The shop wasn’t a shop at all.  It was where Dad’s tools went before we built the machine shed.  It as a little fifteen foot by ten foot shack with rattlely windows and a door that was half off its hinges.

“Where did it come from?” I remember asking as a child.

“It was an old bachelor’s house down the road and we moved it over here when we broke up the woods on Hank’s Forty.” Dad replied.

It was an old building, a home for someone years ago - an early settler, trying to make a go of it in the harsh climate of the upper middle west.

Driving across the countryside, you see fewer and fewer of the old buildings, of the old farmsteads.  Places where even I remember a home, a barn, and a half a dozen old outbuildings are now no more then a gravely spot in a field, buildings burned or buried and the yard and drives plowed up.

It is sad to see them go.  They are an accumulation of lifetimes.  They were places were people ate and slept, where birthday’s, Christmases, Easters, and Thanksgivings were celebrated, where funerals and sickness were mourned.  These were the places that marked the passage of time of the pioneers.  Many of them were built with the fresh hope and optimism of a new land, dense woods and open fields covered in prairie grass that just seemed to be waiting for the axe and the plow.

The true American dream was to have an agrarian population.  Jefferson’s dream, and the dream of succeeding generations, was to have a race of yeoman farmers, tilling the land, governing their lives with good, honest, hard work and educating their children to do the same.  Every eighty acres would have a family, living off the land and feeding the world with the plenty.

But the harsh reality set in.  The land was fertile, but was a demanding servant.  The trees would fall to the axe, but not without back breaking labor to clear the stumps.  The weather might cooperate one year, and kill the shoots of the wheat the next with a late frost, or a dry spell may form disaster out of the hope with crops and livestock dying under the unrelenting sun and dryness.  The laws of economics also interceded.  Economies of scale meant that larger farmers could purchase better equipment, seed, and fertilizer with higher profits.  Gradually, what was a beautiful dream gave way to the fact that it just didn’t work.

Every eighty that had a farm and a farmstead, was reduced to every one hundred and sixty acres…then three hundred and twenty…then six hundred and forty…and now bigger still.

The type of farming changed too.  The old brooder house was no longer necessary with chicken in the store for sixty cents a pound and eggs a dollar a dozen.  The hog shed gave way to confinement operations.  The old hip roof barns for the horses and dairy gave way to the machine shed and the grocery store.  The corn crib surrendered to the grain bin.  The smoke house to the locker plant, and the pole barn for the beef cattle gave way to the massive feedlots of Texas and Nebraska.

In the wake of the agricultural revolution, is a hodge-podge of decrepit buildings and farmsteads, slowly going the ways of the woods and prairie, succumbing to the same plow that had formed them in the beginning.

It is sad in a way, to loose that history, to loose that echo in time.  But at the same time, it is also progress.  Our nation grows richer, our population better fed.  Progress and invention continue to march ahead, leaving the empty shells of the farms that once relied upon those very things to be born and thrive.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

I say red, blue, green, yellow, orange, white, black, brown, violet and maybe pink are all the colors we need.With these colors you can describe a rainbow, the color of your house and the paint on your car.  Those colors were the ones that wore out first in your box of crayons.  You could use them to color just about everything.  But designers, artists and marketing specialists can’t leave well enough alone.  That’s why your new box of crayons includes wild strawberry.

It was a stressful flight for all involved. A ten minute delay turned into a twenty minute delay, which turned into a thirty minute delay. Bad weather in New York, we were warned, could delay us landing as well, so while a good tail wind would help us make up time, we had to be prepared to circle the city for a while.

It was a bumpy flight to boot as we crossed over a front moving across the eastern corn belt. When we landed, we were told that instead of pulling up to a gate like normal, they would have buses come out to meet us on the tarmac, all the gates were full and it could be hours before they would have one open up for us.

People didn’t seem happy.

As got onto the bus with our luggage, as well as our mental baggage from the stress filled flight, the last three people on were a mother and her two small children. One a very young boy and one a very confident little lady.

Sitting in one of the chairs by the door was a seasoned lady who seemed very comfortable around little children. She said to the little girl, “Would you like this seat little girl?”

“No thank you, I’m just fine standing thank you very much.” The little girl responded.

“No problem.” The matronly women responded with a smile, “are you from New York?”

“No, silly!” the girl responded, “I’m from Minnesota! Are you from New York?”

Half of the bus was grinning at this point, the dialogue between the kind lady and the boisterous little girl just to precious not to.

“No, I’m from Arizona!” the lady replied.

“What in the world are you doing in New York?” The girl asked.

“I’m on vacation. What are you doing here?” The lady asked.

