Memories of Red Willow’s first frame home

It was with delight that I read Sue Doak’s column in Friday’s Gazette. She wrote of the “first frame structure in Red Willow County”. Ah yes, I knew it well. The Fitches were about our closest neighbors when my family, parents and four siblings moved from Hitchcock County to down in the valley a few miles south of McCook. A real bonus was that the Fitch’s two granddaughters, Charlene and Andrea, lived just a short distance east of that first frame structure. My younger brother Tom and I were privileged to spend lots of time visiting Hazel and Carol in their historic two-story home.

One thing that caught my eye was the tanned hide of a diamondback rattlesnake, eight feet long(?) fastened to the wall in a more recent upstairs edition to the old home. Carol told us that the snake had been killed close by. Think of how many years have passed since there have been any diamondbacks in this area. Occasionally, a prairie rattler, but one has to go to Oklahoma or south to find a live diamondback. Probably a good thing—right?

When I knew the place, around the mid 1940’s, the house was surrounded by a grove of large cottonwood trees. About a mile from the Republican River, it was built on the first rise of ground and not far from Driftwood Creek. For Carol’s dad, the new home was surrounded by grass with only a few trees growing on the islands in the river, which kept wildfires from eliminating the trees that we know today. Originally, there were no roads or bridges, but crossing the shallow streams with horses wasn’t much of a problem. Probably a little uncomfortable in winter, and when in flood, one just stayed home.

The Fitch’s kept their 1937 Ford coupe in a garage that had walls made of sod. I never asked, but probably that structure had been the original home of the settlers.

Beside the garage, Carol had laid out a full-sized croquet court. It was bounded by what had been railroad ties. It had a hand-tamped floor with a thin layer of sand on top and smoothed by a wooden-handled float about six feet wide. The wooden croquet balls rolled straight and true when carefully hit (boosted) with a wooden mallet. The hoops were bent from about number nine wire. We kids enjoyed many a game there and were always careful to leave it in pristine order.

Mrs. Fitch enjoyed the many fox squirrels that seemed always present in that grove of cottonwoods. Up high on her screened-in porch, inside, she had fashioned a cage that the squirrels could enter through a small hole in the screen. There she placed food, probably shelled corn, for them to enjoy while she watched. It also had a door that she sometimes would leave open, and then the squirrels could investigate the whole porch, being careful to keep away from humans that might be watching. Also, occasionally in the Fitch grove, we would see cottontail rabbits and, more rarely, the larger jackrabbits.

It was a great youth. Good friends within walking distance, their really nice grandparents to visit anytime, adult games and wildlife to enjoy. Later, farm machinery operating skills.

This old military retiree is really enjoying the progress of our current short-term war against a proven terrorist. Hopefully, there will be an uprising of the population segments that have been beaten down and taken advantage of for 47 years now, and ancient Persia will again be prosperous friends. The current regime has proven once again to Vice President JD Vance and his team that they can’t be trusted and desperately want a nuclear weapon to destroy us, their big Satan, and about all their neighbors. Yes, we will take all their upgraded uranium and make certain that they can never make more. With our Navy blockading their ports so no country can buy their oil, things will soon become very uncomfortable for those evil members of a regime that has been in power too long!

A couple of you dear readers of last week’s column objected to me stating that President Trump is enjoying an 80% approval rating. Presently, that is not so, but it was when he won the last election. Just wait until this current “war” comes to an end, and his approval rating will again soar.

That is the way I saw it.