Car Free in the Middle of Nowhere.

Living in rural Minnesota, without a working car is not a hardship. I thought it might be, but like my ancestors, who lived on the plains of South Dakota, I make do.

I am lucky enough to have an apartment on the main street of the little town I live in. It is in the middle of the block and the only drawback is that my trash dumpster is in the middle of the block. To take out the trash, I walk down the stairs and half-way around the block to take out my trash. I don't create much so it only happens once in a normal month.

I do own a lemon of a car that my daughter purchased from a fly-by-night, auto dealer in a city 45 minutes away. She had nothing but problems with the car and against my better judgement, I paid off her loan when she needed a larger vehicle and once again became the owner of a car.

I live above the clothing store, am within a five minute walk for my job, two drug stores, two hardware stores, two appliance stores, the grocery store, Radio Shack and all three coffee shops in town. We also have a little transit system that takes me out to the college campus if I need to go there.

As my apartment doesn't come with a parking place, my car usually sits in the city owned parking lot behind my apartment building. My car never gets used and so the battery was always going dead. I have purchased a battery charger and a device that disconnects the battery from the car so it doesn't discharge. Keeping the car insured, licensed and running is not an inexpensive proposition.

The other consideration of not using it is that the oil breaks down and the last time I used the car to drive 60 miles, the engine made a really bad noise. It felt like it lost compression, and I had to spend $150 to get it towed back to its parking place.

One other consideration I have is that because I live in the upper midwest, it is cold, snowy and icy at least six months out of the year. Usually by the time I walk around the block, scrape off the windows and start my car, I can be at work or where ever else I need to be. I rarely get outside of town and if I do I pay my friend Pearl to drive.

I will have to do something this spring about the car. Usually the police call me at 3 am to tell me to move the car out of it's 24 hour parking spot when they need to plow the parking lot. There was a new policeman this year and nobody gave me a call. They towed my car and impounded it. It is only a $100 charge and no daily fee (as of yet) but I will need to take responsiblity for it soon.

I think not wanting to have responsiblity for it is what made me not want to buy it in the first place. Yet, another one of those gut feelings I should have listened to.

Going forward while looking back

As a historian, one of the things I do everyday is look back. I research the past, discover threads people have left behind and help preserve and tell their stories. Discovering and knowing people used various artifacts that have been given to my local museum is a favorite part of my job. As I grow older I find myself reluctant to work too hard to keep moving forward.

This post came about because I found a blogger living in Idaho named Patrice Lewis. Her blog, called Rural-revolution
is one of my favorite. She has fun tips, great pictures and a wonderful attitude. She wrote a post that discusses snathes and the death of knowledge.

As I read Mrs. Lewis' post, I came to realize that because of today's technology, many of the stories of the past, that could have been lost, will be preserved. Digital remnants may become obsolete, but people like me who learned what a snath was, will be inspired to remember, perhaps even try to learn how to use make, use and train others to sythe grain.

Stories I write down for my grandchildren are the ones I learned the most from. Snathes and sythes will have to be included in a future tale.

I was born two score and ten years ago this coming January. I grew up playing outside, even when it snowed. We didn't have a television until the men walked on the moon. I was eight and I still remember my father carrying in that television with a wooden case and a black & white screen. We three children sat at his feet, while he explained rocket ships and I dreamed of flying and bouncing on the moon.

That next month in February of 1969, one of the worst blizzards ever hit north eastern South Dakota. We woke up on morning, and our corner lot was covered in drifts up to the second story. My father had to climb out of the second story window to shovel us out. The snow was packed so tightly that he didn't sink much, and my mother let my little brother and I get dressed to fly down the drifts on our sled. My little brother got stuck, daddy had to dig him out and that was the end of that. I didn't realize it until I checked, but we had 109.2 inches of snow that year.

Today, because of those astronauts and their need to communicate with earth, I am able to watch movies, news, documentaries, listen to music and update this blog on my little netbook computer and even my phone. I now talk to my father on Facebook and via text messages. Even historians love Google.

Today, especially in the fall, winter and spring, I check the weather on my smartphone before venturing out. I live on the Minnesota prairie now, but as in the Dakota's, the weather is quick to change. Winter is soon approaching and the ten day forecast dictates I should wear my wool civil war dress and flannel bloomers while serving dinner at our museum's log cabin dinner.

There is no central heat, electricity or running water, in the cabin so I will be experiencing life as it was back in 1864 when our county was first settled. I will have my smartphone in my reticule and have promised my daughter in California I would upload pictures on my Facebook page.

Looking forward while going back or looking back while going forward? Some days the lines are rather blurry.