The Quest

       It wasn’t exactly the Holy Grail.

     Nor was there a damsel in distress.

     No fire-belching dragon, other than the internal ones which do not require an excursion to confront.

     I did not rename the Ford Ranger Rocinante.  I tugged along a faithful servant, the Goodwife, not one named Sancho Panza.

     My lampshade helmet?  A yellow Jegs cap and my “old-people” colored glasses that have side lenses to block blinding light coming in from the sides.

     This quest actually began more than thirty years ago when I reluctantly gave up finding a job anywhere in Eastern Colorado.  The farm was enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, CRP.

      Cover crops, weeds, and eventually a good stand of grass replaced  a two-year rotation of summer fallow followed by wheat.  I renewed ten-year contracts twice.  Thirty years of grass that got hayed once and grazed once in all that time.

      Ten years ago, I reenrolled about half of the acreage and began farming the other half using the old two-cylinder John Deere’s that had rested comfortably in the shed.  Finding parts for the old horses has become increasingly difficult. 

       Then there is one other detail:  I can’t spend eight hours a day riding a tractor any more, at least not the old hammering two-cylinders.  Age catching up with me.  Maybe I am Don Quixote after all. 

 

     An ad in the Miles Saver was the first step in the journey.  It said, “Wanted:  A versatile 750 tractor, or something similar.”  I got six responses. One of them was actually for a Versatile.  Otherwise, I got two John Deere responses, two Steiger offers, and one Allis Chalmers.

      I rejected one out of hand, as the tractor wasn’t in running condition.  The Goodwife and I set out on a sunny day in March and journeyed to Watkins where we looked at one of the John Deere’s.  I tried to drive it, but when I was trying to figure out how to shift the dang thing, the motor died. 

     The owner, an old guy from Haxtun, spent the next fifteen minutes hooking up an electric fuel pump to help prime the motor.  He got it started again and this time he drove it around the old farm house. New fuel filters were required.  It didn’t seem a prime candidate at that point.

       We returned to Loveland via Prospect Valley with a little side trip to Hoyt, Colorado.  Look that one up if you don’t know where Hoyt is!  There we viewed a 1974 Allis Chalmers 440.

     The Allis had a Cummins V-8 diesel motor and a Ford truck transmission.  With a stick coming up through the floor board front and center, figuring out how to shift it was no problem.  The biggest drawbacks, “only” 165 horse power, and two of the eight tires in not-so-good condition.

      Cold weather forced me back into hibernation.  On a warm March day, Sancho--er the Goodwife--and I took off for Otis, Colorado.  About fifteen miles north of the metropolis, we viewed a Steiger, a 1990’s model.  It was in great shape, with over 200 horse power and good tires.  The price tag was pretty good, too, about twice that of the Allis.  The shift levers and the two-page instructions on how to properly use them were a bit of a turnoff.

     That left one to go, the only Versatile on my list.  It was within ten miles of the farm, too.  Because it was so close and it was actually a Versatile, it seemed my odds-on favorite.  Except when I called to make an appointment to see it, the former owner informed me that he had sold it two weeks ago.  Ouch!

       He have a John Deere he would sell me.  I said I would go take a look, it being so close.  Thus, my adventure took me to the Les David place south of Genoa.

       This John Deere had all of the drawbacks of the other John Deere, plus thousands of hours on its hour meter.  All things pointed to the old Allis.

       On a solo voyage, I returned to Hoyt.  The old Allis started right up and I drove it around the farm yard, trying all the gears.  It would do.  At the time, the seller thought he could haul it for me.

      But then came the March blizzard.  As the weather warmed and March threatened to turn into April, Dan decided maybe he couldn’t haul it.  Could I find another trucker? 

      I tried, unsuccessfully.  The other thing that happened in that time, the price of diesel fuel rose about a dollar a gallon. 

       Dan did some research and consulted with a friend who trucks out of Bennet.  He decided he could haul it, but at a higher price than he had first offered.

      On a Saturday morning about 10 o’clock, the truck pulled in with its over-width load and coasted to a stop in the farmyard. 

 

        I wrote the check, and the tractor was ours.  At $10, 000, it was only a thousand more than the 4010 I bought last summer.

     My first official job as a new tractor owner was to remove all the goat heads sticking in the eight tires.  Not a crop I want to raise.

         The quest isn’t yet finished.  Now, there must be equipment worthy of such a work horse.  I have been back in Miles Saver. 

