Throwback Thursday Stories {1}

I am linking up with Jessica Turner @ The Mom Creative for Throwback Thursday Stories. Join me there!

Summer evening at the farm, 1986

This picture has always been one of my favorites, because it captures the spirit of summer evenings spent at my grandparents' farm--some of the happiest moments of my childhood.

Those evenings when, after a quick dinner, we would pile into the car and drive 40 minutes to the farm that has been in our family for well over a century. We drove with the windows down, I, the youngest, in the middle of the backseat, and conversation was quieted by the rush of wind. The roads wound like rollercoasters, up, down, and around, and soon, we rounded the curve from which the white farmhouse could finally be seen.

We would pull into the driveway, gravel crunching under the tires, and Dad would park under  the massive walnut tree in the front yard. Sometimes, my brother and sister and I would have competitions to see who could throw a green walnut the furthest into the field across the street. (I never won: my walnuts usually exploded on the road or, with a particularly bad throw, the driveway, though I always felt my tenacity should count for something.) Usually Grampa was sitting on a white plastic lawn chair on the front porch, reading the newspaper, with his boxer (alway named after military ranks--Major, Colonel) resting by his side. He greeted us with hugs, hard and warm, and he smelled faintly of newspaper ink and tractor grease and Old Spice. Gramma greeted us inside, cleaning up the remnants of their dinner while watching Wheel of Fortune. After hugs and greetings, we walked out of the kitchen to the back door, past the succulents Gramma kept growing by the window, past the deep freeze that held ice cream always tasting just a little freezerburnt, and out to the reason we came: the garden.

The garden is several hundred feet from the house, but the distance never seemed to great in my child's mind. There was so much to see along the way, so much to experience. Sheets waving on the line, fresh and crisp from their time in the sun. Red hollyhocks that Gramma would magically transform into little dolls. The chicken coop, with several hens clucking around the one rooster who kept proudly announcing his presence. The pasture, wide and deep, cut through by the tiny creek that sometimes barely moved, just beyond the electric fence. The bees Grampa kept, quietly buzzing underneath the jonathan tree. And next to that, far enough to be safe, the garden.

Then our shoes came off, and the work would begin. The humidity lay upon us like a blanket; even as the sun began to set, the heat of July was slow to subside. We made our way to the green bean bushes, to the tomato plants heavy with fruit. We were shown how to move the leaves to find the hidden beans, given the elusive permission to feed a rotten tomato to the chickens. Gramma would sometimes tell us stories of growing up during the Depression, how, on nights as hot as the one in which we worked, she and her siblings would sleep under the stars because the outside was cooler than their tiny house crammed with 10 people. Occassionally the breeze would stir the air, bugs and birds sang duets, and the dust of the earth covered our feet in a soft brown mist. We worked until the sweat stung our eyes, until our hair was glued to the back of our necks, until our backs ached when we finally stood.  We talked and laughed and teased Jeremy for his uncanny ability to disappear when the picking began--though now, I think it was as much to spend time with Grampa as it was to get out of the work (and it was that, too).

We filled 5 gallon buckets until the garden had nothing left to offer, and then the buckets would be lifted into the wheelbarrow and guided back to the house, past the chicken coop and Gramma's flower beds and the clothesline, and then we would go inside to wash up. Because I was small, I would be lifted to sit on the bathroom sink, and the dust of the garden would be washed away by a white bar of Dove soap, which smelled of Gramma, or a grainy green bar of Lava, which she always pronounced "Laaa-va". And when we were clean, it was time for a glass of sun tea or, for a special treat, a Pepsi. Dad would join Grampa on the front porch, and they would talk as the sun set lower and lower, as the humming bugs grew louder and the peace of the farm settled into the night. Sometimes, like on the night this picture was taken, all of us would settle outside and rock softly on the worn red swing.

I remember not always enjoying the work--it was hot and dusty and made me ache--but even in that, I loved those evenings at my grandparents' farm. I loved the scratch of Grampa's whiskers on my cheek when he hugged us. I loved the warmth of Gramma's hugs, and the sound of her voice as she told stories. I loved playing with Grampa's dogs, and I loved the way the breeze would float across the corn field, rustling the leaves and telling the secrets of how the field grew green and full. I loved the soft dirt between my toes. I loved working side by side with Rachel, often talking about what adventures our Barbies would soon be on. I loved the velvety crunch of a green bean plucked fresh from the plant. I loved the peace.

The towheaded little girl in the picture is me, almost 6 years old.  My Grampa took this picture; he will be gone from us 10 years next week. He died eight months before I met Josh, before Jeremy met Nikki, before Rachel met Lips. He never got to see us married or to hold his great-grandchildren. But he was in the moments of my best childhood memories, and every time I go to the farm and sway on that faded red porch swing, a part of him is with me. And a part of that almost-6 year old is there, too, smiling with the joy of tired content, of an evening filled with love.