The farm
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
In a recent blog post, buddy Rys bemoans the loss of a family farm not too far from where I grew up. Even though he has not lived there for many years, and in fact never had a bedroom there, the sale of the farm left him with an uprooted feeling.
I can relate to this in a personal way. When I was in college in 1967, my parents sold the family farm near Conrad and moved straight south (well, within one mile of straight south, actually) to Tucson AZ. While both my parents and I conspired for a life for me away from the farm, part of me is left behind, and is not likely to join me here in the "midwest". (More about that misnomer at a future time.)
Where you grow up seems to remain more vivid than times since. The extreme weather, the long days of summer, really short days of winter, how the clouds seem more crisp and well-defined than other places I have lived, a true and distant horizon, and the breathtaking prairie. And the sunsets. Ever see a sunset that fills half the sky or more?
Every now and then, a few of us cousins gather not too far from the homestead, and we are silent at the top of the hill, or "bench" that is the boundary to Pondera Valley. Silent, but calculating how we could conceivably Move Back.
Perhaps we do something after retirement.