       So far, only three responses this time.  The journey continues.

      

Les David

    Avoid that goose no matter what.  Or was it a gander?

     On a quest, I found myself about two miles south of Genoa.  The place seemed oddly familiar, even though the old house was pretty run down and the yard and outbuildings in a state of disrepair.

      It must be the old Les David place.  (Luster William David died in 1974.)  Then the old memory machine kicked into gear.  It had to have been in the early 1950’s, because Les and Irene’s son Bill was in Korea at the time.

     Les was always a piano player.  He had this marvelous machine that would cut a vinyl record.  It was 78 rpm, I think, even though it is the smaller size, like a “45”.  I still have the record.  But I don’t have a record player that will do 78 rpm records anymore.  

     Since it was the early 50’s, I would have been somewhere between the ages of 3 and 6 or 7.  We all loaded up in the old Chev and trekked down to Les’s place.  It seems like it was a Sunday afternoon.  As I recall, Dad, Uncle Walter, and Les made a record or two to send to Bill in Korea, where he was serving in some branch of the service. 

     We went home with a record, too.  It would be nearly 70 years old now.

     I remember getting bored with the music and venturing outside.  But our outdoor activities were severely limited.  We had to stay inside the yard and keep the gate closed because that goose or gander would attack if we ventured into the farmyard outside of the fence.

 

       Thinking of Bill David caused another set of memories, memories of Syracuse, Kansas where Bill spent some time with Aunty and Uncle, playing music.  Except I don’t think Bill played any instrument.  I think he was a spectator.

      What I do remember is the way he balanced a burning cigarette on his lower lip.  He could carry on a conversation with that cigarette bobbing up and down with his lower lip.

    “No Walt, ‘lack’ I told Bessie. . . “ he would say as an intro to an anecdote or an opinion.   I wonder where Bill picked up his southern accent.

      And thinking of Bill made me think of other “characters” we met in Syracuse, one being a guy named Jack Pepper, I think.  He was a guitar picker with a 6-jack amplifier, a huge old box.  More memorable, he was a hypnotist. 

      He tried to hypnotize Uncle Ricky.  “Concentrate on your hand,” he would say over and over.  “Your hand is rising.  When your hand touches your forehead, you will be asleep.”  Or something like that. 

       Uncle Ricky’s hand did rise and touch his forehead, and he seemed asleep, but when Jack asked him to do something, he came out of the trance.  So Jack hypnotized his wife.

     He tried to get her to play the piano, but she was very shy and only sat at the keyboard shivering.  So he told her that when she came out of the trance, she would go into the bedroom and bring out a chair and invite Jack to sit in it.

      He brought her gently out of her zombie state.  When she was fully awake, she walked into the nearby bedroom, grabbed a chair and brought it out and said, “Have a chair, Jack.”

      He said, “Honey, I’m already sitting down,” and laughed.  She opined that she didn’t care to be hypnotized again.  The “piano” session had worn  her out physically and mentally, apparently, even though she had no recollection of sitting at the piano and refusing to play.

      When she was invited to play after her “spell” was over, she refused.  She wasn’t at all certain of her piano playing skills.  Jack said that a person couldn’t be persuaded to do something under hypnosis, that they wouldn’t ordinarily do.  I guess he proved it, too.  He said the idea that a bad actor hypnotizing an ordinary person and turning them into a murderer was total fiction.  

      All of this stimulated by a wild goose chase south of Genoa.  More on my wild goose chase next time.  Stay tuned.

 

         

The Blizzard of ‘21

       “Wolf!  Wolf!

      It would be here on Wednesday evening, “they” said. 

     But Wednesday evening came, and nothing.

     Then “they” said it would be here on Thursday.  Thursday evening, nada.

     On Friday evening, it really did come, in the form of drizzle and mist.  “It” was to be two to four feet of snow.  As of Friday, I was still betting on two to four inches.

      In the story of Worthless William, the little boy who cried “Wolf!”  To break the boredom of keeping sheep on a hillside near a forest, WW decided to yell “wolf” just to get a little company, someone other than the sheep. 

     The first two cries caused the citizens of the village below to drop whatever they were doing, grab cudgels and stones (no second amendment in this story) and head up the hill to protect the sheep from a marauding wolf.  When they got there, they found nothing but Worthless and his sheep.

