As surveyors we get to see things change from a close up perspective. I'm sure you've been driving with family members when one of them pipes up and asks, "When did they build that?" Chances are I not only know when they built that, I probably know who built it....and what was there before it was built.
I've always felt a little tug at my heart strings when I see an old homestead fall to the dozer blade in the name of progress. I'm a little cynical in my old age and I personally view most real estate development as greed driven...but that's just one old man's opinion. One old place in particular sticks in my mind. Since it happened around Christmas, I always think about it this time of year.
I was the instrument man on a crew back in the early '70s. Our bread and butter was residential development. Subdivisions could pop up so fast we use to joke about having a sign on the van that read "Tomorrow's Slums Today". But we all earned a living with the work and nobody complained about that.
One of the last "chain & transit" boundaries we did (before the arrival of the EDM) was of this place. The recent aerial of this SW/4 leaves no evidence of the farmstead that use to occupy the south 80 of this quarter.
At that time the south section line was closed and the only access was the west section line road, dirt at that time.
Over the week or so it took to get the boundary done we had entered the property at the farmhouse that sat near the road. Spattered about the site were a few outbuildings and a large hay barn. There was a good amount of dead and rusting farm equipment that indicated at one time the place had been a good working farm. But by the time we were there it was nothing but pasture, leased out to the fella that owned the 30 or 40 head of black baldies that watched us as we worked.
The farmhouse was old, but tidy. One older pickup sat close to the back door and the small fenced lawn around the place look groomed. There was an older couple that lived there and had sold the place to the developer. I found out later they were awaiting their daughter to purchase them a place out-of-state, in Florida; closer to her. The old man would meet us every morning to open and shut the pasture gate as we entered. He was a friendly enough gent and I guess was just bored with nothing to do since he like to chat with us. The first day when we met at the gate he introduced himself and we talked about what was going to happen to his farm. He told us how to get around the place and miss the mud holes, and told us when we were ready for lunch to just honk at the gate.
We had originally decided to eat lunch at a local "drive up" burger place we called "Ptomaine Tim's". I'm sure the reasoning was Tim's was the only place around for miles and the menu was tailored for a truck load of young men that all made less than $4 an hour. When we pulled out of the pasture up to the gate, the old man was there and opened the gate. He waved us over to park by the house and motioned us all inside with a friendly, "Y'all git on in here." We did, not knowing why.
As I walked up the back steps to the added-on enclosed back porch I could smell wonderful home-cooked vittles. We all filed in past the kitchen where mama with her apron was still busy getting things on the table. They had scooted the furniture around and had two tables pushed together and places were set for us. None of us knew what to say. I hadn't seen such a sight in years. Fried chicken, mashed 'taters, string beans and squash from the garden...with homemade biscuits and gravy, both lumpy. Man it was great!
It didn't take long for us all to get friendly. "Mom and Pop" had raised both their kids at the place. Their son was military and lived in Colorado, their daughter sold real estate in Florida. Neither one visited much. Pop was getting up in years and quit farming, the cows weren't even his. Mom kept a tidy house and garden. We all had to let her know her cooking talents were not going to waste. We even had peach cobbler for dessert.
I mentioned what a nice place they really had. From their comments I could tell they were probably tired of the place and looking forward to living closer to family. Mom had some Christmas cards on a string across the archway into the front room. She mentioned she'd like to have a Christmas tree there for their last holiday at the place, but her husband didn't see any reason for it. We all gave him a light-hearted hard time for not wanting a tree. He took it in jest. Then somehow the conversation got around to the fact I didn't see any dogs.
They both got quiet and the old man put down his coffee cup. He looked out the window and matter-of-factly started spilling his heart about the "best dog a man could ever want" they use to have. When their son was younger, he told his father the dog had bitten him. As the old man told the story his wife told him several times "don't"...but he kept on. Because the dog had bitten one of the children the old man had shot the dog. Afterwards his son had admitted to pestering the dog to anger. The old man broke down in tears as he told us the story. We all knew then why his wife had urged him to stop.
Talk about an awkward moment.....
We had lunch prepared for us every day we worked out there. The party chief gave the old man a really nice lensatic compass the last day we were there. Mom hugged us all as we stepped through the back porch screen door when we left. I remember thinking I'm going to miss her cooking.
A few months later we were back armed with a truck load of wood to feed the hungry diesel fueled scrapers that were changing the landscape. The old house looked eerily the same, but no pickup by the back door. The curtains were missing and you could see the cold, barren and empty interior of what had been a really nice home. I guess they found their place down in Florida and had packed up and gone. It made me a little sad....I was wanting some biscuits and gravy....
