I know a lot about corn and soybeans. Not so much about flowers. But I’m learning.

I’ve always appreciated flowers. What a gift from God they are. A palate of color splashed on a green background. Some of it is meticulously planned and ordered by humans. Others just show up in a ditch or meadow like a surprise guest at a party.

The last few years Pam has developed an interest in perennials. It’s coincided with more time available now that kids are gone. She does the planning and I do the digging. It’s a perfect partnership: she thinks and I don’t.

Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m putting in the ground. I asked Pam what all has come to live on our farm in beds and along fences. Here we go: phlox, allium, hydrangea, hollyhocks, daylilies, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and probably a few that slipped her mind.

They arrive in buckets with damp roots. We got a batch from Lora Rahe, whose thumb is so green it shimmers. Pam’s sister, Gwen of Gibbon has shared from her bounteous backyard. We’ve gotten hostas from Pam’s brother Doug who dabbles in breeding them. Doug has several cultivars registered with the American Hosta Society. We’re more than willing to take some of his “rejects.”

Perennials are different than annuals in that you are planting them for a summer in the future, not necessarily this one. They must put their energy into roots if they are to survive our prairie winter and be, in fact, perennial. A petunia will reward your effort with an explosion of color immediately. Unfortunately for the petunia, they are like the grasshopper in Aesop’s fable who doesn’t fare well come winter. The perennials are like the ant, tediously storing away sustenance in their roots.

There is a saying among hosta growers. In year one, they sleep. In year two, they creep. In year three, they leap. That is more or less true for perennials in general. In that way they are an investment intended for later returns.

When I was young, I remember flower gardens here that my mother Alyce sculpted. I can picture peonies with buxom flower heads. There was a bed of lilies of the valley, which delicately announced a new growing season. There were borders of lilacs and honeysuckles that I remember playing in and around.

As time passed, the yard shifted to make room for bigger machinery and the pastures gave way to fields. Now my mom’s flowers exist only in black and white photos, the background of first communion and graduation pictures. I realize I still see those flowers in my mind sort of in black and white. Sixty years ago, our photos lacked color; my memory is similarly shaded.

It’s natural that a farmyard would morph and change as succeeding generations come to be there. But there are farmyards that aren’t so fortunate. There are scattered through the countryside abandoned farm sites where there is no succeeding generation.

I have a part time job inspecting fields in the summer. In that, I get to walk around and through abandoned farm sites through southern Minnesota. There are a surprising number I come across. There’s always a tinge of sadness for me, a farmer, to wander across a farm-that-used-to-be. If I linger a moment near the old barn with sagging roof or home with windows gone, I wonder about the family whose lives spun there.

Sometimes there are flowers along the grove or up by the house. Day lilies or coneflowers planted decades ago. A spade went in the ground to put those roots in sometime in the past. It could have been the farmer or the farmwife, in between chores. Maybe it was in the evening after chores. Maybe there were kids running around playing.

The flowers remain, the people are gone. It’s kind of eerie.

Now I’m the one putting the spade in the ground, kneeling while I spread the roots into the black prairie dirt. I suppose these plants could be sending out bright flowers long into a distant future when I am gone. If they’re properly hardy and get a good start, that’s possible.

Hopefully Pam and I have some years left here, but we’re at an age where that is not to be taken for granted. As for the future of this place, there are possibilities. The house is in good shape with a good location and some useful buildings. It’s unlikely to be abandoned, but who knows?

Given some care now, watering and weeding for a few years while they establish their roots, there should be colors here many summers to come. Perennials call one to look ahead, peering into an unknown future.

There is a saying that goes, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never sit under.” There is debate whether it is an ancient Greek proverb or from a Quaker writer of more recent vintage. Regardless, the sentiment is good. The notion that we consider doing good work for people who are to follow rings true and important.

Similarly, in the song “See the World” by folk singer Brett Dennen, a father is talking to his son about how fast he grew and offers advice. At the end, he reflects on his own short time left.

“Go up the mountain top and shine.

I’ll reflect it on my long decline.

I’ve gathered sunsets in my prime.

Now, I’m planting trees I’ll never climb”

My little planting of hostas and daisies is not quite the same as planting a sapling that will grow to be a giant spreading oak tree someday. But it makes me to think beyond this summer. Most of my attention has always been on this crop and this year.

Of course, we all of us should think and plan and care for the Earth we are leaving our great-grandchildren. That asks of us to consider beyond our needs in the here and now to the needs of the there and then. It pushes out selfishness if that is honored. Of course, we know the Earth my generation is leaving behind has problems. Species endangered, ecosystems threatened, and global warming mean challenges lie ahead for next generations.

That can seem overwhelming. Maybe I’ll plant a tree this fall.

Allow me to ruin your day.

Our middle kid is a human rights worker for an international organization. The idea of basic and universal human rights has been interpreted differently in various times and places. But those of us who believe in a Creator agree that the Creator gifts us with rights. These God-given liberties and freedoms are given at our conception; they are from God, not man.

Middle kid is working in Guatemala right now. In that country, two thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day. More than fifty per cent of children have their growth stunted by malnutrition. Those are statistics. Statistics are great for baseball. Statistics don’t tell us the pain a child feels in their gut when their organs are shutting down from hunger.

