Who Says You Can't Go Home?

The round trip from my house, to my sister’s house, and back, came to just a few miles shy of 2,500. I did not drive in a straight line, or anything close to it, but I did get a chance to notice a few things. Some of these observations I have made note of before, some are new.

Number one, you could plant a wooden stake in the dirt, anywhere in Iowa, water it, give it sunshine, and it will sprout something. I guarantee it.

Number two, the state flower for Wisconsin must be the orange construction barrel. The damned things can be found, thick as Valley Fog, along every roadway in Wisconsin.

Number three, I much prefer driving through farm country, then almost any other kind of landscape.

Which brings me to Ainsworth, Nebraska, my father’s home town.

Actually, it’s my paternal grandfather’s hometown too.

I talked a bit about this trip, earlier, in a post that featured pictures from the Ainsworth cemetery. Now, Will show you around town. All of these shots were taken with my Canon, though I did put a roll of Kentmere 100, in my Emotional Support Camera. Those photos will be a few weeks in coming.

If you drive into Ainsworth, from the east, it will be on highway 20. I drove highway 20 from Dubuque, to Sioux City, Iowa, then continued on highway 20 to Ainsworth, Nebraska; call it 500 miles.

This is the view into town, from the city limits sign.

Here is the city limits sign.

Prior to last weekend, I hadn’t been to Ainsworth in 44 years. The last time that I was in town, the population was 2,200. I attribute the loss of population to the natural despondency that can occur, when I am not around.

Other than the population, not much had really changed, over the intervening years.

The John Deere, dealership is still there. Two, to three, cars per minute drive by. Folks wave, if you look their way, typical midwest, Nebraska, stuff.

One thing that had changed was, my grandfather’s house was no longer there.

All of that concrete used to be grass, One tree used to grow where that telephone pole is, another tree grew where the red truck is now. The front door to the house was about 10 feet behind the door you see here. The house was a two storey, darkish grey house, with a screened-in front porch. To be honest, I always thought the house looked like it should be haunted. It was haunted, by the curmudgeonly spectral presence of my grandfather.

This is looking back toward where the house used to be, from the corner of Second & Woodward Streets. When my grandfather died, my father, and my uncle, sold the house to the local electric coop. I knew that the house was no longer there, but coming to this corner, and NOT seeing my grandfather’s house was still shock.

The address is the same, however.

This is Main Street, looking south. This street, turns into Hwy 7; Hwy 20 is two blocks behind me. At 8 AM, I was not surprised to see only one car drive by n ten minutes, I was surprised at how much had changed.

With the exception of a building that is missing, on the right side, where the grass is, everything looks the same. If you would have dropped me right here, without telling me ahead of time where I was, I would have instantly recognized this as Ainsworth. However, over the course of five blocks, there were NO businesses that I remembered. None. Many of the store fronts were empty, some had been repurposed from a business, to a church. The whole place went to hell, in my absence.

40+ years ago, I remember folks stopping their cars in the middle of the street, to talk. If you needed to go by, you did. If you knew the folks blocking the road you waved, as you passed; there was no such thing as laying on your horn.

My father was born in, 1939, and went to school in this building, from 1st grade through High School. The streets were dirt then. Kids would ride their bike to school, if they had one, walk if they didn’t. Boys would often carry a 22 calibre rifle to school, and lean it up in a back corner of the classroom, the purpose being so that they might look for a rabbit, or squirrel to shoot on the way home; to supplement the family larder. Different times, certainly..

This was a disappointment for me. There used to be a diner here, called the, “Confectionary”. The white spaces used to be windows. A long counter, with stools, went down the right side, tables with chairs in the middle, booths on the left wall. Good pie. There was also a pool hall in the back, with perhaps 8 tables, mostly snooker, with one or two pocket billiards tables.

The pool hall looked like it came from central casting. Two rows of tables, with lights hung over each table, those wires that were strung with wooden markers for keeping score, you would need to reach up with the tip of your pool cue to move the markers over. There was a pinball machine in the back, that I would play.

It wasn’t until years later, after I no longer went to visit Ainsworth, that I realized what snooker was, and how it differed from pocket billiards. It always puzzled me how a quintessentially British billiards game was so popular in Ainsworth, Nebraska?

For those of you not from the midwest, this is the most common, and recognizeable feature of any town. You can see a town’s water tower many miles outside of town. When traveling along the highway, you can often tell where a town is, by the water tower, even when no other evidence the town can be seen. This tower is older than my father, and I am happy to see that it is still representing.

Finally…

The relationship that my father and I had, while I was growing up, would be considerably different, if golf courses hadn’t been invented. Here, you see the first fairway, looking back from the perspective of the first green. Let me tell you, this golf course used to be fucking ugly!

An irrigation system has brought water to the desert, and you can see for yourself, the place actually looks like a golf course.

It would be charitable to call what I remembered of this place pretty, or even a golf course; it had all of the charm of an abandoned artillery range. My father used to say that the course that I knew (bad as it was) was an improvement over what he used to play as a kid. No kidding?

I really came out to the Ainsworth Municipal Golf Course, to get a picture of this water pump. This pump sits between the second green, and the third tee. Before modern irrigation, this was the only pleasant thing on the golf course. The well went in sometime in the 1940’s (my father said he was just a young’un when it was dug), and I loved to pump the handle and drink from the faded tin cup that was kept, inverted on the iron shaft. That cup stayed at the top of the iron shaft for over 40 years. My grandfather, my father, my sisters, and I. all drank water from this well, out of that cup. I was hoping to drink from the cup again, but one of the volunteer greens-keepers told me that they took the cup down, apparently, they were worried about spreading illness. Cowards!

It’s funny how the mind works, when remembering things (important things) from many years ago. I always perceived this pump as being fairly big; it always seemed so to me. Before I got there, I would have bet good money that the top of the shaft was at least 6 foot. When I walked up to it, the top of the pump came to my sternum. I had to BEND DOWN to pump the handle!

Even without the tin cup, I did get a drink from the well. Nearly 50 years on, the water is still as cold, as sweet as I remember. I think that, when my father passes, I will make a pilgrimage back to this pump, and drink one last time.