John Heath PERKINS
PERKINS, MORF, NOLL
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 5/4/2011 at 09:32:42
Clear Lake Mirror Reporter
Clear Lake, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Thursday, April 28, 2011Perkins leaves community with message for the future
Editor's Note: Clear Lake historian John PERKINS passed away Sunday, April 24, at the age of 99 years. In his final days, as he often did, John aptly put pen to paper to tell a story -- this time about Earth Day. We are pleased to be able to share his final essay with our readers this week.
Earth Day is more than Soiled Diapers and Cigarette Butts
by John H. PerkinsSoiled diapers and cigarette butts left along the roadside go way back, before Earth Day, before Interstate highways, and before volunteers patrolled the ditches to pick up the trash. It was the era when Old Nell, hitched to the buggy, and at a fast trot, took maybe an hour to carry the farmer’s wife, with a case of eggs, to the grocery store in town, to trade for the groceries for the week. If she didn’t get to town during the week, then on Saturday night the Mister, after polishing up the Hudson automobile, would load the whole family in the car along with the eggs. They would leave the grocery list and the eggs at Earl Ashland’s grocery store while the kids would go to the 10 cent movie at the Electric Theatre on Main Street, with an extra nickel for some popcorn, while the parents would go to Peterson's Drug Store for a malted milk or an ice cream sundae and for a visit with their neighbors, who might live several miles away but still came to town on a Saturday night.
That was something folks did in those days -- visit.
Nowadays there is no time to visit, everyone is in a hurry.
The native Americans, who were here long before the white man came, didn't throw their trash along their trails. In their encampments they had garbage pits, which were covered when they moved.
The early settlers, including many of our ancestors, came, for the most part, from the eastern and north eastern areas of the United States. Their experience had conditioned them to lots of trees and forests and plenty of shade. When, at last, they crossed The Great River with their Conestoga prairie schooners, with the family milk cow in tow, drawn pretty much by yokes of stoic oxen, the driver, peering from the high seat, could see nary a tree in sight. Only the high, tough, native prairie grass, waving above the wagon wheels, an ocean of grasses with strange names such as big bluestem, turkey foot grass, and further west little bluestem and Indian grass, and still further west Buffalo grass.
As they homesteaded, the settlers began to plow the native prairie to grow crops. That is when it started -- soil erosion. Their plows ripped through the tough roots and turned under the luxuriant prairie grassland, home to the buffalo, antelope and deer. They didn't realize it at the time, but they were laying the foundation for the terrible dust storms in the 1930's.
Those who lived through the 1930's have never forgotten what they witnessed. A period of no rain for weeks dried up the southwestern states, such as Kansas, South Dakota, Texas, and others. Crops died, leaving much bare land, which allowed the winds to pick up the dry soil and carry it north and east. The choking, blinding, dust covered fence rows, machinery, roads, and in spite of all the efforts to keep it out, it seeped into the best of houses. Much of the time visibility was zero. There was no feed for the livestock. Hundreds of farmers with no way to care for their animals sold them for what they could get, abandoned their homesteads, loaded their few belongings, along with the family, in their old pickup truck or Model T Ford and headed for California, hopefully to find work and a place to breathe.
That's when the names Okies and Arkies were coined. Some had break downs or flat tires, with no way to fix them. Many just camped along the road. At that time there was no government help. And even if they made California, jobs were not plentiful. Too many people, not enough work.
Later the federal government helped pay for the planting of trees along field edges to try to control the force of the wind. They were called windbreaks, but as times improved and the rains came again, those windbreaks have gradually disappeared.
Why?
Because they didn't bring in any money, they used space where another bushel of something could be grown. Perhaps, providing the setting for another 1930-like dust storm.
But, what goes around, comes around. In 2010 the Earth Day Network planted over 1 million trees in 16 countries. And at last authorities have realized that tough prairie grass could be used to stabilize roadside ditches, dams, etc. Not only to hold the soil in place, but to beautify the landscape as well. Now it is common practice on the Interstates, and state and county roads, when the seed is available.
I'll have to confess that I did not know much about Earth Day until I began to think about and research the material, and there is plenty of information available. Then I experienced an epiphany. One day as I was writing about the subject it dawned on me that a part of Earth Day was the very thing I had been doing for the last 20 or 25 years before I retired. If you will pardon a personal note, my company, John Perkins, Inc., that's what we did, Erosion Control. On the primary and Interstate highways, we seeded roadsides, ditches and dams to prevent them from washing away. We planted thousands of trees and shrubs on the Interstates. Some years ago, our firm seeded the first 20 acres of prairie grass on an Iowa roadside. It was on Interstate 35 south of Osceola, Iowa. Of course you only performed the work if you were the low bidder. But that is another story.
