A Long Walk Through Time

February 23, 1912 - September 18, 1995

 

I may not have known that handsome young man, but the man in the field, still handsome, dusty and tanned, who had walked many miles, I did know ~ As much as a daughter can ever know her father. Good, kind, fallible, and always present. 

February 23, 1912 - September 18, 1995

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”

~ Jim Valvano

Where to Land

Where to Land

Rita, Phil’s mother, was worried about her son. He was almost 30 years old and didn’t seem to have any direction. At one time, she thought he would do great things. Become a big shot lawyer, like the ones he watched on TV as a boy. She wasn't that sure he was ever interested in law, just the way most of the lawyers dressed. She shook her head and muttered. “Always the fashion plate. He had to have after school jobs just to keep ‘in style’. Always had girls flutter around him. They’ve all gone to University and my boy is working construction.” Her husband Ralph came out to the garden. “Rita, are you talking to yourself or the birds?” He knew she chattered on to herself, especially out in the garden. Sometimes she was talking to the birds or the squirrels, or the calico cat that sat on their fence where tulips bloomed. “Oh heavens Ralph! You scared me. I’ve pulled out a weed instead of planting my tomatoes!” She sat up on her knees, wiped her hands clean of dirt and squinted up to her husband. A floppy straw hat shaded her eyes. Ralph helped her up. “Come to the patio. I’ve got some ice tea for us and a couple of sandwiches. You’ve been out here in the sun for two hours and need a break.” Rita gave him a peck on the cheek. “Careful, I’m all dirty and sweaty. Ice tea sounds about right  - I am hot and thirsty. Did you make the sandwiches yourself or did you stop by the Deli down the street?”  Ralph pretended to look guilty. “You caught me. Can’t fool you, can I? It was the Deli - they gave me some Kosher pickles to go along with the sandwiches. There’s a salami and Gruyere cheese, and a vegetarian one. You get to choose.” They ate their lunch in silence, enjoying the early afternoon sun. “Are you still worried about Phil, Rita? Working with his hands, outdoors, is good for him. Gives him time to think about what he wants to do. Who knows? He may want to get out of the manual labour part and take over my business. Make it a family affair. What do you think?” Rita poured herself another glass of ice tea and passed the pitcher to her husband. An innocent look on her face she said. “Well, if I recall, you were one of those rude guys that whistled at girls from two stories up on a scaffold. I didn’t think you had any direction either.”  Ralph leaned over to his wife, looking a bit of a devil. “And if I recall, you were a little bold yourself……..asking for me a date without even knowing me!” She stood and put her hat and garden gloves back on. “I don’t want him taking over the business unless he ………I just want him to be happy. And right now, he doesn’t seem to be. He just gets up, takes the lunch I have ready for him and goes to work. Gives me a quick hug before he goes. When he comes home, he barely says hello and goes upstairs to get out of his work clothes. Yes, I am still worried about him…..Thank you for lunch, honey. I need to get back to my planting now that the shade has come over the garden.”

~~~~~

Phil did come home as usual in time for supper, his mother just cleaning up from her gardening day. She did love her garden. Instead of barely speaking to his mother, he almost lifted her off her feet in a big hug. They danced across the kitchen, almost knocking Ralph over as he was setting the table. Laughing and singing, he let go of his mother and hugged his father. He suddenly realized what he was doing and stopped and said “I’ll just go upstairs, wash up and change. Be right down for dinner.” And then he was gone. “What just happened here, Ralph? I’ve never seen him like that since he graduated with honours.” Ralph had visited with Malcolm, Rita’s brother earlier in the day. “I suspect he has something to tell us at dinner. Some good news that may ease your worries.” Phil ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, crisp blue jeans and a fresh t-shirt on. “Yes mother, Uncle Malcom talked with Mr. Digby at that old Beaufort Estate. I don’t have a full time job out there, but I can work with him….Mr. Digby that is…..he’s the butler you know. Right now, it’s more like an interview and then just a couple of hours a week. I’ll have to keep my construction job, but I think there’s more for me to do than wield a nail gun.” He looked at his father. “I hope you don’t mind, dad. Construction’s ok and I like some of the people I work with, but it’s not in my blood like it is in yours.” His father just shook his hand. “Of course I don’t mind, son. You need to find out, like most of us do, where you want your feet to land.” 

“‘I want to make my mark,’ he says. 

‘But what target, I wonder, are you going to hit’”

~ Cecil Castellucci, Boy Proof

Toward Normal

Coffee shop chatter

swirls around me

distant and hopeful ~

students in the far corner

with laptops open.

learning to be ~

father and son

laughing and munching

on sweet crullers with coffee.

“I didn’t want normal until I didn’t have it anymore.”

~ Maggie Stiefvater, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception

Distraction

Distraction

“Open air, whether in deep forest, widening prairies, or bottomless ocean….. - Mom!” Clayton's orange hair was a mess. In frustration, he finger-combed his hair, pulled on his ears and crumpled page after page. “Mom! I just can’t get this right. Can I read it to you and you tell me what you think?” Yelling from his room down the hall from the kitchen, he hoped his mother would help him out. Actually he hoped she would call him to bring his work into the kitchen. He was about to call her again when his wishes were granted. Rubbing his hands, he leapt from his chair. Grabbing up his notebook, he stepped over his gym bag, kicked a few crumpled pages aside, he called out “Coming!”

His mother finished the last of the dozens of cookies she had been making. She shook her head and smiled. Pushing a few stray brown curls back from her forehead, she surveyed her work - and the work ahead of her. “Clayton, Clayton, Clayton….here. Let me read that - Open air, whether in deep forest, widening prairies, or bottomless ocean…It looks all right to me….Clayton, stop eating my work!” She caught him just as another sugar cookie disappeared into his mouth. “But mom, they’re my favourites. I love sugar cookies. Are you going to decorate these?” His mother smiled behind her eyes. “Sugar cookies your favourite? I thought your favourite were the Ginger Chews? Or was it those oatmeal/raison cookies?” She whisked a tray of cookies out from under his grasping fingers. “Now, I’m not the one you should be talking to. Talk to your father. He’s the English Major, and never lets either one of us forget it. But he does know more than I do.”

“But I don’t like talking to dad about my work. He gets all into his teacher mode and asks me what I think is wrong, then tells me I’m wrong about what I think and besides that…….” His mother interrupted. “It’s Saturday, he’s in the garage working on his 1960 Mustang. He wants it ready for the Christmas parade next week.” While she talked, she prepared a small plate of cookies. Picking up a thermos from the cupboard, she handed both to her son. He quickly stuffed his notebook under his arm and took cookies and thermos from his mom. “What’s in here? Coffee for dad?” 

“Yes and he’s got sodas in his little fridge out there. Go. Go. I’ve got to get the frosting on all these cookies now, get them packaged for the bake sale and get them over to the church…Go!”

“All right, all right! But if dad gives me a hard time…….” Clayton disappeared out the back door still complaining, but glad he had the cookies.

