What a day! Just about ….
What a day! Just about everything I looked at, or every turn in the road, something to write about seemed to pop out. It must be spring. Every apple tree, flowering crab, wild plum or every other kind of tree that blooms is either red, pink or white. Just a joy to be outside.
I say that with a little caution as I was headed for The Highground after lunch. I thought of just wearing a light jacket. Then I opened the door and quickly turned around and got my winter coat. At The Highground I was sure glad I had made the switch. I worked there as a porch greeter enough years to know it really gets breezy out there.
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Every direction you looked, farmers were busy doing something.
There have been so many years since I grew up on a farm that I am really not sure what they are planting now. It used to be small grain, but many farmers have given that up. There are still a few left as I saw several fields on County Trunk H that were just coming up.
As I mentioned, I was on my way to The Highground, but my car seemed like it wanted to take the scenic route. We went by what I call Ben & Sonia’s Mound just to check out the different colors on trees on the hillside.
As I went around the Mound and started over it on Cardinal Avenue, there are two homes right at the top. Their front yards are just wild flowers and the trilliums were there by the millions.
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My trip to The Highground was pretty simple. It started last Christmas when Mark, Wendy and the kids gave me a gift certificate. So one winter day Mark came down and went along to help me spend my money. We picked out a couple of things and it looked like I had a balance of about eight dollars coming.
We started home, but the clerk came running out to say that there was an error and instead of eight dollars, I had over thirty coming. So I kept thinking some time this spring I would go back and buy something else. As it turned out, last Thursday wasn’t exactly a spring day.
My first stone is on the east side, just above the Gold Star Tribute. It is for the Berglund boys, Ernest, Ben and Carl who had served in World War II and me in the Korean War.
Then we shift over to the Korean War tribute and another stone is in place on the east side where the first stones got laid. As a member of the committee who worked on the tribute we had been invited to write something to be placed in another stone around the tribute. I give Florence credit for helping me and then the committee selected it as one near the end.
Once I got my looking done, and it was quick, I headed for the gift shop to see what was available now. It only took a minute looking and I had just what I wanted.
One interesting thing I learned, while working as a porch greeter, was to learn where the visitors are from. As I was checking out, Mrs. Quicker, who was working that day, told me they had had people from Pennsylvania in that morning.
I guess the most memorable visitor was a man from North Vietman who was doing a tour of the United States and was trying to mend the injuries caused to so many American families. He told of losing several members of his own family in the conflict.
To my surprise, the next morning on the CBS Sunday morning show, he was a guest and repeated many of the things he told us that day at The Highground.
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An incident on the way home really jarred my memory bank of things from the past. On the way to the Mound I drove by the little Mennonite School on Bobwhite Road, just before you cross K. On a normal day, if you see two cars and some bicycles, there wasn’t much else to see. But on Thursday the school was surrounded by cars and there were people outside everywhere you looked. I believe there were two separate ball games going on. I’m guessing it was the last day of school celebration.
I can remember those from my days at the Pipe Lake School and what a community event it was. If you got there early, a softball game was in progress and players just joined the teams as they came. You were always glad when the next person who came was a good player and it was your side’s turn to get the next player. All the mothers who came brought something for a picnic lunch and just before we ate the bell would ring and we got called in and handed our final report card. There was also a space on the back where the teacher wrote if you passed to the next grade or not.
If you were an 8th grader that would remain a secret, as we always had to attend a special session at another larger two-room school about eight miles away and take a final test. Then word would be mailed to you if you passed or not. Out of the five in my 8th grade, one of the girls didn’t pass. I’m assuming she was one of those people who had problems with tests as her mother was a teacher and after repeating the grade, graduated from high school and went on to become a teacher herself.