A few yards behind the house was the last trash pile (I'm a surveyor, I NEVER pass up a trash pile). A couple of old boxes and some kitchen junk was all there was....and a dried up small Christmas tree with a few icicles still attached! We laughed about the old man finally getting a tree. We knew he was really a 'softie' deep down inside.
I'm glad I wasn't there when they dozed the house. I heard the local fire department had used it for training purposes and torched it. I guess it gave up the ghost in the name of something good. By that fall the streets were all in and the echoing of the roofers' staple guns rang out everywhere. A part of history had turned a page without so much as a whimper....and time marched on.
That's a great story. Let's hope a few others here can add some of their own.
This reminded me of a column in a farm newspaper recently where the writer was reflecting on his little plot of ground in the heart of the Kansas Flint Hills region. Out behind the house was a hand dug well that probably was constructed in the 1870's or earlier. It was about 40-50 feet deep and the inside diameter of the stone wall was about five feet. The old pump hadn't been usable since before he bought the place nearly 20 years ago. The decking around the pump had rotted and was very unsafe. The farmstead is connected to a rural water district main line so there was no need for the old well. He decided it was time to fill it in and make it disappear. That was when he began to get nostalgic about how important that well had surely been to all of the owners of that property up until about 1965. He reflected on the craftsmanship and hard labor it took to hand dig such a deep well and then, somehow, lower each stone down to the bottom to begin the job of fitting them together and building them up layer by layer. He began to feel bad about being the one to destroy all of that hard work using modern tools in a matter of a few hours.
Thanks, very touching story, you really should save your life experiences and write a book
Sent from my USCC-E6762 using Tapatalk
Read it to my daughter. My comment was "Man, this guy can write".
Your story made my feelings well up. Feeling both your pain, and mine.
I know this is sort of a change of subject, but I feel it goes here. I went by the local re-sale shop the other day. They had a box of "Baseball cards" For $20.
In the past, I'd look at that as the dumbest thing since wings on a vega. Thing can't fly anyway.
But, now, I understood. Folks look through the cards, and REMEMBER. That great play by Bonga Bonga (You can see, I don't know any "Great Ball Players") They sit, look at the cards, and remember. Now I understand. I do remember "Babe Ruth". How could I help it?
And, that's why we love our antiques. They transport us back in time, to a kinder gentler world. One of long ago. I know, that flat head 6 and three on the tree don't mean alot to others. But, They mean alot to me.
Thanks Payden for the story.
N
It's not uncommon to see the old homestead still standing, surrounded by the circa 1950s subdivisions around here.
Agree a touching and intriguing episode of your life's experiences.
I can relate to these scenarios and lament the passing of history often in a few swings of an excavator.
I see opportunities lost, to keep some of the past and meld it with the present which as said becomes tomorrow's slums.
But I wonder if the past was not obliterated and instead built into the present what a difference that would make to the vitality and life of the development.
I remember an old farm being developed and there was an old shed chock full of old drays and early horse drawn paraphernalia.
I asked about its fate.
Came back later and saw a small pile of ashes scraped together.
There's a modern suburb in Epping, Victoria that was once an early dairy farm.
The farm, I gather, had long fallen silent but the developers utilised some of the history, building into it a theme that carried through parts of the development, particularly the open space.
Old foundations were stabilised and became a feature for kids to run around. Stone walls were preserved intact.
Old and beautiful clumps of native gums (eucalypt trees) were left intact, dictating the lot layout and road alignments.
Roads would split and traverse around them, coming together only to split again at the next clump.
A playground (the Milk Park, I think) was created with milk churns and other dairy equipment made into drums, stepping stones etc.
One of the most tastefully executed developments I'd seen.
The only down side I saw was the lack of ownership much of the community seemed to give to their piece of Terra Australis.
Agree a touching and intriguing episode of your life's experiences.
I can relate to these scenarios and lament the passing of history often in a few swings of an excavator.
I see opportunities lost, to keep some of the past and meld it with the present which as said becomes tomorrow's slums.
But I wonder if the past was not obliterated and instead built into the present what a difference that would make to the vitality and life of the development.
I remember an old farm being developed and there was an old shed chock full of old drays and early horse drawn paraphernalia.
I asked about its fate.
Came back later and saw a small pile of ashes scraped together.
There's a modern suburb in Epping, Victoria that was once an early dairy farm.
The farm, I gather, had long fallen silent but the developers utilised some of the history, building into it a theme that carried through parts of the development, particularly the open space.
Old foundations were stabilised and became a feature for kids to run around. Stone walls were preserved intact.
Old and beautiful clumps of native gums (eucalypt trees) were left intact, dictating the lot layout and road alignments.