“I’m on my spring break!” The girl replied.

“Oh my, what grade are you in school?” continued the examining from the lady.

“I’m a kindergartener. That is the best class in my whole school! We get nap time, and milk, and crackers, and play time, and a little hamster to watch and feed, and take care of, and time with our friends, my friends name is Susie, and we both like to watch the hamster. But we don’t like it when Mike picks on us and we don’t like playing kick ball, but I kicked it really hard during our last game we do like to play out on the playground and play make believe because that is just a lot of fun and we get to think things are what they really aren’t even though they might be. We can be anything we want, we can do anything we want, but sometimes the older kids kick us out of the jungle gym and we don’t like that very much but the teacher said we have to share, because sharing is important and is something that nice people do and we all have to be nice.” The little girl stopped for a breath just as the bus was coming up to the terminal.

“Oh my!” The kind lady said with a laugh, “you are busy! And what is your name?”

“Gabby!” The little girl said with glee!

Everyone on the bus laughed. The mother laughed too – but with a little flush of embarrassment to her cheeks.

“She is a talker.” The mother sighed.

“The name certainly fits!” the lady replied as Gabby, her mother and little brother walked off the bus to the smiles and admiration of all on board. Our baggage seemed a little lighter, and our spirits a little higher as we hoped off the bus and were welcomed to New York.

At least once a year, we would open up the attic next to the dormer and go through our family’s history. Usually looking for some obscure piece of family lore, we would crack open the attic lead by our father, who would gingerly take out each artifact from his family and pass it around to the rest of us.

I remember amongst the dust and grim of time, among the black and white photographs of the days gone by, one book that stood out. It was a color picture book of New York City. On the cover was written my grandfather’s name and the dates back in 1919 that, as a returning soldier, returning triumphantly over the United States victory over the Germans, his boat had steamed into New York Harbor until he departed via Grand Central Station to head back to the farm of the upper Midwest.

On each page there were a few scribbles and notations. Next to the Flat Iron Building, “visited on May 10, 1919″ next to the Statue of Liberty, “went to top on May 9^{th, 1919,” next to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “attended Mass here May 11th, 1919.”As I wonder New York City, a part of me thinks about my Grandpa Jacob and his trip so many years ago.}

Part of me wonders what it would have been like for my grandfather, a twenty-two year old bugler with the American Expeditionary Forces, having never seen much of the world beyond his home state of Minnesota, being mustered into the army, sent to training, seeing the ravages of war in Europe, and then coming home and landing victorious in the most metropolitan of cities, the great city of America. A city, which even at that time, almost 90 years ago today, would have had buildings that would house more people than the entire population of our little village, had (then or now).

He too was a farm boy, more accustomed to the plow and the milking stool then to the subway and the ferry boats. How did he react to the wonders of the city as he pulled into the harbor and disembarked? Was his mouth agape as he stood in the center of Grand Central Station and looked up at the great stone sky above him? Did he look longingly at the sophisticated, beautiful women? Did he quaff a Brooklyn Lager? Did he walk amidst the hustle and bustle of the streets, wandering and wondering as he went?

I was an infant when my Grandfather Jacob passed away, so I never had the pleasure of knowing him. But somehow, I feel a strong connection to him here among the buildings of New York City then even amongst the fields of Minnesota, for here, we are the only ones in our family to have trod these bustling streets.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

Love, family unity, tranquility and the special bond I shared with my brothers and sister are treasured memories of mine.

While in Minnesota on vacation recently, we spent a leisurely breakfast with two of my brothers and my sister.  It was a chance to rekindle some of those feeling and emotions.

“PASS THE MILK, Mark,” Jaime, who is 17, asks sharply.

“I can’t reach it,” Mark, 15, responds. “Pass Jaime the milk, Margaret.”

“No,” is Margaret’s curt reply.  Margaret is 11.

“c’mon! Somebody pass me the MILK,” Jaime yells.

“I CAN’T REACH IT,” Mark screams back.

“MARGARET!” They yell in unison.

“If you guys don’t ask nice, I’m not going to do anything,” she sniffs.

At that, Jaime unfolds his lanky arms across the table to get the milk himself.  He knocks a box of Cheerios over.  A dozen little donuts roll off the table.  Others stick to the butter.  A few float in Mom’s coffee.  For a moment everyone is silent.”

“Now look at what you made me do,” Jaime says is dismay.

“That’s what you get.  It’s not polite to reach across the table, you know,” Margaret scolds.

Mark snickers.

“It ain’t funny,” Jaime snarls.

“Here comes the school bus,” Mom warns.  The three of them quickly gather their coats and books.  In her haste, Margaret crashes into Mark.