      Then one day, the wolf really did come.  “Wolf!  Wolf!  W-O-U-LF!”  This time, the villagers really did NOT come.  In some scarier versions of the story, the big bad wolf eschewed mutton and took Worthless William out for dinner.

       Saturday, the rain continued with a few fat flakes falling, hitting, melting.  By dark, some accumulation began to gather. 

     Sunday morning greeted us with more than my predicted four inches.  As I looked out the window, I said, “The wolf really did come.”

      The snowblower started all right.  It was no match for the heavy wet snow.  I went forty or fifty feet and might have kept battling for a while, except the clutch linkage, a bailing wire fix, gave up and so did I.  I used Vice Grips to put the machine in reverse and back it out of the way.

       The snow shovel wasn’t an answer either.  The stuff was heavy and wet.  And with the wind picking up, it was filling in as fast as I could shovel.

      We have snowbirds for neighbors.  Before departing for Florida, Ken bought a powerful two-stage blower and gave it to a neighbor with the understanding that the neighbor would keep Ken's walks clean all winter. 

     The neighbor was out and blew his way to my drive.  I told him not to bother with the drive.  Just get the sidewalk to the post boxes clean, which he did.  The walk would get cleaned two or three more times by Monday noon, once more by snowblower and again a time or two with shovels.

       I retired to the safety of indoors and read the Sunday paper on line.  No way would the newspaper carrier be able to navigate the streets.

 

  Trail to post boxes.  “Trees” are normally six feet or higher.

       On Monday, I repaired the clutch linkage on my blower and tried it again, but the wet snow plugged up the chute.  The helpful neighbor came by again and cleared a path to the front door and in front of the garage doors.  I told him to help the two ladies at the far end of the cul de sac, one of whom who was supposed to get to work.  She didn’t make it.  Nobody did.

      “Tis an ill wind that blows no good,” the saying is.  Everybody in the cul de sac was out shoveling, snowblowing, talking to each other, helping each other.  That’s the first time that has happened in the six years we have lived here.

 

     

     On Tuesday, I attacked the driveway again with the snowblower.  It worked pretty well while it was still below freezing.  The frozen snow was powdery enough to blow without plugging the chute.  When the temperature warmed up, I started plugging up.

      I wasn’t quite done, so I shoveled for a while.  But then, I grew weary, and I had to get to a quartet practice.  One of the guys agreed to pick me up which solved my problem and another one.  The guy who hosted our practice at his house only had room to park one car.

      Ted was able to turn around in the cul de sac with a few backs and forwards.  I waded out to his car and away we went.

      When we came back, he was able to pull into our driveway.  Someone had cleared a ten foot path from where I had quit at the end of my drive, out into the center of the cul de sac.  I could get out now.

 

     I made another discovery after Ted left me.  The door was locked.  I had no key and no garage door opener.  I was locked out.  No problem.

      I rang the doorbell.  Twice.  A third time.  No answer.  Looking in, I could see lights all off.  Had the Goodwife taken advantage of the newly-cleared pathway and gone shopping somewhere?

      No problem.  Call her cell phone.  No answer.  Call again.  No answer.  Ring the doorbell again.  No response.

      There is a key outside.  In the back yard.  I had to slug all along the house in the deep snow.  As I passed the garage, I peered in to see the car still parked there.  Uh oh.  I began to panic a bit.

Pathway to the backyard.

       Fortunately, I left the snow shovel just outside the front door.  With the shovel, I dug enough to free the latched gate.  I managed to get the gate open wide enough for me to sneak through.  I slugged through the drifts to the shed where the key is hidden.

      Back I went as fast as I could.  I was just ready to insert the key into the door when the Goodwife appeared at the window.  She unlocked the door and I was in.

     “Thank God you’re alive!  Why the heck didn’t you answer the door?  Or your phone?”

      She was in the basement, couldn’t hear the doorbell, the phone in the bedroom, couldn’t hear it either.

       Enough excitement for Tuesday.  As we stood there by the door, a road grader and a frontend loader tractor came and shoved some snow out of the cul de sac.  The loader picked up the snow the grader bladed up and dumped it in a pile on the corners where the cul de sac borders the street.  The piles blocked the sidewalk a bit, and some of the grader’s windrow blocked the path someone (Neighbor Tom it turns out) had cleared from my drive to the center of the cul de sac.

       I finished my day out of doors by shoveling the windrow into two piles and my way was clear again.  We were back to some semblance of normal after the blizzard of ’21.  Icy streets will be around for a week or so.  Snow piles will last longer.  Some of them are huge.