NOTE: The stand of trees and shrubs south of Osceola, Iowa along Interstate-35 is doing quite well. ~ 2011, S.R.B.
Since we are here to discuss Earth Day, have you thought about your mode of travel? I don't mean your automobile. We are all riding in the same vehicle, the planet Earth. We can't feel ourselves speeding along, but scientists tell us that we, with all of our possessions and surroundings, travel at 465.1 meters – that’s about one and three-quarters city blocks -- per second. We are also largely unaware of the great changes taking place in the universe. The tectonic plates far under our feet are constantly moving, creating new mountains, changing rivers, and causing earthquakes and tsunamis. We have recently seen an earthquake and a tsunami the likes of which we have not witnessed in our lifetime. Scientists report that the quake in Japan was 17 miles below the earth's surface. We can't see for ourselves that the ice pack in the Arctic is melting or that the air in our cities is slowly poisoning the residents, but we do know that we don't dare drink the water in our rivers and streams.
We set aside this one day in the year to devote our thinking and our energies to the welfare of our homes, our neighbors, the place where we live. What do we do the other 364 days? Do we remind our Congressional and Legislative representatives that we demand cleaner energy sources, such as wind and solar, along with other means to generate power and electricity?
Have you done something for the Earth since last Earth Day? Have you changed your living style so the Earth, our habitat, is more livable than it was last year? Do you take shorter showers? Do you use reusable bags for grocery shopping? Do you ride a bike to work? Do you turn off the TV set when you leave the room?
Let's take a couple of minutes to go to school. Earth Day was the brain child of Wisconsin's United States Senator Gaylord Nelson who, incidentally, was born in Clear Lake. That is, Clear Lake, Wisconsin.
He had mulled the idea of an Earth Day for several years, but was not successful in getting it started. In 1963 he persuaded President Kennedy to get involved. The President made a five-day, eleven-state tour to promote the special day, but the launch was still not successful. However, the germ of the idea ultimately brought about our present Earth Day.
On April 22, 1970, Senator Nelson began what he called Earth Day as an environmental teach-in, to encourage people to clean up their own neighborhoods. Over 20 million people participated that first year. One of the organizers said, "We are trying to get people to look at the whole thing as one consistent kind of picture, a picture of a society that's rapidly going in the wrong direction, that has to be stopped and turned around."
While the first Earth Day was focused on the United States, it went International in 1990, and events were organized in 141 countries. Earth Day is now coordinated in 180 nations every year. In 2009 the United Nations designated April 22 "International Mother Earth Day" with over 500 million people taking part.
Now, let's get local. As you know, we have a resource here that few have, a beautiful lake that the glacier kindly left for our use and our pleasure. A total of several million dollars has been spent, and is being spent, to improve the quality of the water in our picturesque lake.
In the early days, many of the surrounding farms had a slough or a pond, which, of course, brought the farmers no return. They blamed the height of the lake water. If the lake level wasn’t so high, then their sloughs would dry up, making more cultivated acres. So someone, or several someones, planted some dynamite in the weir at the outlet and blew it up, attempting to drain the lake. To make a long story shorter, at last the Iowa Supreme Court set the level of the weir, and that is what it is today, measured from sea level.
Also in the early days, the surrounding farmers allowed their livestock access to the lake. Milk cows, in particular, were allowed to graze pretty much where they pleased. Late in the afternoon, they remembered where their grain was to be found and ambled along home, but midday, they gathered in the lake to get a drink, stand in the cool water up to their bellies, gossip, and chew their cuds. Guess what they deposited in the lake during the several hours they were there each day? Later came other pollutants -- dust from plowed fields, fertilizers, pesticides, weed killers, gasoline boat motors.
Folks eventually discovered the joys of living on the lake shore and began building summer cottages and homes, but there was no sanitary sewer outside of the incorporated area, so, for the most part, that sewage drained into the lake. At last, in the early 1950's, the sanitary sewer was extended around the lake.
Do most of you know that in the earlier days, all of the city water was taken from the lake? There was a stand pipe in the city park into which the water from the lake was pumped and then distributed to the water system. At last the State decreed that our water could no longer be drawn from the lake, and we had to drill our own wells.
