The Farm

My dad, got back from the farm last night, a very long awaited trip for him. The farm is in Middleville, Michigan, a small town in south western Michigan, population 2,721. Dad, who is going to be 88 this year, has been going to Middleville since he was a kid. We went there for weekends and vacations when we were kids.


Uncle Andy and Aunt Jerry, my Godparents, were the ones that we stayed with there. Going to the farm was always a treat, and one of my favorite things that we did. We lived in a two flat in the south side of Chicago, so going to the farm was both literally and realistically another world. Our backyard was probably about 30’ x 30’. Uncle Andy’s farm was about 350 acres.

We rode in the back of the pickup truck, played in the hay in the barn, watched as Uncle Andy milked cows, helped (at least we though we were helping) dump grain for the cows, named the wild cats, played in the shed, ran through corn rows, helped bale hay, shoveled corn into silos, picked ripe tomatoes and fresh sweet corn for dinner, visited other cousins, went to the lake, had fresh ice cream made at Uncle Sam’s dairy (Uncle Andy’s brother), had bonfires in the fall, played in the winter snow, took walks through the fields in the evening, where we would see deer, rabbits and pheasant.

Uncle Andy and Dad taught me to shoot and hunt on the farm, and it was where I first got behind the wheel of a vehicle, learning to drive his pickup in the fields. My dad let both my sister and I begin to drive on the back roads long before we were of age, but it was a start for us.

Sometimes my folks would rent a cottage at Barlow Lake for vacation, and we’d spend a week there. Barlow Lake was probably about 10 miles or so from Uncle Andy’s. This still counted as being at the farm, because it was so close! We learned how to swim there, how to fish, how to row a boat. Uncle Andy took some old cow bones and dumped them in the lake. Then he took us over there in a boat, and told us that they were Old Man Barlow’s bones….

Uncle Andy died in 1998, of Alzheimer’s. I didn’t see him the last years of his life, when he was in a home. The last time I saw him was when I was leaving Michigan after a short visit, to fly back home to Phoenix. He and Aunt Jerry made it to the airport just before the plane was going to leave. My folks didn’t think they would make it, but I knew differently.

I knew he was going to be there, and he’s still in my heart, and memory, and so is the Farm.