It had been nearly thirty years, thirty years since I had been back. I won’t go into the reason or anything, but will just say nearly thirty years ago was the last time I have visited home, visited the place where I had been born, the place where I had been raised, and deep down the place I still called home. The place which for me held many fond and good memories, memories of a child growing up on a small spread, a big garden, a couple milk cows, some chickens, and those durned Guineas.
I parked my truck down where the old mailbox had been and climbed the broken down fence and looked around, looked around at the road which led through the small hollow up to our house. Our home would be more appropriate for we had a home, a home which was not much to look at but it was ours, and it was filled with love, lots of love, for I was blessed to have been born to two parents such as mine.
Used to be on the left side of the road leading up the hollow there were chinquapin bushes, which provided us good eating in the fall, and on the other side were a bunch of fruit trees. Not the large ones you see around a house, but scraggledy ones, real scraggledy ones. But Grandpa Buck made sure they were trimmed and fed the right natural fertilizer twice a year. The largest was the red apple tree, Wine sap it was, and then there were three cherry trees, two pear trees, four persimmon trees, two quince trees, and there at the top of the hollow were four peach trees. I think grandpa Buck planted them so the children coming home from school or just passing up the hollow to our house could eat whatever was ripe and in season. Eat what they wanted without someone telling them no. Grandpa buck was like that; man he must have been one heck of a kid for the things he did as an adult and the twinkle in his eye told me he was one hell raiser in his day.
But the fruit trees were all grown wild, they had not been trimmed in years, but they were still there and still were producing, from the looks of the ground. I walked up the rutted out road and remembered coming home from school, get to the mail box and then run, run as hard as I could up the hollow up on the flat which overlooked the big meadow to our house.
I didn’t know what to expect, as I ambled up the lane. And then slowly I reached the big clearing, I stopped a lot and looked around, looked to see how things were or how they are and how I remembered them. The old house was gone, burned down, lightning strike some said, but I think it was some drunks. I walked toward the old chimney which had fallen and stopped.
I looked around, looked all around, and the grass as near knee high there where I stood, and I looked down across the big meadow, the great big pasture field down toward the creek which ran across the big meadow and it made cold chills run up my body, for it brought back a good feeling.
And then I turned and looked off up the hill and across from the old house and there it was the old barn, the old barn still stood. Although it was worse for wear and had seen many better days, it was still there, and I as moseyed over toward it, many fond memories of that building did come rushing back into my head, and back into my mind. Heck we had lived in that old barn for six months when the old house had burned. And in that barn was where I had first known, Mary Jane, Mary Jane Beck, my first love.
In that old barn I had smoked my first tobacco, Jim and I had made us a corn cob pipe and had gone in there and smoked rabbit tobacco; we both got really sick. Mom and dad had laughed at us for it. No whipping, no scolding, just both had laughed, and Grandpa Buck had offered Jim and I some of his sack ‘baccy’ as he called it.
And that old barn is where we had also had I first drink, homemade Dandelion wine, gosh it was awful, and I was sick for three or four days. And then since it was so bad, we made cider and tried to make it super strong. But we did not know the first thing about fermentation and making apple jack. Jim must have wanted to learn for he is now the chief chemist for a big Distillery in Kentucky.
I walked over to the big old stump, the stump of that giant oak which had grown in front of the old house, the big old white oak tree which had been there when the farm was settled way back when, back a long time ago. It was a big storm which had caused the fire. A big July summer lightning and thunder storm it was, lightning had hit the big oak and it had fallen on the old house, knocking the chimney and roof down, and the cook stove in the kitchen had caught the house on fire, and it was gone before anything could be saved, well just the family, mom, dad, me, Jim and Laura Joe. We got out and ran to the barn and it was gone, the house was gone. The only water dad had was the rain and the old hand pump well; so dad tried to save anything he could because he realized that a few buckets of water would make no difference. That old oak or what was left of it after the fire, was cut up and Grandpa Buck had used it to make us some furniture, the furniture which I still have in my house at home. As you can imagine or surmise I do not live around here, no I roamed and settled out West.
I walked over to the old barn and it was in pretty bad shape, as I walked around it and looked inside. Finally I just went around to the side and pulled a couple boards off the wall and slid inside. Funny as I slid inside that old barn and stood waiting for my eyes to adapt to the light, a feeling came over me, a feeling as if I was going back, back till I was a small boy standing in that barn. Gosh standing inside and looking out, that old barn did not look like it was of much use as protection from the elements, but it was. As I look up I can see the sky and clouding moving and the hay loft seems to have a lot of chinks in its wall.
I looked up and saw something looking at me, I jumped then it did not move; but I did move and as I did its head followed me. Gosh I would swear its head swiveled all the way round. Then it said, “Who?” I laughed for it was the first time I had really seen a barn owl. There was hay in the loft, loose hay it was, and four stalls over against the wall. For the two horses and the cows, because back then the animals were brought in when it got real cold. Two or three cats were usually there, for they were the ratters which patrolled the barn. Yes I smiled thinking back about my first sighting of Mr. Owl. Heck come to think of it, why do I still call animals, critters or whatever you wish to call them “Mister or Miz?” Guess that went back to Grandpa and Grandma, for that is how they addressed mot everything thing.
