Off to college

“You love them and raise them up for eighteen years,
then you drop them off at college and it just feels
like you put them in a ditch.”

This quote isn’t mine; it belongs to a seventy-year-old man for whom I’m helping to write a personal history. But the words resonate as I follow my son south on U.S. Hwy 169, both of our cars stuffed with the things a college-bound man feels he needs for survival. At mile marker seventy, I begin to weep.

I hadn’t felt like this earlier. I was feeling relief while I was vacuuming up the dirt left behind after he’d vacated his room. And for weeks I have been looking forward to no longer tripping over size ten sneakers strewn about the kitchen, no longer having to stock the cupboard with Doritos, Pop Tarts and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, no longer having to turn stinky, sweaty socks right side out before tossing them into the washer. Of course he needs to go to college, I tell myself; raising children right and then sending them out into the world is largely the point of parenting. I wouldn’t want him to not leave.

So the tears come with surprise. The drive had been going fine; I’d spent most of my miles pondering what poignant advice I might leave with my son once he gets settled. Words like responsibility, accountability and maturity were rolling around my brain when suddenly a picture of him at age two commandeers my thoughts. I watch him, all doe-eyed and darling, a curly-haired cream puff who pushes a kitchen chair toward the counter so he can help himself to the cookie jar. If I didn’t know better, I would swear the scene played out just yesterday. That’s when the tears begin – when one day he’s pushing a plastic lawnmower across the carpet and the next day he’s three car lengths in front of me, off to college. That’s when the tears begin – when I realize eighteen years of my life have vanished in the time it takes the sun to duck behind a cloud.

I compose myself.

In front of me, as he drives with a bent elbow jutting out the open car window, I consider what lies ahead for him. The road is wide open. He is eighteen and totally unencumbered. He can do whatever his imagination and courage will allow. He is pure potential – moving toward a blue horizon.

I had a glimpse of that horizon once too, but it was half a lifetime ago. The years he has on account are years I’ve already spent. The challenges he’ll face are ones I’ve mostly overcome. He’s embarking on a journey that will take him to unfamiliar places; it’s territory I’ve mostly covered and now know by heart.

As we approach the college bookstore where we’ll stop to load up on textbooks, notebooks, folders and pens, it suddenly occurs to me why I am so sad. It’s not so much because I’m going to miss him. It’s because I wish I was him.

Look up. Look around. Look within you.

The road out front stretches north a few miles into a town of roughly eight hundred people. In addition to old houses and a new development, the town offers locals the services of a bank, a post office, a gas station, a car wash, a beauty shop, an insurance agency, two bars and two churches – one Lutheran, one Catholic. I attend the latter.

Immaculate Conception is everything you might expect in a country church. It’s small, with a few dozen pews split down the center by a narrow aisle. Vertical stained glass windows illuminate the side walls while a darkened one hides in the choir loft in back. The altar is small and modestly adorned. Most of the parishioners have a German-sounding surname, as does the pastor. It was Germans who settled these parts after all, so it makes sense that their descendents are still here – faithfully attending Mass every Sunday. Inside the steeple, which rises above the tree line so that one may see its cross from miles away, there’s an electronic carillon that chimes a hymn every evening around the dinner hour.

Robert Schneider is currently pastor; he splits his time between Immaculate Conception and All Saints, a parish with a school fifteen minute’s drive north. By the looks of Fr. Schneider's motorcycle, though, I would guess he makes the trip a bit faster. I've been listening to Robert Schneider's reflections on the gospel for the past year and have not once left the building disappointed; he is articulate, insightful and unafraid to challenge the people who've congregated in his midst.

A few weeks back, Fr. Schneider posed an interesting question. If you knew you were going to die at midnight, he asked, would you choose to live the day differently? His point was not lost on me — a woman in transition. I knew exactly how I would respond to this hypothetic scenario. I knew exactly what I would do, where I would go, and who I would want to talk to. I also knew where I would sit to watch my final sunset. Four Cedars Farms certainly would be the stage on which I'd play out the last act of my life.

The trouble is I'm deep in transition; I spend too many days too far from this farm. What's more, too many of the people I love and whom with I'd want to have that great final conversation — share my final sunset — don't know the way to this farm by heart.

Of course, none of us will get advance notice of our demise. Most of us proceed through our days assuming that there will be enough time to get the order in our lives right. Yet none of us are guaranteed unlimited days, ample time, so none of us should be squandering our precious hours. Which was precisely Fr. Schneider's point. If we haven't yet arranged our lives in a way that we will be at peace if we learned our next hour would be our last, we need to make some changes. I'm working on that.

Fall: It's time for football

The other morning on my way into town, I noticed the high school football team practicing on the school field. It was a bright, warm morning; perfect for running errands but probably a bit warm for the boys in full pads running drills. The sight of them, the Cyclones in their red jerseys and white helmets left me a bit nostalgic; I was reminded of yet another change, another transition, underway within our family.

Our sons played football. They started in third grade (it took them the whole season to make a first down) and finished their career with the high school team last fall, their senior year. This is the first August in many years that we haven’t had to organize our schedules around two-a-days.

Next Friday the high school football season opens and I wonder if we’ll feel pulled toward the bright lights. I wonder if the marching band will have learned a new song. I wonder if I’ll miss the sense of community I felt as I stood shoulder to shoulder with friends and neighbors reciting the pledge of allegiance before kickoff.

For my retired student athletes, this has been their most unregimented summer since third grade. No workouts. No weight rooms. No nutrition regime. No expectations. No football. Well, not quite. You see, they’ve graduated not only from something (high school) but to something – fantasy football!!

