Editor's Notebook

 

September 29, 2022



I don’t know how they are picked for it seems every day of the year is a special day recognizing something. Sunday, for example, was National Daughters Day and Monday was National Public Lands Day.

Since I don’t have a daughter, I didn’t check to see how the day was to be observed. I did learn that on National Public Lands Day, everyone was encouraged to explore the outdoors and enjoy the physical, mental and spiritual health values that nature offers. With the deadline for the printing of this newspaper on Tuesday rapidly approaching, I had to keep my nose to the grindstone and stay focused on the newspaper Monday, but I did get to enjoy the outdoors a bit on Sunday.

` Rita and I went pear picking. Earlier in the year we thought the frost had got our apple and pear crop. We were right about the apples and the frost got the pears on the east side of the tree but not the west. Pretty exciting to pick pears off a tree we planted a few years ago in a previously unused nook of what this year is a corn field.

After gathering all the pears we could reach while standing on the ground and on a step ladder, we used an apple picker to reach near the top of the tree. Horticulture experts say not to use an apple picker for pears bruise easily but what were we to do? If left on the tree, they would ripen, fall to the ground, be bruised and lost. Rita’s solution was to line the bottom of the apple picker basket with a towel.

Hopefully, that reduced the severity of the bruises. We have kept those pears separate. If they start to show the effects of damaging bruises, perhaps we can use them to make pear butter.

I’m already looking forward to having pancakes smothered with pear butter. The better pears have been wrapped in newspapers and spread out to finish ripening.

I couldn’t wait for the pears to fully ripen. I ate two crunchy pears Sunday afternoon.

As we were finishing putting the pears away, we learned a friend living away from here had gone canoeing on Sunday. I like canoeing in the fall and seeing the turning leaves. Made me wish Rita and I could have gone canoeing on the Republican River but there isn’t enough water in the river to float a canoe. When I mentioned canoeing to Rita, she suggested we should have gone for a river walk.  That would have been fun had we thought of it earlier in the day.

I know exactly where I would like to go. The BNSF Railroad has bridges across both the Republican River and the tail race. After recently seeing pictures other have taken of trains crossing bridges, I’d like to see if I could take a picture of a BNSF train crossing the Republican as it approaches Superior. I can’t do it just any day, as the water must be low enough to allow me to wade the river. Another problem is knowing when to expect a train. Some days we have lots of trains and other days one or two is it. There was a time when trains ran on schedules and you could check at the local depot and find out when the next train was expected.

When I was in high school, I photographed four seniors from Kansas wading across the river downstream from the Santa Fe bridge. We wanted the picture to be a surprise and picked a location where we didn’t expect to be seen while taking it. There’s a stone stateline marker a ways north of the bridge that would have been easier to photograph but the river and water were important to the picture theme. A classmate made a sign proclaiming state line. We planted the sign in the river and described the seniors as “wet backs” who crossed the border each day to attend high school.  We could have waded upstream and gotten the picture on the exact state line but we chose an easier location that was close to the stateline.

That time I parked my car on the county road south of the river. We walked along the tracks and out onto the bridge, dropped down through the structure to reach the river. Our excursion may not have been the safest thing we ever did, but before walking on the track, I had checked at the depot for that day’s train schedule.

Now the trains on the line are traveling faster, there are more of them and though I’m sure somebody in the railroad knows, I don’t know how to find out when one is expected. And probably the railroad now has a policy the prohibits revealing the schedules.

The day before the great 1935 flood, my father helped a neighbor who had a Kansas dairy farm deliver his milk to customers in Superior. As the river was already out of its banks and Highway 14 was underwater, they had to find an alternative route. 

With the milk loaded in the normal delivery vehicle, they plowed mud south and east to Webber and then north toward Superior. From what is now Elm Road, they walked along the Santa Fe railroad tracks, crossed the already raging river on the Santa Fe bridge and on into town. As each basket of milk bottles was empty, they walked back after more milk. The delivery took all day and they didn’t have a FitBit to record the number of steps they took but I’m sure they took lots.

After the flood, my mother was worried about her friend Doris Giffith had faired. As the water was receding, Mom walked the Santa Fe tracks from Superior until reaching high ground and then turning east to the Giffith farm.

I sorry she never told me about that trip. After her death, I found and read a diary she kept as a high school freshman. On a June day, she noted she had walked the Santa Fe out to check on her friend and along the way fell in a hole.

She didn’t elaborate about the hole. I’d like to know more about it.  Was it full of water? Had the flood waters undermined her path and the ground collapsed as she walked? Or?  She gave no hint of what happened.

I remember my father telling about attempting to walk from the kitchen into dining room of a flooded house. The kitchen was separating from the rest of the house and he fell into the water filled basement.

Those of us living in this rural area don’t need a special day to enjoy the outdoors. I’m thankful when I grew up on Blauvelt’s Hill with neighbors who let me roam their land.

As a youngster I had opportunities to explore either alone or with friends most of two sections to the east and two sections to the west of the section my home was located on. For most of the trips I rode my pony. I had learned where the gates were that allowed me to go from one landowner’s property onto to another’s.

As a grade school pupil attending a rural school, I had teachers who each year guided her pupils on what we called “hikes.”  We got to explore the river, watch a prairie dog town, tour the rock quarry, inspect a steam locomotive up close, visit a sand pit, check out the Courtland Canal and abandoned houses.

Those hikes rate high on my list of favorite school activities. I suspect “town kids” didn’t get to go on such hikes with their teachers.  After hike days, we often went home dirty and perhaps muddy, but I doubt any of the parents minded. They knew it was just part of growing up in the country where we got to explore and experience nature up close and personal.

 

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