The Barn
I guess this story begins in 1910 when Grandpa Dieteric and his brother, Frederick Dieckman, built this barn. It’s as straight and strong as it was when new. The original owner was Bill Harms and his wife and two daughters. One of his girls became my aunt Hulda.
In 1976 Florence and I and our four boys decided to move back to our native Cole Camp. This was home.
I, a country vet’s son, was no stranger to barns and kerosene lanterns. My new, old, red barn opened its arms to me. Our boys took to it like a second home. It became their main playhouse.
Now, Bill Harms, the original builder, had a jack-breeding business. When a girl horse was ready for a boyfriend, Bill would supply a jack. The result was a baby mule. Mules were considered better work animals than horses and were supposedly smarter. Well, let’s get back to that barn. Little did that barn know what was coming. The boys found the barn basement interesting and liked to hang out there. Now, being a recent cow house, it needed to be cleaned out. The boys and I set to work. We did a thorough job. Finally, while not completely sanitary, it was clean. This brings us to Bill Harms’ picket fence along the basement hallways. Jacks, being male animals have a few bad habits. They bite. Bill’s solution was to build a nice picket fence along the hallway. Personally, I would have loved to touch them on their nose with my dad’s old electric prod. I used to kill horse flies with it when I was a kid. I’m getting side tracked. Sorry! Let’s kind of get back to the barn story.
Our boys loved to ride their bikes in a small circle in the hay loft. This was fine except for one minor problem. Bill Harms had put a large hay loading hole in the north end of my hay loft. This posed a hazard to the safety of my boys. What to do? I headed for the barn basement and removed Bill’s jack proof fence and built a neat little picket fence around Bill’s dangerous hay-loading hole. I could now breathe more easily. In spite of my precautions Todd still managed to hit the staircase opening. I think he only broke his ankle.
Somehow all of us survived and once in a while congregate in our old barn to reminisce. I’ve added a few practical pieces of furniture up there, and imposed a few rules on myself. There’s no radio or TV up here. This is a place to just remember, meditate and pray. You read that right. As I’ve grown a bit older, I’ve had times to sort out what is really important and eternal. After all, I’ll be someplace forever, won’t I? So will you.