~~~~~

“Open air, whether in deep forest, widening prairies, or bottomless ocean…” His father was no help at all. But they did have a good discussion about horse power. There were no cookies left. Wiping his hands of cookie crumbs, his dad said. “I’m not being a teacher today, son. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”

“Distraction from distraction by distraction.”

~ T.S.Eliot

*To Celebrate This Good Life

Birthdays. I love them. Anyone’s birthday, but especially the real birth day of a child - a new family member. On this day, 74 years ago, my mother pushed me out into a world of which I knew nothing. Away from a warm cosy world that could have been busy, chaotic or quiet. For that very real labour of love and necessity, I am grateful to her and my father for this life. 

I celebrate more than just an added year in my own life. Thanks to my parents for my life and the life of all my siblings, my sons, my grandson and his growing and budding family. For without my mom and my dad, none of us would be here. 

“Gratitude bestows reverence….changing forever 

how we experience life and he world.”

~ John Milton

*Thanks to Shirley Grebinsky for these words.

Chapter Two, Episode Nine - The Girl on the Swing - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

Such an interesting story to write. How does a ghost tell it's story? It challenged me. In the movies or on TV, ghosts speak directly to people or terrify them. Or they might actually have conversations - pleasant or not. 

My revisions were to improve sentence structure, tinker with wording and to add (with Sarah's permission) to Sarah's story. Not much, but even a centuries old thirteen year old girl would still talk a bit more - I think.

The Girl on the Swing

Digby was troubled. He wanted to tell Sarah’s story. Sarah was the resident ghost at the Beaufort Estate. What he knew about her was what his father had told him, and his father before him. Why Sarah’s ghost remained and no other of the family did? Only rumours drifted through the years. Samuel told him that his father had told him that she didn’t want to leave her ghostly swing that hung from the ancient tree in front of the manor. Still another story was that it was the house she didn’t  want to leave. 

