And That's the Way It Was...

Across the Fence 245

I never met Walter Cronkite, but I feel like I knew him. He was often referred to as Uncle Walter. He was worldly, authoritative, and yet down to earth, and I, along with most of the country, felt like we could trust what he said.

Everyone who hasn’t had their head under a rock during the last week, knows that Walter died on July 17, 2009, at the age of 92. I felt a real sadness with his passing. He was a big part of my life during my growing-up years, and it was like losing a family member or friend.

I first remember seeing him in the 1950’s, and he was there during the tumultuous 60’s and 70’s, informing us of the latest news, when our world seemed to be falling apart. I can still hear that deep, distinctive voice, signing off each newscast with “And that’s the way it is…”

In the 1950’s, when we first got a television set, the only station we could receive was a CBS station, Channel 8 out of La Crosse. I remember watching the political conventions in 1956 and Walter Cronkite was the host for CBS. I found them fascinating and watched the coverage every evening after chores were done. Incumbent Dwight Eisenhower and Democratic challenger, Adlai Stevenson were the candidates. It was the first of many political conventions I watched as Walter reported on the proceedings. It never seemed the same when he was no longer in the anchor chair. Eric Sevareid was also part of those telecasts, adding insight and commentary.

Walter also hosted the program, You Are There, that reenacted historical events, and he would interview historical figures. I loved history, and this show made the events come alive for me. For those of you who also watched this show, do you remember the famous line from the program? “What sort of day was it? A day like all other days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there."

Another program he hosted in those early years was The Twentieth Century, a documentary series that used newsreel footage and interviews with people in the news. Needless to say, this program was also of great interest to me.

In 1962 he became the anchor of The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. We always watched it before heading for the barn to milk the cows. I remember when it went from a 15-minute program to half an hour.

During the following years, Uncle Walter was there to report many historic events. We needed his stabilizing presence during those times.

I remember hearing about President Kennedy being shot while I was cleaning the barn and listening to the radio. We quickly finished the chores and were watching the TV reports when Walter announced that Kennedy had died. During the ensuing days, we watched the non-stop coverage of events, including the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, live on TV, and the coverage of the funeral. Walter held our collective hand during those heart-wrenching days for our country.

He also informed me of the tragic deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

Walter went to Vietnam, and reported from the front lines, out where the action was, where the bullets were flying, and people were dying, just as he had done as a war correspondent during World War II. He talked with the grunts, got their first-hand stories, and flew out on the same chopper that carried the bodies of Marines who had just been killed in battle.

I remember watching his reports from Vietnam and the special he did after returning home. At the end of the program he gave his personal assessment of the war, It wasn’t winnable. I remember thinking “Finally someone with guts enough to tell the truth about the real situation and mess the war had become.”

I watched the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago as Walter reported on the rioting in the streets and the violent police response. It seemed like the country was being torn apart by the war, but the one calming voice throughout the turmoil was Walter.

He was there to educate me about the journey into space and we watched along with Walter as Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Even he was almost speechless at that historic moment. I remember the evening of July 20, 1969, 40 years ago to the day, as I write this story. We watched as Neil Armstrong took that first step onto the surface of the moon. Walter was there to report that historic event too, arguably the biggest event in our lifetime.

So many historic events, and he was there, reporting and sharing all of them with us. Is it any wonder that he was like a member of our family? He was our link with history as we witnessed it. In many ways we had come full circle with him. In the 50’s we watched as he hosted old historical events. In the 60’s and 70’s, he was there to introduce us to events as they happened.

What sort of days were they? Days like all days, except these were filled with events that altered and illuminated our time… and we were there, right beside Walter. And that’s the way it was…

The Wave

Across the Fence #244

Now that we live in the country again, the wave is very important. I’m not talking about the wave that you see at sporting events, where people suddenly stand up, throw their hands in the air, and then sit down again. Then the people next to them do the same thing and around the stadium it goes, resembling an undulating wave on an ocean.

I guess you could call that a wave, since it’s often used to get the attention of the TV cameras, but that’s not the type of wave I’m talking about. I mean the greeting you give someone when you meet them as you’re driving along a country road. This is something I never had to concern myself with in Madison. If I had waved at someone I met there, they’d have thought I was some kind of nutcase. In the country, it’s the accepted thing to do, even if they are strangers.

There are many different type of waves and they often reflect the personality of the person doing the waving. Being of good, conservative Norwegian upbringing and not wanting to show too much emotion, I tend toward the passive kind of waves.

Not everyone I meet is a close, personal friend. Matter of fact, most of the people I wave at are complete strangers. But, when you travel country roads, you better be prepared to wave at everyone, just in case it’s someone that knows you. If you don’t return the wave, they’ll probably think you’re stuck up and too good to return a friendly greeting. Next thing you know, everyone in the area will think you’re unfriendly and too big for your britches.

