I'm Thankful You're Still There

Across the Fence #314

I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! This was, and still is, an exciting time of year with Thanksgiving and deer hunting occurring in the same week. I wish all of you venturing into the woods in search of that elusive whitetail, a successful and safe hunt! I’ll keep the coffee pot full and hot for you in case you get too cold and need to thaw out. I remember how cold it could get sitting in your deer stand for hours, waiting for that buck to show.

We all have a lot to be thankful for as we sit down to a Thanksgiving meal again this year; it’s just that too often we don’t take the time to express our thanks. I’m thankful for being able to visit with you each week, across the fence, via this column. Thank you for being there.

Today was very foggy here on the prairie. How foggy was it? It was so foggy, if we still had an outhouse I’d have gotten lost on my way to do my duty and wandered into an old tobacco shed instead. That lingering smell of curing tobacco would have led me there. To those of you not familiar with heavy fog this time of year, we called it “case weather.” That meant the tobacco hanging in the shed was ready to take down without damaging the leaves. It seems like case weather often came around Thanksgiving or deer hunting time. Tobacco had a way of interfering with everything when we were young.

I know I’ve told this before, but there’s something about this foggy type of weather that kicks in the old memories of taking down tobacco and stripping. I can almost smell the aroma of tobacco hanging in the shed. I’m glad I don’t have to climb up in a shed anymore and go to work! When we were young and agile, David and I could climb up those poles like a couple of monkeys. I can still hear Dad yelling up to us, “Make sure you check the poles so you don’t fall down and kill yourself!” That’s still a family saying for us when we want someone to be careful. I think it’s also become a yearly tradition of including it in my Thanksgiving issue story.

I’m thankful for the memories of those Thanksgivings of the past, when it seemed all the relatives lived within a few miles of each other. This time of year always reminds me of those days. Thanksgiving included our extended family; aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents getting together for the big feast. It was usually held at our grandparent’s farm across the road from Smith School. I can look out the windows of the room where I sit and write this story, and see the farm where they lived. The barn is gone, but the house and other buildings are still there. We used to have some wonderful Thanksgiving meals in that house. We didn’t have to go “over the river and through the woods” to get to grandmother’s house. We could have walked across the fields.

I continue to be thankful for having grown up on a farm, and now for the opportunity to live on a corner of that farm. There’s something to be said for rural, small town living. It’s easy to be swallowed up and lost in large, urban areas. You become a street number instead of a name. This point was brought home to me again this week.

I received a letter yesterday addressed to: Howard Sherpe, Westby (Vernon County) WI. There was a hand-written message on the envelope: Please deliver. Someone must know his address. Thanks!

There you have the basics: a name, city, county, and state. I thanked the Westby Postmaster for having it delivered to us. It was a wonderful, handwritten letter from a woman in Spencer, Wisconsin, who reads my stories.

When we lived in Madison, we had a letter returned to the sender as undeliverable because the street numbers were wrong. Our address was 1017 Chieftain Lookout. The sender had transposed the numbers and had 1710. I’ve got to tell you, there were only five houses on Chieftain Lookout and only one with Sherpe’s living in it. I guess we were just a wrong number, not a name. That’s kind of sad. I’m thankful we’re more than a wrong number in Westby.

That reminds me of the time Sandy and Lou’s daughter, Kris, sent my father a letter from Colorado. It was addressed to Uncle Hans, Westby, Wisconsin. The post office delivered the letter to him. Another time, our daughter, Amy, sent a card to my dad and addressed it: Grandpa Sherpe, Westby, Wis. No address. No zip code. And yet it was delivered to him. I guess that proves that in a small town, people not only know who you are, but they also know your relatives and where they live. That can be a scary thought to many people, but it can also be a comforting thought. People know you as more than just a number.

Speaking of numbers, this begins year number seven. I’m thankful that you take time to read this column each week. May your poles always be straight and strong, and never roll. But just to be safe… you better check them first. Don’t want you to fall down and get hurt.