Digby spoke aloud to the air. “I just do not know what or how I can write about Sarah.”  He put down his pen and pushed his chair back from his desk. He had come to the Estate house from the cottage he and Martha shared to get a stronger sense of Sarah's presence. Taking his jacket from the hook on his office door, picking up his umbrella, he left his office. “Elizabeth, I’m taking a walk to clear my head. I’ll be back shortly if anyone is looking for me.”

“All right, James, I’ll tell Martha when she gets here. And I’ll put the kettle on for tea. You’ll be cold when you get in. Martha should get here by then. The three of us can have a good chin-wag before you get back to your writing.” Elizabeth knew he was trying to write about their little ghost girl, Sarah. As the back door closed behind James, Elizabeth spoke aloud “Sarah. If you are listening, and I know you are, help James out. He doesn’t want you to be left out of the stories this old place has to tell. You’ve been here the longest. And I’ll be baking cookies this afternoon.” Sarah loved watching Cook and longed to be able to taste a cookie again. The best she could do was watch.

~~~~~

Now it was Sarah’s turn to be troubled. She was over four hundred years old and didn’t feel a day over thirteen. How could she help James? She had barely learned her letters before she died. It would be impossible for her to write anything.  I know. I’ll just whisper in his ear and Digby will write it down for me. 

James came in from his walk, dropped his wet umbrella onto the mudroom floor, and walked right past Elizabeth to his office. “You’re not stopping for tea?” Not getting a reply, Elizabeth shook her head and just poured two cups of tea instead of three. Martha was just coming up the walk from the newlywed's cottage.

~~~~~

Without taking his jacket off, James went straight to his desk. Absently, he picked up his pen and smoothed the page in front of him. He felt a draft. "I'm still a bit chilly." He shrugged and began to write.

 I am thirteen years old but I’m over four hundred years old. Mother and Father brought our family to this island in a covered wagon. To get that wagon off of the main land and onto dry land was big chore, but my mother and father worked so hard. I was much younger then. I didn’t know where I would sleep because there were only trees and rocks here. When I asked where we would sleep, my mother said “We have to stay in the wagon, dear, while your father builds our house.” She and Father set up camp as we always did and that's where we stayed until our house was built. They were both so patient and good to me. I helped my mother plant our garden and our apple trees. My parents saved seeds and brought apple tree saplings with us. Mother wanted me to weed the garden all the time, but I would get tired doing that. It did get quite boring. Father made me a beautiful swing on a giant tree in what was to be the front yard. “There you are, young lady. Now you can watch us build the house. But don’t forget to do your chores before you get on that swing.” Father was very kind, but he could be very strict.

