My Uncle Bill attended a family reunion that’s held in Grand Rapids each year, and afterwards, he always drives up to see us. It’s always a joy to have him here, and this morning was no different. This year though, he brought up a story he’s written about his childhood years, and after reading it, decided this was the best place for it.
“The Rolling Stone”
About one hundred yards North of the barn on the Kamradt family farm, there is a rather steep hill, leading to the pasture land below. This hill is deeply terraced by paths the cows made on their way, to and from, the barn. The pasture that spreads below this hill is flat and slopes gradually to the swamp to the North. In the middle of the pasture there is a large pile of stones, that I’m sure were gathered from the crop land, when it was originally cleared and placed there for convenience. These field stones are mostly smooth, having been polished by the glaciers that deposited them, eons before.
In the summers of the mid 1940’s, I was ‘farmed out’, to live with Uncle Herman and his family, while my mother worked in the canning factory. It was during this time the Caludia and I (probably accompanied by Uncle Elmer and Charlie) discovered our ‘rolling stone’. We found it in the stone pile described above. It was a rather remarkable stone. It was shaped like an M&M, almost perfectly round, about eight inches in diameter and about four inches thick in the middle. Upon finding the stone, we decided to see how far it would roll when launched from the top of the cow path terraced hill. On the first try, the stone rolled and bounced off the terraces as it went and seemed then to roll forever after reaching the smoother pasture area below. We were immediately ‘hooked’ on the experience, ran down the hill to retrieve the stone, then carried the stone back to the hill top to try it again. I don’t recall how many times we repeated this exercise, but I know it was several times before the effort exhausted us and we decided to just leave the stone lay, where it finished it’s run and returned home. The following day and many times thereafter we would return to the pasture, find the stone where we had left it, and do the stone rolling thing over and over again.
As we grew older, and more sophisticated, there wasn’t time for such nonsense, but neither Claudia nor I forgot the great times we had together rolling that stone. Whenever we would get together, our stone rolling experience would be recalled and we would end the discusssion with, “I wonder if that stone is still here, at the bottom of the hill, where we left it after our last roll”.
At the 2006 Kamradt Kousin gathering, Claudia and I again had this rolling stone conversation. I decided then that I would see if I could find the stone during my stay in East Jordan the weekend following the Kamradt reunion. To satisfy my commitment to finding our ‘rolling stone’, I drove to the Kamradt farm the following Saturday, to ask the new owners for their permission to search the old pasture area for the stone. I was warmly received and my request for permission led to telling this tale of the Kamradt Rolling Stone, to the lady of the house. She said it would be OK with her, if I wanted to do this, but would I first please look at the stones that were placed around her front yard flower garden, to see if it might be among them. I was told that these stones had been gathered from below the hill where I wanted to search.
As I scanned the many stones that surrounded this flower bed, I spied one that very closely resembled our ‘rolling stone’ and with a tear in my eye, I said to the lady, “There it is!” She immediately said, “Oh please take it then!” I can honestly tell you that I didn’t think this was the exact stone that Claudia, Uncle Elmer, Charlie and I used to roll down the hill, but I can affirm that it came from the Kamradt farm and that it is a close facsimile of the ‘real’ thing. Having looked over the terrain, from the road, where the old pasture is located, I knew it was improbable that I would locate the exact stone in this now grown over area, so I seized the opportunity and accepted the ladies offer and took the stone. I know she was elated to have made my dream come true and I felt good about my accepting her gift. Certainly no harm had been done. It strongly resembles our ‘rolling stone’, it came from the Kamradt farm and it’s the memories it represents, that are important anyway!
