Making Do

"After a late start, Danny and Lyda had seven children: Will, Royal, Coulter (named Coulter Branch, Danny said, for the stream that ran down off the Coulter ridges), Fount, Reuben, and then ("Finally!" Lyda said) the two girls, Rachel and Rosie. I won't need to make much mention of the children; I name them all together now to give them my blessing. If the world lasts, there are going to be Branches around here for a long time. As the boys grew older, they made do with old cars and old farm equipment as they earlier had made do with old bicycles and outboard motors. This is the way they will survive--by being marginal, using what nobody else wants, doing well the work that nobody else will do. If they aren't destroyed by some scientific solution to all our problems, they will go on though dynasties pass. By this late year of 1986 Danny and Lyda have already got a whole company of grandchildren."

-Wendell Berry, from Jayber Crow

Moon Pie Dog

She came to me in late March of 2002. She was a stray. I had her fixed and got all her shots for her. She's a border collie/husky mix.

She's never been particularly happy here. She didn't much like Block Head. I have a small yard -- plenty big for a big dog, but I, like my mom and dad, hate keeping dogs within fences.

I took her up to Piqua with me for Memorial Day week. We got in late Wednesday night, having driven through the worst thunderstorm ever in my life. She slept through the whole thing in the back seat, using the armrest as a pillow. The storm cleared just soon enough to reveal a gorgeous sunset.

We woke up to the site of 3 deer in the east pasture. She didn't see them. I kept her on the leash while I worked on dismantling the split rail fence. Jess showed up about 2 in the afternoon. He asked why she was on a leash, and I said I wasn't sure what she'd do. He said he thought she'd be fine. So I let her off, and she wandered off. "Don't make a liar out of me, dog," recalling the "too windy to burn" incident.

So she wandered off. And then she wandered back. Wandered off and back again, all afternoon and evening, testing the boundaries.

Let me just say this: That was the happiest I've ever seen that dog, laying in the pasture, taking it all in. Every time I turned around I almost always saw nothing but a buried head and a wagging tail. By the mulberry tree, by the wood pile, by the hydrangea, by the falling down porch. Buried head, wagging tail. My heart nearly burst with the knowledge that she wasn't just content; she was at home, or, rather, she was home. Home, whatever that means anymore. She was happy. Truly happy.

She killed a groundhog Saturday night during A Prairie Home Companion, and paraded it around the whole pasture, staking her claim, while I burned the day's trash under Homer's "rosey-colored fingers of dusk".

Sunday, before we left, we saw 6 deer in that same east pasture; she barked and growled at them through the glass door. "Get off my lawn!", she was saying. Then we went outside to a beautiful windy sunny day. She lay near the burn pile surveying all that was newly hers, content. We're both home. I opened the back door of the car and she begrudgingly hopped up and in. I assured her we'd be back in less than a month. She seemed to know that already.

Turns out she really is a great dog, that Moon Pie.

So, I have Grandma Kading-era running water, i.e., the pump out front, electricity, 11 channels on the TV, a toilet that won't flush, and a dog who's about to realize her Aristotelian "becoming". I'll try not to be far behind. And I think I'm adjusting the permanent move date from May 2011 to October 2010, just for her. She'll love the cold, and I'll love the wood burning stove. There are worse reasons to move than for a dog. I'm even certain my mom and dad would approve. Heck, they might even be proud of me for that alone. They were that way.

Art Of The Song

So.

There I was, in my backyard, minding my own business, tying up my tomato plants with twine, when I was blindsided. A Prairie Home Companion was on the radio; it was a compilation show, and one segment was someone, I forget who, singing Randy Newman's "When She Loved Me" (also often called "When Somebody Loved Me").

I sort of collapsed to my knees, and made my way over to my plastic lawn chair and listened to the rest of the song, sobbing. (Technically not a dangling participle, but yeah, I know.)

I don't know much about anything, but I know a lot about music. I'm even a self-acknowledged music snob, for better or worse. So believe me when I say that "When She Loved Me" is 3 minutes of beautifully, perfectly crafted art song genius. And I think it's high time we put Randy up there in the American art song legions of Ned Rorem, Hugo Weisgall and David Noon. (Full disclosure: I studied with all 3, and Noon is a good friend, and would easily concur.)

I'll try to steer clear of cliche-ville, but obviously as we get older we hear and see things through the prisms of our losses. When I listened and cried, little mini-movies of my mom and dad flashed passed me at an unmanageable pace, and I was overwhelmed, I guess. And it haunted me all night and through much of today. My whole body aches with it.

