29. The Ancient Ones ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Robert had only two more years to help his father with spring planting before Robert would be off to a university. As Robert preferred disking to plowing, Joe agreed to do any plowing that had not been done in the fall while Robert did as much of the disking as possible. This arrangement often meant that Robert and his father were not in the same field.

At the time when the family had moved to the new house, Joe had inherited a hundred-acre farm from his uncle Marshall. It was located a mile east of the Williams place. The field rose gently—almost imperceptibly—to the north and to the east from a lower area that had been a pond before the early settlers tiled the land. Often, Robert would be disking part of what Joe called “Uncle Marshall’s farm” (Great Uncle Marshall to Robert) while Joe was plowing or planting at the Williams place.

On one of the days when Robert was disking by himself with the International 560 at Uncle Marshall’s farm, he was writing stories in his imagination. The cloudless sky was cornflower blue at the horizon, shading to a rich azure at the zenith. The sun shone like an arc welder’s torch almost directly overhead. Red-winged blackbirds sang conk-la-reeeee! while brown thrashers flitted among the emerald green leaves of the thickets at the edge of a long and narrow ten-acre woods on the west side of the field. Various warblers trilled rapid arpeggios, showing off their virtuosic talents. The “chuffy” soil (Robert’s adjective) lay fluffed: the perfect bed for the kernels of corn to come. Robert spent many minutes going one direction before turning at the edge of the big field and going back, over and over again.

Suddenly, he wondered how the nose of his tractor could be pushing against the rusted wire of an old fence along the northern border of Uncle Marshall’s farm. Robert flew into action, stopping the tractor before it was damaged. He had fallen asleep, and the tractor had kept going straight when Robert should have been turning. By repeatedly backing up the short distance that his tractor could go before the drawbar of the disk would be turned too far to one side, Robert finally was able to make the turn with the corner of the disk missing the rusty fence by a whisker.

“Now, take a mental note,” Robert said aloud to himself. “You dare not fall asleep while operating a tractor. You must stay awake at all times.” He stopped the 560 and walked around to look at the nose. The paint was so strong in those days that there was not so much as a scratch from where the tractor had pushed against the wire. Robert felt relieved that he had done no damage.

When he regained the by-now hot black seat, he laughed at the sight of the last pass he had made, for it angled on a slight curve to the left from the moment when slumber had overtaken him. No harm done! He could go back over that part in reestablishing a straight line.

To keep himself awake, he watched for flint knives. Beginning in the Archaic Period and continuing through the Woodland Period, Native Americans had lived on the land of which Uncle Marshall’s farm was a small portion. A heavy sprinkling of flint chips in an arc surrounding the lower area of the field suggested that, from at least eight thousand years before Christ, knife makers had surrounded the pond. The Akers family had acquired the part of Uncle Marshall’s place to the south of the road. On that land and in the surrounding fields that had already belonged to the family, Bob, a veteran of World War II who had earned the distinction of having driven a car on the Alaska Highway and who epitomized what the noun “gentleman” means, had amassed a vast collection of artifacts including gorgets, bannerstones, pipes, mortars, pestles, axes, and seemingly countless flint pieces. Clearly, thousands of years of habitation had left their mark on the landscape across the road.

As Charles was attending Indiana University, Robert discovered that he could conveniently take artifacts to be identified by Dr. James H. Kellar, the first director of the Glen Black Laboratory of Archaeology on the Bloomington campus and an expert on Angel Mounds near Evansville. Robert could not have foreseen that, in the future, he would take fifteen hours of anthropology courses, including Dr. Kellar’s upper-division archaeology course, and that, when Robert was finishing his undergraduate degree, Dr. Kellar would offer Robert the opportunity to take a graduate student position at the laboratory—an opportunity that Robert would forgo to pursue a master’s degree in creative writing, instead. While Robert was yet in high school, he decided he could examine farmers’ collections of artifacts, draw sketches of them, and have Dr. Kellar review the sketches, thereby making it unnecessary to transport heavy collections to Bloomington for identification. Robert sketched many pieces in a large collection that Pete Thurman had made and that Louise Thurman, a sister of Robert’s Great Aunt Margaret and a former teacher who had taught Joe, let Robert peruse for the several days that were required to make the drawings. Robert also sketched a number of Bob’s exquisite pieces from his farms and from the portion of Great Uncle Marshall’s land that Bob had acquired.

