The Redemption

Chapter 2

The Root of the Problem

Then, I realized the flight was done, the drive was over, and now I was sitting in the driveway near the front of the house. What was wrong with me?

We’d never used the front door and that obviously hadn’t changed. The gray dirt covered the first step and was working it’s way up to the second.  I let the car ease up as far as the back porch. A pickup truck had been parked behind the house next to the back porch. I knew I’d be leaving before he would and so I turned the engine off.

I wondered why Uncle Junior or Uncle Ralph hadn’t given my father a hand? They were also born here. Junior had always come to help at planting time and during harvest. It was the same every year but it wasn’t true now. Maybe Uncle Junior wasn’t well.

I walked close to the house, letting it serve as a windbreak. Reaching the back porch, the old swing was in the corner leaning against the house. The chains that once held it were rusty ornaments hanging from the ceiling.

My mother and I swung together every night after supper before she went in to wash dishes. It was a memory that brought a smile to my face. The swing was always clean and freshly painted, even after my mother died, but it too had fallen on hard times.

The wind blew in gusts as I looked around, carrying the soil away with nothing to hold it down. The smell was no longer of sweet corn but of rich Iowa soil caught in a breeze. It was on the ground and in the air. The machinery and my father’s truck collected what passed their way.

Even after so many years in cities, I could not ignore the waste. Years ago every crop and every ear of corn was important. It was a different time and a mostly one-man operation failed fast if the man was unable to put in a crop.  It was now too late to consider planting in the face of the fast approaching fall; it could ruin a crop in one hard freeze. There were no guarantees for the small farmer. Waiting too long to plant was certain failure.

No one had been there to rescue my father after he worked his farm for fifty years, feeding a hungry nation. There was no thank you, no kiss my ass, only get out of the way when you drop from the exhaustion earned by doing it for all those years.

I was sympathetic for the sixteen-hour days I watched him work but it changed nothing between him and me. Perhaps, had he given me a chance, I’d have been here to pick him up and keep the farm going for one more generation, but he didn’t want my help. I’d built a life out in the world and was successful in my career. The farm was no longer in my blood, but that couldn’t keep the memories out of my mind. 

I remembered the days my mother sent me out to the field during harvest to pick up loose ears of corn and put them in piles to be collected later. After a short time my mother would call me into the house and I’d read at the table while she prepared the food for the hands. It’s where I learned to appreciate the books I read that told me about the larger world that existed beyond the corn fields and tiny towns that kept the farmer farming instead of searching for  parts and supplies he could get in town or order through the stores there in most instances.

It was the only time I worked in the field. Even when my grandmother came to live with us, I was called out of the field after no more than an hour or two. She, too, liked me to read to her as she fixed the many meals that were now but a faded memory of a time past, but all that reading out loud prepared me for my broadcasting career before I knew it’s what I wanted to do.

As I looked out beyond the silent machines, I remembered how my father walked aimlessly in the fields each winter, crisscrossing his land as though he was in search of something lost but of great value. He was a quiet and solitary man of mystery to his only child, especially after Momma died. He’d essentially left me to find my own way in the world.

There was never abuse beyond the neglect I felt. He never interfered with my mother or my grandmother when it came to me. I went to them when I had a question or wanted attention. My father kept himself busy from before daybreak until after dark, which meant I didn’t see him many days, except if I went to the fence to watch him out there.

I leaned on the railing looking out at the farm, remembering without setting out to recall any of it. I’d put it all behind when I left, and I’d given little thought to my returning home, except to worry about how I’d know what to say to my father. Would he ask me about my life or would he still be as indifferent as ever?

I didn’t have anything to say since how are you seemed out of the question. Nice day, but of course it wasn’t. I’d made the trip all the way to my backdoor, but I put off going in. I wasn’t ready yet and not knowing what to expect didn’t help.

Most farmers wanted their sons there to help. Most boys grew up learning the ways of the farm, but not me. When I was old enough it seemed like he couldn't get rid of me fast enough and it was fine with me. I’d never looked behind me, until now.

Why did he give me the money to leave? Some years there wasn’t any $500 after the bills were paid. It was the only thing that confused me about him. If he answered one question for me while I was here, it would be about that. If he’d asked me to stay and help him on the farm, even at that late date, I’d have done it, but that’s not what he did.

I remembered when I was six or seven and my mother and father threw the ball with me. Then, Dad would pitch to me so I could hit the ball with a bat bigger than I was, and he’d act like he was trying to get me out before I could go around the closely placed bases. He’d be running to tag me but I’d get to home plate first. I always got home first. I remembered my mother’s laughing and my father’s grabbing me and swinging me around. He’d be laughing too and I really thought I’d done it on my own. I was a silly little kid.

It was a dusty memory I didn’t know existed. I was ill at ease when it came to going inside. He had to hear the car crunching the gravel under its wheels. It was how we always knew someone came. What was he waiting for? I guess he wanted me to knock.

He never left this place except to drive to town to the General Store & Mercantile or to get things for Grandma at the A&P one town over, and there wasn't any A&P anymore and Grandma was long ago dead. Everything had grown up, but not this town. The town was like my father’s farm, drying up and blowing away. Why hadn’t he sold out and moved to town, have some kind of a life once he got old. The farm was a monument to his stubbornness.