       I am reminded of a snowy cold winter in Kansas, where for entertainment, a group of energetic citizens started a pool to see who could accurately predict how long the huge pile of snow in the center of the street in front of the courthouse would take to completely melt.

       You paid your dollar and entered a day, month, hour, and minute the pile would be gone.  For a while the judges selected to determine a complete melt down, met once a week, then once a day, and finally, they stood around on a warm sunny afternoon and determined when there was only water left.

       The contest wasn’t as close as one might expect, as the snow lasted quite a lot longer than most guesses.  It might be fun to do something like that this year, say in King Soopers’ parking lot.      

       Some people didn’t have enough to keep them busy in the storm's aftermath.  

 

 

         Like a decked, stunned prize fighter, the bushes struggle to rise up after the severe blow.   

                                     

                                                  

     Time will pass.  In years to come, will folks remember the one-two punch of a year of COVID followed by the blizzard of ’21?     

 

Abraham Was Black?

      “Abraham was the father of the white race.” 

     I wouldn’t know it for another 23 hours, but I had just made one of the most controversial statements of my career. 

     A day later, I would hear from one of my students, a girl who hardly ever said anything.  At the beginning of the class hour, she blurted out, “My mom says you are full of. . .”  She stopped appropriately for the classroom of those days, but everyone knew how to fill in the blank.

       I was amused.  I knew her mom rather well.  I had  had her in class.  Her grandmother was an accomplished pianist who accompanied lots and lots of singing groups, including some at school.  I wasn’t insulted.  After all, my comment was rather in jest, not a dogmatic statement.

       Without hesitancy, everyone in class chipped in.  “Yeah, my folks said they didn’t think you’re right.”  Similar comments came from every corner of the room.  It ended with the preacher’s kid.

      “My dad says that the Bible doesn’t actually say that.  Abraham was probably white.”

      “ Then Terah would be the father of the white race.  Abraham was black.  Isaac was the first white man,” I countered, still half jesting, as my original comments a day earlier had been.

       Objections followed and I laughed.  I admitted that none of those things I had said were my idea, but ideas that had been circulated for many years by some who knew a lot more about the Bible than I did.

       We moved on, but I don’t remember what we were working on.  I  just remember that the question a day earlier came out of the blue and had nothing whatsoever to do with what we doing in class.

      The amazing thing was that everyone was listening.  In day-to-day classroom work, the enemy is boredom, ennui, lack of participation, lack of involvement.  To think that they were not only listening, but actually took it home.

         “What did you do at school today?”

       “Oh, nothing.”  No.  Instead,  “The nutty teacher said Adam and Eve were black, that Abraham was the father of the white race.”  I had to laugh.  Delightedly.

        Ashton, we’ll call her, caused the whole thing.  She was a blond, fair, student who, I came to find out wasn’t disinterested.  Just quiet, maybe.  Her question came out of nowhere.  It was uttered seemingly without cause.

     “Where did black people come from?” she asked.  The question had nothing to do with anything we were working on.

 

      Now in those days, there was a guru named Madeline Hunter.  She was beloved by many a principal and superintendent.  She provided a yardstick to actually gauge teacher effectiveness.  She made a principal’s dreaded job of evaluating his charges a little easier.

      She objectified an otherwise subjective job.  A principal could take a checklist of characteristics with him to observe a teacher at work.  He could fill it out and share it with the teacher in the required evaluation conference.  She could even make suggestions of how to improve.  Quite a difference from my evaluations in the early days of my career.

     A major problem with disciples of Madeline Hunter was that the administrator used that yardstick for purposes other than measuring, purposes that the schoolmaster of old may have used a yardstick for.  Like whapping his charges over the head with it.  Some principals were unable to practice what they preached.  They failed to dignify teacher’s actions when they fell short of the glory of Madeline.

      Madeline Hunter made a career of studying successful teachers.  She sought out those teachers who were successful, who were acclaimed by students, principals, and parents, whose students did well on SAT and ACT tests.  She visited their classrooms, sat in with their individual student conferences, observed their dealing with parents. 

     Then she drew up some characteristics that all these successful teachers demonstrated.  And less successful teachers failed to demonstrate.