For my thirteenth birthday, I was given this blue statin ribbon for my hair. I loved my hair. Long, blond curls that I brushed every morning one hundred times. That same year, I got very ill. We had been to town for supplies and stopped at the livery stable and the post office. While Mother and I were in the general store, Father went to the barbershop. There was a woman in the store that was sneezing and coughing. She told the grocer that she was going to see the doctor. When we got home, I helped put all our supplies and groceries away and went out to my swing. The next day I fell ill with a fever and something the doctor called delirium. I remember watching my parents at my bedside. They were so sad. But I felt fine, sitting up in the corner of the ceiling. I watched as I was taken away and then buried. But I couldn’t bear to leave my parents. They were so sad all the time, even though they smiled and laughed and lived out their lives. I thought they would stay with me. I don’t know where they are. I still like watching from my swing, all the comings and goings of this house. Sometimes I go out to the orchard and sit just to be with my mother where we planted the apple trees. Any other woman that cooks in our kitchen can expect to feel my presence because I like to watch them get food ready. Some people get frightened so I go away, but this ‘Cook’ is just comfortable and talks to me. The man, Digby, is like my father and is very kind. He’s writing this story for me. 

~~~~~

James dropped his pen, shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t recall coming in from his walk, but seemed to remember Elizabeth saying something about tea. There was a knock on his door. “James, dear? Are you all right? Elizabeth told me you came in here without saying anything, not stopping for tea. What is it dear?”

“Martha. I’m so glad you came in. I feel like I just woke up. Look at this.” James handed her the paper he found in front of him. I don’t even recognize the hand, but I was holding my pen when I woke up.” 

Martha quickly read the words. She folded the paper carefully. “Put this in an envelope, James. It’s for the Storyteller. You’ve just been secretary for our little ghost girl Sarah.”

“When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way 

of reaching out, of manifesting themselves…..sometimes even physically.”

~ Raquel Cepeda,  Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

Just an Old Suitcase

Just an Old Suitcase

‘Expeditions can be dangerous, with much excitement and often with some strange sort of enjoyment. I had hoped for all three of these qualities. We were going into territory that none had yet to explore…….’ This was the beginning of my great uncle Bert's journal entry. Found in a side pouch of an old black leather suitcase, a hole in one corner, scratched and scuffed from travel, the suitcase was still packed with his old khaki safari clothes. What else I couldn’t tell just yet. My family were clearing out the attic in his old house in Wyoming. All that was left was this old suitcase. It felt oddly heavy when I picked it up, ready to take it downstairs. I untied the frayed brown ribbon holding the journal shut. Opening the dusty wrinkled brown leather cover, I sat up against the wall under the attic’s only window, the pale sun my only reading light. The spidery handwriting on dry yellowed pages gave off a musty smell. Those words were the only words I could read clearly. My own expedition was about to begin. I heard my father call me. 

“Come on, son. Get a move on. We’ve got to get all this into town before supper. Your mother is waiting.” I tucked the small journal into my vest pocket. 

“Coming dad. I just have one thing left.” Closing up the suitcase, I brought it downstairs. 

“Can I keep this one, dad? I want to go through it. It’s Great-Uncle Bert’s old traveling suitcase and it still has his things in it. I want to go through it later.”

“Sure thing, son.” Dad glanced at it then stopped and pushed his cap back. “ Wow! I had forgotten all about that suitcase. Can we go through it together? I remember some of Uncle Bert’s stories from those days.”

“That would be great!” My dad and I had not been talking all that much lately. We’d grown distant......and now? This could be a really interesting expedition. Going off to university in Arizona was not that far away. Getting close to dad again over an old suitcase full of Great-Uncle Bert’s travels would be perfect.

“The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.”

~ Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

All Things Great and Small

Marshall Davis Hersberger
(Feb 23, 1912 - September 18, 1995)

The journeys our fathers take are long, circuitous, and full of life lived. From Saskatchewan on the Canadian prairies, to the state of Maryland on the east coast of the United States and back to Saskatchewan, my dad seemed to have lived a very full life. Was it all to his satisfaction? I will never be certain. The young man standing by his cab #112 in Maryland, U.S.A., very likely had the dreams and ideals of a young man setting out. He could certainly have had the desire to be a dad someday. I’m grateful that he was our dad ~ all nine of us. To support this large and busy family, he rode the tractor spring, summer and fall to raise the grain that was our families mainstay. Plowing was not limited to the field but to preparing the gardens, planting them and carrying for them. Was he perfect? As perfect as any human being who has walked this earth. 

He loved his family and he loved the land. A favourite memory of mine is going with my mom to the field he was working on with supper for dad. My memory says it was a hot meal on a real plate, coffee from a thermos in his favourite coffee cup and dessert and it was my turn to go. My memory suggests it was a hot summer day. How often this occurred I don’t recall. What I do know is that my dad's journey included, not the greatness of fame and fortune, but the greatness of being my dad. The small things? Little bits of how to hold a hammer, plant seeds, and table manners and so much more.

“It doesn’t matter who my father was; 

it matters who I remember he was”

~ George Herbert (poet 1593-1633)

The Photograph

Also from Writer's Group on Friday afternoon, this piece was a bit difficult for me. I think I got the time line a bit skewed, however we were given ten minutes to write. We each pulled an old photograph from a bag of photographs and only had a minute or so to look at it before the timer started and pens landed on paper! (I did do a bit of editing. Still needs more!)

The Photograph

I absolutely loved my hat! Standing under the tree on the prairie, I felt quite glamourous. Ordinarily I was in the kitchen kneading bread or scrubbing clothes on the wash board. I did put my hands in my pockets for the photograph. I had fallen for the devilishly handsome young man who was to have his photograph taken next. We met at The Strawberry Social in the small town we both lived in. I was shy and didn’t say much, but had hoped he would like the Shortcake I had made. Later in the day, as he was leaving, he asked if he could call on me. I hesitated only a second before saying ‘yes’. 

‘Come for tea on Sunday afternoon if that is a good time for you. My mother and father will be home and would love to meet you.’ 

‘I have met your father in town at the machine shop. He is a kind man. I’ll be pleased to meet your mother.’

I gathered my things up and, as properly as possible, hurried home to tell my mother of the invitation I had extended for Sunday. I had not expected to have so much fun that day.  Before going to the Social, mother brought out the beautiful hat that she had worn when she met my father.