None of us reading this have known that pain; it is impossible to imagine. It is a horrible, excruciating way to die. Other Guatemalan children don’t die of starvation directly but succumb to ailments and infections that the bodies of healthy kids fend off easily. The suffering for those children on the road to death is no better.

One of my daughter’s tasks involved turning statistics into real people. She spent time talking with families who have lost a child to hunger, documenting them as a part of her work. As I talked to her about that, I could tell in her voice it was not easy. She got to know the mothers and heard the agony of losing a child in such a cruel manner, the mothers feeling so helpless.

Understandably it weighed on my daughter. By the end of our conversation, a small portion of her anxiety had seeped through the phone connection. I couldn’t help but carry some sadness around for a while. Do I have any idea what it would be like to lose a child to those circumstances? No. None of us does. Even trying to comprehend it hurt my head.

Some will read this far and breezily push through like I do most of time when I read something discomforting. A few of you might set on the thought of a child in Guatemala dying. A child, like your child or your grandchild. A child, not a statistic. Maybe I ruined your day.

I have called myself pro-life my entire life. I have donated, attended meetings, and supported candidates. Likely, most people reading this consider themselves to be pro-life. When we say “pro-life” we are usually referring to opposing abortion. I do believe strongly that children in the womb should be given life. But caring about children post-birth should fill the same space in our hearts.

If you aren’t sickened by the thought of those children in Central America my daughter has come to know, I wonder about your pro-lifeness. If you aren’t moved somewhere deep inside when you think of a child dying from lack of sustenance, “pro-life” might be a weak commitment, a watery broth.

There are many good people doing the work of supporting and caring about mothers and infants in trying circumstances. I give them great credit. Many more are working to create a culture where all babies are wanted and a world where they can thrive, where there is not an underclass that barely meets their needs. That should be all of us.

I wonder if sometimes pro-life becomes a label to affix to our public selves: a bumper sticker to make us feel good, maybe even make us feel like we’re better than someone else. As a political position pro-life has come to be bundled with all manner of things with only distant connection to children and mothers. Sort of like being for “freedom,” being “pro-life” can be an empty slogan.

So, what is someone to do about those children that my daughter has come to know of? Walking around depressed doesn’t help them.

We can give to organizations that can take some of our money and do good things. The San Lucas Mission Project that the New Ulm Diocese supports has been a success story in one small town in Guatemala. We give to Catholic Relief Services which has a strong rating as a charity. Middle kid recommended we donate to Doctors Without Borders or the World Food Program. There are many other good charities and giving is a worthwhile step.

If you want to understand what is happening (and we should), you can look up a current article in National Geographic that features some of my daughter’s work. “A Hunger Crisis Forces Guatemalans to Choose: Migration or Death.” It is a well-written piece with beautiful yet disturbing pictures. And, yes, as the title says, this crisis south of our border is having an impact on our border.

Our voting counts, and this gets complicated. Most of us aren’t going to go to the poor places on Earth and help out. But whether we see it or not, the politics and policies and interests of the U.S. have a real and direct impact on countries like Guatemala and children born there.

There is a history between the United States and Guatemala that most Americans don’t know. But if you are a Guatemalan, our involvement there has had a large impact on your life. In 1954, the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the freely elected president. After that, a decades-long Civil War tore apart the small Central American nation. Too often, the United States has stood with the small rich upper class who were behind the suffering and oppression.

More recently, the Trump administration supported a Guatemalan government that was on the wrong side of many human rights issues. If Trump had been reelected, work like my daughter’s would have been more difficult. Trump also cut the small amount of aid the United States sends there.

The Biden administration is not perfect, but a focus on assisting the poor instead of supporting the upper class has been reestablished. It is simply a fact that if you are a hungry child in Guatemala, you would prefer this president over the last.

It would be easy if pro-life was a single issue we could check off without mental effort. But, just as with all the complicated issues facing this small, impoverished, Central American country, it is not. We do a disservice to the movement to make it such.

Fifty years ago the Carpenters sang, “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” Karen and Richard never farmed through a drought. If we had a rainy day, I’d throw a party.

My poor wife chose this year to cut back at work and be around me more. She gets to hear me talk about the crops and the weather often. A lot. Too much. Pam likes to point out that there is nothing I can do about the lack of rain. That’s not true; I can complain about it.

I’m not sure why that is. It’s opposite with people. There, I’m pretty good at letting bad things go. The memories I have of people in my life are many times more good than bad. Grudges fade into the mist.

It’s too early to know for sure, but 2021 is shaping up to be one to remember. The years 1976 and 1988 are being used as comparisons. I was a college kid during the first of those and a young farmer trying to pay bills in the second. Now I’m an old farmer, still paying bills. We’ve had dry years since, but none you would use the D-word for. Drought.

I talk about “we” even if most of us don’t own a tractor. A lot of jobs around here are connected to agriculture. Even if you aren’t a farmer, most of us have a garden that needs more attention. Or you have to water your lawn. Maybe you just have a higher electric bill from running the AC. Whatever, a drought touches everybody.

