March 1982
Deer bound into the forest, quail scurry for cover, the crunch of our feet on the hoar frost alerting them to danger. The brisk early morning air tingles our ears and braces our lungs as my wife and I go on our run - one of the ways in which we infill our spirits for the coming day. Coupled with our morning journaling, reading and quiet time, the day beckons us with promises of adventure and accomplishment. What a celebration life can be!
I want to share a momentous discovery with you as promised. Late one autumn afternoon, after sawing and splitting firewood for a few hours, I was sitting in the middle of a grove of oak trees. Periodically, gusts of wind would loose a blizzard of leaves from above. At first all that I saw was a cloud of leaves fluttering to the ground. Then an overwhelming awareness pervaded me. Each leaf, as it dries and curls on the stem, assumes a unique shape. On their flight to earth, each one takes a different path; one does a pirouette, another becomes a glider, yet another takes a roller coaster ride to the ground. It was as if I had discovered fire and then realized that indeed, I had slowed down enough to take note of the real world around me.
I am confident that most Iowa Hillians would agree with me that by living up here away from the bustling freeway of life, it is much easier to make such inward discoveries. However, I realize that we don't have a monopoly on such freedoms. Indeed, the bottom line of this week's column is to point out the beauty and inward peace available to all, given the quiet moments needed for the discovery.
Notwithstanding, the work ethic is alive and well up here. We don't sit around watching rocks grow all the time! Frank Colnar is a real life example. Much of life is written on his face yet the enjoyment of today and expectation of tomorrow is apparent in his smile. I asked him, had he been working much during our inclement weather? He answered, "When you are almost 80 years old, you have to stay busy and keep moving every day."
Frank had kindly picked us up on the way to town as our old faithful truck had refused to make the trip. On the way home, we walked from town to the Iowa Hill Bridge. After all the many motorized trips down that hill, that walk revealed so many worthwhile sights; a covey of quail, a waterfall, the patterns of the rock-face, a cedar tree whose top had been broken off. Plus a new friend, Win Benson, an itinerant gold miner, tale spinner, all around nice guy. He intercepted us at the bridge with his friendliness and a cup of coffee.
On the way up the grade, John Hecker, Holly and Lottie stopped and gave us a lift on up to John's house. John and Carol, his wife, feel so strongly about living up here that he commutes to work.
A day of forced slow pace in which we saw, felt, shared and thoroughly enjoyed. Happy slowness and good oak leaf watching!
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March 1982 - a week later
It has been my special privilege over the past six weeks to write about the hills and the people around Iowa Hill. I wanted to show the interested reader in the neighboring communities that the Iowa Hill area is populated with plain folk in touch with themselves and not by wild gangs of gun-totin' outlaws. Hopefully, I have inspired the people up here to re-appreciate themselves and their environs. The nature of my columns have been a bit on the "pollyannish" side on purpose. I wanted to write what I would have wanted to read, the good stuff. We have a unique opportunity up here to foster a loving, sharing community having the same problems and challenges in common. Through the diversity of people available up here, we could lend our talents to each other, building a foundation of caring.
Since this is my last column, I am going to do a little preaching. I have been up here long enough to listen to the gossip that passes for conversation. There are some folks who won't go near other folks and others who have real or imagined charges concerning events past. Now my daddy always told me, "If you can't say something good about someone, then don't say nothing." Also, he taught me to take my grudge or complaint to it's source, confront the person and either settle it or bury it. Life's too precious to waste time harboring grudges.
I love it here on King's Hill and I have found more genuine friends in the last 6 months than I have ever had. I want to make this my home and so I hope that what I have said is taken constructively. I'd like to think we can live together with love and caring, exercising tolerance and forgiveness when necessary and lace our conversations with real topics instead of back-biting gossip. Amen?
Congratulations to John and Pat on their betrothal. Pat says that they are planning a two-day town festival for the weekend of June 19-20 with lots of unique events including a street dance. Check the bulletin board at the store for further developments. Like most of us, John and Pat work at a variety of jobs including mining to make ends meet. Although they reside in Colfax, they feel at home up here, hence the site for the wedding at Iowa Hill.
We all walk through this life one day at a time, confronting each problem as it pops up with the best that we have. Too soon, in looking back, one's life strings out behind like a desert highway, littered with our successes and failures. There are only a few lingering effects once we've gone - the impact that we have made on other people's lives both good and bad - and the kind of kids we raise. God knows that I've made my share of mistakes in the past. My total goal for the rest of my life is to live it well and in doing that perhaps helping others along the way.
