Photo by Virginia Wilson "Laundry at the Farm" 1956, Panama NY

"Rachel!"

Rachel turned her head on the pillow and opened her eyes. She remembered she wasn't at home in Jamestown.

"Rachel!"

There was the voice again. She knew it wasn't part of her dream. In her dream it was a year later and she was already ten years old and lived on Grandma's farm. It was wonderful...

"It's after six, honey, and we need those berries for breakfast. Get up."

It wasn't a dream. the year was 2021 and she was still nine years old. Darn!

"OK grandma! I'm getting up."

The early June morning air pushed the curtains as Rachel pulled on her tee shirt. Looking out the window she could see the white fiberglass spire of the Baptist church down in Panama just poking its head above the trees. She could tell it was going to be beautiful today as she turned and ran down the stairs of the old farm house.

Grandma Sara handed Rachel the berry basket for their breakfast and headed for the door to the basement steps. Sara had just finished the first gallon of syrup from that spring's mapling. Her friend Norm, who ran the annual Sugar Shack Festival, had been generous and given her back five gallons from her maples along the road, but now it was time to uncork another jug for the morning's raspberry pancakes. Before she returned to the kitchen she checked the charge on the basement's array of wet cell batteries. With all the sun they'd had, the one solar panel had nearly topped them off.

As Sara looked through the window over the sink she could see that Rachel was afraid of the bees. They buzzed among the old hollyhocks that stood near the raspberry bushes outside the kitchen. Sara looked out past the yard to the woods. Right after World War II, when she was born, those woods had been an alfalfa field. Next autumn her son would hunt deer there that would put venison on the table. Bobby had told her of sighting black bear and even a wolf in those woods. This didn't frighten her...in fact it thrilled her in some way that was hard to explain.

Even with a few taste tests Rachel soon had more than a cupful of beautiful berries. By the time she got inside her back was warm from the sun and the shady kitchen was filled with the aroma of coffee. Grandma poured the berries into the batter and started the pancakes.

"Rachel, this morning there's a Panama class coming up with Mr. Edwards to see our goats. I'll need you to help me tend them. You won't be able to play with Bobby or the Wilson girls while they're here with their teacher.

"Okay, Grandma."

"When does your lesson from Jamestown begin?"

"I've got to link up with my class on-line at 10:00, Grandma"

"You can use my computer to log into school after the chores. We still have the trip to Jamestown this afternoon, so it's going to be a busy day."

After breakfast Sara cleared the dishes and the two of them headed out to the barnyard. Toby barked and Rachel ran to greet him. She tussled Toby's ears and then turned to the pen full of goats. It had taken her grandparents all of her life to build the goat barn and build up the herd. Then Grandpa had died. Now her dad was helping grandma finish the work. When it was done Dad said they could all live on the farm and the goats would support them. Rachel couldn't wait. She loved the dog and cat and goats, but she especially loved the baby goats... the kids. They were so smart and frisky.

"Grandma, when can I move here? Mom said we weren't ready yet. But I think we should move now"

Sara turned and looked up at the roof of the old farm house. When she was Rachel's age there had been a TV antenna. She had never gotten used to seeing the funny old TV antenna up there. Long ago it had been replaced with a small satellite dish that was already streaking the house with a brown line of rust. Now a lone photo-voltaic solar panel waited to be joined by others... as soon as they they had the money. Over the years the old house had been draped with wires from the power company, the phone company, and the cable company. Thank God they were all gone. They sure had spoiled the view of the valley.

"Grandma?"

"Sorry honey. It'll be soon. Soon as your dad can afford it. We need at least three more panels, that new Ash milker and a larger cooler yet. Then we'll be free and clear."

"But I don't want to wait, Grandma. I want to live here now!"

Rachel frowned a moment. Sara handed her the garden hose with the brass pistol grip nozzle. It was time to tend to the goats and Rachel would enjoy that.

The hose was gravity fed from a wooden water tank on a tower that also housed the windmill that did the pumping. A mist of water sparkled in the sun forming a rainbow when Rachel squeezed the trigger. She smiled. The two Angora goats standing near the fence were startled. The cream colored herd of the larger Sannen goats were not fazed as Rachel began changing their water and washing down the pen. Sara herded the goats into the barn for the first of their two milkings.

While Rachel was changing the water she heard the Panama school children arriving. They had walked up from the Community Center.

"Grandma, they're here!"

When Grandma had been a little girl the Community Center was only a school. Rachel couldn't understand why they would have ever needed the biggest building in Harmony just for a school.

Grandma stood in the door of the barn and wiped her hands on her apron, as the class came around toward the barn. It was hard for Rachel not to run up to her friends, but she remembered Grandma's words. Mr. Edwards led the class. He was a childhood friend of Dad's. Grandma joined them, pointing to the barn, and to where Rachel stood in the pen. She and Mr. Edwards were explaining the dairy goat operation to the class of about twenty children. They ranged in age from eight to sixteen. These were the children who lived within walking distance to the farm. Rachel waved privately to Susan Wilson, who giggled and waved back. Sara caught Rachel's eye and motioned to her. They all headed toward the barn. Sara turned to the class and cleared her throat for attention.