Yes, friends, it’s fantasy football time, when wannabe football moguls start assessing real NFL players, assembling make-believe teams, then positioning those players against the players of their opposition, which most often are their closest friends and family. The boys are in the league this year, as is my husband, my daughter, my brother (2006 league champion), my niece, my nephew and some of their friends. I think Dad, and certainly uncle Tony, have expectations that my sons do well, at least in the draft. (Don’t draft defense first! Choose a receiver or a running back and for pity’s sake, pick your kicker last!)

Despite the extensive family ties between many of the players participating in the MN versus MI Fantasy Football League, this is serious stuff; these beloved family members of mine will spend the next sixteen weeks trash talking each other’s decisions just to gain points and bragging rights, which are claimed by each week’s winners and, to this day, the 2006 league champion, a.k.a. muffinmonster.

I played one season with these folks and found the competition way too intimidating. When they asked me to play this year, I told them I’d rather face a Cyclone blitz on the five yard line.

Cellar Dwellers

When I told my friend Carel we'd bought a small farm, she waxed nostalgic and was excited for us, embarking on a new adventure. Carel had spent years living on a farmstead in southeastern Minnesota before moving into town. She was happy to share her opinions on what we ought to expect living in the country.

There will be mice, she said. And stray dogs and power outages that drag on for days. And you won't get any trick-or-treaters stopping by. Oh, and watch out for rogue motorcycle gangs...

Rogue motorcycle gangs? I admit I was more concerned about the likelihood of a rodent infestation but I listened carefully to her advice because I'd never before lived in an old home set in a wide-open space. I'd grown up in a neighborhood with houses aligned so closely you could hear the next-door neighbor brushing his teeth.

At the one year anniversary of our move to Four Cedars Farms, we've dealt with a few mice, suffered a few power outages (brief ones), been visited by one stray dog and never saw a single trick-or-treater. It's worth noting also that no rogue motorcycle gangs have descended upon us.

What we battled through the first months, however, were slimy black and yellow spotted salamanders that kept appearing in the cellar -- ultimately outnumbering the mice at a rate of six to one. Their presence on the farm was related to our proximity to water; it took quite awhile to figure out their presence in the cellar!

For weeks, while we searched for the entry point, we collected the slimy buggers, placed them in buckets, and offered them to a friend who is an avid muskie fisherman. He was thrilled!

Eventually we won the battle against the cellar dwellers and this year, with the drought, we haven't spotted a single sally on the property -- not inside or outside. That said, the summer-long string of sunny days has inspired an awful lot of motorcycle enthusiasts to thunder past our door. Hmmmm.

Nice day, for a duck!

While local growers are pleased by the heavy rains we received over the weekend, the duck hunters are downright ecstatic! One of our hunting “clients” stopped by last night to chat and check out how quickly the water level on the lake was rising after eight-plus inches of rainfall. He was pleased by what he saw; ditches, gullies and tributaries leading into the 660-acre waterfowl haven all were gushing with runoff.

With fall approaching, it’s a good development for a popular duck-stop along the Midwestern migratory flyway. The large puddle that chills our breezes and gives us breathtaking sunsets is a popular playground for hundreds of ducks, geese, egrets, herons and pelicans all making their way to warmer climes before winter. Of course, their stop-over is nicely timed to the Minnesota firearms season, making Four Cedars Farms a less-than ideal place to be in October if you like to sleep late.

Shooting begins one half hour before sunrise and can last until sunset; but with waterfowl numbers high, it never takes that long for a hunter to bag his limit. With the drought this year, things might have been different. Waterfowl populations have been dropping and by mid-July, I worried the little lake might simply disappear from the landscape. As a consequence to a falling lake level, it’s been quiet near the water; I admit I have missed the duck chatter that used to greet me whenever I’d stroll over to the shoreline.

In that regard, I too am pleased for ample rain. It’s been good for the farmers, good for the hunters and good for the ducks. Quack!

A Saving Rain?

In 36 hours, Four Cedars Farms picked up more than eight inches of rain. And so the drought ends – in one weekend.

Now that we’ve transitioned from dry summer to moist late summer, I can tally the losses – the first, second and third bean planting, the first and second cucumber planting, the melons, the blueberries, and the peas. The jury is still out on whether the transplanted lilacs will survive. (A few leaves still cling to the plant but they are shriveled and brown.) The other plants, especially our resilient trees, teetered on the edge all summer despite our best efforts to give them a periodic soak; they are now enjoying monumental amounts of moisture, which is filtering to the depths of the subsoil.

This morning, the property is lush and green. You can’t step more than a few feet outdoors without noticing the wet. It moves quickly – from squishy steps to soaked stockings in seven seconds.

But wait. Rain isn’t supposed to fall like this, in torrents so severe that it sweeps away land under bridges and houses and roads and cars … under people. Rain that saves crops and nurtures nature shouldn’t also destroy property and cost lives. Yet this rain did.
This hadn’t been the rain that we had prayed for in church Sunday after sunny Sunday throughout June and July. We had asked for a saving rain, a soaking rain, a steady rain – not a deadly rain. Not a flood.

Those close to this weekend’s disaster must now tally the storm’s losses. While they do, I will watch the trees drink their fill and ponder why – why are our prayers oftentimes answered in such unexpected, tragic ways?

To all those who find themselves, like me, in transition – a poem:

From the outskirts of the town,
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down,
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.

Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah, the oaks are fresh and green,

But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow wrote these lines upon returning to his hometown at the age of fifty.