Sorry about the cheesy video, but the audio is better than the Toy Story 2 clip, which, by the way, I find to be 3 of the saddest minutes in movie history.

Most people live their lives unaware of the power of music to elate us with joy and paralyze us with grief. Hope may have been a dangerous thing in Shawshank (note Randy's brother, Thomas), but, right now, it's all I have. Which is to say, unless I can somehow convince myself that my best days are not behind me, and then back it up with some some actual proof and deeds, then all that's left for me is pain, sorrow and ruin. I have bad days and worse days, and when I come out of those funks, I hope I'm a little stronger and, yes, a little less hopeful-less. (Not a word.)

On Faith And Failings

If I were to die today, I don't think anyone, including my family, would have anything of much substance to say about my life. I was, at one time, a semi-gifted musician. I read a lot. I had to explain words I used. To be sure, I loved my mom and my dad, but never really told them that, not even in so many words. And I often wished I hadn't waited until mom was dying to tell her how I felt, that the world was a far better place with her in it. What I didn't do was beg on my knees for her not to leave me. That would've been the "momma's boy" in me talking, not to mention unforgivably unfair to either of us.

We weren't raised to express that kind of affection and endearment openly. We were raised to be stoic and to show family affection by making fun of each other. And believe me, we show each other affection a lot, obviously.

What am I doing? What am I doing, indeed. I hardly know. Right now I'm experiencing two existences at the same time, one down here in Alabama, and one in my head up in Ohio. But I'm not participating in the living of either of those existences, at least not in any real, tenable sense.

My faith, our faith, is a decidedly Lutheran one. It's within us, but rarely shared with others. We are not a proselytizing sort of people. Our blood runs deep with the black-as-night soil of the Iowa plains. But my family has faith, mostly in each other, at least sometimes.

In all of my life I have never experienced so much regret and guilt as I have for the last 2 years. I can't remember if I've shared this with any of you, but I told Jesse that dad would be ashamed of me, of my being miserable at work and at play. Jesse informed me that he wouldn't be ashamed; he'd be frustrated with me. Little comfort, but little is better than none.

So I just went ahead and lied to mom as she lay dying, and told her that I'd be just fine. To make things worse, I think she knew I was lying. Of her five kids I was the one she and dad worried about the most on account of my proclivity to take things so viscerally, so personally. After all, dad had the decency to drop dead in an instant; we had to watch the strongest woman any of us have ever known be reduced to a bag of rotting organs and bones, vomiting every 45 minutes for 8 days.

I'm not looking for sympathy. Er, maybe I am. I don't want you to feel sorry for me; I'm doing that for myself aplenty. I guess I just want you, like for myself, to try to do a better job of... living? Not that you're not doing that already. I guess I'm mostly talking to myself but channeling my dad's voice in order to do it.

Living. What does that even mean anymore?

Okay. Here's a promise I'll make to you and to myself once I finally (hopefully within the next year) move up to Piqua: At every sunset, I'll crack open a reasonably cold beer (or wine, should the moment strike me), and I'll watch that sun set on an acreage of mean size, shape and order, but I'll let the rosy-colored fingers in the dusky west reveal that during the course of this day I worked hard to improve my lot, and my lot, that I'm now one day closer to growing the perfect tomato, that my day was productive, simple, genuine, and hard-won. In the winter I'll build a small fire by the apple tree, with snow on the ground to avoid Pasture Fire 2011!!! In the bleak midsummer that beer won't get chugged 'till close to 8pm, which will be glorious in its way.

It's a start. I owe it to them. But even more so, I owe it to myself. For, indeed, it's within me that the both of them now reside, and if the substance of my life ends up being a sincere story of the lives of my mom and my dad and my family, at long last catalogued and organized and set down with pen and ink with an affection that no instrument yet invented could measure, I would be honored for that to be, in total, my penance, my atonement, and my redemption.

Or I'll just clean toilets and the nursing home. You tell me.

No other son had such remarkable parents, and no other person is more proud, blessed, and grateful to have had the honor to be called their son.

May God bless your people.
Oh may he remember them in their time of trouble,
and at the hour of their taking away.

And God bless you incredibly decent folks. Thanks for listening.

(I.e., Piqua or die. Or both. It's a good fit.)

Good To Smoke The Green Green Grass Of Home

After our mom's funeral last March, when we were sorting some things out at her West Virginia house, and it had begun to become apparent that I eventually needed to move back to the central Ohio area, Jesse and Al thought that I needed to take mom and dad's John Deere tractor, and that Al would "hold" it until I was able to take delivery.