Whenever I go cruising the back roads, I’m always ready to “pop a finger” as we meet someone. Sometimes I pop two fingers, but not on the same hand. Plus, both hands must stay on the steering wheel at all times. I call it the “one-finger salute,” or “two-finger salute” if you’re really happy to see someone. The one-finger salute, or wave, is done with the index finger extended, not the other one-finger salute you were probably thinking about.

Around these parts, we call that the “Portland salute.” I’m just reporting the facts; I’m not going to interpret them for you.

I’ve got to give credit where credit is due for the idea behind this story. Karen Hankee suggested I write about the many different waves that people use.

After our Sons of Norway board meeting tonight, I remarked that I needed to get home and write my column for next week. I always send it off to the papers late Tuesday night. This is Tuesday night! They asked what I was writing about. I said that I didn’t know yet. The well was getting low on water and I needed to prime the pump. That’s when Karen suggested “waves.”

Regarding that Portland salute; they told me that a woman was driving down the road when she met a red pickup and thought it was someone she knew. She gave them the Portland salute and realized too late that it wasn’t who she thought it was. Meanwhile, the man driving the pickup said to his wife, “I don’t know who that woman was, but for some reason, I don’t think she likes me very much.” You’ll have to use your own imagination to visualize the Portland salute. I’m not about to demonstrate it for you. I got in enough trouble years ago when I taught it to my brother and he greeted my father with it when he came out to the tobacco field where we were hoeing. Dad was not impressed!

But lets move on to other waves. There’s the “full hand, five-finger wave.” You only use that wave when you know the person and want to make sure they see your greeting so they don’t think you’re avoiding them or stuck up.

Then there’s the “windshield wiper wave.” That’s where you wave your hand back and forth like you’re wiping the windshield. The happier you are to meet someone, the faster the wave. Kind of like windshield wipers going at top speed, whipping back and forth in a total downpour.

If you’re really happy to see someone, you can stick your whole arm out the window and execute the “extended arm wave.” Depending on how well you know the person, this can be a simple one-finger salute to a full-blown windshield wiper wave. It can also be used for the Portland salute, but be advised, use this with extreme caution.

Another wave that seems to have come into being recently is what I call the “parade princess wave.” That’s where all the girls wave in slow unison, like a bunch of robots, first with one hand, and then as if on cue, they all change hands and wave with the other one. I personally don’t like this wave and only use it if I’m trying to be sarcastic. I suspect if I used this wave on a country road, the recipient would think I had just given him the Portland salute. I think I’ll stick to the more traditional and manly waves.

Whatever wave or salute you use to greet people on country roads, isn’t as important as the simple gesture of greeting and acknowledging your fellow travelers as you pass each other on the busy road of life.

Reborn On the 4th of July

Across the Fence #243

July 4th was my homecoming, or as I tell people, I was reborn on the 4th of July, 1967. That’s the day I arrived back in “The World” after spending a year in Vietnam. This Sunday, July 12th, we’ll go to Platteville to visit the Moving Wall that will be there for several days. I’ve never been to The Wall in Washington. I suspect it would be very emotional to see all those thousands of names etched in stone. Some of those names belong to people I knew. I’m just glad my name isn’t among them. It could easily have been.

There is one incident that I’ve mentioned to a handful of people, but don’t think they really understand. Actually, very few people would. They’ll say it was all in my mind, which in reality, it was. You’ll probably think I’m crazy too.

When I was in Vietnam, I had a close call, and thought I was about to die within the next few seconds. A grenade landed within a few feet of me and I didn’t have time to do anything. There’s no way to describe the feelings I had when I saw the grenade hit the ground and thought my life was over.

In those few seconds, when I expected death to come, I found myself standing in the back forty of our farm, near a dilapidated, old shed that stood among a grove of trees. I was standing near the corner of the farm and looking at all the sights that I knew I’d never see again. Now we live on the same spot where I found myself standing during that incident. The shed is long gone, but the grove of trees is still here and so am I.

As I stood looking around, I suddenly found myself at Smith School, the little one room school where I went for eight years. The school has now been removed because of a new highway the state wants to build, but I’m still here. I can see where the school once stood from where I now sit and write this story. One time, being the great art critic that I thought I was, I made fun of a drawing a girl had drawn on one of the black boards. I won’t use her name in this story. As punishment, the teacher had me stay inside during recess for two days and write over and over on the board, I will not make fun of the artwork of other people.

As I observed that day from my childhood, I saw the incident again, not from my perspective, but from the girl’s perspective. I could feel her pain and how much I had hurt her by the comments I had made about her drawing. This may seem like a very insignificant occurrence to most people, but it must have left a lasting impression on me, because now I was sorry for what I had said. In that moment I wished I could tell the girl that I was sorry for my comments and ask her to forgive me.

That experience, made me think about life, death and what we do with our time here on earth. I came to conclusion that we are not judged by the Creator or “The Force,” for what we’ve done during this life. I think we judge our own life, just as I did in that instance. We must decide if our life has been full of love and helping others, or were we self-centered and hurtful to other people. Was our journey a success, or did we waste our precious time?