 

     It came to pass that Madeline Hunter left her home in fertile California to sojourn in the heart of the Great American Desert for a night and a day, in Colby, Kansas.  And many of the pedagogues of Northwest Kansas gathered on an artificial hillside known as the basketball court of the Colby Community Building to listen to the great teacher of teachers.

     For six hours, three hours before lunch and three hours after lunch (I don’t remember what was for lunch, but it wasn’t fish and loaves) she dwelt on the subject of “Dignifying a Wrong Answer.”

     One of the things good teachers do is establish a personal relationship with their charges.  Jesus and Socrates come to mind. 

      Maintaining a good relationship prohibits embarrassing a student, especially in front of her peers.  So, when a wrong answer appears, you must handle it, without ignoring it, with a response that will allow the incorrect answerer to retain his dignity.

     It’s a form of “Jeopardy.”  When the wrong answer appears, you say something like, “Oh, you must be thinking of . . . .”  Then you supply a question for which the wrong answer is the RIGHT answer! 

      In the last section of her six hour presentation, Madeline answered written questions submitted by teachers, many who had felt the sting of the Madeline Hunter yardstick on their hides.  One question that appeared more than once dealt with the subject of “time-on-task.”  Madeline observed that good teachers spent a lot of their allotted class time engaged with students during the class “period.” 

       So some administrative disciples would actually set a stopwatch to see how long a teacher spent working with students during the class hour.  It meant a teacher needed to be still trying to engage students on a subject at the end of a long hour.  No time to just relax and visit with students.

      Well, Madeline set them straight.  When you’re done, you’re done, she said, in answer to a question she read from a small slip of paper.  No use whipping a dead horse.  She also said that some days, when the students can’t settle down and get to work, you might just as well pack it in and try again tomorrow.  I don’t think the ones who needed to listen to that actually listened to that.

       And now I must say that I was fortunate never to have to work under that kind of pressure or stress.  My principals were all good, as far as I was concerned.  But, we did have some in our system. . . .

       Anyway, we had had six hours of strategies to handle wrong answers from the great lady.  So when Ashton supplied not an incorrect answer, but a totally non sequitur question, my training kicked in.  Not for nothing did I spend six hours on the manufactured hillside attending the great pedagogical guru.

       “Where did black people come from?’

      “Adam and Eve were black.  Abraham was the father of the white race.”

      The question wasn’t where did black people come from.  The question was, where did the mutation known as Isaac come from!

      It wasn’t the first time I made controversial statements, even ridiculous ones, just to see if anyone was listening.  It wouldn’t be the last time either.

     It was the only time I got such a universal and unanimous reaction.

Faucets

     The house was cold when I walked in, 47 degrees.  It was 55 outside.

     I disarmed the security system and glanced around.  Everything seemed in order.  No need to go downstairs for the usual chores of turning on the water heater and turning off the cameras.  I wouldn’t be there long enough to worry about either.

     Next step, check the water.  Nothing at the kitchen faucet.  I was a little surprised.  It was only a week or so since I last checked in.  Probably a dripping faucet or something.

      I grabbed the keys and unlocked the shop.  Then I turned on the pressure pump.  On my way back to the house, I stepped in the shop to turn on the well pump.  I walked back to the house.  I didn’t run.  I probably should have. 

      When I opened the porch door, there was water on the floor in front of me.  There was the ominous hiss coming from the corner beside the washing machine.  (A hiss must be a universal danger signal that puts us mammals into fight or flight mode.) 

      It wasn’t just a broken hose I saw.  There was an open pipe, no shutoff, nothing.  The only way to stop it was to go downstairs and shut off the main valve.  Through the kitchen door, across the kitchen, through the cellar door, down the stairs, around the stairway and to the southeast corner I went as fast as I safely could.

     With the main valve shut off, I grabbed a mop and went back to the porch.  Well, it wasn’t exactly an open pipe that I saw.  There was a piece of brass still attached to the galvanized iron pipe.  I could see threads where the rest of the shutoff valve should have been.

      But where was the rest of the valve?  And how on earth did it get unthreaded from the adapter still fastened to the galvanized pipe?

     The rest of the valved was still attached to the washing machine hose.  It didn’t take long to answer that question.  How did it come loose?  It took a while to answer that one.

     A couple of trips to the garage and then my pickup got the right tools.  I removed the brass fitting from the pipe.  I took the valve off the washing machine hose.  I began the process of putting the two parts of the valve together.

