I chatted with a farmer today. He’s probably around 80 years old, has a grip like iron, wears a hat and overalls, and has a bad back that aches him in the mornings, around noon, in the afternoon, and before going to bed. But every day he’s up before dawn (“I got up this morning before breakfast,” he said with a wink), tending the cows and chickens, then working the fields, then getting everything ready for the next day. One of his eyes don’t see too good no more, and he can’t really hear unless you holler at him. And his old tractor–always breaking down, always something to fix on it. He drives up and down the roads in an old beat-up truck that emits a little too much exhaust, but the engine keeps on going with a steady thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. You know when he’s coming because no one else drives that slowly, but the dogs bark and wag their tails when they see him.
He tells me I should get me a horse, one about ten years old. Don’t get one of them high-spirited ones though–you want to be able to ride them, and the high-spirited ones, you can’t even get the bridle on them sometimes. Why, he knew someone who gave co-cola to their horses twice a day, once at ten in the morning and once at two in the afternoon, and that’ll make your horse jumpy. You can’t ride them if they are too jumpy. You know how they do.
I expect that ten years from now he’ll still be working the fields, driving the same old truck, keeping the same old tractors running (at least to make it through the summer), and checking in with his neighbors now and then, usually on Sundays. And he’ll probably still be holding his bad back while leaning against the fence, looking out at his cows and surveying all the work he’s done that day. I expect too that after surveying his work, he’ll then head on inside and take his boots off, a little more slowly and with more effort than he used to. Then he’ll wash up for supper, kiss his wife–on her lips if she’s awake, on her cheek if she’s nodded off in her chair–then rest a spell before heading to bed, so he can get up early for the next day’s work.
And that sounds wonderful to me.