Finding a world apart in the hollow

My favorite rural place is a long hollow, beginning below the bluff upon which my house sits, stretching easterly for three-quarters of a mile. Tall limestone bluffs border the hollow on the north and south sides, giving one the distinct feeling that this is a place cut off from all of civilization, where one will never encounter another human being.

I call it Bobbi’s Hollow, after my late wife. For a whole bunch of reasons she had a real affinity for the “Harry Potter” books and, later, the movies, and because of that connection, the activity that continued to hold her attention when nothing else did, all the way to the end, was watching the movies, over and over again. Harry Potter was born in a fictional town in the West Country of England called Godric’s Hollow, so in honor of both Mr. Potter and my love, there is Bobbi’s Hollow.

(Kurt Ullrich photo)

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Whenever I go down the path to the hollow I see the sign and know that I am entering a world apart from the one I just left. Even the climate is different. It’s always cooler. Walnut trees are just now leafing out, as is the beautiful Catalpa tree that somehow took root decades ago. The hollow looks for all the world like a lush, green golf course with way too many trees. Trees make me think of one of the most pleasurable encounters I ever had, almost 60 years ago.

I had been at a summer Bible Camp for a week and spent the time hanging out with a girl from another town, which will not surprise anyone who knows me, as I was never one to hang out with guys. Their repertoire, perhaps like mine, is a bit limited. Anyway, I was with this girl and we were walking through the woods at the camp and suddenly she stepped in front of me, turned, and kissed me on the lips. Oh my, I was in love. There is no feeling like it. We exchanged a few letters the rest of that summer, then it was over. I wonder about her on occasion.

This past week I mowed the small fields in the hollow, along with a couple of trails that I fashioned years ago to reach the top of the bluffs. Two songs kept returning to me, and I sang them aloud, earplugs keeping the sound reverberating in my skull, the roar of the tractor’s diesel engine providing backup vocals. I sang War’s “The World Is A Ghetto,” and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me By Now.” Do you know the tunes? Classic. They came out in 1972 when I was a sophomore in college and I realized that, in some ways, I probably never moved on from that.

In “Ghetto” one of the plaintive lines is something about which I was once concerned, “Wonder when I’ll find paradise? Somewhere there’s a home, sweet and nice.” Today I can appreciate that I found such a place. In fact it’s never been far away. Sometimes out of reach, but never far away.

And the hollow? It’s not a place to seek transcendence or real truth. It’s simply where the clutter of existence disappears. It’s home to deer, foxes, turkeys, woodchucks, (I dislike the term groundhog) chipmunks, coyotes, snakes, frogs, raccoons, and all manner of birds, cardinals, goldfinches, wrens, sparrows, robins, orioles, hawks, eagles. It’s long been a part of this old man and I make every effort to appreciate it, even as I come closer to the end of what has been a fleeting, meaningful journey, because I’m fully aware that one day I’ll have to board the last train home, to where I’m reliably told all is sweet and nice.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald recently published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here