When Professor Kellar paged through Robert’s sketches, he said, “Until I met you, I had no idea there were artifacts in Warren County, let alone such a concentration of them.” Dr. Kellar began sharing his findings with archaeologists at other universities.

Immediately, Bob took a keen interest in learning all he could learn about the cultures that had produced such masterful utilitarian pieces and such artistically fashioned stonework. Within a few years, Bob had attended archaeological digs and had taken part in workshops and classes offered by faculty representing several universities. Bob was responsible for an eventual scholarly exploration of an earthen mound on Don Akers’ farm northwest of Pine Village. Bob became a familiar figure in the study of the ancient cultures of Warren County.

While Robert was in his junior and senior years of high school, he and Bob had many discussions about artifacts. Quite often while tilling the soil, Bob would discover another piece, and, at his earliest opportunity, he would show it to Robert, who might share a fact that he had learned from Dr. Kellar. “Is that right?” Bob would ask, adding, “I thought this piece looked to be a good one.”

Ever kind and considerate, Bob would ask Robert, “Do you suppose the people were becoming less nomadic even earlier than was thought? That might account for why there are so many of these artifacts here.” Then Bob and Robert would spend a happy hour conversing about the possibilities to be deduced from the kinds of materials that had turned up.

Robert and Bob soon learned that one of the best times to find flint knives and other pieces was in the spring soon after rain had washed the surface of fields that had been recently plowed and disked. Both became adept at stopping tractors in the nick of time to hop down and pick up a beautifully shaped knife just before the disk would have run over it. Frequently, only the edge of the knife was revealed above the soil. Keeping a sharp lookout became a goal, especially when disking.

Robert’s imagination continually roamed over what the ponds and marshes must have looked like before European descendants began to tile the soil for farmland. He tried to picture bison finding their way between wallows in the pockets of prairie grass like islands amid bogs. The land must have been good for hunting.

Once, during a full moon, Robert wondered if flint knives could be seen by moonlight, so he drove his 1953 Packard to Uncle Marshall’s farm. He walked slowly along the slight ridges left by the disk, but he soon realized that the light was not strong enough. A fog was forming in a thin blanket near the ground in the lower area where the pond had once been located. Robert stood watching the fog slowly swirl. He could easily picture the fog as water. Before long, he envisioned the people who were living along the edge of the pond. They had eaten their dinner and were settling down for conversation and story-telling. A man turned, saw Robert, and beckoned to him.

At that instant, Robert’s hair stood on end. He knew that everything he had pictured was nothing more than a product of his imagination, yet he felt a time-defying presence in the land. Jogging over the ground, he jumped into his car, started the motor, turned on the headlights, backed into the road, and drove home, vowing that he would never again risk returning to that farm at night.

14. The Disking and the Camp ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Ever since Robert had celebrated his ninth birthday, Joe had let him steer the Minneapolis–Moline Z tractor while Joe stood carefully between the seat and the fender on the right side. Now that the summer of Robert’s thirteenth birthday was approaching, Joe began showing Robert how to run the International 560 by himself. When spring planting began, Robert spent weekends helping disk ground that Joe and Charles plowed.

Robert had already lifted some of the farming burden from his father’s shoulders by tending livestock and caring for chickens and ducks, but now Robert began assisting Joe in the fields during the spring months, when farmers were in a near frenzy to plant corn and soybeans while the good weather lasted.