"Rachel will show us how we can milk six goats at a time using power from our solar panel."

She asked Rachel to explain the milking while she unplugged the charger and got up on seat of the John Deere flatbed electric cart. The cart had a bench seat in front with a roll bar over it. In back it had an eight foot long bed with side panels inserted into stake pockets on both sides. Sara had already strapped a milk can against the forward bulkhead.

Rachel was a little nervous about talking in front of everyone, but she knew the milking well and the routine was easy to explain. Sara then backed the cart up to the refrigerated stainless steel tank containing the raw goat milk. Rachel climbed up to the bed of the cart and she and Grandma showed the class how they transferred the raw milk to the cart before they took it to the dairy co-op down in Panama. The plan was that the students would help with the milking and feeding of the goats. After feeding oats to twenty five goats and playing with the newborn kids, the children were feeling hot.

Sara was in the kitchen preparing cold milk and goat fudge for everyone when Rachel came in.

"Grandma, it's almost time for my class."

She looked up at the key wound clock above the sideboard. The hands over the old Roman numerals pointed to 9:30.

"You've got enough time for a snack with the children before they leave."

Rachel shared chocolate fudge with the Panama kids under the shade of the big walnut in the front yard. Susy and her sister invited her to stay over the next time she came out from Jamestown. When it was all done Mr. Edwards called them together, counted noses and headed everyone out to the road for the walk back to Panama.

Sara came out of the house with the palmtop computer and handed it to Rachel.

"Be careful with this if you're headed for the tree house."

"How did you know, Grandma?"

In a minute Rachel was high in the limbs of the walnut tree, sitting cross-legged on the platform her Dad had built. She carefully placed the 6"x9" palmtop in front of her. It was quite a machine. Black magnesium case built for outdoors and tough use. Rachel unlocked the case and flipped open the top. It began its startup routine with a little trill and the color LCD display came to life. She twisted it a little this way and that to catch the light just right. She pointed to a small icon of a phone on a desktop. The image of a small address book appeared on the screen with alphabetical tabs. Using her finger she pointed to the "J". The address book opened on the listing for "J" and she pointed to the entry "Jamestown Public Schools". The computer's female dialog voice said;

"Shall I dial 'Jamestown Public Schools' now?"

Rachel directed her voice to the small microphone/camera slot above the screen, and spoke with clarity,

"Yes"

Sara could hear the string of tones as the cellular phone in the palmtop linked her to school. Once the connection was made the Jamestown Public Schools access requester window opened with a crimson "GO RED RAIDERS!" and a voice-over of the school cheer. At the bottom of the screen were some check boxes. Rachel pointed to "STUDENT" and "3RD GRADE" and finally typed in her password "TOBY". Soon the face of her teacher, Ms. Rodriguez, filled the screen.

"Welcome to class, Rachel."

She picked up the palmtop and leaned back against the broad trunk. She looked out through the limbs of the old walnut, then back at the small bright screen. She smiled,

"Good morning, Ms. Rodriguez."

"Today I'd like to see your Chautauqua Lake Watershed assignments, and review your progress. Its due next Friday."

The lower half of her screen filled with an image that looked like a page from an old yearbook. Small color video portraits of her classmates were arrayed with their names. She could see a small portrait of herself with the texture of the walnut trunk behind her head. Next to many of her classmate's images were project icons indicating they had already transmitted their Chautauqua Regional maps. She knew if she double-clicked one of them she could review that project in detail.

Rachel pointed to an icon on her screen that was her own project folder and dragged it with her fingertip to the picture of the phone and let it go. The computer's female dialog voice said;

"Shall I transmit this to 'Jamestown Public Schools' now?"

This time Rachel merely nodded her head up and down. The motion sensor in the palmtop detected this vertical displacement and began sending her assignment to school.

Sara was back in the kitchen. She stood before the open refrigerator-freezer. Like all her appliances, it ran on natural gas from the well out behind the woods. She unloaded the ricotta cheese and yogurt made the day before. She packed a wicker hamper for her trip to the market in Lakewood. Her plan was to trade the goat milk products for Chautauqua Greenbacks that she could spend anywhere in the county. She took the loaded hamper out to the cart in the barn.

The John-Deere had been expensive. Next fall they would get the foul weather canvas cab enclosure option. Her son Bob had insisted that the cart be one of their first investments after getting the solar panel and storage array. He had been right. Without it she could not easily get her raw milk processed in Panama or reach Stedman or Sherman. Its range and performance was limited but certainly adequate for her needs. Heck, hardly anyone could afford a private automobile anymore. The last war in the Middle East had fixed that. When gasoline reached $10 a gallon a lot of folks quit driving. Now most people could hardly remember a time when there were as many cars as people.

