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The windmills are going, going, gone!

By PAT WICK

© Another Day in the Country

There is nothing that says "Kansas" more than windmills! Windmills always have been the landmark most visible, most poignant, most practical, entrusted with all kinds of nostalgia from the past.

Like seeing familiar high-rises in New York and you know you're in the city, the windmill instantly speaks of Kansas plains. Whether they stood forlornly disconnected or were steadily churning in the wind, pulling water from the soil, a windmill spoke of the olden days and how things used to be. Simple.

There's a windmill that stood on Scully land, one mile west and four miles south of Ramona. This particular windmill has been there for at least 100 years. It was there when my Grandpa Ehrhardt farmed that land. It was there when my dad was born. It was there when my mother and dad got married and moved to that farm. It was there when I was born. It was there when they left the country and headed for college. It still was there when the land changed hands. In my mind, it's been there forever. And suddenly it's gone!

Today I drove down that road, my eyes habitually searching for the windmill at the corner. "Am I lost?" I thought. "Is this the wrong road? Where's my windmill?" It's gone. Just not there! Gone!

When we drive friends from other places through the Kansas countryside and tell them stories about Ramona, we always go down Pawnee so they can see this windmill. "That's the Mayor's Memorial Windmill," I tell them with a grin, since I'm now the mayor of Ramona. "It's my windmill, always been here from when I was a child on this very land." And then I explain about this being my grandpa's farm and this is where my dad farmed until he became a preacher. I tell them about the little yellow house that used to stand by the road, the barn, the chicken house, the wash house — all gone, except for the windmill and the tree that has grown up in the pile of rubble by the old cellar.

"What am I going to tell them now? There's no windmill!"

"You should try and buy that windmill," my daughter said several years ago. "You should have it!"

"But it doesn't belong in town," I answered. "It belongs here, on this land. It's a landmark!" And now it's gone!

The windmills are disappearing and I wonder where they are going? One went to California, I know. My cousin Johnny hauled an old windmill all the way from Kansas to southern California years and years ago. He loves windmills, he loves Kansas, and he loved his new life and his wonderful job in California. So he just took apart an old windmill from outside of town, put the pieces in his motor home and moved it!

Thankfully, the windmill still is standing at my grandma's old place, across from Lewis Cemetery. It's defunct, but still there. I can remember laying in an upstairs bedroom at that house, listening to the squeaks and groans of Grandma's windmill. Something needed to be greased. Something was old, besides Grandma.

Someone offered us an old windmill from their pasture. "You can have it, if you move it," they said and Tooltime Tim immediately started conniving ways to pick that windmill up in one piece and transport it to Ramona. But it's not been done, yet. Somehow it's not quite right having a windmill in town, in my back yard. I want those old windmills to stand forever in their same steady spot. It's another day in the country and I'm sad that a dear, familiar landmark is gone.

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