Boy, it just hit me, Grandma always called Grandpa Buck, “Mister.” It was never “Buck” but always “Mister Fuqua.” Funny how back then a lot of ladies called their husbands that, mister so and so.
As I said after the fire, we just moved in to the corner of the barn. A partition was made so we had a room, and we did sleep up in the hay. Me and Jim in one spot and sis, Laura Joe, over near mom and dad. Gosh it was so neat indeed, living in the barn and sleeping in the hay. But eating was a problem for us, until dad did make a table from an old door. Of course neighbors did bring stuff by, clothes and shoes and pots and pans. But Grandpa Buck and Grandma made sure we did not want for too much. For mom and dad always did say, “Toughing it out is good for you, for then when you grow up, you will not have a bad time when things get tough.”
But each day for a week, folks would come by and drop off stuff. And mom and dad did smile and plan, for a new house we were going to build. Dad took a job in town for extra money to earn and mom did her thing at home. And heck we kids pitched in, hoeing, plowing and chopping weeds. Back then if you were old enough to walk, you were expected to help with the work.
And you know what? I look back and heck the discipline meted out to us when we were bad, and the work and chores we did as young shavers; heck today the parents would be in jail, serving prison terms for making their children help and to carry their own weight. No wonder the now generation can do nothing, and have no real drive and appreciation for what it takes to earn. One day I will finish this thought.
I walked over to the old barn door and sure enough that old six by six was still holding it closed. And then I smiled for there was my baseball cap, my first real baseball cap; for one spring when the major league teams were heading north, they would stop along the way and play exhibition games, Dad took Jim and I and we both bought us a real Major League baseball cap, one just like the Boston Braves wore. That Warren Sphann was so smooth, and Ewell Blackwell with those long arm, delivering side-armed as a change up, man I wanted to be a pro ball player. Me and a million other young boys.
Just for the heck of it, I check the other big doors and it had that all familiar two by six holding it closed. When we did was to use the people door on the side, coming and going. Yeah when we moved into the barn, mom said, “No animals in my house,” and so dad had to build a lean to on the side of the barn to house the animals until we moved out. Then one winter he closed it in and we had two storage rooms there in the barn. Funny how back then a barn and smoke house were where everything was stored. I went over and poked in some old feed barrels, and found a small feed scoop, made from a quart oil can. Just cut the corner off and add a wood handle of sorts and you had a grain scoop. Two scoops for each horse and one scoop twice a day for each cow.
I turned to go outside and then I saw all of the chicken and bird droppings on the rafters and beams. The chickens ran loose until winter time and then they were kept in a chicken house. And oh how I hated that twice a year cleaning and shoveling out the chicken house. Mom used the chicken manure for her special projects, for if used to liberally it would burn up whatever you planted. But mom knew exactly how much and how to use the manure. That danged big old Rhode Island Red rooster, man he was up and a crowing every morning. Think that is why the chicken house was so far from the house, so dad did not have to listen or be wakened by that durn rooster each morning.
I slide back through the space where I had removed the boards and then take a rock and nail them back on. Then I go around to the two store rooms on the side. The door is easy to open and there it was, my bicycle, my bicycle I rode to and from school for a lot of years. Not many boys had their own cars or truck back then, only the rich and a few with jobs. Well I had a job, a job at home helping dad, but I did get a job in town when I was in high school. Some interesting jobs I had, and I always laugh and the memory of working as a deliver boy for Mr. Fizer at the hardware store jumps out, and Mrs. Thorpe, who introduced me to, well that is another story.
Funny that old bicycle still had its tires, flat of course but the dust was thick on it and when I wiped it off, durn that old chrome was put on to stay for it was still shiny. I looked around and there was my old baseball glove and my Charlie Gehringer bat, a 36 inch Adirondack, with a really big handle. I was always hitting on the handle so I went to a bat with a big handle and it certainly did make for a lot of scratch singles. And my old home made sliding pads, pads my mom made because I did not have four dollars for a new pair. I rummaged around and then put everything back as I found it. I closed the door, and then dusted myself off as I walked back up to where the old house sat.
I sat down on that old oak stump and took an apple from my pocket and began to chomp on it and to again look around. What should I do with this place, should I sell it, should I keep it? The taxes aren’t that much but I won’t ever come back here to live. For years my plans were to come back after I had made my fortune of course, come back and build my dream house and then spend the last of my days, living in the house overlooking the big pasture and the stream, just fiddling and fishing. But this was a pretty place and it was the place where mom and dad were buried, and where a small stone in memory of Lara Joe who is really buried with her family there in Maumee is located.
Jim does not want the place, for I bought him out when mom and dad died. I used to think about being buried here. And then I walked up the big hill to the little clearing there on top of the knob and the old family cemetery was there, growing and still there. I stood and looked at the markers and smiled as I remembered dad's last words, “Son bury me up on the knob, and never let the place go, keep it for your children or your children’s children.”
“Mom, Dad, I won’t, and hopefully my sons will keep it and just maybe someone will come back and build them a house there where we lived.” I wiped my eyes, durned wind anyhow, and slowly ambled back down the hill toward my truck. I will be back sooner next time.