Remember the weird post in the woods near my house? Well there’s a new development. Now there’s a fairy Barbie doll set into the ground just a few feet away.

What’s going on here? No idea, but I delight in the strangeness. And it doesn’t hurt that I’m watching X-Files right now.

Came across a guy in the woods walking his pit bull.

“Out looking for mushrooms?”, he asks.

“A little, but I’m mostly looking for wildflowers. They’re so beautiful this time of year.”

“Hell yeah they are!”

I did not expect that response but a guy who will “hell yeah” wildflowers is my kind of guy.

Trillium on a moss-covered rock

I’ve lived in different areas of Lawrence County for my entire life–but everything started in one particular town, Springville. That’s where my maternal grandparents lived their adult lives. Bud (real name Clarence but universally known as Bud) and Alta (pronounced AL-tee) were both born in the Kentucky counties of Wayne and Pulaski, respectively, but their families moved to the area for the limestone jobs. I plan to write more about them but first I’m working on getting the chronology of their early lives straight. In the meantime, suffice it to say that Springville is where their children were born and it is the place of my earliest memories.

Two buildings come to mind today.

First is the Trinity Pentecost Mission. (The Holiness people, bless them, weren’t always clear that their churches were Pentecostal, not Pentecost.)

Grandpa Strunk helped build this church and served as Sunday School Superintendent for thirty years. I have the bell he used on those Sunday mornings.

It’s possible that my great-grandpa Stunk was a preacher at this church but that is unconfirmed. I’m waiting to hear back from my uncle to see if he knows anything about that.

My earliest memories at this church:

• Stacking hymnals up to make buildings for the action figures and cars I brought with me.
• Dozing under the pews while people sang and danced and waved their arms.
• Listening in rapt amazement as a preacher (not the pastor) described what would happen in the end times. I vaguely remember speaking up during the sermon and saying something like “really?” and the preacher responding in the affirmative.
• Hearing the strange—almost distressing—way Brother Chet, the barrel-chested pastor, would catch his breath as he preached. Holiness preachers don’t talk, they yell. A preacher who didn’t yell for 90% of his sermon was a rarity. So it wasn’t that Chet was unusual in volume, only in the way he sucked in oxygen at the end of a sentence like a man having a heart attack.
• The painting of damned souls dropping off a cliff into Hell, with a caption along the lines of “Eternity. How long?” I may visit the church again sometime just to get a picture of that painting.

Second is Springville Grocery. A picture as it is now:

My aunt started this store many years ago. Maybe in the 70s? I remember it especially from the time when my grandparents moved from their little house in which my mom and aunts and uncles grew up to a trailer on the lot next to the grocery store. My guess is that my aunt owned that lot and helped my grandparents move there so they would be close by.

I stayed with my grandparents a lot during childhood so I remember walking over to the store with a handful of pennies and nickels for candy. I don’t really have many specific memories about the store—just that it was a fixture and landmark during my childhood.

I’m very glad to see that it seems to have taken on new life. I hadn’t been there in many years until very recently and they’ve added booths and hot breakfast. It looks like the sort of place the local retirees might gather. And, more relevant to us, they have become Springville’s source for locally raised meat and dairy products. Seeing my aunt’s store turn into a market supporting local agriculture is gratifying.

Any ideas what this might be?

The east fork of the White River has a lot of fog and ice this morning.

Some day trips I want to make in 2024:

• Prophetstown state park in Lafayette
• Turkey Run and Clifty Falls state parks, because they’re always worth visiting
• In 2023 I made a trip through New Harmony and then east along the Ohio River to Troy. This year I’d like to start at the other end of the Ohio and move west back to the center.
• Visit some of the notable trees in Magnificent Trees of Indiana
• More cemeteries, of course.

For various reasons, I didn’t spend as much time in the woods as I would have wished in 2023. I hope that will change in 2024. I’ve picked up my state park pass at the Spring Mill gatehouse in preparation.

There’s a tiny town an hour or so away called Pumpkin Center—universally pronounced “Punkin Center.” I had occasion to search the name this week and came across this 1972 NYT story on the town. At this point I believe it’s been entirely taken over by an Amish settlement.

I did some grave visitation today ahead of Allhallowtide. I’ll be busy on the actual days and I have some local graves to visit this weekend, so today seemed like a good day for the not-so-local graves. Today’s route:

What an absolutely beautiful day for a drive in the hills around Patoka Lake. The fall colors were delightful. A corner of Patoka Lake:

I mentioned recently that I’ve been thinking about my dad’s side of the family recently. I never knew them well, for reasons that are obvious from that post. Some bad stuff came through that family line and a lot of my recent spiritual practice has been working toward understanding and integrating that pain and hopefully transforming it.

It turns out that generations worth of my dad’s family are in two cemeteries: Crystal Community Cemetery and Bethany Union Chapel Cemetery. (The Find a Grave website has been invaluable, by the way.)

Four generations worth of my paternal grandfather’s side are in Crystal Community Cemetery, all the way back to my great-great-great grandfather (b. 1834) who was a private in the Union Army in the Civil War. I have a letter from him that has been passed down the generations. (It’s at the print shop being scanned right now but I’ll post a picture when I get it back.)

Three generations worth of my paternal grandmother’s side are in Bethany Union Chapel Cemetery. The oldest ancestor there was born in 1872 but there are others in nearby cemeteries which I did not have time to visit today. Another time, for sure.

When I got to Crystal Community Cemetery, I was tempted to stand in the middle of it and say, “okay, y’all, who started this shit?” But I didn’t. I did talk to them all, particularly my paternal grandfather who I know did some bad stuff. I was very honest with him about my anger about what he did to my father.

I was honest with my folks in both cemeteries, actually. But I also told them that I and my family are doing well, despite it all. Obviously I still have some things to work through (else why am I traveling miles to gripe at my dead grandpa) but, on the whole, the wounds are closing and I have decided to act in the role of healer, not victim.