In the hundreds of years since the glacier had so graciously carved out an area and left a beautiful body of water, the lake had been so clear that fish could be seen through several feet of water, but that changed as homesteaders arrived. This was true throughout the whole country.
Do you have something you don't want, such as old machinery, a worn out mattress, a wagon wheel, maybe a dead horse, later, old automobile tires, a worn out washing machine? The motto was, “Throw it in the river.” Finally we learned that was not a good way to dispose of our junk. It only created another problem. Millions of dollars and lots of man power have been spent in late years to restore our lake to its former pristine quality, and it is working. Most folks now pick up their grass clippings instead of letting them wash into the lake. The west end of the lake has been dredged, and the fishing there is great.
Speaking of fishing. At one time we had a fishing season for walleyes and muskies. From the time the lake was frozen over, no fishing was allowed until Fish Day, May 15. The opening day of fishing, May 15, at midnight, was a really, really, big day, much like the Fourth of July. No one slept. Folks had parties up and down the lakeshore.
It was illegal to troll with an outboard motor. Propellant was by rowing. Many folks did not own a boat, but there were several boat rental services. The law required that every boat had to display a light, which was usually a dim kerosene lantern. One of the boat liveries was under the White Pier Dance Hall, which was where the Sea Wall is, until the 1931 tornado blew the dance hall all over town. Anyway, many out of town people made their reservations long ahead of time, because there were not enough boats to supply everyone on the big day.
Also there were several men who acted as guides, especially for those from out of town. The guides supplied the bait, and sometimes a lunch out in the boat. If any fish were caught, the guides took care of them and even cleaned the fish when the fishing day was over. However, the main, unspoken, task of the guide was to row the boat to a good fishing spot, which, of course, they were supposed to know. The last closed season was 1978. So, that year was the last big opening day.
Now, the little lake beyond the grade is to be drained, the noxious weeds killed, hopefully the carp eradicated. The clarity of the water is improving. From my deck I have been able to see fish swimming in several feet of water. We have a windmill farm south of the lake. We have several ethanol plants in the area. We delight in Central Gardens, with the variety and beauty of the plantings. The golf course will remain a wonderful green space. So, perhaps we do learn. Now, our immediate task is again to go out, patrol the lake and the roads, and pick up soiled diapers and cigarette butts.
~ ~ ~ ~
A few more words about John Perkins
by Marianne Morf, EditorI feel extremely fortunate to have known John and worked with him on a number of occasions during the 28 years I have been at the Mirror-Reporter. In every instance, he was the consummate teacher. Readers of this newspaper might not have realized John used a pen name, Pinkster J. Noll, to share local history in entertaining fashion on our editorial page for several years. John also provided his unique insight into a number of special events throughout the years, most recently his own participation in an Honor Flight to Washington D.C.
What never ceased to amaze me about John was his forward thinking. He was rooted deeply in the past, yet was never afraid of change.
Just a few weeks ago, on one of the worst weather days of the season, John drove himself to the Mirror-Reporter office because he wanted to talk about the All-Veteran's Golf Course and Social Center. He knew first-hand the history behind that golf course, right down to the act which performed on opening night. He also knew change was needed. He applauded the City's decision to accept ownership of the course, guaranteeing it would remain a green public asset.
"He represents the reason and stability of the Midwestern "can do' character," said one aptly worded nomination for John to become Citizen of the Year in 1992.
How true.
I know that I will think of John Perkins often because he has touched so many aspects of this community. I will also try to remember that John would not be satisfied to simply reflect on history. He would want us to learn from the past and keep reaching forward.
~ ~ ~ ~
John Heath PERKINS was born on a farm a few miles south of Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1912. By the age of nine years, on his parent's dairy farm, milking cows was part of his daily chores.His father had been a newspaper man and John, the fourth of four children, was born with ink in his blood.
After high school, he attended Iowa State College where, as an extracurricular activity, he worked on the student newspaper.
After college, he married Marlus, his high-school sweetheart. They have a son and daughter, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
For some time, John PERKINS wrote a weekly column for the Mason City [Iowa] Globe Gazette. His columns were a great favorite and appeared in the Globe and on refrigerators across North Iowa for many years.
John later published his book of Frogs and Friends: A Collection by John H. PERKINS, containing many of his essays and anecdotes which had never been published before. John's wife Marlus provided illustrations for the book, bringing a feel of 'down-home warmth' to the collection.
Photograph courtesy of Clear Lake Mirror Reporter
Transcriptions and compilation by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2011
Obituary - John Heath PERKINS
Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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