      Then I saw it.  There was a big crack in the bottom of the valve body, the piece attached to the washing machine hose.  It must have frozen.  The ice split the valve body.  When it got warm enough to thaw out, the water pressure must have blown the valve body apart.

     That brought on a few more questions.  I had been there since the great freeze.  It was a warm day when I was there.  It wasn’t leaking then.  I had used the water and even run the pressure pump up to its maximum of fifty-some pounds.  Why had it had a delayed reaction?  The pump was off as usual when no one is there.

      Oh well.  Ours is not to reason why.  I set about repairing the damage.  A half inch plug would stop the leak so I could turn on the water again.  I thought about making a run to town for a new valve.  Then I realized that there were three valves in the cluster that supplied water to the washing machine, a spare one in case someone need to attach a garden hose. 

       I took off the spare and put it where the damaged one had been.  I put the plug where the spare valve had been.  As common sense began to take over after the panic, I realized I would not have had to make the change of valve and plug.  I could have simply put the washing machine hose on the valve where it was.  Oh well.  I had already done the work.  No need to redo it. 

      I turned on the water and checked for leaks.  All was well.  Now the process of bleeding pipes.  Loss of water pressure usually means a lot of flushing to get the air out of the pipes, and then a lot of faucet screen cleaning because the old iron pipes have a certain degree of rust and even some sand in them. 

     When a faucet is turned on, the air escapes not with a whimper, but with bang.  The bang jars stuff loose inside the pipes. 

       I started the process in the upstairs bathroom.  Air likes to go up, I think.  When I opened the lavatory cold water faucet, I got the usual boom and pop, some rust, and some sand.  But then it wouldn’t shut off entirely.  There was a prodigious drip I could not stop.

       Of course, there are no stops under the lavatory counter.  Back down two flights of stairs to shut off the main valve again.  I thought the problem with the lavatory faucet was the friction between stem and stem body made it difficult to turn all the way off.  I had been having some problems with it last fall.

      As I was in the process of greasing the valve stem, I noticed the screw holding the faucet washer to the stem was loose, so loose it wouldn’t let the seat washer close on the seat.  The screw head hit the seat and stopped the washer from going all the way down.

     That problem was easily solved with a screw driver, which was handy since I had to have it to take the  handle off the valve stem.  I reassembled the faucet and took the two flights of stairs down to turn on the water.  Then back up the stairs to check for leaks.

     Aha!  There were none.  The faucet now shut off and held, no drips. 

     I cleaned up and put away the tools.  The rest of my trip was routine.  Check this, check that.  Everything seemed ok. 

      Home again, I thought about being able to solve the plumbing problems in an hour or less.  Actually, I was a bit proud of myself for the day’s work.  Then I drew some water from the kitchen sink at home.  Dang!  It takes special attention to get it to shut off and not drip.

      That wasn’t a new discovery, either.  It has been that way since Christmas.  I just never get around to doing anything about it.  Well, ok.  I did have a hip replacement and carpal tunnel surgery.  I gave myself a little break.

      But the aggravation didn’t go away.  This kitchen faucet has only been in a little over two years, and this will be the second time I have had to operate on it. 

      I had a Franke faucet there, one where the main head is on a hose that comes out of the faucet spout and can be used either as spray or stream.  It leaked where the handheld part connected to the hose.  The water dripped down underneath the sink and made a mess. 

     Try as I might, I could find no repair part for a Franke faucet.  I checked with Lowes who sell the Franke brand.  Nothing.  I went to Ace Hardware.  The helpful Ace guy referred me to a local plumbing shop.  I could buy hose, spout and all for $150 or something ridiculous.

     So I bought a Delta faucet, thinking I would be able to buy parts.  Which I can, but I thought I might get a little more than a year or two out of it before I had to buy parts.

      I'll get to the kitchen faucet one of these days.

      And so it goes. 

                 

     

H20

      He was a crochety old man.  He lived catacorner from the school playground and across the street from the sports field.

     We were supposed to be watching the football or baseball game, but of course it was much more fun to be playing our own game in the parking lot directly across the street from old John.  Don’t let the ball cross the street into his yard.  It was a lost ball if it got into John’s yard.

     He was somebody’s grandpa, so we watched what we said about him.  What we said was never good.  That’s all I ever knew about him.  Until many years later.  Long after he was dead.

