Letter: It’s more than a piece of land
The Mid-States Corridor Project wants to build a new terrain highway through Dubois County to bypass our towns and save trucks a few minutes traveling to their destinations. They see all the open countryside and think that it is a perfect place to pave over for the benefit of a few with wealth and power.
To the families who have lived there for generations, it is much more than just a piece of land.
Where the planners see an empty field, you see your grandfather plowing the field with a team of mules while his two little boys, your father and uncle, follow along picking up the arrowheads that he just unearthed. You see the clouds of dust as you and your father till the land and plant the crop. You see your father combining the field as you wait to take the harvest to the grain bin to unload it. You see cattle grazing behind the long-gone fence.
The planners see a small pond that needs to be filled in so they can put a road over it. You remember the stories your father told you of how it was the community swimming hole when he was a boy, with all his friends from town coming out to the farm to escape the summer heat for a while. You remember fishing with your family as a small child, and the pride you felt catching a small bluegill with a cane pole.
The planners see an old barn that needs to be torn down to make room for the road. You remember the hot summer days you spent filling that hayloft with freshly baled hay, marveling at that small remaining stack of loose hay from long ago still sitting in the corner and wondering how your grandfather filled the loft using only mules and the old metal track still hanging in the rafters. You remember your grandmother and your great-aunt walking a quarter of a mile twice every day to milk the cows. You remember getting home from school and going out to feed the cattle because that was one of your chores that had to be done before you could do anything else.
The planners see a low area they need to fill to keep the road from flooding during a rainstorm. You remember wondering how five generations ago, your ancestors turned that land from a swamp into productive farmland using axes, shovels, mules, and oxen. You remember where, as a young boy, you helped unload clay drainage tiles you could barely lift and setting them down near where they would soon be buried in the ground. You remember the hard work of clearing out the drainage ditches with a chainsaw and tractor to keep the land productive.
Worst of all, where the planners see a house that needs to be knocked down, you see the house your father built for your mother when you were still in school, that you helped build by carrying bricks for the bricklayers, installing plasterboard to keep ahead of the plasterer, and sweeping up the sawdust left by the carpenters. You see the old farmhouse that was there before it, built from poplar cut on the farm, no insulation, coal furnace in the basement that required stoking several times a day, and falling asleep to the drone of the window fans that took some of the hot air out of the house. You remember watching the Fourth of July fireworks in town laying on the porch roof. You remember the old brick basement under part of the house that was reused from the house that was there before and recall the stories your grandfather told you about when the house was moved there from its previous location about a half mile away.
This is not just a piece of land. It is my family’s heart and soul. And this is not just my story. It is the story of every family that grew up on their land. The road may be nothing personal to the people who think they have the right to destroy so much to benefit a few, but it cannot be more personal to the people whose lives they are crushing.
Tom Bartelt
Huntingburg
