Sandbox Bliss

Temperatures dropped and snowflakes flew long enough to blanket our yard and the field behind it. Despite a chilly reminder that winter isn’t quite over, I have spring on my mind. Recent days warm enough to wear short sleeves reminded me to deliver our grandkids’ sand and water table so they could enjoy it over spring break. Our youngest grand has already tried out hers out. Seeing a photo of that little blonde dumping shovels full of sand into her bucket recalled memories of her mom and aunt’s happy hours in their sand-filled tractor tire.

While we weren’t farmers with our own big equipment, friends who made a living driving a big John Deere offered us one of their gigantic discarded tires. We rolled it to a spot close to the back door so I could do dishes or cook while listening to our youngsters’ cheerful chatter as they sifted sand, wetted it, and used old measuring cups and bowls to mold castles and other fanciful structures inside their three-foot-wide rubber moat.

When I had time, I joined them in creating architectural wonders or baking luscious desserts concocted from ingredients available within their tire and the surrounding yard. Each of us selected a dainty plastic pan to form our pastry. Once we finished packing dampened dirt, we’d slowly remove our creation, hoping it didn’t crumble during the process. Using leaves and flowers we found in the yard, we decorated our culinary delights. The girls were wizards at designing inedible works of art. As good as these looked, only a chicken pecking for a little gizzard grit would enjoy eating them.

Every now and then, I’d hear wild shrieks and race outside to see sand flying. This signaled the girls had found a live bug in their dirt. Shovels flew like windmill blades to eject unwelcome intruders. Enough insect protein found its way into the sandbox so I didn’t have to worry a wayward amphibian would starve if it managed to fall or be placed inside that deep walled tire. I did intervene the year baby toads infested the yard.

Unbeknownst to us, the girls collected dozens of miniature toads and corralled them in their sandbox. These mottled -skinned creatures dug themselves shady holes and waited for flies and beetles to land within eating reach. At dusk, I discovered our daughters leaning over the tire to say good- night to their captives. This population was too great for the available resources so I intervened and made the girls relocate their livestock to a less restrictive environment. As they carried handfuls and pocketsful of toads to freedom, I heard them talking to them like I talk to my dogs. Gadfrey. Toads as pets in the sand box.

I suspect our grandkids will soon weary of bright colored sand and water tables. They live on ranches where discarded tractor tires abound. It won’t be long til our daughters join their tots to once again bake sandy confections and check for insects and toads. Heck, Grandma might have to see if she can still whip up one of those pies.

Learning to Read a Vanishing Landscape

Archeological training teaches students to look for human-altered landscapes. This includes out of the ordinary coloration, unusual shapes or formations that don’t match surroundings, or obvious construction such as cliff dwellings. Southwest Colorado’s sagebrush plain schools the eye to distinguish differing hues of greenery indicating soil disturbances or recognize mounds with donut-like collapsed centers. In western Kansas, students of vanished cultures work harder to identify signs of earlier occupation. That said, historic and prehistoric signs tell stories for those who care to read them.

A trip over Hwy 9 between Highways 281 and 183 is a good place to look for historic construction slowing melting back to the earth. This two lane parallels the old Missouri Pacific Railroad that wound through Gaylord, Cedar, Claudell, Kirwin, Glade, Speed, Logan, Densmore, and Edmond. Each little town had a depot where farmers picked up deliveries or shipped grain, cattle, milk, and other produce. In most places, those distinctive rooflines have gone the way of horse and buggy. However, locals in Cedar and Kirwin preserved their whistle stops in bright yellow that provide interesting photo opportunities.

From the beginning of this route, observers note an undulating rise out of place from the surrounding prairie. If they recall their history accurately, they realize Jay Gould’s Mo Pac crossed here, stopping at each hamlet. Humans and beasts scraped surrounding soil to build the foundation supporting those clacking wheels. Folks with metal detectors and permission to go on private property occasionally find their detritus at sites where these workers rested and ate. Until the line folded, train cars carried grass- fattened cattle and sun-ripened grain to market.

With such thoughts in mind, curious wanderers might turn off the main highway to investigate Kirwin Refuge. Just before their detour, those visitors passed well-constructed ductwork carved into a high hill’s base. Such conduits carried run off from the rail bed crowning the rise. After they turn, a straightway descending from the crown and vanishing into the west compels attention. It seems it has no purpose. Now a mowed bed bordered by wild plums, this was a section of the old track.

Over time, farmers have plowed portions of earthen foundations until they blend into surrounding fields. Inattentive passersby won’t notice the on/ off again appearance of the old Mo Pac. Then a couple of miles past Speed, a bridge abutment rising from the middle of nowhere draws attention. This structure is so out of place. Without knowing this was a once a busy avenue of commerce, curious sightseers leave wondering.

I hope that mysterious man- made formations will interrupt the rises and flats between Highways 281 and 183 well into the future. Historians and photographers, amateur and professional, can spend happy hours traversing what began as a game and Indian trail, evolved to a stage road to Colorado goldfields, then became a leg of the Mo Pac route. For now, it’s a quiet byway broken by unnatural colors and unusual formations out of place on a native prairie. Here’s to the stories those disturbances tell.

Skating: a Path to Great Memories

Those who’ve recently had to shovel snowy sidewalks probably aren’t thinking of these concrete trails in terms of fun. However, any kid who grew up near such a path knows it took little more than imagination to turn that simple structure into hours of fun. Old timers who let their minds wander down memory lane quickly recall happy memories involving metal shoe skates with keys.

The other day, my mom’s old sidewalk caught my attention. Time’s taking its toll on that decades-old fixture, yet a short walk along its divided squares triggered dozens of memories and the imagined sounds of metal wheels rolling across its gritty surface. I suspect more than a few old skate scars still decorate its mottled exterior.

I spent happy hours skating down similar lanes throughout my early years. I can still sense the feel of plopping onto a sun-warmed, pockmarked sidewalk while I clamped a pair of metal skates to my shoe soles. The length adjusted so a kid could wear them for two or three summers before needing a bigger pair. They came with a skate key designed to be worn on a string around the neck. That kept it handy to tighten skates after a particularly rough stretch shook them loose.

As a skater’s confidence grew, speed increased so trips around the block grew took less time. If several kids joined the fun, it looked a lot like later Roller Derby action on TV. Brave kids tucked elbows and squatted low to zip past slow moving friends. A neighborhood bully occasionally showed up and intentionally tripped skaters and sent them sprawling. Not every kid could respond. It took a cool and skilled character to fist fight on roller skates.

Unlike my experience with blocks of city sidewalks, our daughters grew up in a country home with a very short slab. To compensate, they adorned themselves in floofy tutus or their dad’s huge tee-shirts, turned on their record player, strapped on plastic shoes skates, and spun around our concrete basement. It lost much of the effect of whizzing down a city sidewalk, but they enjoyed hours of whirling around this makeshift rink. These practice sweeps prepared them for more fun at a real roller rink in a nearby town.

Mention skate rink and older people fondly remember weekend visits to the nearest one. It doesn’t take much prompting to get stories flowing. They recollect events like the Hokey Pokey, Limbo competitions, obstacle courses, and backward skating. One friend was a gymnast as a kid and loved doing backflips to astonish less agile participants.

The games were fun for everyone, but junior high and high school kids looked forward to the infrequent couple skates. For a few minutes, potential sweethearts could hold hands and circle a dimly lit rink. It would be interesting to learn how many romances began during doubles skating and then turned into long time marriages.

The old stories are so engaging it might be worth starting a skating resurgence both down the sidewalk and at the roll rink. Dig out those old shoe skates and keys; clear a path or an empty city building. Count on making great memories.