Much of the wealth created in the Midwest comes from the fields. The money farmers have flows through the economy like water churning through a rapids. It’s impossible now to project the economic impact of this weather, but it will be something.

The crops we grow are dependent on soil, sun, and rain. I always say the harvest is about 95 per cent what nature does and some small percentage what I do. When one of those ingredients is in short supply, it ain’t good. We had a dry fall and a dry spring, which makes life much easier for farmers during harvest and planting. You have to avoid a combine fire in the fall and find moisture for your seed in the spring. If you can do those, the work is better than fighting mud.

Actually, our July was a typical hot and dry one. But June, hoo boy! June was like none we’ve seen. We had less than an inch of rain, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible. Three years ago, we had eleven inches in June; over five is common. We had multiple days in the nineties this June with Sahara-like winds blowing, sucking moisture from everything from the soil to our skin. Two-foot-tall corn plants with leaves curled up was a bizarre sight.

I’ve always said we’ll do okay in dry years because if it’s 100 degrees in Illinois, it’ll be 90 here. The exact opposite of that was true in our June-from-Hell. Since June, we’ve had some moisture and more normal temps. That’s helped some. Otherwise, I might have been checking out camel prices online.

Interestingly, a couple of ag meteorologists that I pay attention to were talking about drought last winter. La Nina, or cooling of the Pacific, is in place and that often triggers a dry western North America and a normal eastern side. Even though we had a dry fall, I assumed that line would be somewhere by Sioux Falls. Instead, we’ve gotten a diagonal line through the Corn Belt. South and east, there is talk of 300-bushel corn. North and west, something less. Maybe a lot less; we can’t know yet.

If I want to get paranoid, I think about Elwyn Taylor. Elwyn is retired now, but for years he was the Iowa State Climatologist. In that role, he was the weatherman for the Corn Belt. I used to tune in religiously to his reports on Iowa Public Radio to get the big picture view.

Elwyn always talked about cycles in weather, some short, some long. One of the long ones is a ninety-year drought cycle in the middle of our continent. It fell in the 1930’s and we called that the Dust Bowl. If you want to stay up at night worrying, project ahead ninety years from then.

My parents married in 1934 and started their lives together smack dab in the middle of those infamous drought years. I heard stories about that growing up. We still have a giant 50-gallon Red Wing crock where my mom kept sauerkraut and salted meat which was most of what they had to eat for a couple winters. I told Pam we might have to google sauerkraut recipes if it doesn’t rain.

Now we also have to layer Elwyn’s ancient cycles with global warning caused by a couple centuries of fossil fuel burning. That becomes incredibly complex. We may not know the exact harm from that, but we can be assured it is there. All those solar panels and wind generators are a very early attempt to fix that. I’m encouraged by them, but climate change is a giant ocean liner we are trying to turn around.

I’ve always enjoyed the gradual slide of the seasons and the daily shifts in weather. Within broad parameters, every day has a myriad possible combinations of sunshine, clouds, air pressure, breeze, wind, humidity, etc. That’s still true. But there is a sameness to the days when you are wanting rain. Every day I wake, and it’s never too long till it strikes me that it’s another dry day. There’s a tedium and dullness about it.

As Pam can tell you, I like to think in extremes. So I come to see this summer as a slogging march through the desert. In the Bible, the desert is the place where God’s people feel abandoned. It is the place of banishment. Perhaps it is punishment for my sins, calling me to repent.

Or maybe I’ve been out in the hot sun too much. Might be time to get a cold Schell’s out of the fridge.

“Can’t we all get along?” We human beings have been trying to answer that question for about 10,000 years now.

I can turn on the news any time and see adults not getting along and become depressed. But a few days spent at playgrounds with young kids getting along lifted my spirit.

“Can’t we all get along?” You might recognize that quote from Rodney King. Thirty years ago, King, a Black man, was severely beaten by four White Los Angeles policemen. That was caught on film by an amateur photographer, presaging an era when everyone is a photographer and bad behavior is regularly recorded.

An all-white jury found the LAPD officers innocent of assault, which seemed to deny what millions of us saw with our eyes. Protests broke out, which turned into rioting. In the midst of that, King went on television to appeal for calm. “People, I just want to say, can’t we all get along? Can’t we all get along?” That struck me as a beautiful, simple, and courageous moment.

I keep Things To Write About in my head. I had an idea to write about the possibility that we could get along, that we could be kind and decent as the natural thing we do. What if we could lift each other up, support and encourage each other? I don’t mean just the people who look like us. That’s easy. I was thinking about being kind and decent to everyone, including the not-so-easy ones.

I am a Christian. In Leviticus, we read, “Do not bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” Jesus instructs that and loving God are the greatest commandments. Paul tells us “Love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Christians should be leading by example. It’s right there in our fundamental teaching. Unfortunately, we can come up with examples of Christians leading in intolerance and bigotry. Leviticus, Jesus, and Paul seem clear. Love is the greatest commandment. Love is a strong word. Not just tolerate, not just accept, but love. At the risk of sounding flip, what part of love don’t you understand?

I know, some of you are thinking, “I have to hate the sin and love the sinner.” Why are we a lot better at the former than the latter?

