Across the Fence #498
From where I’m sitting on our back deck as I write this I can look across the fields and see Birch Hill. Just down the road, east of Birch Hill, is where Smith School used to be located. There’s nothing on that corner near Highway 14 anymore. The school house had to go to make way for the four-lane Uffda Bahn. Even the one beautiful tree not destroyed by the DOT, that stood in the school yard, has been destroyed since the road was built to make way for a couple more rows of corn. Across the road from where the school house stood is where Oscar and Julia Hanson, my grandparents lived. The trees and building are still standing, except for the barn that was taken down a few years ago.
Beyond their place I can see the farm where I was born and lived until I was around ten years old. The same house and barn are still there. As I sit here looking out across the rolling prairie I’m thinking that I’ve spent time in other places around the world, but I’ve come full circle. There are a lot of memories out there in the land around our home.
Birch Hill view from our back deck.
When I look at Birch Hill in the spring, I think of the times we walked there from Smith School and our teacher would conduct classes in a clearing among the rocks, bushes and trees on a large, flat rock that served as our classroom. For those of you who didn’t have the opportunity of attending a one-room school, we had one teacher who taught all eight grades. At Birch Hill, when our grade wasn’t in class, we got to play among the rocks and hills with all the other kids. Birch hill had a lot of heavy undergrowth and trees, and there were many rocks to climb on. I think we played a lot of hide and seek because there were all kinds of great places to hide. Of course, it was even more fun if you could hide with a girl you liked. I remember one year we even spotted a fox while we were playing. Luckily no one ever ran into a skunk.
Classes held at Birch Hill were like going on a spring break trip for us. I wonder if any schools had spring breaks back in those days. I know our country school didn’t have spring break, but those were fun times for us country kids. We organized our own games and probably made up the rules too. Everyone was included unless they didn’t want to play.
Yes, there was some bullying back then too, but kids dealt with it as a part of life. When I started school, Smith was a pretty tough place. That year they hired a male teacher to deal with the fighting and students causing problems. It wasn’t just the guys, there were some tough girls too. When we had a Smith School reunion a few years ago, one person told me she wouldn’t be attending because she didn’t have any good memories from those years. She had been bullied by another female student. I guess we weren’t as sensitive to those situations as we should have been. Another student and I sometimes got into arguments and wrestled around and pounded on each other for a while until someone got a bloody nose or the teacher broke up the fight. I guess we looked at those disagreements as part of the school experience. When I look back at my eight years at Smith School, the good times far outweigh the bad.
When I sit on our back deck and look around me, there’s a lot of personal memories, besides our fun at Birch Hill. We spent many hours in these fields cutting, raking, and baling hay, plowing, disking, cultivating corn, harvesting oats, and chasing heifers that spent the summer in the back forty. We also spent many hours searching for calves that were hidden in the corn fields next to the pasture. David and I got chased by a skunk one time too. We managed to outrun it. I think I’d be in deep trouble if I ran into an angry skunk today on one of my walks. Lots of memories.
As dusk begins to settle over the landscape, a cool breeze washes over me and birds are singing all around me. A pheasant just called from down near the pond. The trees next to the house are alive with the sound of music. I don’t know what the birds are talking and singing about, but they sure sound happy.
Two rabbits have arrived under the bird feeder looking for a bedtime snack of spilled bird seed. Lightning just streaked across the darkening sky to the south, followed by rolling thunder. I just realized the trees that only minutes ago had been alive with singing are now silent. I guess the birds all went to bed. It reminded me of the Walton’s TV show. At the end of each show they showed the outside of the house as the lights went out and you heard, “Goodnight John Boy, goodnight Elizabeth, goodnight Erin, goodnight Jim Bob,” and on and on it went. Maybe all that chatter was the birds telling each other goodnight too.
Sitting here in the country surrounded by nature, watching and listening, is good for the soul.
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