When you live where your father lived and work where your father worked, you hear his voice sometimes. He passed away twenty-five years ago, but he still reminds me to put equipment away at night and clean up grain spills.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t put gravel on the driveway in a long time. My dad used to have that done. A voice in my head said I should do that. Or was it my dad’s voice?
Regardless, I called a Heiderscheidt. That is what I do in all matters of earthly materials, A few days later Monte was artfully applying a layer of gravel the length of the driveway. When Monte was done, I ran our 4-wheeler with a small drag in and out the driveway.
Then I went to rake a few spots. Virgin gravel is an exquisitely perfect thing. You almost hate to be the first one to walk on it. As I pulled the rake back and forth, a memory came to me. I recalled being a kid, and my brother and I going out to play in new gravel. Sometimes it was a pile and sometimes a layer like this.
We’d get our “beach toys” like shovels and pails and our toy tractors. If we were good the Christmas before, we had Tonka Toys to move the sand around.
I quit raking and knelt down. I pushed my hand into the soft, cool gravel. It will soon be hard and warm, but it’s squishy and kind of supple when it’s fresh off the truck. As kids, we had to get out there and play in it right away to experience those best conditions. Like many good things in life, it was fleeting.
I briefly wished I was a kid again. We have toys in the basement for when our grandson visits. I think Pam might have been concerned if I had gotten them out to play with. So, I returned to boring adult raking.
As much as one can retrieve feelings and sensations from six decades in the past, it was fun to remember the excitement of new gravel to my kid-self. I thought about other times when fun presented itself, times when a play-world appeared unexpectedly.
New snow came to mind. We all remember rushing out into the first snow. Our moms may or may not have got our boots on before we ran out. Maybe we fell to the ground to make a snow angel. Or we made the season’s first snowball if the snow was right.
There were other places on the farm that called to us as kids if the day was right. The rock pile could be a stone castle or a garrison with imagination and shifting stones around. There was a hill south of the house that leant itself to rolling down when it was newly mowed. You lay at the top, tucked your arms in, and turned yourself till gravity took over. Dizziness followed.
A couple nights ago, I stepped outside. Above were a thousand stars. Below was the sound of a thousand crickets. It’s a good cricket year judging by the size of the nocturnal choir. It was reassuring to hear that; there weren’t many crickets last year. Again, I flashed back to being a boy, looking up and being filled with something. I’m not sure if it was awe looking up at Creation. Or maybe it was confusion, trying to figure out how I fit in that eternity.
I was recently visiting with friends who are bikers. They regularly use the abundance of trails in the Cities for two-wheel journeys. Beth said, “I feel like I’m twelve years old when I’m on my bike!”
Of course, Beth’s not twelve on her bike, and I’m not eight with my hand in the cool gravel. But there is an urge to slide back to childhood in little moments. Unfettered exuberance, wonder, and total curiosity are things we were better at as kids. It’s good to reclaim those now and then.
It’s emotionally healthy and perhaps even physically healthy. I jog a little, and I came across a technique call “chi running.” That borrows from the Chinese martial art form of tai chi. It is supposed to increase efficiency and reduce injuries. A major principle of chi running is to run like a child runs.
From an instructor, “Look at the way you used to run as a kid. Kids are constantly taking quick steps and leaning forward to let their body, not their legs, do most of their work.” With that in mind, I’ve watched my eight-year-old grandson run and tried to imagine myself as him when I’m running. Alas, I am still a 68-year-old plodding old guy. But it’s fun to try.
I realize living where I grew up is an odd phenomenon. It’s true for some farmers but for few others. It does mean that you not only get to hear your father’s voice, but you also get to stand in the places you stood as a kid.
Perhaps that makes it easier to relive youth moments. But it’s not perfect. Recently I was in our orchard. I realized every tree that was there when I was a kid is gone. In their place are trees Pam and I planted. The three apple trees that marked first, second, and third base in kickball games are gone. As is the big sweeping Duchess apple tree that hung over the swing. The trees there now hopefully carry memories for our children.
This summer, Pam has been carving a path to walk through the grove. We’ve found a collection of rusted tools, farm parts, bottles, and barbed wire. Buried in brush and leaves, I found an old baseball, soggy and moldy.
There are others back there, as I can recall hitting balls over the granary and spending time trying to find them. As I held the ragged ball in my hands, I thought that I last held the ball half a century ago. I had a vision of the boy-me handing the ball to the old guy-me.
You can’t be twelve again, but sometimes you can touch it. I hope each of you gets your own chance. We need breaks from adulthood.