Roads would split and traverse around them, coming together only to split again at the next clump.
A playground (the Milk Park, I think) was created with milk churns and other dairy equipment made into drums, stepping stones etc.
One of the most tastefully executed developments I'd seen.
The only down side I saw was the lack of ownership much of the community seemed to give to their piece of Terra Australis.
I think of a survey at times that reminds me of yours.
It was at my first employer in Louisiana surveying. We were a 3 man transit-tape crew. We did lots, acreage tracts, new s/d etc. etc.
It was summer so it was during a Louisiana heatathon. You really wanted to be in the woods traversing to escape the heat of the sun. We were tasked to survey a large irregular section that was a headright and adjacent regular section lines. It was located near the midpoint of the two main towns of the area and proximity to the interstate. There had been rapid growth for the past seven years with no sign of it stopping.
It was some big land deal going down with multiple land owners. It was said that the buyer and sellers were having surveys done and it was rumored (which later turned out to be true) that the buyer(or lawyers acting for the buyer) had even hired two separate firms to survey the tract in order to discover conflicting boundaries. There were suspicions about a dubious section corner location with multiple monuments that was integral to the surveys. It was all hush hush too.
The west side of the properties were rear lines of commercial lots along an old two lane U.S. Hwy that was the main N/S arterial road of the area . The north side was an old road scattered with rural tracts. The east and south lines were wooded. There was a large farm with cattle and horses that was part of the tracts too. The farm had limited access to where we needed to be. We were looking for access on the north when we came upon a small lot on the north road that appeared to have a trailer on it. It was the only Û÷improvement Û÷ on the country road. We pulled into the lot and noticed that there was a double wide on a slab that was about 80Ûªx300Ûª and the trailer was nestled onto on far corner of the slab. There were a few utility sheds on the slab and also a lot of container gardening strewn all over the slab. All very orderly and well kept. After parking, an elderly couple appeared and we approached. We explained or situation. Basically, it was looking for place to park off the road since it impossible to park along the road. They said no problem and they were very cordial and hospitable. We explained our survey and the man told us that we could access his property for the survey. He told us that there property was 80Ûª wide and 1 mile long in a N/S/ direction which drew a chorus of Û÷HuhÛ from us. We started to work and came back to the truck for lunch and the couple invited us to sit at here picnic table or lounge/lawn chairs that were set up on the slab. Thy offered us fresh ice tea that couldnÛªt be refused. We asked about the odd property and we got the story. Actually, we got the story over the course of the survey. Every day, we parked there and worked. They would have fresh ice tea or lemonade for us every day as we ate lunch on the slab. The man as a young man during WW2 worked in New Orleans at an airplane assembly facility. Two of his friends and himself had a dream to build their own small engine planes when the war ended. A few years after the war, they bought this abandoned section of a RR line from the 19th century. They had poured the slab to build the Û÷assembly Û÷ hangar but that was the farthest they got. Real jobs, family and other events stopped the dream of the men. One left the area to work for a aeronautic firm , one went to work for the major power company and fine became a pilot.
So this couple ended up in the end with the odd tract and lived there in retirement out in the country happily.
The access helped us immensely. We could traverse along the N/S old RR bed and spur off to search, locate and survey.
They sort of adopted us and the cold drinks and rest area from the extreme heat everyday was a godsend.
Now this is the part that I canÛªt seem to forget. The lady was very nice and quite an accomplished gardener. Most of her plants were in buckets and odd container on the slab that needed much attention that she provided. I enjoyed sipping my beverage and looking at her plants. One day on a break, we were sitting and a noticed a nice Yucca plant in a container off in the distance (about 75Ûª) that was in full flower. It mesmerized me how the beautiful white flowers glistened in the heat. When she came by to collect glasses, I told her how beautiful the Yucca was with its flowering display. She paused and has a slight smile and told me to go look at it closely for her secret. I walked over and looked closely and to my embarrassment and surprised that the flowers were flowers but she had taken old discarded white Styrofoam coffee cups and made the flower arrangement on the spikes of the Yucca. I told her that I felt fooled and she laughed and the rest of the crew laughed at me for weeks whenever it was brought up.
I donÛªt know why I remember that often. Maybe it was the way the couple lived happily in the middle of nowhere on a strange property after a failed dream. Maybe her resourcefulness in making something of beauty from litter or trash. Maybe the good times surveying.
Most of the property that we surveyed was developed into a regional hospital.
Attached is the present G Earth photo. Back then the only roads were US 190 and the east-west rural road. Dove Park. You can still see the slab with no trailer at the upper right corner of the photo and the Û÷stripÛª running south between tow streets that were built in the 90Ûªs 
Another great story. A collection of these would make a nice little book that might entice others to join our profession.
