Home on the Range

Knowing that it would be a while before we'd have time to send me on a getaway, Shad told me to take a vacation in January. Surprisingly, it actually took some convincing because I still have such anxiety about leaving Samson in someone else's care when I don't know what to tell them to do about his skin or what to feed him. But somehow Shad got me out the door.

I went to Kearney for a weekend. I found a hotel with a pool and hot tub (I swear I brought my swimsuit home with me, but I haven't seen it since!) and went on my way, stopping in Smith Center first to buy honey from the beekeeper there. From there, the road north to Kearney has a historical stop on it--the cabin where "Home on the Range" was written.

The attic

Out the attic window

Stairs leading up to the attic, but you can't go all the way up.

Bed under the stairs

The open cabin room with table and benches and a wood burning stove

And a wash basin

Out the front door

Okay, is anyone else thinking about Emily Gilmore and laughing?

The deer and the antelope play!

There's the range.

Here are the lyrics I grew up singing:

Home, home on the range

Where the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

And here is the original poem:

The Western Home

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

  Where the deer and the antelope play;

  Where never is heard a discouraging word

     And the sky is not clouded all day.

Oh, give me the gale of the Solomon vale

  Where life streams with buoyancy flow,

  On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever

     Any poisonous herbage doth grow.

Oh, give me the land where the bright diamond sand

   Throws light from the glittering stream;

   Where glideth along the graceful white swan,

      Like a maid in her heavenly dreams.

I love these wild flowers in this bright land of our;

   I love, too, the curlew's wild scream.

   The bluffs of white rocks and antelope flocks

     That graze on the hillsides so green.

How often at night, when the heavens are bright

   By the light of the glittering stars,

   Have I stood there amazed  and asked as I gazed

      If their beauty exceeds this of ours.   

The air is so pure, the breezes so light,

   The zephyrs so balmy at night,

   I would not exchange my home here to range

      Forever in azure so bright.

--Dr. Brewster Higley, Smith County, Kansas