Knee-deep in Its Absence

The opportunity arose to use this quote by Wendell Berry: “The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence.” 

The activities of a recent Saturday gave me the opening to use Berry’s words in a personal way. The first incident entailed driving out to the farmstead auction sale of some friends who were dispersing many of their possessions. The same age as I, they’d decided to downsize in preparation for a move to city life in Fargo.  Living over thirty years at this beautiful country place will no doubt be hard for them to forget.

I had to stop for the blinking red lights and lowered cross arms at the Soo Line crossing three miles west of Sheldon. An idling train sat on a siding waiting for another to meet and pass on the tracks. Two trainmen from the parked train stood there, one on each side of the lowered cross arms. As these men waited for the oncoming freight, I visited with one through my open car window.

I remarked it looked like a long train, but with only one engine pulling it was easy to guess the cars were empty. He thought that was true, but he figured there’s at least one more engine, either in the middle or at the end, but it was too far to see. I never remembered having to wait so long for a passing train; so just how long was it? When he told me it was over ten thousand feet long, that is two miles, I was surprised. He added some even get to be eleven or twelve thousand feet long.

This scene at that very same crossing took me back to a time seventy-some years ago when we’d travel to Enderlin on a Saturday night for shopping. Sometimes we’d have to sit and wait for a train coming from Enderlin as an old time steam engine pulled hard to climb the grade heading southeastward. Maybe that’s what gave birth to the saying “pouring the coals to it,”  because thick black smoke was erupting like a volcano from its smoke stack. I can still  hear it chuffing and puffing to gain some momentum. If my mind’s eye still sees correctly, I believe there was also an engine pushing to assist it up the incline which would return to the roundhouse when its job was done.

This day of stirred memories continued. That evening we attended a benefit supper in Sheldon for a young person with medical issues. Looking over the crowd the majority of them consisted of a generation or two younger than mine, and in the case of a baby make it three generations.  Sure, there are still some of us around, but always fewer, never more. 

Upon leaving the supper, the scene on main street struck me. It could have been seventy years ago when everyone came to town on Saturday night. Cars were parked on both sides, all the way down to where the bank building once stood, on the grassy area north of the grain elevator, and beside and back of the new community center. The sense of community runs strong here, even though most of the buildings are gone. All it takes is a reason to gather.

When taking a quick scan of songs dealing with Saturday night, one by the Bay City Rollers contains the lyrics, “Saturday night, I just can’t wait. Get out of the house and have a good time.” Many of the little towns in the area, Lisbon, Enderlin, or Sheldon, drew crowds of people to do just that. 

It was a different reality. The world I once knew no longer exists. You may ask just who is this Wendell Berry whose quotation introduces this article? He is an agrarian conservationist and lover of the small farm and town. He’s written many fiction and non-fiction books as well as a good amount of poetry and essays. His “Sabbath Poems,” written while walking over the land on a Sunday stand out. Read him for a calm, measured outlook on life and the agrarian economy. He sets my mind at ease.