Hot Summer Days

When our children were growing up, we didn't have air conditioning, so they spent a lot of long, hot summer days amusing themselves in shady spots outside. I lived under the trees a lot during hot summer days when I was a child, too.

During those summers, I started participating in the "Day in the Life of Christian County" photo contest that the Kentucky New Era was running. I packed the kids, water jugs, snacks, and my camera stuff into the pickup truck and we drove the backroads of Christian County to take pictures. It was a good way to pass a long, hot day, and it created some interesting childhood memories for Keely and Isaac that they still enjoy talking about. They especially remember the hot day when the little truck's temperature gauge was well into the red for some reason, and I turned on the heater to expel some of the excess heat of the engine. Whew!

This was a photo that I tried staging for the "people" category of the photo contest one year. I wasn't happy with the color in it, so I didn't submit it. This was during my last few years of film photography, before I got my first little digital camera. I had a lot of trouble with the color in my pictures during that time. I don't know if it was the film, the processing, the printing, the camera, or the photographer. To me, the green in this photo looks weird, even after "photoshopping."

Just some random thoughts about this picture.

Vaguely related:
"Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer" by Nat King Cole

Just Give Me a Map

A young friend of mine posted a meme on Facebook today that read something like this, "Dad started pulling maps out of the glove box, but I was like, whoa, Indiana Jones! Just let me google it!"

It amused me and also got me thinking about map reading. I love my GPS, and Google maps on my cell phone is extremely convenient, but when I head into unfamiliar territory, I still like to look at a map and have a general picture in my mind of where I am headed.

!794 Samuel Dunn Map of the World

I would rank map-reading as one of the most useful skills I learned in school. What else is on the list? Reading, writing, and arithmetic, of course. And typing -- I can't imagine not knowing how to type. I give Miss Laberdy's Home Ec. class partial credit for teaching me basic sewing skills, along with my mother, 4-H, the Simplicity pattern company, and my own great desire for new clothes.

I don't credit Miss Laberdy with teaching me how to follow a recipe. I learned that long before I got to Home Ec., from my mother and 4-H. My high school didn't have drivers' education and didn't encourage girls to take shop classes, so I learned those life-skills elsewhere, too.

Back to map reading -- when I was in elementary school in the late 50s/early 60s, map-reading was part of Social Studies class.  I don't remember reading maps with the teacher very often, but we did have to write answers to the questions at the end of the chapters, and some of the questions always gave practice on map reading skills.

I got some real-life experience with map-reading on trips with my dad, usually either hauling cattle or going somewhere to look at cattle.  One Christmas, I made my mom and dad an orange felt envelope with the word "Maps" glued on it in brown felt letters.  They put it into service, and it saw a lot of miles. I smile when I think about that humble, child-stitched, felt packet of road maps.

As a young adult, it was empowering to have the ability to read a map and drive myself to new places. I discovered that the rules of map-reading applied to street maps as well as road maps, and city maps helped me find my way through cities on several continents.

When we moved here, I wore out my Christian County map, exploring new roads on summer afternoons with my kids. They were usually willing to participate -- they were game little troopers, my kids. Or, I'd get the Hopkinsville street map and the newspaper and plan a route for Saturday morning garage sales. And of course, going to Kansas and Missouri to visit our families has always required much map reading.  Because of maps and my insatiable curiosity about strange roads, I've taken every logical route there is through the Missouri Ozarks (and some illogical ones, too.)

Even with GPS and Google Maps on a smart phone, I don't like to go on a trip without paper maps or a road atlas in the vehicle.  I forgot to pack the maps when we drove out to Kansas a few years ago, and my daughter was quite upset with me. I was upset with me, too!  So we picked up some maps along the way.

Creeks Remembered

Shallow water at a ford in Todd County, KY

One of the interesting things about this part of Kentucky (probably most of Kentucky) is that small country roads sometimes have creek fords instead of bridges.

I can't imagine driving a vehicle across either of the little creeks I knew as a child -- the Skull and the Bloody, of southwestern Rock County, Nebraska. Those creeks are bordered with wetlands (we called them swamps) that were up to 1/4 mile wide from one side to the other. The water table is very close to the surface in the swamps and hay meadows that adjoin those creeks.

We owned land on both creeks. My dad (and every other rancher who owned a chunk of either creek) had several "flowing wells" at the edges of both swamps. Those artesian wells were simply pipes set in the ground fifteen or twenty feet, or less. Usually, the pipe was inside a cattle tank that collected the water that poured out year round.

To cross either Skull Creek or Bloody Creek and its associated swamp, you needed a built-up roadbed and a bridge. Otherwise you'd sink in deep mud well before you even reached the creek.

You had to be careful when you were cutting hay along the edge of the swamp. If the tractor wheels started dripping with water and the ground began to quiver, you were in dire danger of getting stuck. I've seen a tractor buried nearly to its belly in mud because someone ignored the warning signs. Spinning the wheels only made them sink farther. The only way to remove a stuck tractor like that is to winch it out from solid ground.

Creeks in our part of Kentucky have rocky, gravelly streambeds. Sometimes they even have a bed of solid rock. If the water's not deep and the road leads to the water's edge, you can drive right across them. Amazing!