Notes from my Knapsack 6-6-19

Notes from my Knapsack 6-6-19

Jeff Gill

 

Crops in the village

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Granville's recorded history, to me, begins with Jesse Munson clambering down out of a wagon and tasting the soil when asked what he thinks about the place.

 

This was the night before the legendary race of ox-drawn wagons across Clear Run into what's now the center of the village, and the chopping down of a tree with a sermon from the stump.

 

That was November 17, 1805, but it was a mile or so east, near where today's Cherry Valley Road runs into Newark-Granville Road. The so-called Nash cabin property was where John and Lilly Jones had attempted a homestead in 1802, and where she died giving birth to a child, sending John and the older children back towards the Ohio River. It was around that abandoned (twice over, it seems) cabin that the first group of "The Licking Company" pioneers made their last temporary camp, and where grandfather Jesse tasted the dirt and declared it fit for farming.

 

The Munson family bought that whole stretch of land, now mostly the Erinwood housing development. Just east of where the Munson farmhouse once stood (a major part of it now built into the Welsh Hills School complex, rolled east in a creative act of preservation years ago), the 1810 House stood in what's just a patch of woodland opposite Fackler's Garden Center on the historic intersection. Across the road under a shade tree was Licking County's first legal existence in 1808 as a county Common Pleas Court session.

 

But behind the Munson place and the 1810 lot was good farmland, as Jesse had declared, ranging from the Raccoon Creek bottomlands north to the edge of the Welsh Hills, a long ribbon of good soil and well-watered bluffs. It was ploughed and planted in the spring of 1806 by the Munsons, as much as they could turn, more each year.

 

Today, it's mostly homes, the Great Lawn before the Bryn Du Mansion, and a lone patch which just got plowed and planted. Which made me happy.

 

I'm a realist, and I know the piece of surviving farmland here in the village was eyed for a new elementary school at one point, a new intermediate school later, and most recently for a commercial development. The work went into the parcel enough to clear trees up the Welsh Hills slope above it, and the farmer wasn't given the lease to plant in 2018. But the plans hit snags, as development often does; now we see dramatic work on the downhill side of the road to Newark further east, up Ashley Hill. And the 1810 House parcel, adjoining and historically blending into the Jones-Munson parcel, will be built on at some point in the near future, I'm sure.

 

But it is the longest continuously farmed piece of land in the township that we can say that for certain of. Up in the Welsh settlement there may be a garden patch that's had seed planted for a year or two longer, but for actual regular farming, this is a special place. And it made me smile to drive by and see one more crop planted on that hallowed if not quite holy ground.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's interested in the landscape of this whole Land of Legend we call home. Tell him about a crop that caught your eye at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 6-1-19

Faith Works 6-1-19

Jeff Gill

 

Don't look up

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Our prayers are certainly with everyone affected by winds and rain and flooding, which covers a great deal of the country this year.

 

From the recent Dayton storms to the earlier Oklahoma and Missouri tornados to rising waters along the Missouri and Mississippi, everyday people and sacred structures have been damaged by the insidious work of water going where it's not wanted.

 

Water has been called the universal solvent, and we all know how a dripping spring can carve a hole in solid rock. What's faster is a leak in a roof above plaster.

 

Something they don't tell you in ministerial training (it's quite a list, actually) is that you'll never look up at the ceiling of a worship space the same way again. It's something like going from being a child to a renter to a homeowner, and you realize when the toilet clogs or the drain backs up that there's no one to call: it's your problem.

 

Stains on the ceiling evoke the same feeling of helpless dread.

 

Depending on your polity, there may be trustees or a property committee or even a diocesan office to call for help. But in the immediate realization that a) there's a problem, and b) it's not going to get better, and c) the longer a solution delays, the more costly the final bill will become, it's often the parson who stands there in the middle of the week thinking "I need a bucket, and then  . . ."