I’d ask why can’t we have a world where love wins out? I was going to point out all the ways we can better our own lives by bettering others’ lives. It’s a cliché, but there is truth in “We all do better when we all do better.”

I had that column in mind. But I decided it sounded naïve, sort of childish, and not especially useful. So I said to myself, “Naaaah.”

Then I spent a week at playgrounds. Our five-year old grandson Levi was here for Grandpa and Grandma Camp. It’s been 20 years since I hung out with a five-year old. I was reminded kids are a lot of work. I said that to a young mom who vociferously shook her head up and down in agreement.

I anticipated I wasn’t going to get much done on the farm. Levi is the perfect age to go to playgrounds with the occasional stop for a Dairy Queen. There are at least 20 parks around plus a pool in Sleepy Eye and wading pools in New Ulm. You’ve heard of a Pub Crawl? This was a Playground Crawl.

It was a nice weather week, and there were kids everywhere we went. Parents, grandparents, and daycare providers know winter is coming, so getting the kids outside now is imperative. Plus, you don’t have to spend ten minutes dressing them.

When Levi was younger, a playground visit meant Grandpa pushing him on the swing and being a monster chasing him. That’s still true if we are alone. But now if there are other kids, they run to each other to begin playing together. That’s all right; I got time to sit on a park bench and read.

What I was seeing was the important socialization of children older than toddlers with adolescence still off in the future. It’s a necessary stage of development as the child’s world is growing outward from the parents who nurtured him. Levi’s world is expanding. The same is true for the other kids he was running with and climbing with and pretending with.

When he was off with one of his new friends, I couldn’t hear everything they were saying. Sometimes I could hear “You be this” or “I’ll be that” or “You go there” or “I’ll go here.” It took no time at all for them to create a pretend world. Four, five, six-year-olds play hard. It’s almost like they know the summer is short. The same is true for the season of childhood.

I had forgotten how children this age generally get along. It’s good to have an adult nearby to referee the occasional dispute over a toy or sooth a hurt elbow. But the great majority of time Levi and his playmates did fine. I noticed they had an innate sense of fairness. Taking turns and sharing were common. Some of that was taught by parents, but some of it seems in them.

Over the week, Levi played with whatever kid was there to play with. Skin color, hair, ethnicity didn’t matter, so long as they were three to four feet tall. Later I would ask Levi the name of that kid he was playing with. Usually, he didn’t know. Being another kid was all that mattered. One time he was playing with a young black girl, and Levi certainly wasn’t aware of her status in the census.

Having raised three kids, I know about the bullying and petty behavior that children can display, especially as they become teenagers. But at least for one week on Brown County playgrounds, I saw a lot more getting along than not. It was enough to bring that column back that I decided not to write.

For a couple of decades, I’ve been an Intermittent Parks Worker at Fort Ridgely State Park. I get called to sub or to help with projects where they need an extra hand. I enjoy the work and the people there. It gets me off the farm once and around other human beings, which my wife thinks is good for me.

An eight-hour day there has scheduled breaks. At 10 and 3, staff gathers in the break room over coffee, soda, or water. For fifteen minutes, we compare notes, adjust work assignments, and engage in silly banter. Sometimes we go to large measures to get us together from all corners of the park. I assume it is required contractually. It’s good to know if you are slaving away with a pruning shears on a hot day that a break is coming.

All of us do different work in different places. But most take some sort of respite from our toils. It is a “break.” We break up our day, breaking it into smaller pieces. For physical labor, we rest our body. For mental work, we free our mind briefly from its focus.

I am a critter of habit. For years, our mail came around 9:30. That was a perfect mid-morning time to stop whatever farm task I was doing to warm up another cup of coffee, grab a cookie, and see what the outside world had sent to us. In British literature, “elevenses” are the name given the mid-morning tea and biscuit. I’m not British, but this was my elevenses. It was the routinest of routines.

Until, gasp, the Postal Office changed the routes. Suddenly our mail didn’t come till noon. I don’t like change, and I told Pam my life was ruined. She assured me it wasn’t. After a few weeks of staring out the driveway every day at 9:30, I adjusted. Kicking and screaming, but I adjusted. Now at 9:30, I still come in the house and screw around online a bit. The mail is served with noon meal, dinner. Or lunch. Or whatever you town people call it.

It was a good reminder that the world does not revolve around me. For sure not the Postal Service.

Speaking of meals, when I was young, we had every kind of crop and every kind of animal here. Then we had breakfast, morning lunch, dinner, afternoon lunch, and supper. Snacks were interspersed in between. Amazingly most people weren’t fat in the World That I Grew Up In. All those crops and livestock were raised with at lot more back and a lot less machine. Long workdays required sustenance.

My mom despite her thousand daily tasks actually delivered lunch to the field certain times of year. Lunch, not dinner. Dinner was at noon in her kitchen, come hell or high water.

It was during one of those lunches baling oat straw in the sun and sweat that I had my first part of a beer. I was 13 or 14, and some not-very-cold bottles of Hauenstein were in the basketed provisions. I don’t remember exactly liking it. It was wet and more interesting than not-very-cold water. I’ve come to think that every young person should have their first taste of tipple with their parents present under a hot July sun. I was hardly about to get into any trouble out there.

