Country Living

Perhaps it shouldn't, but it surprises me that so many of the members of this forum live in very large cities, and that many have never experienced life in a rural area.

For me, it's just the opposite. I grew up over a mile outside of an unincorporated town of about two hundred people, most of whom I was related to, and which were scattered over a large area. There were seven houses, a church, and an old one-room schoolhouse on my road, not counting the parsonage.

An elderly couple lived across the road from us. They were related to us in some manner, which I had never quite understood. Their granddaughter, who was born on the same day that I was, was my second cousin, I think. But her mother was a missionary in Alaska, and then Mexico, so I only saw them during the summer months.

Ours was the last house on the road, which continued east for another mile or so. We lived part way up a small hill. At the top of the hill, to the west, was the church and parsonage. The church was left open all the time, its library available to anyone at any time.

Then there was nothing for another half mile or so. To the west, my dad had a large field, then there was a fence, followed by my uncle's large field, and then their house. The old schoolhouse was on the edge of my uncle's property. Across from him was a former gas station where another uncle lived as a bachelor, but he passed away when I was young, after which the building was demolished.

Further north, there was an intersecting gravel road. Between a quarter and a half mile west of that, another uncle lived, with his large family. Not far past his house, one of my aunts (a widow) lived with her son in a house trailer. Then, almost at the end of the road, just before it intersected with US Highway 41, there was another farm, owned by someone who I don't think I was related to. The next parallel road, to the south, had only three houses, and the next parallel road to the north was a little more populated, with perhaps ten houses, since that road led into the town proper.

As children, there was little recognition of property lines. Of course, we had a good idea of who lived where, and a general idea of which fields belonged to whom. My dad owned several 40-acre fields that he farmed, some a few miles from our house, as well as some woodland that he logged from time to time.

But, as kids, there was no reason to care whose land we built a shack on, or whose woods we camped in, as we were related to most everyone, and our families were close with everyone else.

The only two exceptions that I am aware of included a bachelor who we knew as Crazy Krantz. He lived one road north of our road. When we walked to the town of Wallace, or to school, if we didn't go through the woods as we often did, we would walk past his house. There was a very large grape vine growing across three cedar trees on the public side of his fence and, while the grapes tasted like cedar, we ate them anyhow, and the way that the vine grew, there was a space in between the three trees where no one could be seen, so we'd play there sometimes. If Crazy Krantz noticed us there, he would sometimes come out with a shotgun and chase us away. The kids hated him, but then I went to his house with my dad one time because dad was going to shoe one of his horses (another thing my dad did for extra money), and Crazy Krantz gave me a very large box of comic books that he had.

As an aside, the Mellen Township ballot included a slot for a township constable. Although it had been many years since the township actually employed a constable, enough people would write in Crazy Krantz (who had a real first name that I don't remember) as constable, that he would win. Someone had a badge made up for him, and he would wear it whenever he walked to town for another bottle. He didn't drive.

Then there were the Hanson brothers. A few miles from us was Hanson Lake. During the fall, Hanson Lake was a good place for duck hunters, apparently. Otherwise, the lake was surrounded by boggy, swampy terrain, so it wasn't the sort of lake that was of any use recreationally. As a kid, I found several Indian arrow heads around there, however.

In the winter, Hanson Lake was a popular ice skating place. Since the bogs and swamps were frozen over, access wasn't so much of a problem. Although I am sure it would not be permitted any longer, we would pour gasoline over a large area of the frozen lake in order to melt the snow and to smooth out the ice. The next day, the ice would be smooth and good for skating. Someone would light some tires on fire on the ice for heat, and kids would ice skate there often.

The only house on the Hanson Lake road belonged to the Hanson brothers, two bachelors who no one seemed to know very much about. I don't think my dad even visited them. Although they did not own the land around Hanson Lake, it was necessary to pass their farm en route to the lake. They also would come out with shotguns, and shout at us about trespassing on their land, even shooting the guns up in the air sometimes, which was something that Crazy Krantz never did.

If we were skating there at night, we were usually with older kids in a car, so that wasn't a problem. Otherwise, we would run past their house or, if we were going there in the summer, we'd pedal as fast as we could past their house. There too, there was a time when I was in high school that I ran my dad's car off the road on Hanson Road, and one of the Hanson brothers pulled me out with his tractor, so I think a lot of that was for show.



After high school, I spent a couple of semesters in college, then hitchhiked around the country for a while before moving to Southern California. There was a time, while I was in California, that I became quite comfortable living in a densely populated area.

Since then, however, I have most always lived in rural areas or small towns with no more than one stoplight. I get nervous driving in large cities and, although I don't mind visiting Boston and New York City from time to time, I would hate to live there.

Even the town I am in now, with a population of less than three thousand, is too large for me, and I hope to be able to move up north where I don't have to wait for traffic in order to leave my driveway.

I like living in a town where I know most everyone. Millinocket isn't one of them, but I have lived in places where I could go shopping and forget my wallet at home, and it would be no problem for me to come back and pay for it later. I have lived in places where the guy from the power company would look for me in the restaurant before shutting my power off for non-payment. It has been a while since I've lived anywhere where I have to show identification in order to cash a check or withdraw money from the bank, not that I cash very many checks anymore.

When we were raising our nephew, only a few years ago, if he got in trouble anywhere in town, we would hear about it from a couple of people before he even got home.

When I think about living in a city, the only significant advantages that I can think of is the availability of faster Internet services, but that has improved in the rural areas a lot over the past few years.

 

This is my younger brother in the kitchen of our parents' house in Wallace, Michigan.

 

They DO (or did) make stoves that operated on both wood and gas, @Frank Sanoica . My friend in idaho had one of those and it was awesome.
Basically, the wood part was small, like a “trash burner “ , as they were called; but if I remember right, she could also use it to heat up the oven, just not the gas burner part of the stove.
In any case, they could add a little wood to heat the house in the morning while she was making breakfast for the family, and burn any trash that could be burned.
I think that this kind of stove was pretty popular back in the days when wood cookstoves were first changing over to electric and gas; but the one that Norma had was the only one I have actually ever seen that did both in one unit.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't know much about it. The pipe may have been left over from the woodstove that we used to have there. Although, for a while, we had both a wood stove and a gas (or electric) stove. I remember mom using both stoves at the same time, and that she felt some things cooked better on a wood stove, but they both crowded the kitchen quite a lot.