Then I burned down the northeast pasture Easter Sunday, which Jesse was happy to share with Al.

So yesterday I sent both of them a list of things I plan on trying to get done Memorial Day weekend. This morning I got this email from Al:

The John Deere is now at the Urbana service center. I told them I'd pick it up Memorial weekend. I also told them to put fireproof belts on it, and bulk up the heat shield for re-entry.

Is it any wonder why he's my favorite brother?

2010 Memorial Day Weekend Honey-Do List

Though there's technically no "honey" in this scenario. Yet!

Sorry.

Anyways, I'll drive up Thursday and spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday up north. My goals:

1. Tear up carpet and subflooring in back bedroom to reveal 90-year old pine boards.
2. Clean out trash/brush in the northeast and southeast pastures.
3. RUNNING WATER!!!!!!
4. Tear out cupboards in "kitchen".
5. Rip off porch on west-facing side of house.
6. RUNNING WATER!!!!!!!!!
7. Get mom's John Deere tractor running. (Al broke it. Again.)
8. Invent the first composting toilet.
9. Oh. Wait.
10. RUNNING WATER!
11. Write a bit about mom and dad every day. Just a bit.
12. Distinguish my west-central Ohio accent from affectatious southern dialect (newly aquired) so as not to be beaten up by the big kids at school.(I.e., Mambo.)
13. BANDWIDTH!!! WE'RE RUNNING OUT!!!!!!

I think that's a good start.

Little House On The Prairie Fire

"Ya think it's too windy to burn?" I asked Jess before he fired up his professional grade Snapper "haymaker" to do the front.

"It's pretty windy. Try to keep it small."

So I sprayed one small portion of the burn pile he, Al and I had amassed the day before, which I had added significantly to this morning, a pile probably 5 feet high of combustible trash, with lighter fluid, and lit it.

It was controlled enough, and I fed it very gradually from around the sides, careful not to get too much burning at the same time. And I was having a very pleasant afternoon of it, thinking of my dad and I burning leaves in the Fall. It was a beautiful Easter Sunday in west-central Ohio.

But then when I shifted the old door that was burning well from an obtuse to an acute angle, that's when things changed fast.

The middle of the pile kind of exploded, and immediately the entire pile was roaring. And then it got bigger. Soon, the unmown and thatchy edges of the burn pile were catching. And not long after, with help from a wind out of the southwest, an army of flames were headed north-by-northeast, invading ultimately my new neighbor's harvested corn field.

I ran all around the fire; it must've been 800 degrees at least. I tried to keep it from spreading, but the more I pounded on the burning edges with my rake and my shoe, the more it seemed almost to get stronger.

Meanwhile, Jess saw what was happening, and he steered his mower around to cut the spreading fire by mowing the thatch between the burning pit and the spread. After he'd done so many times, his mower caught on fire, and he had to stop to put it out.

Oh. Did I mention that we hadn't got the well-house pump working, so we didn't have any running water?

Just to keep from having a massive panic attack, I played Bach fugues in my head.

"Just let it burn itself out," he said calmly. "The wind will change, and the fire will run out of fuel when it hits the new growth. Just keep it out of the corn field."

Which we did. And it did burn itself out.

"Man, Jess, I'm so sorry about your mower."
"It's fine. It's just a belt. It was due for service anyway. Sit down and rest, and drink your water."

I did. Then I looked down at the scorched earth, sullen, and said, "Well, this isn't exactly the beginning I had in mind. Not very auspicious, is it?"
"It's a great beginning. It's a spectacular beginning. What it shouldn't be is a terrible ending."
"You make a good point. If this is some kind of cosmic test of my resolve, I'm not giving up. Thanks."
"In a month all you'll notice is all the new growth coming up from where it burned. No big deal. I won't tell Al or Jane; they'll never know."
"You can tell 'em. I don't mind."

Then Jess, eyes squinting to look across the southeast corner of the adjoining property that holds a decent stand of trees in a wetland area with a small creek, which I'm gonna try to buy as well, and because we were both obviously thinking of him, inadvertently channeled our dad and said, "You know, come to think of it, it just might be too windy to burn after all."

We both just laughed. And he did tell Al. And Jane.

What is this? Am I home? Again? I didn't think we could go home again. Maybe we can? My stomach hurts. I think I'm gonna throw up. Again.