When he was 6, the little boy liked to tag along after his grandfather, and try to follow in his footsteps in the snow. They were big shoes to fill; his grandfather was a man with a lot of work to do, and he did not tarry on his way to the barn. After all, a farm is no place for lollygaggers. There were 40 cows to milk, feed and clean up after, and it was wintertime in upstate NY. Plentiful snow, and wicked winds blew across the fields that in the summer, were dotted with cows; sometimes standing, sometimes sitting depending on the weather.
But the heart of winter meant that the cows had to be fed inside, and breaking a trail to the barn through the fresh snow was a very hard job, and the boy struggled to keep up. He wanted to walk where his grandfather had walked, because the snow was over his knees, and to walk in his footsteps would be easier than breaking his own trail, but mostly he wanted to walk where his grandfather had walked, because he wanted to be just like him. The little boy wanted to walk as upright and confidently as the old man did-to not waste steps or breath on foolishness, to be as steadfast as the sun, and he wanted to be absolutely sure of where he would wake up every morning, as his grandfather was, and had been every single day of his life, having never moved from his boyhood home.
The little boy did not always know where he would wake up in the morning at his parent’s house. He did not always know which house, which town, or sometimes even which state he would live in next. The boy’s parents moved a lot. They also fought often and sometimes hurled ugly words at each other like daggers, but they bounced off each other, and pierced the little boy in the heart, and made him afraid. He was often afraid, but not on his grandparent’s farm, where there was no time for fear, and no reason for it either.
There was always work to do, and it never changed. The rhythm and flow of the farm was steady; there were no high highs, but no low lows either. The boy knew that every morning when he woke up, his grandmother would be making breakfast, while his grandfather would be finishing the morning chores, and would soon come in the back door, stomping his feet to rid his boots of the snow, while his grandmother scolded him for leaving puddles on her clean floor. Sometimes after breakfast, he would help his grandmother bake, and sometimes he would work outside with his grandfather. When he went to the barn, he knew the names of all the cows. His grandfather did not care about the names, but his grandmother did, and he did too. He knew that next summer, when he was 7, his grandfather would teach him to drive the tractor, and he couldn’t wait. He knew that once a month, on a Saturday, he and his grandparents would take a trip to Ogdensburg, 25 miles away, so that his grandmother could get groceries. He knew that she would put on her red lipstick before they left, and that his grandfather would not allow the old Desoto to go more than 25 miles per hour. He knew his grandmother would get him a new comic book when she shopped, and in the summer, he would spend the afternoon lying on his belly in the hay barn, reading his comic book, while the barn cats sniffed at him curiously and dust motes danced in the air. And he knew that every night after supper, after he and his grandmother had washed and dried the dishes, she would put Jergans hand lotion on, and give some to him, while his grandfather sat in his chair and read the paper, the smoke from his pipe drifting lazily above his head.
Although the work never ended, life was easy and simple for the little boy when he was on the farm. He wasn’t afraid of work, so there was nothing here to fear. He knew his grandparents loved him, and that they would always be in the same place, no matter where he lived. He knew that he would not hear harsh voices or jagged words on the farm. In fact, his grandfather hardly spoke at all, but when he did, he knew it was important, and he listened carefully. He knew that his grandfather was a good man, and that he wanted to be just like him when he got big.
What the little boy didn’t know, was that someday his own grandchild would want to follow him. This time, the grandchild was a little girl, and she loved him as much as he loved his grandfather, except that she said she wanted to marry him when she got big. She knew that her grandfather loved her, and would always be happy to see her. She knew that every time she ran to him to hug him, he would kneel down, and with open arms, would let her slam into him and laugh just as she did. She knew that he laughed when she accidentally gave him a black eye when they were play-fighting. She knew that she was always safe with him, even high up on his shoulders. She knew that he missed her when she was at school, and that he would play and wrestle with her on the weekends, and that he made the best scrambled eggs in the world, even better than her grandmothers. And she knew that he would play with her in the snow, and that they would look for deer tracks, and that when it was time to go into the warm house for hot cocoa, that she would follow in his footsteps, just as he had done with his grandfather, almost a half century ago.