‘It looks lovely on you dear, but you must remember to hide your hands!’

“A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into.”

~ Ansel Adams

Office Romance

Office Romance

Jule's watch did not tell time any more but it had been a gift from his father when he was ten. ‘Ten is old enough for a young man to wear a watch.’ His father made this pronouncement the morning of his birthday, put the watch on his ten year old wrist, set it to the right time. Then he went to work. People didn’t wear watches much any more. Those exercise computer things that did tell the time but did everything else. Jules didn’t even wear the watch.  He had long grown proper sized man wrists. He kept the watch in the wooden box by his bedside. Polishing the wood every week until the grain shone. He hadn’t seen his father again. Although he had been told that his father had a heart attack at work, although he’d been to the funeral and been hugged and kissed by the aunts, although his mother stopped setting a place at the table for him and she cried every day for months, Jules never stopped believing his father would come home again. After a while, polishing the box and checking the watch to see if it would begin to tick again was a ritual that was just part of getting up and going to work each day. If one day he forgot before he ran out the door, as soon as he came home he would go to his bedroom and complete his belated ritual.

Tonight, he decided was the night he would put his gold watch in his oaken box away. He would not forget it, but a new charm had come into his life. She was tall, quite lovely and eloquent. Jules was anxious to show off his study and had invited her in for the evening. They had only been out once before, but had known each other from work. The office had been abuzz that they were ‘love birds’. Jules and Cassandra just ignored them all and carried on their work. They passed notes to each other when one would pass the other’s desk. The one evening they did go out was after a late night at the office. Most people had gone home. Only the janitor was there, the hum of his floor cleaner the only sound but for their voices as they finished up a big project.  

‘Are you hungry?’ Jules was hesitant to ask but because he had no audience of workers he took a chance. A silent reprimand to himself to stop being so shy chased his hesitancy away.

‘I’m famished! But the only thing open is the pizza place down the block. I have heard that they have lovely wood fire pizza. And a glass of wine is available. Not too bad wine either.’  

Their long work hours slipped gently away as soon as the aroma of delicious pizza welcomed them into the cozy little restaurant. Romantic ideas were never far from Jules mind. He would have been surprised to know that Cassandra was entertaining romantic ideas of her own. The door chime brought him out of his reverie. He checked his tie in the hall mirror quickly before opening the front door. Cassandra was gorgeous. So different from the office. So …….

‘Please. Come in, Cassandra. I have a fire on in the study and hot chocolate for this cool evening. I’m so glad you could come.’

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

~ Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

Book Review: The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O'Neill

Heather O’Neill wrote a wonderful story with colour, emotion and chaos. This Giller Prize finalist for 2014, The Girl Who Was Satuday Night, also gave me an insight into so many that are raised in challenging economic situations and family dysfunction.

Twins, Nicolas and Nouschka. Étienne Tremblay, their father, a once popular Québécois minstrel. Their mother, not in their lives. LouLou, their grandfather. All within the bounds of Boulevard Saint-Laurent. What could go wrong? What went wrong was everything and nothing. Nicolas and Nouschka were their father’s pretty and talented children, but only on stage. Their grandfather did the best he could for them, providing them with food and a home. And of course the French/English divide from the 1970’s when the twins were young children to the 1990’s when they were in their late teens, added it's own form of chaos.

Nouschka narrated this story of twins that were in the midst of their father’s celebrity and yet at loose and parentless ends. They both felt the loss of their mother, one other person that fell to the charm of Étienne Tremblay. Both Nicolas and Nouschka's perceptions of this loss play out very differently. This is the story.

For anyone that is morally sensitive this may not be a book you want to read. Where there is no one to raise a child, the culturally appropriate boundaries of sex and friendship are missing. Learned by experience only. 

The format of the book has been fairly controversial. First of all the cats that roam throughout the book, feral and lost but always landing on their feet, or just being there. Then 67 chapters, each one titled in words suggesting the chapter focus. The chapters were short.  All of this can be off putting initially but my reading is that it matched the chaotic lives of all the characters in this book.

“I was trying my best to straighten out my life, but I always ended up

 in the middle of some festive waste of time.”

~ Heather O’Neill, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Title:  The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Author:  Heather O’Neill

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Publication Date: 2014

Format:  Soft Cover

ISBN: 978-144344-245-9 (pbk.)

Type:  Fiction ‘The author wishes to acknowledge the generous funding from the Canada Council for the Arts’

Expecting

Expecting 

Richard gazed lovingly at his newborn daughter. Only an hour old, she had already wrapped him up in so much baby love that nothing else existed. 

"Richard? Are you all right? You’re crying. You never cry."

Daphne smiled at her husband holding their first child with great gentleness. It was a tender moment for her. He had spent so much time telling everyone what a tough dad he was going to be. He wasn’t going to melt like half his buddies did with their new babies. It was just plain silly. And there he was with silver tracings on his unshaven face.

Slowly his wife’s face came into focus. She was pale and tired, but radiated peace. He had watched her all these past months as she carried their child within her. So much had changed. The room that had seemed so practical, now was softened by shifting nameless emotions.

‘Yes, honey, I am. I am more all right now than even the day I knew that I loved you. This darling, tiny baby came into the world with absolutely no expectations. She dashed all my silly blowhard ravings of how a father should be as if by magic. And she is only tiny and wrinkled and very sleepy.’

As if on cue, little Rachel yawned and squeaked before falling back to sleep.

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”

~ A.A.Milne, Winnie the Pooh

The Lure of the Pumpkin Field

The Lure of the Pumpkin Field

Hmm…. Pumpkin - Mother - Nothing - Candles. How was I supposed to put those words together in an essay?! How old did that teacher think we were anyway! Ten? I hate substitute teachers - well, especially the ones that give weird essay assigments. I’m sure she was thinking mothers and pumpkin pies. Or maybe something dorky like ‘My Favourite Jack O’Lantern’. Well, I’ll tell her a story that is completely different and won’t have anything to do with carving pumpkins and sticking candles in them.

