Least Changed of All

The springhouse stands exactly as I remember. No change I can point out, except it isn't being used to speak of now. There are so many memories of this little building:
The concrete pool in the room to the right where Granddad put the milk to cool after it was bottled. As a kid I didn't understand the need to do that, but it would've been so important to get that milk chilled as quickly as possible, since it was being sold raw. The picture of all those gallons and half-gallons sitting there with the layer of cream on top is as fresh in my mind as if it had been made yesterday. What I wouldn't give to find someone who could sell me milk like that now.

The wire cage where the cabbages and corn for the stand were kept overnight, to keep them from the animals, skunks, opossums and rats I imagine. I saw an opossum, once, hanging by it's tail in a tree over the creek, fifty feet down from the springhouse. The only 'possum I've seen in my life (except the animals they called possums in New Zealand, which aren't possums at all). I think I can remember Granddad building that cage, maybe the second summer Uncle Bill was running the stand, so there are pictures in my head from when the galvanized hardware cloth was shiny and new. It's not shiny and new anymore, but it's still there.

The cider barrel, dark on its rack, with the wooden valve sticking in one end. I'm not sure now what that "cider" was supposed to be, the strongest impression being vinegar. However I have no memory of Grandma asking for anyone to get some for cooking. That leaves the possibility it was alcoholic, which was my theory when I was young. I helped myself to two beers, one each time, but I considered that was highly likely to get discovered. The cider was something else. I was sure noone was keeping close tabs on that, and I often helped myself to a glassful (The things a young stomach can tolerate!).

The stone hole that was the spring itself, with it's absolutely clear water. No change at all there. The water is as clear as ever, in spite of the fact that Uncle Bill says it is contaminated now, by the kennel up the hill. There used to be two dippers on the stone shelf above the spring hole, a small one for getting a drink, and a large one for filling buckets. One of my chores was filling that white porcelain bucket and hauling it up to the upstairs kitchen. This was my lifetime introduction to strenuous endurance work. That full bucket would have my arm muscles burning by the time I got it to the back porch, and there was still the stairs, terribly long stairs, to climb. I think it was in hauling that bucket that I first concieved of physically pushing it, to keep going, try to make it to the top of the stairs without putting the bucket down, even though it was making my arms hurt. Or maybe it was Uncle Bill, or even mom, that first gave me the idea.

I've been in two springhouses in my life: this one, and one at an old desert ranch on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. The enviroments are as different as one can imagine, but the amazing thing is the springhouses smell exactly the same inside. I walked into that doorway in desert Utah, and was instantly transported to the green little farm in Pennsylvania.

Coming down the drive, always the longed-for end of a long, hot sit in the car

Granddad's farm, where all those memories are anchored, now lives only in our memories. There's a reality there now that resembles the place with the memories, just enough resemblance to make me believe it really is the same place, but oh, the changes. Some undoubtedly because any place will look different to an adult and a child, but most are the work of time, a half a century now. This site should grow into a tour of the place, trying to show both the resemblances to the farm of 50 years ago, and the shocking differences.

First big difference, the house is white now, covered with white vinyl siding. The old imitation-brick shingling is gone. It makes the house look much smaller and quite modern. As a child, I don't think I could have conceived that such a change was possible. When I was little this house seemed huge. Now it's a paradox. Overall it seems average, or smaller than that. However, it is a three story house, and when you are on the roof on the southeast corner (as I was with Uncle Bill a couple years ago), you're a long way off the ground. Then it still seems big.

Looking at it from this point of view, it follows the design of a lot of old houses. Each floor is divided with walls in the form of a cross, into basicly four rooms. This pattern is clear on the second floor, where there is the kitchen in the southeast, the diningroom in the southwest, the livingroom in the northwest, and the grandparents bedroom in the northeast. Big rooms, but not all that big, maybe about fifteen feet square.

On the first floor the pattern may have originally been followed, but now the entire west side of the floor is the long room in the basement. Thinking of that basement room, with the deep, tight hole Granddad dug for the furnace, I remember him all but standing on his head, down in that hole, working on the furnace. Not being able to see his head, but just a distorted outline of his body backlit by the droplight he was using while he worked, I was in awe of what a terrible place it was down there. The feeling was probably enhanced by his adamant insistence that we stay out of there. I had occasion, recently, to be down in there, troubleshooting some electrical problem with Uncle Bill and Melvin. It is no longer the grim, dirt-floor hole I remember. It has been dug out so at least two people can stand without being crowded, and has a concrete floor and walls. That's one change I don't mind, that nightmare muddy hole is gone.