The Home Place - Part Eight
Posted: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
by Richard Radtke
http://www.cottagebythelane.com
"No man owns the land, he uses it, tries to bend it to his will, sometimes he succeeds, sometimes not, but however it turns out for that short time he has possession of it, in the end it is always the same. A man is only here for a short time, the land will be here much longer, and no matter how many masters it has had, it always wins in the end..."
It was mid afternoon when he wheeled the car down the road to the old place. The road was still covered in gravel just as he remembered. As the car tires went over the gravel, as they bit through it, he could hear small pieces of gravel ping and thud off of the bottom of the car. The car crested the rise and went down the hill and as he slowed and pulled off to the side, the rattles and bangs slowly subsided, he stopped, turned off the ignition of the car and leaned back. Sitting in the car, he looked off to the side out of the half rolled up window, slowly taking in the old place.
To his right he could see where the faint tracks of what once was the old lane to the home place began, its track traced only by the difference in the height and color of the tall, wild growing grass. The gate that used to guard the lane was gone, the mailbox that had been the sentinel by the side of the road at the lane's end, was nothing more than a splintered pole with vines that climbed up its sides, the mailbox itself nowhere to be seen.
Smells hung heavily in the still air, some familiar, some not. There were noises too, the lifting song of a bird in the wood, the almost silent, but happy babble of the creek that rushed into the fields beyond.
Sitting back from the little used road, stood the old home, peeking from behind the tall growth of trees and tangled grass. A little further on beyond it stood a tall hill that always covered the home in shadows with the slow setting of the sun. He recalled that the days had always seemed to end a bit earlier here on the home place, earlier than they did in the fields that lay sprawling and open beyond the farm. The shadows of the night seemed to cover the house when the sunlight still fell on the fields beyond. Maybe it was the way the hill towered above the farm, but was just not quite tall enough to throw its shadow across the fields farther on, or perhaps it was the way the home place lay nestled there at the bottom of the hill, seemingly tucked in only a few feet from where the ground began to thrust upward to the sky, cradled as it were in the hollow that was formed from the hill and the creek that ran busily on its way only a scant few feet from the other side of the house. Or perhaps it was just a memory that really never was, something made up over time, but it did not really matter.
From the road the old house looked so alone, forgotten and half hidden by the trees and tall grass standing straight and tall on this windless day. It did not seem possible that this was once his home, but it had been, those many years ago when he had been young.
The sun was still high in the sky, and the shadows fell straight down to the ground, not falling to the left or right. He opened the door of the car and got out, stood for a minute and began to walk up the overgrown lane that led the abandoned house, he saw the empty holes where the windows had been, windows that he had looked out of in his youth. Sometimes watching the tractor his father rode as he pulled the plow back and fourth across the fields in the early spring. Windows through which the sunlight spilled in the early morning, tickling his face with its warmth in the early morning, teasing him until he finally got up from the bed, knowing the day had begun, or when the windows were opened in the heat of summer and gave entrance to those rare, cooling breezes that sometimes pushed across the land. Windows that rattled in a howling winter wind, but behind which he felt warm and safe those many years ago. They had finally rattled their last and now where gone, except in his memories. Weathered plywood covered a few of the holes where they had been, others were just open to the wind and rain.
The front of the house was much the same, showing the signs of abandonment and decay. Where the front door had been was only another dark open hole, even the old porch sagged with age, "a bit like me" he thought absently to himself, "years pass fast, when your looking at it from this end of your life. When you are young they don't seem to pass fast enough and then as you age you kind of lose track of them, with the other responsibilities that life brings. They just do not seem that important, until here, closer to this end, when you once again have the time to think, to look back at what was, and regret what wasn't, you realize it was, or seemed like it was yesterday that you were ten, and the sunlight was tickling your face through those windows that are now gone, gone along with the years."
He thought about the years that had past, thought about the way it used to be back then. The white paint on the house that was touched up every summer, his job when he was old enough, the neatly clipped yard, and the flowers that his mother carefully tended in the beds that were here and there by the house. The lazy Sunday afternoons spent on the porch after church, his mother knitting in her chair, his father reading through the paper. He sat with them sometimes reading, sometimes playing with one of his toys. Once in a while a car would come down the road, the dog like a flash, would zoom from the porch and chase it down the road, then come sauntering back after it was gone as though it had accomplished something great, that is in its mind, by chasing a trespasser off its domain, it would circle once or twice before it laid back down at his fathers feet, and once more close its eyes and sleep, until the next car came. But all that was gone now, the paint on the house hung in white flakes here and there, like hoar frost hanging from autumn grass, the weathered wood showing on the tired house. The flower beds were long gone. As he walked further up the lane he could see the television antenna his dad had put up years ago, the pole still clung to the side of the house the antenna still attached to the top although some of the ears of the antenna had fallen off over time.