One morning, Joe deployed Robert and the 560 in a recently plowed field close to State Route 55 and near the Old Barn. Before Robert’s father strode across the land to an adjoining field where he would be plowing, Joe reminded Robert, “Don’t turn too short at the edge of the field!” Robert was pulling an ancient harrow behind the relatively new disk. The harrow was in two heavy sections of rusty iron with a two-by-four running across the front to hold the two sections side by side. A fairly wide turning radius was required, so that the two-by-four did not catch on the plow.

Robert made many passes the length of the field. He enjoyed disking because he could go a little faster than was possible with plowing, and he enjoyed plowing less because leaning in the seat as one of the driver wheels ran in the furrow was less comfortable and turning to keep constant watch on the plow was more demanding. The soil that day was perfect for disking. The black loam lay smooth and fine. Robert had coined a word for well-disked ground: “chuffy,” a combination of “churned” and “fluffy.” The soil behind Robert’s disk and harrow was chuffy. Robert set his mind free to imagine stories.

He was in the midst of telling himself a story about a UFO like the ones that had been seen by so many people in Michigan in 1966, when suddenly he heard a snap.

Robert had been making a turn. He wisely stopped the tractor. Before he looked behind him, he knew what he would see: a broken two-by-four. Sure enough! he had turned too short, and the plow had snapped the board as it jammed up against it.

Robert shut off the tractor and walked across the fields to tell his father what he had done.

Joe backed off on the throttle but still could not hear Robert, so Joe switched off his tractor. He smiled and said, “Now, say that again.”

“I broke the two-by-four,” Robert confessed.

“You turned too short, didn’t you?” Joe commented, still smiling.

“Yes,” Robert said meekly.

“I was afraid that might happen,” Joe continued. “When you’re working a short field like that one, you have the tendency to try to work closer to the fence line than you would in a larger field, and, when you do that, you also have the tendency to try to make too short a turn. We’ll go to the elevator right now and have Let Crane saw a new two-by-four, so that you can keep on disking today.”

It was not the first time that Robert was amazed at his father’s patience and equanimity, nor would it be the last.    

Later that spring, Mr. Charlie Coffman loaded the school bus bound for 4-H Camp at Shakamak, a park southeast of Terre Haute. (Teachers and others in authority were addressed with a title, such as Mister.) Besides being 4-H advisor, FFA advisor, agriculture teacher, and principal, Mr. Coffman was a bus driver. He was ever and always in a cheerful mood, and the trip to Shakamak was no exception.

Charles and Robert threw their Army surplus duffel bags in the back of the bus, took their seats, and enjoyed the drive to Shakamak. Sitting in the sunny window of the bus and watching the small towns drift by, Robert felt as if he might be Charlie Brown or Linus. Compared to Tippecanoe River State Park, where the Adams Township 4-H Club occasionally repaired and where raccoons kept Robert awake all night, Shakamak seemed like a spa. On the first afternoon, Mr. McKee, the county extension agent, pitched the softball game. His windup was something to see! Squinting and biting his lower lip, he lifted a knee high in the air while he contorted his body like a pretzel, then he tossed the ball in a graceful arc. In the outfield, Mike would comment, “Oh, honestly!”  If anyone could keep from laughing long enough and could get a hit, Mr. McKee would exclaim, “Very fine! Very fine!”

Mr. Coffman was all for getting in the water as soon as possible. Robert and Charles lined up with the other 4-Hers, and Mr. Coffman led them on the trail to the lake. Even though Charles and Robert had gone barefoot around the farm, their bare feet were cut by the exposed shale that formed much of the path. The next day, every step was painful. For the time being, though, it was fun to watch Mr. Coffman disporting in Lake Shakamak. He was like a smiling duck, splashing and cavorting in utter glee.

