When I decided to move across the country it began to sink in that my time remaining in the area was ticking. I had to quickly determine how I wanted to prioritize that limited time. There was never a question that one of my last stops would be Papa’s farm. Everyone seems to have a “happy place”. Growing up, this was mine.
To a young boy, the barbed wire fences that circle the land might as well have been the edges of the Earth. 72 acres has somehow contained a farm house, multiple barns, several ponds, cattle, chickens, goats, ducks, horses, turkeys, cats, dogs, a llama and on and on.
Growing up it always amazed me that, somehow, Papa always knew when the cows were hungry, when the eggs needed gathered, when the vegetables were ready to pick from the garden or when Nana had lunch ready. I wouldn’t spend too much time dwelling on it because Nana’s meals were always the best. Country cooking from scratch. Vegetables from the garden. Though, it took me a while to realize that bacon grease wasn’t a primary ingredient in green beans.
Papa's farm is where this little boy learned to fish. “A quarter for the first and a quarter for the biggest,” he would say. Though I don't ever remember catching the first or the biggest fish with Papa, he never made me pay. I learned to shoot guns there. We had it out for those aluminum cans. Climbing through the barns, playing with the animals and riding the tractor made me feel like I was in a rural amusement park.
To a kid with an imagination, it might as well have been a whole new world. And now, to a much older kid, it continues to be one of my favorite happy places.