Flashing ahead a few years, in 1977 I spent a college semester in Germany. I remember regularly seeing laborers having a beer on their breaktime at their jobsites. It was part of the culture of that place and time, although I suspect that has changed. One seldom saw a drunk person in Germany. Responsible drinking stood in contrast to the college world I’d left back home.

I told friend Scott who is Safety Coordinator for Mathiowetz Construction Company about that once. I wondered if they should supply beer to the MCC crew for their break. I think his heart skipped a beat.

Beer or not, taking a time to rest, relax, restore is vital. There is a point when working steadily that one’s production declines, and eventually goes backward. We can become unproductive. Certainly, with farm labor, after a long stretch of hours, work becomes less safe.

Nature gives us an apt example of taking a breather. Winter is as if the Earth is at rest, exhausted by three seasons of birth, growth, and ripening. As farmers and gardeners know, every growing season is race from seed to harvest. It is a sprint and a marathon. Winter comes and the fields go dormant, creatures either migrate or slow down. Farmers take extra time to eat cookies and read farm magazines.

Man-made endeavors also have breaks put into them. Plays have an intermission, music has interludes, schools have Christmas vacation, highways have rest stops. In all things, we know we can’t go from beginning to end without time in between to energize, heal if needed, and refocus.

Perhaps man’s most perfect creation is baseball. Inning breaks are built in, ideal interlude for players and fans. They have become haven for commercials, but that is an indictment of hyper-capitalism more than the fine sport of baseball.

The Creator of all this didn’t really need to rest on the Seventh Day. But it is written in as such in Genesis. There it is woven into the very fabric of the universe. Every action has a reaction; every push has a pull; every effort has a resting point. It is why staff gathers in the breakroom at Fort Ridgely at ten and three.

The other day, I found myself with time to think. I was trying to turn onto Main Street-Highway 14 from First Avenue. Usually, I would have wasted that hour playing with the radio and banging my head on the steering wheel. This time I tried to be productive.

This was in the middle of Sleepy Eye, where the Department of Transportation decided we don’t need a stop light. Apparently, people going east/west are more important. North-South Driver Lives Matter protests have been peaceful but so far ineffective.

Del Monte’s announcement that they were closing the plant was a blow to the community in several ways. Making Corn Days obsolete was one of them. The good folks in town are putting their shoulders to the grindstone to come up with Life After Corn Days. Mayor-guy Wayne, Chamber-gal Chris, and the other townie leaders are on this.

I’m rooting for them. I’m quite fond of Sleepy Eye. You can see it from my place. No, really. That’s not like Sarah Palin’s claim that you can see Russia from Alaska.

There is precedent for a community recovering from the loss of a signature summer event. We need only look to our neighbor to the east. Fifty years ago, the last Polka Days was held in New Ulm. New Ulm bounced back from that and is still there. At least it was last Wednesday.

Polka Days started out as a way for downtown merchants to thank the public for their support in 1953. It grew to draw thousands for a parade and music. And beer. Lots of beer. Giant tubs of beer lined the street outside New Ulm’s many taverns. They didn’t just sell to anybody; you had to be standing. Or leaning on something. Or at least sitting upright. Sort of.

Polka Days was canceled after setting world records for public displays of inebriation. Today, not a lot of people remember Polka Days. Of course, that was true the day after Polka Days, too. New Ulm moved on. Heritagefest and later Bavarian Blast tried to bring a level of respectability to an annual festival of beer, music, brats, and beer. Or at least have a fence around it.

So as a public service, here are ideas for the new Corn Days:

Gravity Days. I have long thought that gravity is underrated. Just sit and think a while about all the things we couldn’t do without gravity. Walking, eating, sleeping become problematic. Have you ever thought about going to the bathroom without gravity? I hadn’t either till now, but it’s a disturbing thought.

What better way to honor this underappreciated invisible force than a small-town summer festival. Gravity Days will of course have trampoline competitions as we celebrate our attachment to this planet. There will be exhibitions of things dropped from high places to see which lands first. My money’s on the rock.

Upside down food will be served in the park. An upside-down chugging competition could get messy. Balloon rides remind us of what would happen if gravity were to suddenly end. A softball tournament with random helium filled balls that never come down could be high scoring.

Catholics and Lutherans Getting Along Days. We’ve come to take it for granted that Catholics and Lutherans can peacefully co-exist. It wasn’t always so. Our ancestors in Europe were always fighting. There were numerous wars after Luther posted his theses. The Schmalkaldic War and the Düsseldorf Cow War were among them. The Nine Years War and Thirty Years War came later, after they ran out of cool war names.

Outside of few unnamed bar fights, Sleepy Eye folks lived peaceably compared to our forebears. For much of Sleepy Eye’s history, though, it was known that the tracks divided the town. In the words of old-timers, it was “Catlics on da nort side and Lutrans on da sout side.” There was a Lutheran grocery store and Catholic grocery store, a Lutheran drug store and a Catholic drug store, schools, and churches of one stripe or the other. There was a nondenominational Post Office, with ecumenical mingling of mail. Care was taken to keep Lutheran Brotherhood and Knights of Columbus magazines separate.