In his mind he recalled that day long ago when his dad had begun to put it up, his dad coming home one day from town with the sections of pole and the antenna and a new television in the back of the truck. Up till then they had spent their evening listening to the radio, an old Philips in a large polished case that hummed and crackled as his mother or dad had turned the knobs finding stations each night. Many nights had been spent listening to the news, or shows that no longer played, another time, another life His mother was surprised with the television, and for a time a little afraid of it. His dad and a friend had pulled the box that contained it from the truck with care, carrying it carefully into the house. The box was gently placed on the living room floor, was opened to reveal a Philco television in an ornate case with two doors that opened to reveal the tube and knobs that controlled it, nothing like the plastic cases of today, it was built with craftsmanship, with the idea of beauty inherent to its design. It was placed against the wall that had until then been the home of the Philips which was moved hurriedly out of the way by his excited father. The rest of the day was spent assembling the sections of pole and fastening them tightly to the house, with the antenna placed upon the top. Once the wire was run down and into the house where it was connected the Philco his dad went back up on the roof and his mother stayed in the house by the Philco. He stood out in the yard, within earshot of his mother relaying to his father his mother's instructions of "turn it more,that's good, do what your doing keep it up, perfect!, its clear." Many Saturdays before chores were spent watching that old black and white TV, his folks watching it at night, the dull light of the tube highlighting their faces in its glow
Shaking his head, sighing to himself, he cleared out the memory of that long ago time, but at soon as it was gone his mind moved on flipping through the chapters that made up his life. Absently, he noted a tree he did not remember that was laying broken on what used to be the front lawn. The trunk had snapped, sap still oozed from the wood. Half green leaves hung from to the branches that lay in the old yard, as though still clinging to the tree in the faint hope that their fate was not death, but that somehow the tree they grew on would somehow continue to be, to survive He wondered to himself if any one had ever climbed its branches or swung on a tire swing hung from its height, and feeling the breeze as it went through the air, "The years that have passed, It is such a lonely place now".
Where the lane opened up at the end into the farmyard that once smelled of animals, diesel fuel, and stacked hay, those smells now gone with time, instead the sweet smell of grass growing wild in the sun hung heavy in the air. He remembered the sounds of the chickens and ducks that wandered around the farmyard on those long ago days, the pens that were home to the cattle and pigs. It was all overgrown and wild now, time having erased the tracks of man and machine, the pens in the yard were gone, although here and there a post still stood poking up through the weeds, nature had reclaimed it all with a cape of grass and weeds that grew in various shades of greens, spotted here and there with color as some wild plant burst fourth in bloom. Odd tree's sprouted from the ground from seeds placed by a careless wind. Some of them thick in the trunk, some still young, but all newcomers to the place he remembered.
The old barn still stood, its weathered sides grayed with age. The side that faced the old farmyard that once was, had an odd bend, the massive side broken with the passage of time. To many snows had piled up on the roof, to many years of neglect here in this silent and lonely place, to many breathes from a blowing, wild wind, had finally bent it, broken it. Slowly pushing it down a little more each year, until at some point in the past it had given in to the ravages of time and broken before it. There were memories there too, the haymow at the top of the barn where bales of sweet smelling hay were stored for long the winter months. His dad would pull the hayrack full of bales to a spot just under the large door, that was now gone, a block and tackle would be used to pull each one up to be stored. The twine wrapped bales stacked with care, and placed until it seemed the addition of just one more would burst the sides of the mow. Wisps of straw would gently rain down covering the yard like newly fallen snow.
The bales that would not fit in the mow were stacked in a pile alongside the barn, built up, one on top of the other, like a pyramid that shined of gold in a setting sun. That stack of baled hay, held memories for him, climbing it in the heat of a summer day, and reaching its peak, sitting down there to survey what in his mind then, was his kingdom, and he the king. Mice made their home in the golden hay, and the cats of the yard were well-fed, although there were always many of them, there always seemed to be more mice.