I came away from that experience with those thoughts. An epiphany if you wish. Needless to say, the grenade didn’t explode and I’m still here, or I wouldn’t be able to write about it. The Force was with me that day! It was not yet my time to leave, but I came away from that experience with a deeper feeling that there are mysteries in this life that we can’t begin to explain.

Was my mind so frightened in that moment by the thought of death, that I just thought these things, or did my mind–the soul–actually leave my body and instantly transport itself back to my childhood and let me see those things for a reason?

I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years. There’s more truth to that old Star Wars line, “Trust the Force,” than many people think. Perhaps The Force knew what was best for me.

As Linda says, “You had other things to do, people you needed to help, and you had to survive to accomplish them.”

I don’t know why I’m still here and other friends are now names on The Wall that I will visit this weekend. I’ll think about that as I view their names and be thankful for these extra years that those guys didn’t get to experience.

Author Ben Logan and I have talked about this. He was the only survivor on his LST in World War II. He decided that he needed to live for those guys too and not waste the extra time he was given. That’s the way I feel too. I was reborn on the 4th of July and I don’t want to waste a moment of this extra life I’ve been given.

Old Fences Remind Me of Changes

Across the Fence #242

Recently, Jim Massey, Editor of The Country Today, wrote to comment on my story about Dad that ran in their Father’s Day issue.

It sounds like our fathers were made from the same mold, both in age and how they looked at life. Jim’s father died on April 9, 2000 at 87 years of age, and Dad died on May 27, 2000 at the age of 86. It’s hard to believe they’ve been gone for nine years already. Where did the time go?

Jim’s comments got me thinking about Dad and what he would think about us living on a corner of the back forty of the farm. I also wonder what he would think about my writing a weekly column, especially in the Westby Times, his hometown paper? Uff da, he’d probably be worried every week that I was going to say something I should keep my pen and mouth silent about. It was bad enough that I was an artist. His philosophy was, if you didn’t do physical work, it wasn’t really work. Sometimes I think he was right, although it would be hard to convince me of that some days when I get home from work and I’m totally worn out, at least mentally. It makes it hard to write this column at times like that and the blank sheet of paper stays blank for a long time. But, as I said in the story about him, he had a tremendous influence on me, my work ethic, and how I look at life.

I thought of all that when I went for a walk in the back forty below our house over the weekend. I wanted to check the pond and see if there was any water left in it. It was dry as a bone.

It used to hold water year ‘round and we kept heifers in the forty all summer. That was their water supply. The pond was a natural depression in the ground. This spring the pond was full to overflowing. Now it’s empty. The water disappears quickly. I suspect it’s an old sinkhole where the underground layers have been eroding and the hole is getting closer to the surface. I walked down in the bottom of the pond, but was careful. I could imagine the ground giving out under my weight and finding myself at the bottom of a deep shaft. That would have given me an exciting story to write about, but it’s a little more excitement than I need!

Sinkholes, and disappearing water in them, makes me wonder what affect this could have on our underground water supply if they build that 3,200 cow CAFO near us, and liquid manure begins draining into it with the spring runoffs. The corporation that wants to build it, owns land bordering our forty. Any runoff would come right down our little valley and into the pond/sinkhole. I’m no scientist, but I can’t believe that would be good for the water supply for everyone around here. I don’t think my father would have been very happy about this possibility either. He was a family farmer and very conscious of how the land was used, not only on his farm, but neighboring farms.

I left the pond and continued down what used to be the cow lane. As I was walking along an old fencerow that Dad had put in, I took some photos of the rotting posts with the electric wire on the insulators. I thought of Dad with his large hands, digging the holes with a posthole digger that you turned by hand and lifted the dirt out of the hole. It was hard work. I remembered how he swung the heavy sledgehammer and slammed it down on top of the wood post until he had pounded it into the ground. I could almost see him as he stretched the wire from post to post and then bent down on one knee as he fastened the wire to the insulator. He would wind another piece of wire around it, often twisting it with his bare, calloused hands. There’s something special about wire fences when you think about all the work that went into building them.

That’s back when every family farm had fences. Today I see huge fields with the fences torn out so they can plant crops, unhindered by posts and wire. There are fewer pastures with cows grazing in them too. You needed fences to keep the cows out of the corn, tobacco, and the neighbor’s fields. When only crops are planted, fences aren’t needed. The corn isn’t going to cross the line and trample the soybeans. However, the weeds still invade any field they can. Fences can’t stop them.

Now people who don’t even live in the area, own many of those fields. I don’t call them family farms. Family farms, big or small, are owned and operated by local people who care about the land and how it might affect their neighbors. I think of all these things as I walk and observe the land around me. Fences, or I should say, the lack of fences, remind me that much has changed since the days when my father drove those posts and strung that wire. My father and Jim Massey’s father are now gone. Soon the fences they built will also be gone. Life keeps changing… and moving on.