Samuel did a nice job. I did ask him to add some information. In the fourth paragraph, I asked him for specifics about the ferry ride from the island to the mainland when getting to University. When a location changes, transition information if important. This is especially important in a short written piece.
Most folks that listen to me talk probably think I don’t know much about writing things down so people can read them. They’d be wrong. Mother and dad had me in school when I would rather have been out in the garden or helping in the orchard. I still talk like a hillbilly because I like to. Putting in a drawl just seems to fit the straw hat I wear and corncob pipe I keep in my pocket. School days do take me back a day or two. I had to go into Hartley to the old school house, the one they tore down about fifteen years ago. It was on the edge of town when Hartley was still a town and not a city like it is today. My teachers would get so mad at me, especially in the spring when school was ending and in the fall when it was just starting. They tried moving me across the room from the windows, or in the far corner at the back in front of all the coat hooks. Didn’t matter.“Samuel! Pay attention!” Oh, most of them would get so frustrated with me that I told my teachers and my parents that they should just send me home. There was this one class that I liked. English. It was just called English at that time. Now its English Literature and History. Doesn’t matter the name, it’s the same thing. Old Mr. Stannard read Shakespeare and T.S.Eliot and Emily Dickinson to us. Had us in plays and poetry readings. We learned about stories, not just in literature but in history. Did you know that the history books don’t tell the whole story? They miss out about the little people in the telling.
But how does all that tell you how I got to work here on the Estate. Well, I could make it real short and say that I just took over my daddy’s job. There’d be the end to it. But it wasn’t that easy. When high school was getting close to the end, mother and daddy sat me down and handed me a sheaf of papers and a thick envelope. The sheaf of papers were applications to three universities. The envelope had a whole wad of money they’d been saving for my education. “There’s more in the bank, son.” Dad and mother looked real proud that they could send their only son to university. Oh, I argued and was fit to be tied with them both. I just wanted to be out on the land or keeping the orchard healthy and growing, but they were set on my education. It had to come first. “You can take anything you want and when you come back, if you come back, you can take over my job.” Dad had already spoken with old Mr. Beaufort and it was all arranged - if I wanted it. My dad wasn’t ready to retire anyway so I thought ‘Why not? I’ll just go out in the world for a while, learn about the land and growing things so when I come back I’ll be ready. I didn’t know ready for what, but that sounded pretty good. And I thought maybe I’d meet a couple of girls, maybe find someone just like my mom or maybe just have a fling.
I’d never been outside of Hartley County before, so going into a big University town on the mainland was a little scary and real exciting. I packed up my suitcase and said 'so long' to the land. Dad and mother drove us on to the ferry where they treated me to lunch at the buffet. The hour and half ride gave us a bit more time to visit. Mother kept dabbing at her eyes and dad had all kinds of advice for me. After we docked, it was on to the University campus and there I stayed for four years. Loving my studies and all the learning kept me in the libraries when it rained and outside on campus on the good days. Down by the lake there were big old poplars to sit under and read all day. Girls seldom came into the picture, but I had my share of dates. I came home with degrees in Agriculture and Literature. I’ve been here ever since. I have all my books all over my little house. When I get home from the garden, I get a cup of tea and read. My homemade bookshelves, the table by my chair and the kitchen counter - even the floor- hold all kinds of books, but the ones I like the best are about the land. That may be a real heavy agricultural research book or a novel that tells the story of people on the land, One that many don’t even think about is The Farmer’s Almanac. Dad always had the latest copy in this very desk.
Well, that’s about it for the early days for me. I do hope James gets better and Martha doesn’t catch the virus, but she likely will, whether it’s Covid or just the flu. By the way, I did learn about the nature of viruses in the plant and animal world and in the dreadful effects of pandemics in some of the old literature.
Samuel tucked his pencil in his shirt pocket and folded up his page of writing. Stuffing it in an envelope, he labelled it For the Storyteller. Setting it on the chair by the door, it tapped it like it was a pet. "I'll get you over to the house tomorrow." The Farmer's Almanac was right there for him. He picked it up, opened it to the long range weather forecast and sat down to read.
“Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person
you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.”
~ Heath Buckmaster, Box of Hair: A Fairy Tale
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