February 09, 2007

Dirt Roads

Paint Creek Farm. 1945ish.

This photo aptly sums up my mom's early childhood - bare feet, dirt road, daddy in overalls, dirty from farming.

My PaPa was strong, powerful. Even when I knew him - years and years and years after he'd "retired" from farm life and moved into town - his hands were still rough and calloused. One of his thumbs was bent over and shorter than the other, from where he'd whacked it with a mallet or a hammer while building a fence. Another finger was missing at the knuckle, from what, I don't remember or never knew.

My cousin Ron - twenty of so years my senior - told me a story a few years ago of a hot summer night they spent making hay. The rain was coming in and PaPa kept pushing them to move faster. My cousin Ron, then just a teenager, wasn't working fast enough I guess, or was goofing around, and got a whack and a command to work harder. That PaPa was not my PaPa. He was 73 when I was born, and spent his days reading the paper, gardening, going to the bank, keeping his books. My memories of him are fewer, with more space in between them than most of my cousins. Being the youngest of 17 grandchildren, I missed out on a lot. But I have photos and I have their memories. And his blood is my blood.

Feb. 20 will mark the seventh anniversary of his death, and I can still hear my mother's wailing cries as if it just happened. She lost her daddy - the man who scooped her up as she ran down a dirt road to meet him after hot, Ohio days in the field.

Posted by hannah at 04:43 PM