My grandpa is amazing.
I was back in Illinois visiting my extended family and we got to spend some good time together. Between visits to my grandma in the nursing home we went to McDonalds for Fish-Fillet sandwiches and coffee. I got a Quarter Pounders instead of using his coupons. I should have followed his lead with the Fish-Fillet. As we ordered, it dawned on me that this place was more than just another red and yellow corporate food stop along the road. Taking into consideration that it was only 11am and the population of Metamorah (think farm town) is not that much, there were way too many people in there. And everyone seemed to know everyone else. And they said hello to each other. So, we sit down to eat in a two-top chair bench combo in the corner and within seconds someone has come from the other side of the place to say hi to my grandpa. Now, you have to understand, these guys have seen some years. Their hands are worn like thick leather from driving the tractor and swinging a hammer for 80+ years. They are in no hurry - not in the way they walk, talk, or eat. Everything takes a little longer and somehow the pace seems perfectly appropriate. They start to talk about the weather, the crops, the tractors, the wind storm that ripped the door's off Junior's barn last week, how one would go about putting the doors back up. Have you seen so and so? Not for a few years. What about so and so? No, she passed away a few years back.
After we left McDonalds, I asked Grandpa to drive me by the place he was born. We had been talking about that house the night before. We stayed up past midnight talking about his life - who built the house, when his mom died, how his dad met his step mom, how he crashed on his Harley and that's why he has calluses on the side of his right hand. He had told me about the house but I had never seen it so we headed out there after lunch.
The house is about 3 miles from where he and grandma live now - where they have lived as long as I have been around, where I have all my memories of playing in the mud, touching the electric fence, running through the corn fields, and playing that huge farm house with 4 sets of stairs. As we drove past he told me about who build it, how long he lived there, what land he farmed.
While we drove home I asked him how deep he tilled the soil. How far down did he turn it over each year before planing a new crop? He said usually 8 inches, sometimes a foot. It hit me - he had turned over every inch of soil to at least 8 inches in depth within about a 3 mile square every year for the past 80+ years. He was born on this land, had grown his food on this land, raised his animals on this land, raised his children on this land, one day he will die on this land.