“Ow!” She yells.  “Why don’t you watch where you are going?  The wire on your notebook poked me right in the arm!”

“You crashed into ME,” Mark points out.  “Why don’t YOU be more careful.”

“I didn’t know you were carrying the NOTBOOK OF DEATH!”  Margaret huffs as she slams the door.

They are gone, and suddenly the room is quiet.  You can hear the electric clock humming on the wall.  My wife, Mary, looks at me.  Amazement is evident on her face.  “Are you sure they love each other?” She asks.

“Oh yeah,” I assure her.  “There’s a family bond there that is as strong as it is invisible.”  I see that she is unconvinced.

“Sometimes its worse.  Remember, there were five of us here then,” I reply, reminding her that my brother John is no slouch when it comes to inter-sibling scrapping.

She shakes her head in disbelief.  She looks out the window.  I follow her gaze and I see Jaime, Mark and Margaret running to catch the bus.  As they run, it is apparent the Margaret is attempting to kick Mark in the knees.

Mary turns to me as if she is about to speak, but she changes her mind.  I know what she is thinking.

How can anything be worse than the “Notebook of Death?”

 I’m a simple country boy.  Born and raised in the fields of the upper Midwest.  Educated on a family farm - milking cows, cleaning calf pens, throwing hay bales, harvesting wheat, barley, and corn.  I was schooled on the prairies of North Dakota and Illinois - in the big cities of Fargo and Champaign, more accustomed to smells from the barns then from smog.

But you can start spreading the news…I’m leaving today…New York, New York!

I’ve been to the big city before for business, but never as a tourist.  And even there on business, it was hard to hide my country style.  Looking people in the eye.  Smiling at perfect strangers.  Looking up at the tall buildings and wondering to myself, “wonder how much hay you could fit in that thing?” or “think of the hogs you could back in there!”

Yup, with any luck, this farm boy from the Midwest will survive his first real test in the Big Apple on his own.  Seeing the sights of the harbor, visiting Ellis Island, watching my Twins beat the hated Yankee’s. 

But part of me will also be drawn to Central Park, the wide expanses of open grass and trees, the lakes and streams, so similar to my home state of Minnesota (sans the miles of massive stone, concrete, and steel buildings).

I hope to see the United Nations, the place where the world comes to gather to settle their differences and disputes.  Much like the American Legion club in my home town.

Part of me will be drawn to the Statue of Liberty, welcoming the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free.  Like our small towns city limit sign, welcoming people into town, without a population number.

I’d like to see St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Trinity Church, see where generations of Americans have prayed, worshiped, were babtised and buried.  Much like St. Mike’s and First Lutheran in my home town, only with a few more parishioners and a few more years of history.

I want to see Rockefeller Center and the Radio City Music Hall, where the people come to see and be seen - where the country is entertained!  Much like the grandstand at the county fair (I wonder if they hand out an award for pie baking at Rockefeller Center?)

I want to see Times Square, see the lights, see the people, see the mass of humanity.  It might be a little more interesting then outside of the Cafe in my hometown (though we don’t lack for characters…)

Yessiree Bob.  I’m heading to the big city and I’m going to live it up.  Not like the vacationers from the other state…they put on a clean pair of bib overalls and a twenty dollar bill in the front pocket and don’t change either one.

 It was the smell that brought me back in time.  Driving through the countryside this spring, I could see the tractors and equipment moving back and forth across the countryside.  With the windows rolled down, I could hear the rumble and revving of the tractors as they methodically went about their business, snorting occasionally as they slowly grumbled forward.  All across the countryside I could see the greens of the John Deere’s, the reds of the Case Internationals, the occasional yellow of the Catapillar’s slowing tearing up the grey soil and the left over roughage from last years harvest and leaving a wake of dark black behind them, the mixture of soil, organic matter, and moisture.

Then the smell hit me.  That smell of fresh dirt, just waking up from its winter’s slumber.  The smell of mellow earth of the Midwest, rich, black, loamy, giving off the smell of spring - there is no other smell like it in the world!  Somewhat sweet, somewhat earthy, somewhat moist, somewhat gritty, but always fresh, and always lead by the sight of the earth slowly turning out her grey cloak of winter and put on the sheer black of the new spring day.

It was that smell brought me back.

Us boys would be Dad’s support staff and all around utility labor force on the farm.  Dad did the planting, but we made sure that the seed was where it needed to be, made sure that the drill and corn planter never caught up with the spring tillage, and also made sure that the cows were taken care of - Dad was the over all manager, but during the spring, when things needed to get in the ground, we didn’t lollygag around.

