To Go Back??

Last Sunday, the wife and I took an afternoon trip down to Harper County and vicinity.  I wanted to see some of the more out-of-the-way places in the area…Milan, Argonia, Freeport, Bluff City, Spring, Manchester, Waldron.  It has been years since I’ve been to some of these places, and the drive on the county roads to get there was just what the doctor ordered for Father’s Day.

None of the towns has gained in population.  None has re-developed its business district.  In fact, it is no surprise that the towns have continued to deteriorate from how they were 30, 40, 50 years ago.  Bluff City, for example, did have a small business district many years ago.  Now, the buildings aren’t even there.  Schools are shuttered and lifeless, or they are now senior centers or other use.  Roads aren’t very good, and the paved roads that once went to these communities are now gravel.

Trains no longer go through Freeport on their way to Anthony.  No rails traverse through Spring and Bluff City on their way to Metcalf…the end of the line.  Co-ops, old vehicles, some mobile homes, and a post office are all that is left (Freeport still has a bank).

But the thing that really struck me is that on all of the county roads we traveled, there were no farmsteads…no homes.  These roads we went on were the main roads to and from these communities; yet the lack of houses and farmsteads was stark and telling.  I’m not sure anyone lives in rural southern Harper County anymore.

Years ago, one could drive those roads with a knowledgeable person, and that person would point out this farmstead, that home place, or some ranch.  They would know who lived there, and maybe call the place by the original owner’s name, such as, “There’s the old Macksville place…Yeagers live there now.”  But forever, it will be “the old Macksville place.”

Now, there aren’t even trees and a driveway where homes, barns, corrals, windmills, and buffalo grass used to be.  They’ve for the most part been bull-dozed and put to use as farm ground.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I have to wonder where the guys who farm now actually live.  And just how many (or how few) farmers are there, anyway?

And the oil.  My goodness, the oil!  It has, along with wind power, forever changed the landscape of that part of Kansas.  Derricks are drilling the new fracking wells now, and there are oil storage tanks, oil businesses, pipelines, oil trucks, and suffering gravel roads all over the place.  And in the distance one can see the wind farm in Barber and northern Harper Counties.  From as far away as 15 or so miles, those towers can be seen.

And talk about forever changing the landscape.   New power lines are springing up.  Newly-found wealth and demand is creating a miniature building boom in Anthony and Harper.  Harper has a new water tower and a remodeled hospital that fills two city blocks.  Both communities have new motels.  Oil businesses have moved in on the outskirts of both towns.

So time moves on.  People move on.  Places move on.  And those memories of how things used to be are no more than that…pleasant thoughts that surface from time to time at the urging of something we see, hear, or smell.  And the reality is that we can never go back.  We can never have it “like it used to be.”  And I’m not sure but what I wouldn’t want to go back anyway.