Now we get along and even talk sometimes. A summer festival celebrating that could be big. Christians of all stripes could eat together, drink beer together, and dance together. As long as a hand fits between them.

Pretty Good Days. The world is filled with hyperbole: the best this, the greatest that. What’s wrong with being pretty good? Sleepy Eye is a nice little town filled with decent people. They may not be spectacular, but they go to work every day, take care of their kids, and have some fun. In other words, they’re pretty good folks.

We’ll serve some not so bad food. Passable music won’t offend anyone and might get your toes tapping on the chorus. We’ll have a nice parade that you won’t remember long, but at least you won’t remember it for the wrong reasons. There’s something to be said for not being hubristic and boastful. We’re not sure what that is, but we’re going to celebrate that at Pretty Good Days.

End of Days. This one I got from the Estimable Mr. Schmid. We were talking about Sleepy Eye’s plans to have an End of Summer Days. Mike wondered, why not an End of Days? Or should it be End of Days Days? We’ll leave that to the committee. As Christians, we know the end times are coming. Why not embrace that!

Sure, in Revelations, the end times seem like a downer with Armageddon and fire breathing dragons descending upon the Earth. Let’s look on the bright side. That credit card debt? Gone. Your annoying neighbor? You know he’s not going anywhere in the Rapture. The garage your wife’s been bugging you to organize? Hey, who’s going to care during the epic fiery last battle as the planet goes up in flames?

If we reflect on the Final Days, we’re going to want to enjoy these Nearly Final Days. What better way than a summer festival at Allison Park on the shores of comely Sleepy Eye Lake. And if we’re here next year, all the more reason to celebrate End of Days. Again.

Early on a June morning seven years ago, we drove our son Ezra to the Mankato National Guard Armory.  There, he boarded a bus with other recruits.  We were able to drive up to the airport and spend time with him before he flew to Atlanta on his way to Fort Benning, Georgia.

Ezra was 17, between his junior and senior year at St. Mary’s.  He was going to spend ten weeks in basic training, the beginning of a six-year commitment to the Army National Guard.  He seemed young to be doing such a thing.  But then, I suspect every parent of every boy going off to be a soldier has thought the same for as long as there have been soldiers.

As a small child, Ezra’s toy soldiers mixed with his plastic animals and Pokémon creatures in his play world.  As a boy, I can picture Ezra and his friend Ethan Siefkes going off to fight imaginary battles in our grove with toy guns and sticks.

Not every child who plays army ends up in the Army.  But Ezra’s interest lasted into his teen years, and eventually to a contact with a National Guard recruiter.  (Ethan would go on to join the Marines.  After two deployments, Ethan is still serving overseas.  It seems there was something in our grove that inspired service.)

On a winter night, the recruiter sat at our kitchen table with Ezra, Pam, and I.  We clearly had moved on from the world of pretend.  For Ezra to begin his service before his eighteenth birthday, Pam and I had to sign off.  That led to challenging conversation between parents and son, and between father and mother.  Ezra really wanted this.  That was a lot different than really wanting an X-Box.

We finally acquiesced, and there we were at the airport a few months later, hugging our youngest as he prepared to spend his longest time ever away from us and home.

There would be no Junior Bi-County baseball or U17 soccer for Ezra that summer.  In their place was a grueling ten weeks of physical and mental challenges that were Basic Training in the heat of southern Georgia.  The recruits were allowed only a few phone calls.  We wrote letters back and forth: letters, just like soldiers would have sent home from the Civil War.  It was interesting to communicate with our 21rst-century son in that old form.

In August, we flew south and after a while touristing made our way to Columbus, Georgia, outside Fort Benning.  The day before the graduation ceremony, we drove around the base, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ezra in the various marching groups.  We visited The National Infantry Museum on the base.  There, one can walk through realistic panoramas of battles from the Revolutionary War to Desert Storm, complete with light and sound.  Each was an intense reminder of what young men have been called to experience for our country.

The next day, on the parade grounds, we got to see our son for the first time in two months.  Dressed handsomely in his uniform white shirt with medals, blue pants, and beret, he was in formation with about 100 other young men who were his Basic Training class.  It was a moment when, regardless of your opinions of military or war, you couldn’t help but feel markedly proud.

I mentioned how young Ezra looked at the airport in June.  He and his mates assembled on the field, most of them 17 or 18, still looked young.  But something in Ezra looked less like a boy now.  Parents are used to their children growing gradually; this was a jolt.

Lots of thoughts coursed through this father’s head as I watched the drills and listened to the speeches.  They were trained to defend our country.  That sounds noble and high-minded.  But those hundred boys/men by their presence indicated they were willing to give up their lives as part of that.  It’s hard to know how that notion sets in the mind of a seventeen-year-old.  It’s not something Pam and I talked about.  But it was there, a pesky fly of a thought you wish you could swat away.

Later they broke rank.  We got to hug our son, bookending the summer with our hug at the airport in June.  We met some of the friends he made, bonded by their shared experience.  In the relief of that moment, Ezra and his buddies could be goofy kids again.  It was good to see he hadn’t fully leapt to adulthood, that he hadn’t completely skipped adolescence.

