Guest Blogger: One Foot In The Grave

It's been a long time since I featured a post by my friend "One Foot In The Grave." When this email from her came in, I knew I had to share it. She employs a "stream of consciousness" method in her writing, and I have edited a little for clarity. Enjoy.

What a fun day last Wednesday was. A friend and I decided t go to Paxton, NE. She had some business to take care of and then we could go and explore her memory of visiting Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles when little. She had this wonderful memory of a tunnel by her Grandparents home. They could walk to this tunnel and play, but it was so scary because they knew some day it would be full of water. So for little people the size of the tunnel and the fear of water made it very exciting.

They could drive a pickup through the tunnel while it was being built.

Off we go to find this exciting place. We drove East of Highway 30 and found the NPPD work yard so pulled in and ask if they could tell us how to get to the tunnel. They were so nice. Said to take the trail north and there it would be. Sure enough it about a quarter mile off the highway.

WOW. You don't have to be a kid to get excited, and so much water. The east side of the canal didn't look right for her Grandparents home so we were going to have to get to the west side. So back down to the highway we go and end up at NPPD again, but took the trail on west side and sure enough we arrive back the seiche(yes I know I'm a poor speller but that correct seiche, look it up in Webster), and it looked just like when she was young. It is still an exciting place to visit.

If you know me you know one of my favorite places to hang out is cemeteries. So we go south of the interstate and find many of her relatives and what wonderful memories she has. I took some pictures.

The last stop at the cemetery I couldn't figure out why she was by that grave, the name on the tombstone was Davis. That my Mother-in-law’s maiden name. She said that was my married name. Oh my, were our husbands cousins?? That got us laughing. No place in the world sets my mind to whirling like a cemetery. Well we were tired and decided to go to Ole’s for lunch. Ole’s is famous for the hunting trophies. We just sat down and in walks her brother, now that was the frosting of our trip. He had so many stories and is such a fun person. Well time to head for home after a perfect day.

I called NPPD and told them I would like information on the seiche tube at Paxton NE. He said the water comes from the North Platte River at end of Lake Ogallala. It is an open canal until it reaches Paxton. They started to build the canal and sieche tube in1934 and finished 1936.

The sieche tube is 1 and half miles long. It meets up the the Korty canal south of Paxton and goes to the Sutherland Reservoir. From North Platte river to the Korty canal is about 7 and half miles. He said a retired President of NPPD has recently written a book on Public Power in Nebraska. His name is Don Schaufelberger. I'm sorry if the last name is spelled wrong.

Whether or not you can spell or use correct grammar (I fall short on both counts much more often than I should), it doesn't stop you from having adventures, and by all means, share them! I know just the tube she is talking about, and remember going crawdad hunting inside of it when the water was shut off for repairs. We pulled crawdads out of there by the gunny sack full, but I always was scared to death in case the water would be turned on again while we were inside.

I also share her love of cemeteries. So much history told in the stones.

Note, the authors name is indeed Don Schaufelberger, and the book is “The Only State: A History of Public Power in Nebraska.”

Thanks for stopping by. The coffee is always on.