Not a full meal but we had an older fellow for whom we were surveying that brought us an ice cold Coca Cola every afternoon. In the Georgia summertime heat that can be just as nice.
Of course this was the same fellow that asked the crew chief if he had a couple of bricks with him. "Why would I need a couple of bricks?" he asked. "Well it's about to come a t*rd floating thunderstorm and we'd hate to lose you", he said.
Andy
Robert Hill, post: 349884, member: 378 wrote: ...It was summer so it was during a Louisiana heatathon. You really wanted to be in the woods traversing to escape the heat of the sun...
Robert, your description reminds me soooo much of my 'surveying' career in the late 70s. Work around here dropped off and I got mixed up with a nationwide telecom engineering company. Southern Bell was buying up little Mom & Pop wire centers and we mapped them all and staked all the 'new' facilities they were building. I spent many a hot day down around the Atchafalaya bottom. We went from Lafayette to Morgan City, Nawlins and up to Baton Rouge over a period of a few years. I remember a really pretty little town on the north side of the Pontchartrain, but I can't remember the name.
I had a wife and two sons here in Oklahoma. They kept me from misbehavin' too much down there. The devil knows a young man can fall for any number of attractants. I did love the people I met in the backwoods. The food was beyond anything I had ever experienced. After a year or two down there I could almost understand some of the folks when they spoke. But I never could get use to the heat.
I can remember days when we'd get up before sunrise and make it to the local restaurant for breakfast. A lot of the time (if we were close to water somewhere) it might cool down nice while the sun was gone. While we were eating the sun would come up...I can remember a 6:30 AM sun that hurt just as bad as a noonday sun. The humidity was stifling. We would work into the day until the shadows disappeared and then retire to either our hotel room...or some other place with cold refreshments, shade and a fan..until the shadows got long again and we'd work 'til sundown.
I probably would have stayed down there if I hadn't had a wife and children up here. If I had stayed, I would most likely be dead by now from letting the good times roll.
Paden, thatÛªs a great story, beautifully told, and IÛªm grateful to have read it.
I generally resist temptations to post any of my poemsÛÓnot that such temptations arise all that often in this settingÛÓbut this time I didnÛªt. Google Earth coords for the place are 39-07-07 N, 77-40-43 W.
Aka Fawn Meadow
SPAM-2004-042 Application name: Hamilton Ridge aka Fawn Meadow. Project location:
intersection of Sands Road (Route 709) with Taylor Road (Route 726). Request approval
of Site Plan Amendment (SPAM) for a temporary sales trailer on lot 9.
ÛÓLoudoun County land development applications accepted as of 5/29/04
At the county seat a map goes on display
to show the more than sixty lots these fields
have yielded to the husbandry of our day.
Until a wall of copper roofs unfolds
you might have time to catch a sunsetÛªs flare
beyond the trees along the old railroad--
not that there ever was a train through here.
Before the Civil War, bright prospects showed
a way to Harpers Ferry and beyond,
where West Virginia waited in its hills.
Though it bankrupted them, men shaped the ground
into a modest stretch of cuts and fills
that became a dump for agricultural scrap.
Now one of the streets carved on the stubbly fallow
is named for the railroad spur: Manassas Gap.
Alfalfa Court convenes across the hollow
to summon up the farmÛªs last load of hay.
We find old words to call these new works by,
as if to name what goes could make it stay.
When mercury lamps wash out the Midnight Sky
and in Wooded Glen the bulldozed maples wilt,
settlers will ply the chemistry of the lawn
and high-priced rubber graze the fresh asphalt
beneath which lies the Meadow of the Fawn.
Best,
Henry
I enjoyed that. And I feel what you've written, for sure. You should share more with us.
I envy folks that can make stuff rhyme. Sometimes I think I'd like to write poetry...but it never comes out right...
paden cash, post: 349911, member: 20 wrote: I enjoyed that. And I feel what you've written, for sure. You should share more with us.
I envy folks that can make stuff rhyme. Sometimes I think I'd like to write poetry...but it never comes out right...
Uncle Paden, your stuff IS poetry.
'A Surveying Memory'
That is the perfect title for a book of short stories. What you've written is pure Americana and I agree with others that the words flow poetically.
Keep them coming. When and if you are ready, I'd suggest you assemble your favorites into a manuscript. I have a long time friend I could put you in touch with that could assist you in getting your work published. I have no doubt that others, besides this motley survey crew, would find these stories to be difficult to put down. If you become interested in possibly getting published, let me know and I'll put you in touch with someone who could possibly assist in moving you in that direction. It would be my great pleasure in seeing that happen.
