Grew up on a farm in Iowa not too far from the Missouri River. At some time in the past there were Indians living there as we would find piles of flint and broken arrowheads where one of them was making arrowheads. Spent quite a bit of time clearing rocks from one field near a natural spring fed creek. Found a nice tomahawk head one day. Apparently there had been a village there and the stones were used around cooking fires. It must have been a good sized village as there were a bunch of rocks. They had to have brought the rocks in from somewhere because in that part of the state there are few rocks of that size. You can dig down for 40 feet and not hit a rock.
There are bluffs along the Missouri River and you can see quite a ways into Nebraska. A neighbor lady was what they called relic hunters, collectors of Indian artifacts such as arrowheads, tomahawk heads, scraping tools, etc. which were quite plentiful in our area. We were up on the bluffs one day with her and her grandmother looking for relics. The grandmother said her mother told her about when she was a young girl standing on the bluffs near Council Bluffs, IA, she watched wagon trains forming up for the move westward.
All of us neighbor farms kids would get together and roam all over the area exploring the hills and creeks. Hunted small game in those areas, ran a trap line and fished in the small ponds on some of the neighbor farms. We had a large pond on our farm and there was an old creek bank where we could dive from into the water. The water must have been 20 feet deep in that area. Spent many a summer swimming every day and had a full body tan. Who needs swimming suits when you are a bunch of boys getting cool in the hot summer.
What I wouldn't do to have that freedom and energy again.
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