Smith Falls but the Peeks Rise
August 2020 Blog
By Chuck Peek
Probably, like many of you, we had big plans for the summer of 2020—all of which, one by one, were cancelled several months ago, Covid-19 the villain. “Poppy,” our twelve-year-old grandson Will tells me, “Corona Virus doesn’t care how you feel about it”!
But, then, things got better, in spite of our government’s obstruction. We are an amazing people! A bit blithe but amazing. So, of course, we made some other plans to replace the plans that fate had dashed, shades of Greek tragedy in the wings.
A few days in Kansas City with friends, a brunch with friends in Lawrence, a Day of Prayer at the Bishop Kemper school in Topeka, what could go wrong? Would we amazing people be so foolish as to drive up the Covid-19 numbers again?
Thank some beaches, a few governors, and lots of people who think that anything that interferes with their choices must be a Communist take-over.
Oh, the re-opening of so many places started out well enough. For our anniversary, we ate at a good Lincoln restaurant—people coming in and leaving in masks, tables where customers could sit well-spaced, careful and repeated sanitizing.
But, soon came reports from friends of many places where the same story was playing out: no masks, no distances, crowds. I’m particularly fond of the Lincoln kick-boxing gym where, as the sunlight hits the dark interior, you can see the spray circulating from the heavily breathing bodies. What’s to worry if you’re strong! As our friend Pam Gallagher said, if they had closed the bars and gyms, we could have opened the schools!
Well, never give up on your plans. I already had set up some time off, the first in 4 and a half months, so we began to think of someplace sheltered where we could get away. Custer State Park maybe? We had that just about set up when we ran into trouble getting a lodge with cabins to tell us whether there would be any vacancies in the kind of place we wanted and whether the reservations, if we made them, would be cancellable. Seemed strange until we realized that our days were pretty much the dates of the big days in Sturgis. I am biker, hear my Harley roar!
Pretty clearly, we were not going to substitute for seeing friends an encounter with the crowd of over a quarter of a million Sturgis strangers. There is safety in couple-ness—one of us is almost always sane.
So, maybe somewhere in Colorado? After all, two people who checked us into and out of medical appointments had gone to Colorado and returned none the worse for the trip. Seemed ideal—so I suppose it should have been no surprise that the places we wanted to stay were already booked.
We took this like grown-ups. Well, except for a couple of hours of melt-down. Capital M, Capital D. That’s what you get when you tell yourself how well you are doing with Covid-19! (Leave the Greek names for all this aside.)
But once the air had cleared, so had out heads, which we put together with some good effect. And what a wonderful time we had. Here was our 2020 vacation—really in a way a series of ‘day-cations.’
One evening, we zoomed in with about 75 people that Jay Watson brought together for the “Closing Party” of a Faulkner conference that never took place—an historic first. We knew most of them, have known many of them for years, and enjoyed seeing each of them occupy their cameo spot on the screen. Jay let us know about future plans for Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, and we caught up on people’s lives. It was a delight to share the screen gallery with our good friends Jim and Bev Carothers and Jay’s predecessor as FY director, Don Kartiganer, and hear Theresa Towner’s account of how far along they are with the new directions of Digital Yoknapatawpha.
Why stop zooming? Why not another zoom with the folks we were going to meet in KC? Clark Swisher and Marty Townsend refused to show up for the zoom in their costumes for their book group’s Titanic party, but they brought their smiling faces and their dog Nika performed some entertaining antics in the background. It was fun enough that we’re going to do it again.
The good times continued to roll with an evening dinner with a good and long-time friend, Linda Anderson. Linda and Ken had first taken in our kids when we moved to Kearney in 1977! We saw her new home, mourned the loss not so long ago of Ken, caught up on all her enterprising children, and enjoyed each other. We’d planned on a few more people, but since Carla Brooke was in Wisconsin and Rosemary Northwall was in Minnesota, there were just the three of us, and for that night this was just right.
We’re not near done. The Prairie Arts Brothers, who put their imprimatur on my new book, managed to stage a poetry reading at the amphitheater at Cottonmill Park and asked me to close off the evening of fine readings with a couple of bits from the book. Lovely setting and its listeners were mostly friends and former students, well-spaced out on the benches, glad to hear good words and see Cottonmill’s beautiful trees and shrubs decked out with garlands of lights. Thanks Mark Foradori, Deanna Jesse, and Rick Brown. (Don’t ask how Deanna got into being a ‘brother’.)
Equally enjoyable, an evening on friends Stan and Carol Dart’s deck listening to the music of our younger lives, solving most of the bigger problems facing human kind, talking about places we’ve all been, shows we’ve taken part in, books we’ve enjoyed, art we’ve loved, but mostly just enjoying one another’s company. A beautiful evening in a beautiful setting, saddened only by the blight on our area pine trees, including two in their yard. But a red oak sapling from their yard is now in ours!
We got in a short trip to Hastings for a lunch with old school-mate and fine artist, Jeremy Daniels, who sent us off with the biggest cantaloupe I’ve ever seen, a St. Libory melon of rare distinction. We were able to deliver to him a copy of my new book and take another copy to the media specialist at the high school, Faye Myers, one of my favorite former students.