Robert despised water and barely put up with the swimming. Back when he was in the third grade, Ida had enrolled him and Charles in swimming lessons at the indoor pool of the YMCA in Lafayette. At the first lesson, the children had turned right to gather around the instructor, who was standing at the shallow end. Shy, Robert had turned left, and the instructor had not seen him. The instructor had said, “Jump in,” and Robert had obeyed. Down he went in a pale green world. Breathing water instead of air had been a new experience; bubbles had gone up as he had gone down. Later, he had learned that parents, who were watching their children through a window, had pounded on the glass to get the instructor’s attention, and that the instructor had finally understood that a child had leapt into the deep end of the pool. The next thing that Robert knew was that the instructor had rescued him and was reviving him at the side of the pool. After that experience, Robert had feared the water so much that, every Friday after school, when the swimming lesson was approaching, he had felt sick to his stomach. After several weeks, Ida had given up and had canceled the lessons. Robert had gone cheerfully forward in life as a non-swimmer. So, at Shakamak, he was content to stand on the sharp shale in the shallow water and watch Mr. Coffman having fun.

At the end of a pier stood a tall structure supporting several diving boards with the uppermost one seemingly among the clouds. Mr. Coffman warned against using the diving boards—especially the top one. At dinner, Alan told Robert he looked at the diving boards and decided that discretion was definitely the better part of valor.

The soughing of the breezes in the oak leaves made Robert feel content, and, as a fiery sunset of scarlet, coral, and tangerine deepened into garnet and boysenberry, Robert felt that all was right with the world—except for his sore feet!      

 

Experiencing Nature in Warren County, Indiana 3

On a sunny April Saturday when I was in high school, I had been disking for my father. My International 560 tractor needed gasoline, so I drove from the fields back to the house. I pulled alongside the elevated gas barrel, switched off the engine, spun off the gas cap, and began filling. The day was hot and still. Even the birds were taking a break from their hectic springtime schedule. With the tank full, I hung the hose on its iron saddle and thought about returning to my disking.

Rough Weather Ahead

Drawing by W. Hamilton Gibson (1850–1896)

Engraved by F. S. King (1848–1936)

In The Closing Scene

Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1887

My father and my brother were working with tractors in adjacent fields about as far from the house as they could be. Would they miss me for fifteen additional minutes? I decided they would not, so I strode to the house and stretched out on the sofa for a quick nap.

Naturally, I lost track of the time. Imagine my surprise when my brother and my father noisily entered the living room! They were talking loudly with considerable animation. In my half-asleep state, I felt they were angry with me for shirking my responsibility. My sense of guilt helped me awaken fully. Then I realized they were not speaking about my indolence; rather, they were discussing the funnel cloud that had just crossed near the north end of our farm.

I sat up and listened to their description of the funnel, which began to touch down but lifted immediately. I glanced at the clock. I had slept for less than an hour. In just that length of time, the skies to the west had darkened, and a storm had approached. On its path from southwest to northeast, the blue-black cloud mass had passed on an angle a little over a mile north of our house. Acknowledging the dangers of lightning, my father had signaled my brother to bring his tractor and plow up to the house while my father drove his tractor and corn planter up to the barn. When they entered the barnyard, they witnessed the funnel’s descent.

I had slept through the excitement. And I was disappointed! In my late teens, I had wanted to spot a tornado. (I do not want to see one now.) Had I not tried to sneak in a nap, I could have watched the formation of a funnel, however briefly. A few years later, deadly tornadoes struck. I was in college. I drove home on the weekend after the massive tornadoes, and my father and I toured the damage. I remember two-story farmhouses missing walls so that they looked like oversize dollhouses. Most impressive was a mile-wide swath cut through a woods. Stripped of their bark, trunks of large trees lay where they were mowed down. My cousin’s house was destroyed. My father and I collected large balls of metal from the north end of our farm. Metal roofing and siding had been loosely rolled and tossed aside. Our buildings sustained no damage, but I had to walk down the country road to our neighbor’s house to collect the chairs that had been sitting on our front porch.

In my experience, the most severe storms always traveled on a diagonal line to the north of our farm. I wondered what factors determined their course. To me, the annual threat of tornadoes made life on the prairie seem exciting but precarious. I have not felt quite so vulnerable when living in other places. Oddly, that vulnerability was also part of feeling closely connected to nature: a connection I have not felt as powerfully since.