Sub Terra Vita --Chronicle I—“My Valley; My Country!”

May 1, 2015

Sub Terra Vita (Underground Life)

By Tim Krenz

Chronicle I—“My Valley; My Country!”

“My Valley; My Country!” A creed I hold for the place I call home. Born in the old Osceola hospital overlooking the St. Croix River, I grew up on the fringe of the village, near the railway, on the road all knew as “old M.” I graduated from the high school that once occupied a city block on Chieftain Street. In middle school before that, I ran the Oakey Park fields during the heyday of ungrateful youth, when legends truly played greatly there. When in elementary school earlier than that, I rode my bicycle down Third Avenue, across Cascade Street, to the old public library on River Street. I read all I could find in that old, small white house, with the narrow, unsteady steps to the attic-like second floor archives. There, the always attentive librarians kept the valuable materials about things that mattered about the world beyond, in the nation, and the globe beyond our valley.

I spent time eating old-fashioned cheeseburgers, fries and chocolate malts at the Coffee Cup cafe, the white-washed building downtown that has long-passed into the epic tale of Osceola. Always then, my friends and I descended the old concrete steps down into Wilke Glen, to enjoy the shower spray of the Cascade Falls in hot summer, or to view the uneven palace of ice and rock and snow it naturally made in severe winter. We walked and roamed the banks of the Upper Mill Pond, and Osceola Creek, when they did have trout, and one could catch fish to take home and have cooked for dinner. We scoured this village for all the experience and memories we could make in the time allotted for reluctant youths.

“My Valley; My Country!” I roamed this valley beyond our “land of Oz” in Osceola, and as a 5^th cycle heir to a farm family from Germany who settled in this area 143 years ago, I take a little seriously a firm grounding of my feet upon the valley earth, that which produces food and family. This land contains the resting nest of my forebears. Like them, I appreciate the same sun we all see, the source of all life on earth, along with the moving waters that sustains this life and surrounds us. The context which gives us all a sense of purpose may matter more to some, and not so much to others, but we all must seek the greater context of the place we find ourselves, inside and outside our spirits, and relate it to the higher reason of “what we do?” and “the why?”

The St. Croix Valley, and the river that forms our edifying spine and unifying backbone, provide a course through time. When the first person discovered Osceola, and at one point someone called it Leroy, to the wannigans of labor running downriver, the present gift of our balance forward comes often from weighing things gone, and by building a bridge across the chasm to the next day, the next challenge. From timber days then and the trap rock rolling in cars on the rails at night, both harvested for a history, our valley proceeds connected from time gone to tomorrow's untold mystery. Of all things in life we can recover, or gain, or keep, one thing remains beyond redeeming: We can never get back time. From this point in the river, the flow of our story, the puzzle of the future meets the picture guide that came previous to now. Things combine in different ways; and how does the story go? How possibly can people, things, place and life combine to make our valley what it will soon become?

“My Valley; My Country!” I spent the past two and a half decades outside the Valley as well, traveling a larger frontier, some east, but mostly west of the valley. The old frontier, long since closed by progress, still has fresher outlooks, more unconventional wisdom, and more radical brilliance than the East Coast of the United States. The East still plays a vital part in our valley, and certainly around the globe. Yet, in the great plains, the Pacific Northwest, the northern California, the mountain deserts, and the hot, dry Southwest, the country feels more open, more free, and more new than the East. Whichever way, though, I go at any time, I always feel the relief when returning home, seeing the St. Croix River, and its familiar poetry of good living. Our valley, however, neatly straddles, indeed connects in many ways, the East and West, neither of which it forms a real part. And in another, more startling way, it sits above the great national dividing boundary of the Mississippi. In short, the St. Croix Valley crowns its own head with a unique halo of independence from all other places, and still it engages many nearer or far. In connecting these threads, we might find secrets in this journalistic exercise that could contribute to the betterment of both the East and the West of our now seriously divided nation.

“My Valley; My Country!” The nation and the world definitely act in ways that affect us here, sometimes for the better, and sadly sometimes not for the good. Every place known on earth can find some value, or derive some lesson, that if understood, pondered, and shared could affect other places, even the globe itself. In our place, the Valley, some things may not seem important, or appear mundane and normal to us, but rest assured: Every place can contribute something to a better, more peaceful, and more healthy world. We must, of course, deliberately understand and embrace the context in which we live, and connect ourselves to the larger part of the meaning.

This series of narratives, story, possible other things, shall make an honest attempt to bridge past and future, and do so by unplugging from the confusion of devices and the contrived wealth in progress. In an almost “acoustic” metaphor, let us hear, and then see if we return a favor to our forebears of the Valley. The Valley can give something of idea, resource, strength, institution—and value itself—to our lives here, and contribute to the betterment of the world. By looking at things from a different angle in the Valley, at the hidden and deeper meaning, let us see what we discover. May we find clues to the mystery future.