February 9. 2020
Back home again in Indiana.
There is something in me that wants to push the reset button. A fresh start here and now. An re-examination of priorities. A re-evaluation of the bucket list. A creative re-alignment where the world and I meet. An accommodation to the needs and wishes of those close to me. A willingness to regard my energy level. A quickening of my faculties, each of them, to see and know and live in gratitude.
From today’s walk —
February 9, 2019
February 7, 2020
Our trip to ancestor lands offered not-so-gentle evidence of the passing of time. I refer in particular to the “development” of Lancaster County that resulted in — among many other evidences — a late afternoon traffic jam at the intersection of Landisville Road and Spooky Nook Road.
A second evidence was the erasure or delapidation of buildings I once associated with one or another of my relatives. James Hess’ farm and buildings are intact because an Amish family bought the farm. But Benjamin Hess’ and John R. Hess’ buildings are memories, not current realities.
One house tugged at my heart. I took a picture of it in the rain (we dripped quite a bit on our trip). It is the house where Joy and her siblings grew up.
Yet I feel the foolishness of an old timer bemoaning changes that he or she did not authorize. And further, instead of grieving what is past, we have the privilege of remembering it.
February 6, 2019
I can recite the names of the Hess generational line —
Hans Hess and Magdalena
Michael Hess and Barbara Kryter
David Hess and Ann Keeport
David Hess and Magdalena Boyers
John Hess and Elizabeth Harnish
Benjamin Hess and Harriet Shenk
John Hess and Emma Reinhart
Mervin M. Hess and Ella K. Good
J. Daniel Hess and Joy Glick
Courtney Hess and Wendy Carpenter (div)
Adrian Hess
— and although I have been able to identify something tangible regarding each generation (a grave marker, a farm, a house, a church), I discover on this trip with Adrian that time continues to erase those markers in Conestoga Township, southern Lancaster County. One particular building, still very much standing, represents many of these generations — Sickman Mill near Marticville, along the Pequea Creek.
The Enola Low Grade Railroad that once was noisy enough at the water refilling station that my dad and his family could hear it a mile or two away has now been turned into a rails to trails site. Adrian and I climbed up the high bed near Shenks Ferry. Here is the roadway under The Enola.
We stopped in to see my dad’s first cousin’s grandson, a hard working successful farmer near New Danville.
Tomorrow … Joy’s territory.
February 5, 2020
Adrian Hess, one of my grandsons, asked to see the old family sites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. February commended itself. We traversed the 600 miles just in time to go to Chickies Rock before nightfall.
This morning geese honked us on our way.
The first stop, Willow Street, and the Hans Herr house built in 1717, the same year that Hans and Magdalena Hess and their six children arrived in Pennsylvania.
Not too far to the southwest, we found the grave markers of Hans and Magdalena, Adrian’s parents ten generations ago
South and just a bit west of the Rawlinsville Road, we visited the Byerland Mennonite cemetery and admired the church built in 1747. We want to think that Michael Hess helped to build it.
More tomorrow.
February 2, 2020
Weather occupies top rung in my ladder of gratitudes.
After a full week of heavy grayness, we woke today to sunshine.
Undoubtedly this is Sun Day.
And with the sunshine, a brisk warm wind from the south.
On my long, slow walk I saw squirrels and a dog but but no groundhogs.
February 1, 2020
Over in Facebook and Instagram I finished a January series of photos of stumps. The new series features fences. Here are the first four.
Fence – 1 – Fences make good neighbors and sometimes they make good photos.
Fence – 2 – These fences failed
in keeping the snow out.
Fence – 3 – Jealous of the trail’s fence,
the canal got one too.
Fence – 4 – This fence
proposes to keep things in
or out. (Spain)
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