The Pastor’s Piece, Pastor Kevin Cernek – FCFI Chaplain

FCFI

February 9, 2025

It’s winter time and we should have a lot of snow, but we have none. When I look out the sliding glass door of our home to the pasture to the east, all I see is brown grass and black and white cattle. It reminds me of when I traveled west for the first time in my life when I was about 20 years old. I’d never been out of the midwest and the brown winter grass was new to me. The pastures were dotted with black angus cattle eating what was left of last summer’s lush green pastures. I remember the chilly January mornings but with no snow or frost.

On that trip, my wife and I stayed at a home in Wilcox, Arizona that had been built around the turn of the century. It was a fancy house in its time. Wilcox is in the high desert elevation so in the winter it gets cold at night. The house had a fireplace in every room. When we woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was get a fire going in the fireplace. Then it was down to the kitchen for coffee and pancakes with the family. Then we headed out on horseback to tend the cattle. They had 700 head of Herefords pastured over thousands of acres of private and federal lands. The cattle thrived on sage bushes and twigs. Most of the time we were retrieving errant cattle and repairing barbed wire fences. Those were good times. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like had we chosen that way of life instead of the one we went down. No use wondering now.

That was back in the early 80’s. Life was simpler back then. Gas was 68 cents a gallon – and too high at that. I remember as a kid when gas was 33 cents a gallon. I remember stories of my grandpa delivering milk in glass bottles to people’s doorstep before daylight. A friend of mine who grew up in the shadows of Wrigley Field said that on game day, you could get a bleacher seat at the ballpark for a buck. A bottle of pop was nickel as was a candy bar.

The town closest to our farm in Indiana was Boone Grove – named after the great frontiersman himself –  Daniel Boone – who spent some time there, I guess. My brothers and I would ride our bikes the two miles to town to buy treats. There was a mom and pop country store there. When you went in the door, a bell attached to the top of the door jingled loudly. One of the owners would come out through a side door from the living quarters and ring up our purchase. Sometimes they went on vacation for a day or two to visit their daughter a couple of towns over. In that case, they left the front door unlocked and a cardboard cigar box on the counter for us to put our money in from the purchases we made. Rumor had it that they got robbed once. The building is still there, but not the store.

It’s good to have these reference points in my life. Times have changed. The farm we lived on until I was 12 years old was an old Indian burial ground. There were Indian mounds out in the pasture where the natives had buried their dead. At the time we didn’t think anything of it – and neither did the cattle. We could see them grazing on the Indian mounds from our view from the house. One of the Indian mounds we farmed right over the top and down the other side with the tractor. It was very common to find arrowheads and Indian beads all over the farm. One time dad found a hammer head made from a rock. Later, the farm went to the county because the owners failed to pay their taxes. The county wanted to turn it into a landfill. It was a big controversy. The neighbors didn’t like that idea so they hired an attorney. The attorney turned the county away by declaring the farm a sacred burial ground – which it was. Times change. Now the burial mounds are fenced off. The barn and machine shed are still on the farm. The house burned down years ago. The memories will never fade.

Sometimes I feel like my life is uneventful. But the reality is everyday’s an adventure.A friend of mine is writing a book. He asked if he could use me as a character in his book. He said he would change the name. I was flattered. Then he called a couple weeks later and asked if I would write the book instead of him. Someday if I have the time and a quiet beach house on the shore, with only a typewriter and the sound of the waves crashing in, maybe. Until then, this will have to suffice. Besides, I don’t have a typewriter anymore.

God bless you my friend. Thanks for reading this column.

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).