The windmill was still there too, the mill which had pumped cool fresh water from the ground. Its blades had spun round in the wind, moving so fast, but going nowhere. In the days of his youth it had seemed so tall, stretching upward into a blue sky ripe with fat and fluffy clouds that it almost seemed to touch as they scooted by. Now it leaned a bit, rust grew in spots upon its once pristine sides. The vanes that once spun in the wind were long gone, pulled off perhaps in some forgotten storm, and it seemed not so tall as it had back then. A tree grew up next to it, slowly engulfing the thin metal frame in its branches, "How much longer will it stand" he thought as he looked at the windmill outlined in the sky.
Slowly he made his way back toward the house, wading through the tall grass, leaving a bent and broken trail through the yard. He made his way past it, to where the creek ran. He came upon it and looked down the weed covered bank where now flowers bloomed in the day. Closing his eyes and looking back in his minds eye he saw himself, young again, climbing a fallen log that crossed the creek, watching crayfish crawl in its depths, an ant lost on a leaf floating bythings a boy of ten would see with interest. A stick in his ten year old hand, he would tease the crayfish stirring up the mud and they would shoot out the way, like tiny torpedoes across the bottom and through the dark muddy water to disappear under a rock or limb. Sometimes he would just walk along the bank looking for a frog, or perhaps some of the small tadpoles that would be thick in the rushing water of spring. How many days had he spent there? Uncounted he knew, but certainly not enough
And as he mulled over these thoughts, as they played through his mind the creek still ran busily on its way paying no attention to anything but itself. The swift running water was a muddy brown, filled with dirt and floating leaves from the hill behind the house picked up in its passage. It pulled each piece, churning them all together, tugging them, teasing them along the way. Here and there on its rush something would be left, and perhaps something else would be picked up. A leaf thrown up on the bank, as another one gently floats down from a tree, and rests on the surface before it to is pulled on by the creek through the fields his dad used to work beyond the road, until finally the creek meets the river that still meandered slowly through the land about a half mile away. Meeting the river the creek disappeared, with it, its load of silt and debris, some of it deposited along the way, and some of it mixed with what the river carried, all of it going somewhere or nowherelives are like thathe thought to himself.
Some people live lives that are rich and full going somewhere, others plod through life dreading each day to afraid to go anywhere, but it all settles in the end, into the land because it always wins, and hehe was not sure where he fell in that measure of life. The life he had lived was a good life he felt, full of ups and downs like so many others. He had left the farm after high school for college, not so much because he wanted to, but it had been his parents dream that he did. He planned on coming back, but life took over and he found himself drifting further from the land. In the city there was so much more than just the land, it became a backdrop, like a background character in a play. You knew it was there, but yet you hardly noticed it. He made friends in the city, many more than he had at the farm, he found that he felt more alive there. But now with the turn of the years he thought maybe it was not so much more alive, as it was just a different sort of alive than he had felt on the farm. So many things to do, things that were unheard of in the country. The constant motion of city life, where nothing ever seems to stop. It was so easy to get caught up in, to forget your roots, to just lose yourself in the mix. To become one of the nameless faces in the crowd
He realized that his father known he would not come back to the farm, long before he, himself, had. But if he was sad or upset about it he never let on. It was as if he knew that he would be the last farmer in the family, his son would make a different and hopefully better life for himself.
He sighed at the thought, perhaps he had made a better life for himself, but it had always seemed that something in it was missing. He had married young, and they had had two beautiful children together, two children now grown and both of them living their own lives. The son was still living on his own, although there was a girl in the picture now, they had been seeing each other for a few years before they became engaged but they had yet to set a date. His daughter, she had been married for a more than a seven years now and a child had been born a few years ago. On those rare occasions he saw his granddaughter she reminded him so much of her mother at that age that he found himself wishing the years would roll back, but they would not. They only go on.
His wife, his love of so many years was gone, the retirement they had planned for was nothing now, the trips they had hoped to go on went unfulfilled, the years they had worked for the time they could just sit down and spend days as they wanted were for nothing, she had left. Many days and nights he had spent by her bed holding her hand as she slept. He prayed, they all did, but it had come to naught, and at last, and on reflection for the best, she breathed her last, and in the end was returned to the land. It was a small plot with a granite stone that glistened in the light. He visited her often, talked to her, of what had been, and of what was, as he tended the grave. Sometimes though he would just sit on the bench nearby and think, soon tears would roll down his face, and muffled sobs would rack him as he cried.
It was a quiet place too, a rolling green carpet of grass and stones. And often when he sat there after the last sobs had been wrung out and he could reflect, look about himself and looking he would see the land, the land that covered his wife, the land that had played such a large portion of his life when he was young, it was the land that always remained, true as his father had always said it could be changed, but it remained and would always win in the end It was a constant.