 

And there are roofers, and there are roofers. But after the roofer comes (hallelujah) and goes (oh, but wait), there's the damage done and repairs within, all of which involve ladders at best and scaffolding and/or harnesses at worst.

 

Not to be flip, but a windstorm and massive damage means an insurance call and contractors. The steady drip-drip-drip of managing a physical plant is less the big boom than the everlasting question of what needs painting up there, versus what needs work up above those discolored areas of paint or plaster.

 

Ideally, you have a team and a good contact person beyond your church to help with the big stuff, but it's the little incidents of a leak here, a drip there, a stain in that corner and a little crumbling plaster along the wall that pulls your attention away from where you're trying to focus.

 

Looking up ideally should be a religious impulse of hope and joy, but if you have any kind of building responsibility at all, it can be a hazardous undertaking. I've talked to pastors of large churches, college presidents, and theatre managers, and we all agree: you never look up quite the same way again. Even some retired clergy have told me they visit a church and glance skyward and think "uh oh . . . " and can't look away.

 

Last summer we had a few days in New Mexico, and visited an adobe church we know well, first built in 1812 (and trust me, there are plenty older). Adobe is a form of architecture that has the built-in knowledge that you have to keep rebuilding; it's ideal in desert climates, but it's not that it never rains in an arid place, just that you deal with water differently.

 

So you know with adobe you will re-mud on a regular basis, and it's an art and a skill to apply the materials properly and durably. Still, you have to put a roof on top of those mud brick walls, and need a decent overhang, eaves to keep the casual shower from melting a bit of the exterior, plus solid sheathing up above to prevent the infiltration of run-off from the interior of the structure.

 

I enjoyed our visit to this sacred place, but I knew it hadn't been renovated since our last visit some years ago, and as I looked at the eroded ends of the beams, and considered the patches of adobe crumbled off inside and out, I just kept thinking "someone's got a big job ahead." My first visit was decades before that, and at least one resurfacing cycle back; I'll bet the same signs of decay and needed maintenance could be seen then. But in my early non-ministerial twenties, it was all just quaint.

 

Now, I'm thinking "hope they have a good property committee here" all through my time in the pews.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been in a few attics and on a couple of roofs. Tell him about patch jobs you've regretted at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

lyrics

Wide awake while the world is sound asleepin'
Too afraid of what might show up while you're dreamin'
Nobody, nobody, nobody sees you
Nobody, nobody, nobody would believe you
Every day you try to pick up all the pieces
All the memories, they somehow never leave you
Nobody, nobody, nobody sees you
Nobody, nobody, nobody would believe you

God only knows what you've been through
God only knows what they say about you
God only knows how it's killing you
But there's a kind of love that God only knows
God only knows what you've been through
God only knows what they say about you
God only knows the real you
There's a kind of love that God only knows

There's a kind of love that
There's a kind of love

You keep a cover over every single secret
So afraid if someone saw them they would leave
But somebody, somebody, somebody sees you
Somebody, somebody will never leave you

God only knows what you've been through
God only knows what they say about you
God only knows how it's killing you
But there's a kind of love that God only knows
God only knows what you've been through
God only knows what they say about you
God only knows the real you
There's a kind of love that God only knows

There's a kind of love that
There's a kind of love
There's a kind of love that
There's a kind of love

For the lonely, for the ashamed
The misunderstood, and the ones to blame
What if we could start over
We could start over
We could start over
Oh for the lonely, for the ashamed
The misunderstood, and the ones to blame
What if we could start over
We could start over
We could start over
'Cause there's a kind of love that God only knows

God only knows what you've been through
God only knows what they say about you
God only knows the real you
But there's a kind of love that God only knows
God only knows what you've been through
God only knows what they say about you
God only knows the real you
There's a kind of love that God only knows

There's a kind of love that
There's a kind of love
There's a kind of love that
There's a kind of love

God only knows where to find you
God only knows how to break through
God only knows the real you
There's a kind of love that God only knows