Sara again checked the charge. She turned the key and stepped on the pedal. The John-Deere was silent and as easy to drive as a golf cart. She pulled out of the barn and touched the horn. By the time she reached the side of the house Rachel was running to meet her. Rachel was smiling as she hopped up on the bench seat. She slipped the palmtop into Grandma's handbag that rested between them and strapped herself in.

The trip down to Panama was always fun. The wind blew their hair as they passed Anderson's farm. He was working a small field with two draft horses. Mr. Anderson grew the oats that fed Grandma's goats. Rachel waved and Sara tooted the horn.

When they passed the field the trees on either side closed over them, forming a tunnel. There had been almost a century of growth since the Great Depression, and what had once been marginal farmland had become a mature hardwood forest.

The Allegany Regional Authority had implemented a sustainable logging plan that seemed to be working. The furniture built from the area's maple and oak were prized everywhere. And forests certainly were more attractive now than when regulated by the old federal and state systems.

In a few minutes they had passed the Community Center and Baptist Church and were coasting into downtown Panama. They rolled over the trolley tracks running down the center of Main Street. At the center of town, North and South Street met Main Street. Things were busy there, as usual. Electric and horse drawn vehicles filled both sides of Main Street. There never seemed to be a spot available in front of Weise Hardware.

At least as much had changed as had stayed the same. Sara still wasn't used to seeing the terraced three story office building where old Crouch's Garage and the Post Office had stood. That, along with the tracks leading up to the trolley terminal at Panama Rocks, was the biggest change you could see, but there was much below the surface that had changed.

What had been Scheller Brother's most of her life was now the Panama Trolley Station. And what had been the Whitney-Wood Ford agency when she was a girl had become Julia's Restaurant and Video Parlor when she was grown. Now that she was older, it was Harmony Markets, the biggest green grocer in western Chautauqua County. It still suprised a few old timers that it was a black owned family business but it didn't keep them from shopping there.

Sara and Rachel's first stop was the Dairy Co-Op on South Street next to the new Panama Grange building. Sara stopped and backed the flatbed up to the Co-Op loading dock. Jeremy Eddy was on the dock. He used a hand signal to guide her right up to the dock's bumper.

"Howdy Sara. Who do you have with you, young Rachel? Hang on and I'll get you unloaded."

"Thanks, Jeremy. We're going into town today. Do you mind if I park over on the side for the afternoon?"

Sara and Rachel climbed off the cart. Rachel had a little money,

"Grandma, can I go over to the General Store?"

"Sure honey. Be careful. I'll pick you up there when I'm done here."

Rachel took off running. She turned the corner by grabbing the gaslight pole and swinging around it. Rachel loved the stores along the boardwalk under the covered sidewalk in Panama. The store windows all had colorful posters announcing upcoming summer events. The 30th Annual Blue Heron Music Festival was the headliner. The neighboring town of Sherman had become home of more than a half dozen festival sites. In fact, festivals and craft fairs were now one of Sherman's biggest businesses.

Panama would have its share of Chicken BBQ's and special events too. The Panama Rocks Festival was one of the largest, but Rachel was looking forward to the Big Apple Circus that was touring the Southern Tier and was coming to Panama in a month.

The General Store was next to the Trolley Station. In the window was a circular green sticker that read "We Accept Greenbacks." It was a co-operative store and was an outlet for locally made dry goods. It had everything from ceramics to hard candy. They sold fabric, quilts, sweaters and other items that Grandma bought; but Rachel liked the section that had rag dolls, doll houses and doll house accessories.

Those accessories were in a glass case on the second floor near a window. Rachel bent over the case. She loved the food the best. There were little pumpkin and apple pies filling painted metal bottle caps. There was a turkey dinner so realistic and cleverly made she couldn't tell how it was done. She didn't have much money and was trying to make up her mind between getting the two pies or a chocolate cake covered in white icing with a slice cut from it, when Grandma startled her.

"It's almost time for the trolley, Rachel. Are you all done?"

"Yes, I'm going to buy these two pies for my tea set."

On their way out of the store Grandma picked up the heavy wicker hamper and between them she and Rachel carried it to the Trolley Station next to the Little Brokenstraw Creek. Rachel ran over to the end of the bridge and looked down into the water. She was just in time to see two large painted turtles before they disappeared into a pool in the shade under the bridge. She was thinking about climbing down to the edge of the warer when she heard the clicking of the tracks as the trolley came down the hill from the terminal up at Panama Rocks. She ran back to the Station to tell Grandma, who had been sitting on a bench in the shade, but Grandma was already getting up.

"When we get to Lakewood I want you to stay with me. We'll only be there about twenty minutes, and I want to catch the trolley going to town from Mayville. We'll just go to the market and get back to the station in time. If we miss it we'll have to wait an hour for the next train from Panama."

"But Grandma, I don't want to stop in Lakewood. It's too scary."