Dad seemed to relish spring, and it was infectious to the rest of us.

He usually turned the first bit of dirt in the spring, watching it churn up under the spring tooth and drag combination behind the International 806 before he turned it over to us boys.  Sometimes, when we would run a little lunch out to him after school those first days of spring tillage, we would just lean against the box of the pickup, taking in deep breaths of the fresh spring air.

When planting started, he turned the tillage over to us and he focused on getting the seed in the ground.  He would start with the small grains first (spring wheat, barley, oats).  These would go in with the 3010 John Deere and the twelve foot International drill.  The drill slicing the soil and placing a little seed evenly spaced and being packed down with the wheel packers in back.  Leaving a nearly flat field in its wake.

The corn came next, with the same 3010 John Deere and the four row International corn planter behind, rows of corn would go neatly into the field.

Typically, he had the pickup in the field with him - better to get parts, and more seed, while we had the three wheeler for those at home to do the errands back and forth that were necessary - checking seed levels, bringing out spare parts, bringing out the little lunch in the afternoon.

With every stop of the tractor, with every breakdown, with every noon meal, with every afternoon lunch, with every stop at dusk to go home and rest, it always ended with Dad stopping for a minute, looking at the freshly worked field, and slowly taking a big breath.

It has been years since our tractors rumbled across the skyline, our small equipment giving way to the renters mighty machines, but this spring I stopped the car for a minute, got out, and looked over the freshly worked field, and slowly took a big breath - of spring, of nostalgia, and of the good earth.

 The rhythmic noise echoed up and down the neighborhood.  “THUMP!  THUMP!  THUMP!” as I slowly chopped away at the old elm roots from my back yard.  Over the course of three years, the elm tree had gone from a mighty, ten foot in diameter, behemoth, reaching up into the Minnesota sky, to a series of roots and wood chips in my back yard as the disasterous Dutch Elm Disease had struck the majestic tree.

Slowly and methodically, I was ripping up the roots of the old giant, working to level the soil and plant grass.  The grub hoe slowing ripping, cutting, and extracting the roots from the black Midwestern soil.

“What are you using?” my neighbor asked, “I bet they can hear you pounding away for miles!  Listen to that echo!”

Growing up, we had always called it a grub hoe.  A tool made to clear the ground of roots and stumps, it had a pick on one side and a sharp hoe on the other.  More commonly referred to now as a pick with mattox, probably because there is little land being cleared in the United States today, and what land is being cleared no longer requires the back breaking work of a grub hoe.

As the work slowly moved forward through the warm spring morning, and the echo of the grub hoe…sorry…pick ax with mattox…echoed across my not rural community, I thought about my great grandfather and great uncles.

It was about one hundred years ago that they would have been using a very similar tool, breaking up the oak, elm, and birch groves where the prairie met the plain.  Slowly forming fields out of the wilderness with back breaking labor and the sweat on their brow with a grub hoe and a team of horses at the ready.

My thoughts turned to my father, only slightly younger then myself, working with a grub hoe and John Deere G, cleaning up some of the last of the trees off of the eighty up by the highway.  Family legend tells about the summer that he spent in the late 1940’s spending every free minute up in that stump strewn field, slowly hacking out the remnants of the big woods.

It was these same fields that I worked as a youth.  Smooth and fertile, with only the windbreaks and a few stray stands of tree’s left of what was once a mighty forest.  The labor, the sweat, the back breaking work that went into clearing this land so that it would yield the mighty harvest that would support our family through the next one hundred years was rarely discussed growing up.

But there were still roots there.  This farm that would support us, would educate us, would provide us with the strong roots - roots that went deeper then any grub hoe could clear. 

While there are very few fields to clear for my generation, there remains work ahead of us.  A global financial crisis, moral and ethical crisis, problems with our education system, global instability, and a host of other problems that are besetting our world. 

As I swung the grub hoe, clearing my own little patch of land, thinking about my neighbor and his comment about the “echo” across the neighborhood, I realized that it was also an echo across time.  An echo from one generation to the next, an echo reminding me of the hard work that was done before, and our task for the generation ahead of me. 

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

If you think about it much, there never was much doubt.  Any organization that owns tracks, locomotives, rail cars and a depot can usually be considered a railroad.

But that wasn’t the case for the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad.  Some years ago, state officials argued over who should inspect and regulate Boone’s biggest tourist attraction.  The dispute seemed to center on whether the attraction was more like a railroad or a carnival.  The issue remained unresolved until now.

The B&SVRR is now officially now a railroad.  The Federal Railroad Administration says so.