Some of that class was Army National Guard like Ezra.  They would fly home and go back to school or work.  They were committed to Advanced Individual Training the next summer, a weekend every month, a month every summer, and more if asked.  Others in Ezra’s class were fulltime Army.  After a few days with their families, they would be going off to Army bases to begin their careers.  It is likely some of them ended up in the Mideast, very much in harm’s way.

In the years right before then, National Guard was being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan regularly.  Seven years ago, there was the sense that those deployments were winding down.  We didn’t know that for sure, but as parents, that is what we were hoping.  Ezra might have felt different.  He was young and itching to use his new skills.  Ezra finished his commitment and lives in Denver now.

I look back on being that age.  Similar to Ezra’s timing, Vietnam was winding down.  Young men a year or two older were very much aware of the draft and their options.  That accidental timing had a huge impact on lives, especially lives that were cut short.  I have thought about how oblivious I was to all of it then.  In the late Seventies, there were a spate of movies about the Vietnam War.  I remember watching “Platoon” and “The Deer Hunter” at the Pix Theater and thinking, “Wow, that could have been me.”

When our kids were young, I made a point to take them to Memorial Day service at the cemeteries in town.  It seemed important to remember those gone and honor those living.  I don’t know if that made an impression on Ezra.    It was mostly older men holding the flags and laying the wreaths.  They were young once, probably not sure what they were getting into.  A lot like those young men on the Fort Benning parade ground.

My sis-in-law, Gwen of Gibbon, came across a photo she shared with me.  It was from about 40 years ago.  Pam and I were dating or just married.  My father Sylvester is in it.  He was then about the age I am now.  Gwen pointed out, and I couldn’t deny, there were/are strong similarities between us.  I admit doing a double take when I saw it.

I never really thought of me looking like my dad.  He was old; I was young.  Sylvester was 48 when I came along.  I never knew him as anybody but an old guy.  Lo and behold, now I’m an old guy.  Pictures don’t lie, right?

I am not alone in noting this phenomenon.  Among friends I’ve had since boyhood, we joke about turning into our parents.  As far as we knew, our parents were only young in black and white wedding pictures that hung in hallways.  Now we look around, and I’ll be if Mike Schmid doesn’t look like Don and John Schwartz doesn’t look like Jim.  I guess that’s the way genetics works.  But like a lot of things we know in our head, they surprise us when they happen.

When I write, I try to think of things a reader and I have in common.  It’s like a conversation where you build off things you share.  This time it’s easy.  Each of us, all of us, have a mother and a father.

From there, differences grow.  You may have grown up like me with one set of parents in one house.  Or you might have had stepparents through death or divorce.  Or you might be adopted and may or may not know your biological parents.

There can be a distinction made between the mother and father who gave you your genes and the mother and father who raised you.  Most of us give large credit to the people who changed your diaper, taught you how to bike, and sat through your school conferences when handing out the title of Mom and Dad.

In the competition for saddest things, high on that list has to be a battle for parental rights.  To think that care and love and affection for a child would be something to be fought over in a court is terribly grim.  But it happens.  It is a sign this is a broken world.  It has always been such; it is all our obligation to make it less broken.

As we totter between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, it’s a good time to think of what our parents have given to us.  It certainly is the way we look, but there is so much more.

When children are young, it’s common to hear this one has mom’s forehead or that one has dad’s chin.  Or maybe they have their grandmother’s hair or their grandfather’s ears.  I don’t think little kids especially like those comparisons.  You can almost see them thinking. “What do you mean?  I’m me.  I’m not someone else.”

I still occasionally have an older relative tell me such things.  Unlike a small child, now I enjoy hearing that.  When I see Sylvester in the mirror, it’s a connection I am glad to have.  My parents are gone twenty years, and it’s nice to call them to mind.  Beyond that relationship, I remember that I am a link in a chain that goes back many generations.  The great majority of my ancestors I won’t know, even if I do have my great, great, great grandfather’s cheeks.

We have babies in Pam’s family right now, two great-nieces.  As we’ve begun to get together, I’ve met these new people.  Watching their small faces, I remember the intense staring that little ones do.  Their eyes have such focus on those close to them.  That’s the parents most of the time.  You can see babies using this time to learn how facial expressions work, how a smile turns the lips this way and a frown that way.

There are those physical things we inherit.  But beyond features and expressions, there are parts of our makeup we take from our parents that we’ll never fully understand and appreciate.  These are at least as important as our hair.  When we are young, we absorb like sponges.  Attitudes, biases, interests are put in us.

Sometimes working on the farm, I’ll come across a problem.  And after it has been resolved effectively, or poorly handled in some cases, I remember working with my father in comparable situations.  I suspect the way I analyze, sort information, see the options, and come to conclusions have similarities to the way my dad did.  That is natural.

In like fashion, I suspect there are ways I am a husband and a father that are rooted in things I saw my parents do.  Some of that is advice they gave me.  But more of it is watching how they carried themselves.  We know children pay more attention to what we do than what we say.

