View From Weed Patch Hill

View from Weed Patch Hill

Visitors braving their way up the fire tower at Weed Patch Hill see beauty rare in Indiana. Ann Knox was one. Cautiously, she scaled several flights of open risers. Once inside the covered platform, she watched the trees and hills snake southward toward the Ohio.

The hills pay tribute to the resistant rocks underneath. Their splendor arises from a solid backbone. Not so elsewhere. Old hoosier school books taught kids, now grandparents, that some of the state was so flat that visitors could ride trains for hours without seeing anything higher than a haystack or a pile of sawdust. Without a backdrop, those scholars learned flat lessons.

Ann was not from Indiana. Two years ago, she had arrived in Bloomington with her mom from the Garden State. Her mom taught chemistry. Ann's hair framed sculpted cheeks and her left temple was singed. The climb left her winded. She grabbed a railing.

Not far from Ann’s vantage, soft rock also defied Indiana’s plainness. South of Bloomington, limestone caves lay underground. Ann just had been to Buckner’s Cave. The prospect of the cave had delighted her. Ann’s laughs echoed within its kettle holes. She had crawled with the rest of her classmates through the cavern. That is, until Brad, with his minor’s helmet, leaned in to kiss her. The flame from Brad’s carbide lamp had scorched her. An unsettled voice arose within her. Once back on the surface, she exchanged heartfelt goodbyes with her friends and drove alone to Weed Patch Hill. “That idiot,” she fumed during the drive. “Why was I so crazy about Brad?” “This could not be happening.” she said. She regretted seeking his solace.

Up in the tower, she felt better. “Its nice here,” she mused. The platform was like a hut girded to the ground. She liked it. Huts were primitive. They filled basic needs. Not like one-room schools with books that ingrained you. The platform offered refuge. Ann leaned over the farthest edge of the tower. The aroma of sorghum drifted in. Autumn light warmed her. She saw through the hills.

Once, hardwood trees surrounded Weed Patch Hill. Shawnee seasonally foraged through its oak, hickory, tulip and walnut trees. At night, they placed cattail mats across saplings as wigwams. At daylight, the reed mats were rolled and the tribe moved on elsewhere tracking game. Later, settlers milled the hardwoods as beams for buildings and bridges. Leather tanneries stripped oaks for bark. Coopers staved hickory and oak for barrels. The railroads cut timber for ties and as cordwood for locomotive boilers. Furniture handicrafters and manufacturers felled trees for tables, chairs and dressers.

With the forest cleared, farmers arrived to till the shallow top soil. The land soon exhausted itself. Plows lay rusted in fallow hill bottoms. These back-country farmers sank deep into poverty. Weary of urban life, they remained and attended church or to stills. Over time, maples, beeches and yellowwoods emerged. Their beautiful leaves drew tourists, especially in the fall. Prosperity was not far off. Just west, lay Indiana’s most famous rock. Quarried near Bloomington, Indiana limestone faced important buildings world wide. The beauty of these hills offered refuge for cutters and faculty. Artists descended in colonies. Back country holdouts became merchants and sold knick knacks in Nashville. Life went on.

Looking out, Ann finally let go of the railing to enjoy the reddened pallet. As she gazed, she recalled a cottage built of mismatched stones setting far back from a road. She remembered that a vegetable garden surrounded the cottage. From time to time, a weathered old man would stop tending the vegetables and ride into town on an old bicycle.

She tried to remember what her grandfather looked like. It was too long ago. He had left his family. Her father learned this lesson. He had left his. A woodpecker startled Ann. She allowed her sadness in. As a child, she saw the mismatched stones of the cottage as quaint. She realized her grandfather, in troubled times, had escaped there. Ann wanted to explore the passages of this man’s life. She wanted to learn how he had tended to his garden. She wanted to ride the paths he had taken to sell his vegetables at the market. She wanted to rise above what she had been taught about her grandfather, and she then realized, her father as well.

Her mom was getting remarried. Ann was drawing close to boys and getting burned. She desired to break that cycle. The view from Weed Patch Hill was a beginning. Ann remained in the tower until daylight, descended and then moved on.