:

• The former Methodist parsonage, west of the Methodist Church
• My house, which was next to the brick fire station a block north and a block east of the house in question
• The Keener house, which is the yellow place on Rock Street, on the east side of the block
• Virgil Schraeder's, which was on the northwest corner of that block
• Ben Unruh's house, which was on the southwest corner.

View Larger Map

Here's what Susan wrote:

It is known as the Zieber house to the old-timers in town. When we moved back to PR from Rozel, we lived across the street, from it, in the Methodist parsonage. It had a wonderful wraparound porch on the south and east sides of the house. Inside was the most beautiful, Victorian woodwork.

When you were in kindergarten, Chuck Jelinek lived there. His mother, Janis, was a Zieber. Her father, Lek Zieber, ran the nursery in Pawnee Rock. The nursery was the half block area across from your house, between the Christian Church and the street to the west. He also had trees in the two lots between Keener's and Virgil Schraeder's, and in the lot to the west of the house and Ben Unruh's.

I remember going to an auction at that house, so it must have been when Chuck moved, the house was sold to Art Sayler. Don Kees lived in it in 1963 when Dawn started school with me. Kees had 3-4 kids and lived there for several years while he worked at Marlette Mobile Home at the Great Bend air base. Soon after, the Popps lived in it forever. (I think the Popps started out in a trailer house on west Santa Fe, across from Henry Kurtz for a very short time, then into maybe another house then over to the one we were familiar with.)

After that it had several others in it and was eventually sold to Roger Kurtz. He sold the woodwork for $75 to a man in Great Bend who stripped it out for re-sale. I think the house sold again before Roger or after Roger to someone with dreams of restoring it. It just didn't happen. To many foundation problems. Too bad, it was a beautiful home early on. One of the fancier houses in town.

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Mr. Somehow Oblivious

[April 3]   A man who lives down the trail keeps his head down when he shovels his driveway, piling snow on the trail where it crosses his asphalt. I think this is because he never uses the trail and doesn't really see it or the folks who use it. He works in his yard with the same affliction, leaving decorative stones in the path of children's bikes when he reseeds.

I give him the benefit of the doubt; I'm sure he doesn't do it maliciously. He's a pleasant guy who treats his dog kindly. But he just doesn't see what's around him. He sees only his driveway and his dirt.

I suspect that in some ways, I'm like that guy. I see but I don't always grasp.

This weekend I looked up and there was Nik, holding a first-place ribbon he earned at the city science fair. He's an expert on trans fats, and he's 10 years old.

A couple of days ago, he was messing around in a guitar shop on a shopping trip with my wife. Nik plucked out a few classics on an electric, and the shop owner (a Sixties guy) was stunned that a kid Nik's age would even have heard of "Day Tripper" and "Smoke on the Water." I hear Nik play a song here and there, but I'm afraid that I haven't understood the breadth of his skill and determination.

When I look up from my work and my bossing, I see that the boys have conquered one world and gone on to find another. It's not as if the boys and I don't talk; I make it a point to talk to each of them privately every day. Still, I usually see only bits and pieces of what the boys are up to -- Nik messing around with his camera, Sam examining dinosaurs -- and then I am surprised when Nik turns hundreds of pictures into a movie or Sam spontaneously discusses geological timelines and meteorological events.

This isn't just about me and my kids. Look at yours. Look at what they've accomplished and surmise the things that you don't know they know. With us or without us, they're on their own trails. They're learning not only facts and skills, but also how and why. They're paying attention.

You and I learned the same way when we were little Pawnee Rockers. Now that we think back on it, we might recognize that we were blazing our own trails across the plains. No matter how much help we got from Mom and Dad, we didn't need our parents to watch our every step, but we did need them to notice that we had passed a milestone or avoided a mud puddle.

The kids are all right. I see that when I step back and look up and down their trails. Sometimes the best thing for me to do is just not put any more snow in their way.

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Easter Pageant on April 12

[April 2]   Janice Schmidt writes to say that there is indeed an Easter Pageant this month.

The pageant will be at 7 a.m. on Easter (April 12) at the Rock.

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Questions

[April 2]   Bill Wood of Belpre wrote to find out whether Pawnee Rock's churches are having an Easter sunrise service on the Rock. That's coming up in less than two weeks, on April 12.

If you have the information, yes or no, please let us know.

Our pal Ray Randolph, who writes crime novels and thus is a sneaky thinker, wrote yesterday, April 1:

"I was buying your story all the way until I remembered today's date. And even then, I'm not at all sure whether the spinach got eaten or we've been taken for a ride.

Signed "Mystified."

In case anyone else thought I was pulling your leg (there's a line you won't see any kid send in a text message), I wasn't. Sam and I really do like spinach enough to buy it at Wal-Mart, and Siloam Springs does have a college -- John Brown University and its motto a few years ago was something along the lines of "We teach business the way Jesus would do it."

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The shelf life of spinach

[April 1]   The Arkansas town my mom's parents lived in -- Siloam Springs -- was a biblically named Larned-size town with a Bible college situated along the Oklahoma state line. The town itself was pleasant but no great shakes. It had, however, what I had never seen anywhere else: a vegetable-canning plant.

I know, that doesn't sound like much of a thrill. A food factory.

But the Allen Canning Co. produced locally grown foods that weren't grown in public in Pawnee Rock. Back home, it was all wheat, corn, soybeans, and cattle, and I suspect that the soybean farmers were held under suspicion by the wheat farmers.

Allen canned spinach, among other things. I loved spinach, and still do. The raw leaves are bland, but a bowl of the cooked leaves -- as lovely as a handful of river moss -- is an enduring favorite. When it was served in the school cafeteria, I always got seconds and tried for thirds.

At 9 o'clock couple of nights ago Sam came up to me out of the blue and asked whether I, if I weren't doing anything too important, would take him to the Wal-Mart to buy spinach.

We selected a half-dozen cans of Popeye-brand spinach, cooked and canned by my old friends at Allens. I microwaved a bowl and we split it. Sam built his Popeye muscles, and I remembered the day I realized that foods I liked came from places I could visit.

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