 

      Recently, a group of local citizens started a club whose goal is to keep Lake Loveland filled with water all year around.  In the spring, the lake fills and remains full most of the summer.  As fall approaches, the inflow stops and the lake’s water level drops even as farmer demand downstream declines.  The decline in water level exposes vast stretches of “beach.”  Winter winds kick up dust and sand storms that the lake’s neighbors don’t care for too much.

     Additionally, the lake serves as a tourist attraction and a picturesque background for lots of activities.  The club members see it as a bit of false advertisement to use pictures of the full lake for tourist brochures since the lake spends about half of the year being a not-so-attractive mudhole.

    The group approached the city council, asking that the council take matters into their hands to do what they can to get some control of the water level in the lake during the winter months.  The lake is not owned by the city.  It is owned by the Loveland Greeley Irrigation Company.  Its main purpose is to provide water for Weld County farmers.

     In an op-ed in the local paper, a city councilman pointed out the difficulties of doing anything about the water level in Lake Loveland.  He says there are nine separate boards and commissions that have a say in how much water goes into and out of the lake and when those inputs and outflows can occur.  There goes the simple solution.

      Water has long been a point of contention west of the Missouri.  Many an old western book or movie has at its core the conflict over water rights.  For whoever knows what reason, the story and op-ed in the paper stimulated memories of another “range war.”

       

            Looking for something to do on a weekend many years ago, the Goodwife and I, before kids, went to the museum in Oberlin, Kansas.  There my eye fell on a story that actually occurred 40 or 50 miles west in Cheyenne County near the border with Rawlins County where we lived.

     Why wasn’t that story in the Rawlins County Museum? I wondered.  I think because sons of one of the participants were still in their prime and may not have wanted to see that story about their father in an institution partially supported by their tax money.

    The story is referred to as the Dewey-Berry feud.  I read it with some interest.  That interest spiked when I came across the phrase “John Berry of Genoa, Colorado.”

     Apparently, he had made an unlucky choice to visit relatives in Western Kansas one fateful day.  Three of the Berrys were killed on that day.  According to the article in the museum, John was called as a witness when the case went to court.   

      The fight was over a stock watering tank, not exactly a fight over water.  At what must have been a sheriff’s sale, the Deweys bought the tank and had come to the Berry place to take possession of it. 

      There had been bad blood between the two families, as the Deweys were ranchers and the Berrys were squatters in the Deweys’ opinion.  The Berrys accused the Deweys of letting their cattle run over Berry crops.  So, when two sides came together in the Berry farmyard, the frustration on both sides boiled over and a gun battle ensued.

       Both sides claimed the other side fired the first shot.  After the shooting, three of the Berry men lay dead.  The only Dewey casualty was a dead horse.

     As word of the goings-on spread, an army of vigilantes composed of other settlers who had also felt themselves victimized by the Deweys gathered at the Berry place and were considering heading to the Dewey Ranch to even up the score.  Somehow, lawmen prevented that from happening. 

      Dewey and his cowboys holed up at the ranch until the sheriff’s pleas to Topeka brought National Guard troops to the rescue.  The Guard troops were more for the protection of the Dewey Crew who feared the mob that was rumored to be looking for them than for help in arresting them. 

      Dewey and company were arrested and taken first to Colby, then St. Francis, eventually to Topeka where they were released on bond.  The trial took place in Norton, Kansas.  The Deweys were acquitted in the criminal trial, but were later sued for wrongful death by the Berrys.  A jury awarded the Berrys $15,000.

      As I read all about the feud, I had to look in my memory bank and take another look at the crochety old man who lived on the corner.  The feud occurred on June 3, 1903.  John could not have been very old then and still be around in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.

       Forty or fifty years later, I had another “run-in” with John Berry.  This time with my now-deceased neighbor.  One of the guns Neighborly showed me in his gun collection was one he bought from John Berry.  It was a civil war rifle that had been stored for years covered in grease and wrapped in a gunny sack.    

      The gun belonged to John’s father (or was it his uncle—I don’t remember for sure) and had been used in the civil war.  John was reluctant to give up the gun but eventually succumbed to Neighborly’s  persuasive powers.  The gun lives on.  As I studied the gun, once again I had to recalculate my thoughts about John Berry.  And what a small world it is, maybe.

      Will the water wars of the west once again break out in armed conflict?  Doubtful.  But who knows?  The right combination of swelling population, unprecedented drought, and disgruntled water-rights holders mustn’t be dismissed out of hand.

       Conflict is certain.  This time, it will be over water, rivers and reservoirs,  not a stock tank.