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When I was 13 years old my mother announced to my sister and I that she was going to marry a grass farmer. Really? After learning that the man actually farmed grass – and not grass – my older sister and I nervously settled into the idea of moving out of our small town and onto his farm.
When I was 13 years old my mother announced to my sister and I that she was going to marry a grass farmer. Really? After learning that the man actually farmed grass – and not grass – my older sister and I nervously settled into the idea of moving out of our small town and onto his farm.
Now, my new step-father was sweet, in fact, right along with my grandfather whom you read about earlier, my step-father is just about the sweetest man on the planet. And, nervous as my sis and I were about moving to a new home, I can only now imagine how this man must have felt when he brought his full-sized van over to help us pack up and move our things to the new rooms that he and his father had painstakingly designed for us as a surprise at his house.
As sis and I hauled boxes full of clothes, garbage bags over-flowing with stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, closets full of shoes, books and recently signed yearbooks, cheerleading paraphernalia, typewriters, chests full of make-up, trees full of hoop earrings and bling necklaces, and caddies full of Aquanet hairspray, Vidal Sasoon Mousse, and all other forms of teenage-girl-dom, out of the old house and into his van, my dear step-father continued to smile and stuff things in, all the while attempting to regale us with some strange but entertaining new form of comedy we later came to know as “The North Dakotan Jokes.”
Once the bumper of the van was scraping the pavement like a low-rider car that has just given up its suspension, we hit the road with my step-dad and I taking the lead in the van and my mother and sister following in our car.
Now, let me tell you that up until this point this man in the driver seat had never had a child in his life. Not one. And, now, within weeks of meeting us for the first time, this crazy fool agreed – albeit somewhat naively – to become the father of two 1980’s teenage girls. Hello, Mother? What a good saleswomen you must have been!
So, as my step-dad drove slowly away from our old house in apparent careful pursuit of our new home he pushed in the new Gloria Estefan tape into the tape deck, looked over at me and smiled as if he wanted to show me that although he was a farmer, he could still be cool. Since I had expected country, or some form of weather-droning talk radio, I instantly smiled back and had to agree – he was kinda cool, or at least should be given the credit since he was trying so hard!
Feeling better about the situation, I sat back and as we drove down the pavement and out of my little town, we both started humming along to the fairly fresh Latin beat of The Rhythm is Gonna Get You. It was only when we got out of town and onto the highway that I realized that though this man was nice, apparently cool, and accommodating, there was something terribly wrong with his driving.
The thing is folks, my mom and I had driven the distance between our small town and where I knew his home to be many times. His farm was just “this side” of the big city which we had to roll to almost weekly to buy groceries. That city was just under and hour away. The tape Let It Loose is just over 38 minutes long. But, by the time that the tape wound to its conclusion, we were not even a third of the way there. I kid you not! We had barely hit the entrance sign to the next village! While mom must have warned him about us, and how to impress a teenage girl, she had failed at warning us about him – or farmers in general.
As Gloria started singing Rhythm again, I looked over at the driver. He looked over at me. We smiled, and then we once again looked out our prospective windows. That was when I noticed that the telephone poles on the side of the road were passing by much slower than I had ever seen them pass by before. I looked out the front window at the yellow lines and started counting them, like I often did to stave off boredom as my mom drove to the city for groceries. Holy hell! I thought my mom drove like an old foggie! Not so! She was a speed demon compared to this guy!
I grinned again, and tried to look over at the speedometer, but being a large dusty old van that was so packed with girl junk that my father had to suffer the pain of sitting practically squished up against the steering wheel, I could not gauge anything except the fact that it was going to be the dawn of a new day before we ever got to his house!
Finally, I stole a chance to look over at him when he was looking the other way, and that was when I saw what the problem was. You see, it was the beginning of June. School had just let out of me, so I was ready to run with the wind like a wild horse, but to him it was time to slow down and inspect the crops.
As he crawled down the road, weaving back and forth over the yellow dividing line as if it had no business being there, I watched him glance thoughtfully from side to side at two fields of thick green wheat that had just headed out and were blowing green and silver in the warm breeze.
The thing is that these were not his crops. Heck, I wasn’t even sure at that point if he had ever farmed wheat. After all, he was a “grass” farmer – again, not that kind. But still, he slowed, and slowed, and slowed again until we actually had cars – although not my mother’s car – passing us on the highway.
The crappy thing about this is that we live on the Palouse, and the Palouse is known for it’s vast miles of farmland. Therefore, I knew that no matter what, for the next 50 miles we were bound to be driving by fields, and they would of course have to be inspect. So, I laid my head back, closed my eyes and listened again to Gloria threatening me with her Rhythm until we finally got to our new home and I could give my mom a good stern talking to about what in the hell she had gotten us into!
However, as sweet as he was trying to be, I never said a word to him, but I will tell you that for the rest of the years that I spent on my father’s farm, I did just about anything NOT to have to ride shotgun with my father! Over the years, I did learn that he had a sense of humor and could take a joke about just about anything – unfortunately, he never understood the problem that I had with his driving. Frankly, it was just not funny when I joked about that.
Sadly, when I married The Boss it was the same story. Drive slow, inspect crops, even if they aren’t your own, swerve over the yellow line, smile, smirk, shake your head, inspect some more…
It got to the point with the Boss that I would just reach over and place my foot over the top of his and force him to go a little faster – something I wouldn’t not have dared done to my elder; but, the Boss is younger than me so I wasn’t about to suffer through that with him. I had hoped that this farmer could be trained!
Not so! Farmers cannot be trained to drive over 45 - ever. They will inspect the weeds on the freeway on the side of the road in Spokane if they happen to be carrying Round-up and might be able to sneak over to the side of the road undetected long enough to spray them!
They just can’t drive any faster. And they shouldn’t, because no matter what else is going on in the world, farmers are spending their days inspecting and weaving and gauging and thinking and planning, and well, driving their spouses and daughters completely insane! Now I understand why my great-grandmother’s drove their husbands everywhere once the farmer retired. I thought it was due to my grandfather’s diminishing sight – not so! It was so that they could actually see their grandchildren before they had grown up and had families of their own!
However, sadly, I - yes me - the girl who is not from a three generation farm family - gets it now. After driving a tractor all day in their field at a top speed of 7 MPH, and then flagging equipment down the road and a racing 12 MPH, and then of course having this crazy desire to look at other farmers harrow marks in order to compare their straight lines (which they can drive in a field!) to my own, I now find myself driving at a top speed of 45 with my son in the passenger seat rolling his eyes and asking me, “Are we there yet?”
And just like my father, I don’t answer.
Instead, as I scan the green around me, I calmly tell him about how we really need to get a move on (of course, I am referring to getting a "move on" in the field, not the road) because Farmer John has already sprayed his wheat. I am now notorious for slowing down to see if the peas or lentils have popped their little heads through the soil, and I’m constantly finding myself going 35 looking out across the waving fields of green barley that appear as if some patriotic old ladies have just draped a large waving green and silver flag over the whole entire place. I even find myself driving at a comfortable 45 on the freeway when everyone else is going 60+! UGGH! What have I become?
More and more, as I am driving down the road, I notice my son grab the steering wheel, roll his eyes, and slowly pull me back onto my side of the road, while rudely reminding me that if I don’t watch where I am going I am going to get us all killed.
Geez, kids these days. Don't they have no respect for their elders?
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