George Kindhammer

George Kindhammer

Al Botcher's farm in Pfeffer Valley was the next to the last one on the road.  From the end of our driveway the road continued about a hundred and fifty yards up a small rise and the pavement ended.  There was a barbed-wire fence across it which detached on one side so the fence could be dragged back, allowing passage.  The road continued to crest the small rise, but was a dirt road now and at the bottom, a couple of hundred yards further, it opened into the yard where George Kindhammer lived in an old unpainted, somewhat dilapidated house.

I am of the opinion that poor old George has been deceased now for forty or fifty years and that there may very, very few people around those parts, if any, who even remember him.  When we were his neighbors he was already a middle-aged bachelor, an only child who would never marry and who had promised his mother he would never drink alcohol.

He didn't have a car.  George drove an old Ford tractor, the small grey kind, up and down the valley visiting everyone and spreading gossip like a town crier.  He was a talkative, friendly, and basically benign guy because, of course, no one told him anything they didn't want spread all over.  He was likable and somewhat rotund because he hung around until you invited him to eat.

George's place was interesting because my friends and I could sneak through the woods and down to the backside of his barn, shielded from view from the house, and snoop around and even play in his hayloft undetected.  If George was on his tractor out in the fields or gone altogether, we could probe around more daringly and once we even went into his house.

George lived like you might expect.  Old antique furniture, old beat-up utensils and appliances that you wouldn't even think worked.  He had a wood cookstove, a kerosene heater, and an old studio couch that was his bed, right in the kitchen.

There were other rooms, and we peeked in.  They were full of cobwebs and old furniture that looked like it came out of an old western movie.  The glass in the windows of his house was wavy and the paint was all flaked and peeled off the sashes.  It was really something.  We kind of looked at this adventure as detective work; we were half expecting to find dead bodies or some kind of evidence of debauchery.

George would sometimes let me ride on the fender of his tractor, but he would drive very slowly.  He was a cautious person who wasn't going to make any big errors.  But he wasn't going to let anyone into his life either.

He would appear around mealtime.  Al and my mother were good to him, but got tired of being pestered sometimes and would hold off on dinner until he had left.

From my bedroom window I could see the road about a mile down the valley and sometimes I would time how many seconds it took from when his tractor appeared until his arrival out of the hollow just below our place.  I had a notion that this time was intimately related to his speed, and for a while I fancied myself a traffic cop and would write him little tickets.  I wonder what he thought of that.

Sometimes George Kindhammer would drive his little Ford tractor into Hokah to get groceries and supplies.  That was a big undertaking because it was a couple of miles to the highway and then five or six more to town.  The little tractor was slow and I doubt he went much over ten miles per hour.  It would consume pretty much his entire day, because he had to stop for coffee and gossip at least twice going and again coming back.

About five years ago I had some time on my hands and drove the car over to Pfeffer Valley.  It was kind of poignant and sad.  Our house was there as well as the out buildings, pretty much as I remembered.  I drove up Larry and Tommy Langen's driveway and hailed a guy who looked about my age.

It was Larry.  He remembered me, of course, but it wasn't like we slapped hands and broke into tears at the reunion.  He lived there now and his son was young and into bow hunting and just had to get up in the woods.  We talked about five minutes or so and it seemed Larry was kind of in a hurry, so I bid my farewell.

I stopped halfway to Hokah at the farm in the bottoms where my friend Roger Johnson and his little brother Donald had lived.  There was a person living there but he didn't even know who they were, so the farm must have changed hands a few times.  I mentioned George Kindhammer and he perked up.  He had known George and knew that he had passed away some time before then.  I explained who I was and he told me that George Kindhammer had mentioned the little kid who used to live next to him and had commented, "I wonder what ever happened to that little guy."