Homeward bound, we tried to see the bison at the Crane Trust, but it is still shut down and the bison were pasturing too far away to see. Had to manage with selecting some meat from Finney’s market in Gibbon…plumpest pork cutlets we ever find anywhere, and probable cause of certain other plumpnesses.
Our real ‘daycation’ took us to Valentine for possibly the best tuna sandwich I’ve ever had at a restaurant—the Coachlite, topped off with some pretty good strawberry-rhubarb pie, too. No ice cream! Moderation in all things! Well, the sandwich and pie were not what we went for, of course, but they and the friendly server were a nice start.
Following directions from a very helpful woman at the Valentine visitor’s bureau, we were off to (for Chuck) Smith Falls. Lovely state park, beautiful falls, lots of nice folks who stayed a good distance away, convenient and sanitary restrooms. Watched lots of youngsters kayaking down the Niobrara, their leader saying “stay together,” a doomed instruction from the launch. I recalled the stories of the old “expeditions” down the Niobrara our friends Bill Kloefkorn and Jerry Parsons used to make, with minimum damage to themselves, or so they said.
Smith Falls, of State 12, near Valentine, Nebraska 8/10/2020
I don’t know when such a little jaunt left me feeling so refreshed, buoyant really, and we didn’t even get in the water.
Leaving the State Park along State 12, we headed to Bassett where (for Nancy) we were bent on finding the Cowboy Trail. The trail runs atop the former bed of an old railroad line. When it is complete, it will stretch from Chadron in the Nebraska panhandle to Norfolk, the principal town in Nebraska’s northeast corner, the largest such trail in the USA—no motorized vehicles, only hikers, bikers, and horses.
But—not so easy to find! It is not well marked and we couldn’t find a brochure describing its whereabouts other than a dotted line on a state map. (Take note State Game and Park brochure makers!) A helpful person on her bicycle helped us find it in Bassett (we’d been just yards away at one point), and we proceeded to walk it about halfway from Bassett to Long Pine and back, picking up a couple of damaged pieces of cattail and brush for a home display.
At our turn-around point, we met a biker named Todd Palmer from Illinois. He, too, had come clear from Valentine that day, was planning to camp in Bassett that night, before hoping to get across Nebraska where he would rejoin his wife and family near Omaha. I’m guessing his long ride (his Instagram shows some daring feats on wheels!) and our short walk did not have much in common but this: he too noted that he had not found it easy to find the trail!
Nancy at the Bassett crossing of the Cowboy Trail—with the rules!
Now that we know what a nice day trip it is to the Nebraska “outback,” we’ll walk more of it another time. Drove by the old motor lodge where I’d spent a summer as Ned Shaw’s guest when I was “lay vicar” of St. Mary’s—a post Bishop Rauscher sent me to as the first step to test my mettle for ordination, about which he sometimes had his doubts. Spotted Clint Jones’s car at the Bassett medical center!
Not my wing of the motor court—my unit had a little porch and a fan. in the window
Ate a quick mélange of leftovers and dropped peacefully to sleep, and the next day drove to Grand Island for Nancy’s semi-annual visit to an orthodontist. While she had her donts orthoed, I took copies of my new book to good GI friends Jim Schmitt, George Ayoub, Tom McAloon, and Erich Fruehling.
When we got back to Kearney, we dropped in on our across-the-alley neighbor, Brad Driml, another old friend, suffering from a “sprung” back but still going to work at a nearby care facility—took him some of the fine Mercer sweet corn we had the good fortune to find, a hunk of the largest cantaloupe ever that we’d been given, and some sheet music to decorate his new piano.
August. Both our kids have wedding anniversaries, our daughter in law has a birthday, Nancy’s niece Pierce Coffee had a baby girl, Tierney, and our good friends Jerry and Janet Fox are enjoying a first grandchild, Daniel, born to Javi and Sammi. I got to congratulate Jerry last week at lunch.
School is already starting up, in person some places, by zoom sometimes. Returning and new students are even now moving in at UNL. Maybe they will get in some time before foolishness forces in-person classes to shut down. Nebraskans will still be mourning the cancellation of the Big 12 season, and we’ll join them since we had tickets to the season opener. What about a one-game season for the whole Big Ten, winner take all—Nebraska v. Iowa on Thanksgiving weekend. With the losses to Covid 19 between now and then, Del Roper says maybe it could be six-man football!
Coming up, good things happening at St. Mark’s, annual eye exam at Iowa City for Nancy, and short road trip to see the Milwaukee Peeks with our oldest grandson, Rowan. They just had a short outing to celebrate Laura’s parent’s anniversary and her mother’s birthday. Rowan’s brother Brody is already back to playing ball and finishing his last year of high school, where Noelle will be a long-term sub and Harlan is keeping watch on what regulations have to be observed as the pandemic continues to take its toll.
It has been a good August for us. I’m still sorry for all we missed doing, but not at all sorry about what we got to do instead. In fact, since much that got cancelled will turn out only to have been postponed, technically we haven’t even missed it. Meanwhile, we have so enjoyed what our cleared vision put before us to do. Sometimes your own plans stand in the way of what you were planning for.
Politics heating up, but that is for September’s blog!
Kearney, Nebraska
August 12, 2020
capeek 