“I have to work eleven to six two nights next week,” Earl said, as we were having dinner at the Mark III last night. I knew he meant as a Sheriff’s deputy, given that these shifts were in the dead of night and nobody looks at real estate — one of Earl’s other interests — at two in the morning.
“Okay,” I said, wanting to be Miss Agreeable. “What’s the assignment?”
“I’m guarding tractors.”
Tractors. Those big green things that John Deere made a fortune with. Those farm implements that slow my progress when they take to an asphalted highway as they move from one fertile field to another. Those clunky vehicles that remind me of the year I spent living on a farm as a child in upstate New York. Ah, tractors . . .
I wasn’t sure why Earl was guarding tractors, as it seems to me it would be difficult to steal one without being noticed. They’re large, they’re usually not out at night, and they’re useless for impressing girls on a date. Nevertheless, it appears there’s going to be a big convention of tractors at the local fairgrounds — this is, after all, farming country in southwestern Michigan — and there is concern that vandalism might occur. So the Sheriff is sending his troops to guard the tractors.
Meanwhile, I take this opportunity to reminisce about the fifty-acre subsistence farm I lived on in first grade. That was over half a century ago, but it is imbedded in my mind as clearly as if it were yesterday. I remember hanging out in the barn every night with my Uncle Frank as he milked the cows and stored the milk for the next morning’s pick-up. Then we’d head into the house for supper.
I remember picking berries with my Aunt Cel, and tossing my entire basketful on the ground when a bug lit on a bulging ripe strawberry. I remember the wood burning stove, potatoes at every meal, Chinese checkers in the evening, our collie Prince, pumping water from the well, the two oak trees that held court in the front yard, the wide porch with the rocking chairs, and climbing the steep stairs to the second story to say my prayers before literally climbing into the high bed. I remember it all.
So maybe Earl needs to go guard those tractors, not because of what they are in terms of steel and rubber but what they represent as a way of life. Because I remember my year on the farm as pure enchantment.
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