My husband is a horticulturist and a landscaper. When he’s in peak season, I become a landscaper too. I hate it. I mean I really hate it. I like being outside and all, but I hate dragging stuff, and bending over, and holly bushes, and don’t even get me started on that accursed shredder vac. The job usually ends with me crying. 

That being said, I actually had a pleasant experience the other day. My husband needed me to drive his truck around the block to pick something up. Because of the short distance I didn’t bother to adjust the seat, set up to accommodate his six foot long legs. Ok, they aren’t really six feet, but they do have a Stretch Armstrong quality about them. 

Driving down the road, I am perched precariously on the edge of the seat, toes on the pedals, puny arms pulling me forward on the steering wheel. And in the moment- the awkward balance, my tired arms- I was transported back to my Uncle Leonard’s old Dodge Ram Truck.

When I was fifteen, we stayed with him and my Aunt Shirley for the summer in a tiny burg that 25 years later still makes Resaca look like a thriving metropolis. My Aunt Shirley is a legend. She has real main character energy, but this moment was not about her. It was about Uncle Leonard. 

Uncle Leonard was a farmer. A real farmer. At one time he worked well thousands of acres into a bountiful harvest of wheat, soy beans, and who knows that else. And when the seasons weren’t so bountiful, it didn’t stop him. He loved the land and he loved the work.

As a small child, Uncle Leonard scared me. He looked like a giant and had a voice like one too. He always seemed sharp and commanding. This is probably due to the fact the most I had ever heard him talk was at Thanksgiving when I was about five years old.

A bunch of the older cousins, presumably needing to work off Aunt Shirley’s feast, decided to turn the huge stacks of round hay bales into a boxing ring. Not only did they destroy each other, but also (if my five year old memory serves) $1500 worth of hay. In today’s money that’s about $3700… or $2. It’s hard to say in this economy. What isn’t hard to say is that there was definitely some weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. 

But as I got older, I realized how wrong I was. Uncle Leonard was quiet, stoic, and mild, but all the farmers in all the burgs liked him and together they would chew the fat at well deserved breakfasts, because they had already been working for hours by then. 

As much as Uncle Leonard loved farming, he loved his grandkids. And when he could put the two together, so much the better. Checking on heads of cattle, harvesting in the combine, raising pigs for 4-H-they did it all. Together. And that is where I come in.

Being fifteen the summer we stayed at the Jonesborough Inn (that’s what Aunt Shirley calls their house) I had my learners permit. Aunt Shirley needed some blueberries (probably for one of her famous pies) so she sent me and Uncle Leonard to go get some from a local blueberry patch. 

Uncle Leonard handed me the keys to his farm truck. “You drive, Kayty.”

I hefted myself up in the cab, a bit trepidatious. Yes, I was an immortal teenager, but I wasn’t stupid! I’d never driven such a hulking behemoth. I didn’t even know how to adjust the bench seat to reach the pedals. So I balanced precariously on the edge of the bench, stretched my toes to the gas pedal, and pulled myself forward on the steering wheel and we were off. The gargantuan ram’s head hood ornament, replete with majestic curling horns, helped me keep it between the ditches as my mom says, and we made it to Decker’s Berries. It’s the only time I was ever alone with Uncle Leonard. It was scary or awkward. Just nice. 

Now, as I made my way back to the client’s house, arms tired and a little breathless from my balancing act, I had a sweet feeling remaining from the memory. I finished the job my husband needed me to do, and I didn’t cry- not even once.