Lost Memories and Too Late Smart

     Having just passed another birthday I'm acutely aware of the passage of time and all the people I've known who are now dead.  Increasingly, I'm aware that with every death what I lose are the shared memories.   Half of my high school graduating class, admittedly a very small group, have died and with their deaths, only I remember some of the stories.  With one of those classmates I shared twelve years of school; 8 years in a one-room country school and 4 in high school.

      "There used to a be a sod house there."   What?  And I didn't ask 20 questions???  Such as: Who lived there?  Where did they go?  Do you remember them?  If not, do you remember the sod house? Were there other buildings?

      It was harvest time and I was driving the IHC Farmall H pulling the 10 foot IHC grain binder which my dad was riding.  We were cutting oats and we had paused nearby.  I noticed that on one small spot, perhaps 20 feet by 20 feet the oats were taller...more verdant.  There was no apparent reason...the spot was on the south crest of a hill, near the road that ran north and south, just east of our land...that that land should be more productive.  When I asked my father about it he told me of the sod house. Do I ever regret that I didn't pursue that bit of information with some questions!
    My father was born in 1883 and moved with his parents to "the" farm in '85.  My grandfather, Lars Negstad, bought the right to finish a homestead on the quarter of land (160 aces or a quarter of a section) which lies immediately west of the land on which the sod house stood.  Therefore, it's very possible that Dad would have had direct memories of the house and its inhabitants.  In any case, he certainly would have known something about them.

     Prior to someone reading this, I suspect that I am the only person in the world who knows about the sod house.  Such memories are often lost.

   I have two requests of any who read this;

      1. Tell stories!

      2.  Ask questions!