Mike Weddell, the railroad’s chief mechanical officer doesn’t argue.  “You can call us a tourist line.  You can call us a passenger railroad.  You can call us anything you want, but we are a railroad.” He says.

Weddell said the B&SVRR and other similar railroads across the country received a letter last fall from the FRA notifying them that they would need to comply with FRA guidelines and regulations.  An FRA inspector visited Boone in January.

Since then, the railroad’s employees and volunteers have been scrambling to meet the recommendations outlined in the inspector’s report.  “They haven’t asked us to do anything that we think is out of line,” Weddell said.  Everything relates to safety and you can’t argue with that.

Most changes are minor but time consuming.  Steps and handrails need to be bolted, not welded, to cars and locomotives.  Maintenance and train crew records need to be more detailed.  Weddell said the railroad’s open cars do not meet FRA regulations because they are converted freight cars, but Weddell said the B&SVRR has applied for a waiver so the popular cars can continue to be used.

“Some other railroads are not coping with the change as well as we are.  We’ve followed FRA practices all along, especially in our train operations,” Weddell said.

What about “The Iowan?”  Can a Chinese-made locomotive meet U.S. railroad regulations?

“Many of the FRA’s steam laws have been the same since 1911.   That may make them sound outdated, but the boiling point in 1911 is the same as the boiling point now.  We didn’t need to make any major changes,” Weddell said.

The railroad’s workers have been busy doing their usual winter maintenance jobs, too.  Equipment was repaired, cleaned and painted. Several car restoration jobs are under way.  Track repair is a constant need.  Last year on Father’s Day and several other times, mudslides blocked the railroad’s tracks.  Preventative maintenance along the line appears to have alleviated the problem.

“Things are really starting to come together now.  We’re about 80 percent finished with our preparations for the season,” said Weddell.

The railroad’s volunteers and employees are anxious for the 1991 season to get under way.  Everybody was pretty well worn out by the last couple of weeks in October, but during the last three or four weeks, everybody has been getting pretty excited.

The season officially opens May 25.  Several charter trips are scheduled before then.  Weddell said crews would fire up “The Iowan” for its first trial run of the season within the next week or so.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

My mom is a working mom now.  It seems strange to hear her talk about happenings at “the office.”  When we visit, she makes arrangements to have an extra day off.

When I was growing up, my mother didn’t work.  She stayed home with my brothers, my sister and I.  She washed our clothes.  She cooked our meals.  She cleaned our house.  She gardened.  She hauled us to school, to the doctor, to the dentist and to band and athletic practices.  She kept records for the farm and she helped in the barn and in the field during the busy seasons.

But she didn’t “work.”

Consequently, we were lucky kids.  When we needed Mom, she was always there.  When scrapes needed kissing, or we needed advice, or we needed stern words and a kick in the pants, Mom was there.  Other kids had moms that “worked.”  I felt sorry for them.  I was sure lucky that my mom didn’t work.

Before she and my dad married, Mom was secretary and did some bookkeeping.  She worked for a furniture company and later for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

When I was a grade-school tyke, I watched her open up her typewriter and roll in a sheet of paper.  She started typing- with all 10 fingers!  “Where did you learn how to do that?!” I remember asking in wide-eyed amazement.

She smiled and jotted a few notes in a notebook.  “Look at this,” she said.  I puzzled over the series of apparently unrelated pencil marks.  “It’s shorthand,” she explained.

I remember thinking then how useless it was to type and take shorthand for no apparent reason.  I realize now that she was making sure she did not forget the skills she had worked so hard to acquire years earlier.

Although there are few job opportunities in small Minnesota farming communities, it didn’t take Mom long to land an office position when she decided to go back to work.  Apparently her skills are still in demand.

It’s good to see her back at work in the office and enjoying it so much.  There’s pride in her voice when she talks about the new things she’s learning, the people she is meeting and the computer classes she has been taking.

 As my wife and I struggle to set our own priorities and make life’s decisions, I ponder how it must have been for mom.

It must have been difficult for her to leave her work and career to become a full-time wife and mother.  But she set her priorities and my brothers, my sister and I were at the top of that list.  For that, I am very thankful.  I admire her for her decision.

And she always knew that someday she would go back to the office.  She told us so.  “When you kids are all in school,” she would say, “I’m going back to work.”  It took more than 20 years but she’s back in the office and doing better than ever.

If you consider all the things that happened or might have happened during those 20 years, her resolution is amazing and inspiring.  Could I hold on to a dream for so long?  I don’t know, but I have someone to look to as an example.

This week, Boone salutes its working women.  I know one that I salute every day.  Thanks Mom and good luck.