Mayhaps it was that thought that drew him back here to the old place this day, just to see if his dad had been wrong, just to see if it would be the same as it was, it wasn't, but yet it was The memories were there, but the home place was changed, it was disappearing, bit by bit, each year, erasing what had been built by his father and so many others over the years and the land it looked much the same.
The fields were still there, green and fresh in the sun, beans growing in the summer heat. Idly he wondered who plowed those fields now, those fields that had once known his fathers hand, felt the steel of his father's plow as it bit deep into the moist, loamy soil. Fields, that he as a boy had wandered through, watched grow ripe with grain through the years of his youth. How many sunrise's had he watched across those fields, how many times had he seen the shadows slowly creep toward the house as the sun slowly fell down behind the hill. Listened on those hot, humid, windless days and heard the corn grow. Who owned that land now?, or perhaps better put who was using it for this brief bit of time, like his father had until he, old, tired, and tanned had finally relinquished his seat on the tractor and sold the farm to someone else those many years ago. But he had left his mark upon it, and for a short time he had mastered it, and while time would erase what once was, the memories would linger.
He reflected, The barn which had loomed so large in his youth was slowly coming down, the pens that were once in the yard were gone, and the home place itself would soon disappear, only the memories would remain. Someday the hill too will be gone, moved bit by bit by the rushing creek, slowly it will recede until it to will be nothing, not even a memory, for no man can live the time it takes for a change like that to occur, and after he was gone only the moon and the sun would bear witness to what was.
It was as his dad used to say, "No man owns the land, he uses it, tries to bend it to his will, sometimes he succeeds, sometimes not, but however it turns out for that short time he has possession of it, in the end it is always the same. A man is only here for a short time, the land will be here much longer, and no matter how many masters it has had, it always wins in the end..."
Only another memory from his youth, one of the many that played through his mind each day, this one with perhaps a bit of wisdom that he was now only old enough to truly understand. He looked out over the fields of beans and corn, growing in the sun, turned and took one long last look at the home of his youth, knew that he had moved on, knew that what was once here for him had gone long ago. Only memories of what once was were here now, perhaps they would always be. But that did not matter anymore, for him this was the past, it always would be and tomorrow would be another day, maybe his last or perhaps only one of many, many more to come.
He made his way to the car, got in and slowly drove away. As the last particles of the cloud of dust kicked up by the now faraway car slowly settled back down to the road, the wind gently moved the grass, the creek busily moved on, the sun stared down, and the land remained...
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)You tell such an evocative story, Richard. I haven't seen anything by you for a while. I like your opening quote.Thank you, and yes I have not been on for awhile, life has been busy. Regarding the opening quote thanks had to work on that for quite a while then it finally flowed in the right way as it were. I might also add, I am sorry this is so long, but it more or less grew up on its own. I tried something new, new for me anyway, I went out to the country and wandered around an abandoned farm, with permission of course, and built the story around that.Are you going to publish your stories, and do you have a desire to write books?Jennifer, like many, I am an aspiring writer, in search of a agent. I have actually been published in a book once, called "Porch Style" its was a coffee table book on porch design. I can say though I do have a vast collection of rejection letters, lol.Regarding books, this story actually is snowballing into a book, it will be my second such attemp for a full length book. But, yes I would love to get a book published. Call it my hope, or perhaps silly dream.Erase that word from your vocabulary, Richard! The word "silly" I mean. I think you will be published, your writing is so rich and evocative.As for the rejection letters, I've had a score of those, too, some of them really mean and nasty! Rejections don't say anything about one's work, though, and definitely don't say anything about one's prospects...I too, have to second Jennifer's advice, Richard. Not "silly dream" but "good dream". Anyone who has a passion for writing has a tendency to be published one day. Every writer's dream we call it.
Sorry, only skipping this article due to the length. I read the 1st page to scroll to the bottom and found how many pages it consisted of. I will bookmark and return to it later only because what I have read so far sounded intriguing. Thanks for writing!Your right it is long, but I just wanted to post it. Sorry about the length.
I read your article that the search for something of the past. Of course, everything in this world is changing, including lifestyle and thought human. All in this world is transitory and those that consider fixed focus of home place, bound to be sad.For me - Knowing this entire transitory world is nothing when it is compared to knowing your own conscience and learns the art of loving what is available in the present home place. Nobody can return to the past home place with its loved one and even learn to live pleasantly with what is now available with present loved one.Actually in my mind it really has nothing to do with the search for the past, but everyone takes something different from what they read.
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