Of course, there are large elements of mystery in this.  It’s hardly predictable.  Scientists can debate nature vs. nurture for hours.  Many of us see our children, raised by the same parents in the same home, and are surprised how different they are.

I look at our own children.  I think it is difficult to see Pam and me or our influence in their grown selves.  I am too close to them to see that.  I still from time to time stop and feel amazed that here they are, three unique and beautiful people.  They can certainly drive us nuts, but they are a miracle.  Every parent has those moments.

Then I remember the hand of the Creator in putting them on Earth and in their lives.  They have a soul that was given to them in the womb.  That is the greatest miracle.  They have God’s spirit.  That’s a bigger deal than Pam’s hair or my nose.

I joke that I don’t get off the farm much. Church, and go to get supplies a couple times a year. Sugar and cooking oil.

That might have been true for my grandparents 100 years ago. I get off the farm pretty much every day. That means going out our driveway and turning left or right onto US Highway 14. Sleepy Eye is right. Some days I go there multiple times. For a bolt. Or some eggs. Or to mail something. That’s one trip if I’m organized, three if I’m not.

But mostly I’ve driven on Highway 14. East is Sleepy Eye, New Ulm, and Rochester where our daughter lives. Some figuring on the back of an envelope says I’ve turned that way 50,000 times in my life, give or take. I turn left not as often. West is Cobden and Brookings, both noted centers of education.

Most of us have a road or street of some type out our driveway. Not all are as busy as Highway 14. Some of you live on quiet residential streets or quieter township roads. It is where you turn left or right to your own appointed tasks. Or maybe you go straight if you don’t have a soybean field there like me.

Unless you live in a cul-de-sac, that is where you see the world go by. Those cars and trucks buzzing by have their own appointed tasks. Business, shopping, appointments, visiting, I’m trying to think where all those people might be going. Maybe some are just driving around.

I’m not sure it’s statistically true, but it seems there is more traffic than when I was young. Or maybe that’s one of those perceptions colored by age. I am trying to become more patient as I get older. But if I have to wait at the end of our driveway for eight cars and two semis, I find myself tapping the steering wheel and saying, “C’mon!”

I usually don’t think about the people going past. I recognize a few neighbors and people from town. But most are just a vehicle. I’m barely aware there are human beings inside. They’re an anonymous blur. At 60 miles per hour, you don’t get too good a look at them.

It’s always been a thought of mine to drive U. S. Highway 14 from one end to the other. I don’t have a bucket list. It’s more of a cup list, but that’s on it.

I’ve gone as far east as Madison, Wisconsin. Further that way, Highway 14 goes south and east to Janesville. Then through miles of suburbs and into Chicago, where it doesn’t quite make it to Lake Michigan. It ends literally a few blocks from there. I’ve driven in Chicago a couple times, where I feel like Jed Clampett driving through Beverly Hills. Only now, Jedd has GPS.

I’ve gone as far west as Rapid City. Our family has driven to the Black Hills, but never gotten any further. We’re hampered by the need to stop and look at odd things and to talk to random people. Further west, Highway 14 goes through Wyoming and ends at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

A little digging around, and I found some history of my road. I am calling it my road. But you people in New Ulm, feel free to use it.

There would have been a dirt road past here when our farmsite was set up after 1896. That’s when my great grandparents bought the land. A century ago, roads were a local matter. Cart paths and even walking trails were being improved for new-fangled automobiles. This road ran parallel to the railroad tracks north of it, back when the rails were more important than any road.

I have seen reference to Highway 14 as the Black and Yellow Trail. That name was given to it by tourism promoters out east before it was even US Highway 14, encouraging people to travel west on the road that went from the Black Hills to Yellowstone.

Highway 14 was among the first designated United States highways in 1926. It’s interesting to think of a major east-west roadway being partially dirt and sand. But that’s what it was past here when horses were sharing the road with early cars. My parents were married in 1934, and they remembered 14 being paved soon after.

At times, my road had dreams of becoming something more. There were plans for Highway 14 to go from Boston to Seattle, coast to coast. Those got shuttled somewhere along the way. Then there was consideration in the Fifties of running I-90 on 14. If that would have happened, there’s a chance I wouldn’t be here right now. The interstate likely would have gone south of town and might have plowed through our yard.

Now, most people-moving is done by vehicles like those I see out my window. In earlier times, that would have been by train. If your home was along the tracks, you could look out and watch people go past you. Or you might have sat along a riverbank and watched people go past on a steamship before the rails were laid.

It’s the same sensation. You, still and stationary. Others, going past on their way to somewhere other than here.

We used to have a children’s book about a little boy lying in his bed watching out his window as a train went clattering by in the night. He dreamily imagines the riders on that train, and where they are going and what they are doing. In the same way, the roads past us are fertile ground for our imaginations as we wonder about those travelling through the night or day.

Whether it’s a road, a train, or a river, our mind can also imagine us out there, going left or right, going somewhere else. Maybe we should be in another place? That can range from thinking of a day trip to explore a new place, to wondering what it would be like to live 500 miles east or west. That then can lead to some reflection about how you got to where you are, choices you made along the way, and roads not taken.

All that can come from watching cars go by.