BFE Reporter Monday

BFE REPORTER MONDAY

They Don't Build Them Like They Used To

This is what folks call a barn now. We always called hem a machine shed. A barn was meant for livestock. A place for horses after a long day pulling a plow in the field. A feedlot in the back for the cattle. Shelter for them from the snow and rain. A granary for the oats and corn. A loft for the hay. A special place for that 4-H bottle calf, steer or show pony. A huge wooden structure built by men and women with calloused hands on the unforgiving prairie.

A barn like this one. It belongs to Jane Beringer Moody. I worked in that barn during my teen years stacking hundreds of bales of hay for her father Wallace. If you look at the cupola the barn was built in 1909.

This barn a scant half mile down the road from the one pictured above has stood the test of time since 1880. It stands proudly on the farm owned by Angela Rommel.

I never imagined that anyone in our area would build true barn in my lifetime. Cows and pigs are the prisoners of our time now relegated to structures we call confinement. A barn doesn't work for that. Horses have almost disappeared from the area replaced by mechanical beasts with hundreds of horses powering their wheels from their steel engines.

Then one day driving down Swanson Seed Farm Road the structure below was rising from the ashes of our history.

A real barn. A structure of wood built with hands and hammers.

While the tools used are different from those that built the barn of the 1880's or 1909, the craftsmanship live on in the skill of the carpenter.

This is the barn today, February 8, 2013. Still a work in progress but she will be a beauty.

Unfortunately, too many barns look like the ones below ravaged by the weather and years of neglect.

I hope she gets the love and attention these barns were denied. Perhaps in a hundred years or so someone will look at her and say, "They don't build them like that now."

Todays contribution comes from Jeff Sutor, author of Bodine-DILLIGAF, of BFE Wataga. Thanks Jeff.

If you have anything please send it to bfereporter@yahoo.com.

Comments

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless. Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001. It was one of those things that can generate crime: two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job. Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things. Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold. But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find. His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead. He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds. He will be paralyzed for life. None of this is pleasant. Reading the f...

Florida Air Museum - Part 3

Welcome back to a pretty neat tour of the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland Florida. There's a lot to see and a couple of the old Geezer Gold Wing guys are already sitting down instead of walking around looking at the exhibits. That's John who is wore out and making a call to his wife. In all honesty, John was pretty well bushed before the ride. He told me his daughter's family was down from one of the Carolina's with the grand kids and he must have played with them too much. He's about to take off on his own and head for home, but he's going to miss a couple of neat things out on Hangar A. But, before we walk over there, we have lots yet to see here. If you saw The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Howard Hughes, you'll remember that he went up in a plane during the filming of one of his movies to prove a point about flying. He crashed trying to execute a roll and this is a picture of the plane he crashed. No...

The Mary Davis Home - Part 2

None of these pictures were taken by me, they came right from the MDH website. I am posting these so that friends who have never seen inside where I worked can gain access. After 27 years I have many stories, tales and acquaintances. But, I wouldn't know how to express them appropriately in a few paragraphs. I enjoyed 98% of my stay there and hope I made a difference in the lives of a fraction of the kids who entered. The original MDH at this site was just the front part. The large red-roofed area in back was added on in the 90's. This is the Jerry Carlton library. It was unofficially named after one of the counselors who truly loved the place. He passed away around 2002, I think. Mr. Farber looks like he is explaining a few things to a client. The classroom. Activity area with the gym behind the windows. Another shot of the classroom. It was a little different area to teach since we had 2 classes and 2 teachers i...

Existing In BFE

Search This Blog