~~~~~

"My essay is about learning what I want to be when I grow up. And road trips. Not far, just short jogs down the highway to the ferry. And it’s about finding out I wanted to be a farmer. My father made frequent road trips to the mainland to pick up supplies for his small business selling small engine parts. He attended meetings in Vancouver and sometimes would go into Washington in the States.  I didn’t want to understand the ‘small engine repair business’ and am only now just understanding it a little bit. I was rather a disappointment to my dad until recently. He had hoped that I’d take over the business. But fate, and my father’s need for mom to pick him up at the ferry at Swartz Bay, intervened on my behalf. I always wanted to figure out how things grew and changed from a small seed to a plant, and in my mom’s garden, to delicious strawberries and thin, crunchy asparagus. It all started when I was really just a little kid.

Our drive to the ferry took us past Michell’s farm out in Saanichton and their vast field of pumpkins. At Hallowe’en, our little family took a trip out to the field to get pumpkins for Hallowe’en and for Thanksgiving dinner dessert. But the very best time was early in the morning when grey shreds of fog still hung low. The sun was just over the horizon. It was pure gold - golden sun gilding the clouds with gold leaf and a brilliant orange gold expanse of pumpkins reflecting the morning sun. Each time I saw that awesome sight, I wanted mom to stop the car and just let me stare until the brilliance of the morning faded into day. And I wanted to be the farmer that planted all those pumpkins, tending them until their vines spread over the ground, flowered and they gifted the year with their marvelous fruit. 

So, what am I going to be when I grow up? A pumpkin farmer. I’ve learned that pumpkins really are fruits, even though mom cooks it like it is a vegetable some time. Not only that, a huge pumpkin is a berry and belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. (The teacher should be pleased with that big word.) I’m also learning a bit about business when I work afternoons in my dad’s business. I’m learning how to repair small engines, while I study repair for bigger engines. Earning a bit of cash, learning how engines work - after all one day I’ll have a tractor to repair."

~~~~~

I guess I’d better quit dreaming now and go over this essay again. I’ve probably got grammar things and verb tenses wrong, so I’ll try to fix it before I hand it in.

“The entire fruit is already present in the seed.”

~ Tertullian

Father’s Day Muse

Fathers

plant the seed of life and

cultivate the seeds for living.

If these two roles split apart by

circumstance or 

choice

others step in and step up

many times into deep  and uncertain waters.

To be commended are

Single mothers

Uncles

Step-fathers

Older brothers

Cousins

I am certain there are many more...

“It doesn't matter who my father was:

it matters who I remember he was.”

~  Anne Sexton