Moving East

When I was "just a kid," my father moved us across the state and into what seemed to be a completely different world—five hours east from all that was familiar to me. We went from a three-bedroom rancher built sometime in the early '50s to a stately fieldstone farmhouse built in 1794. That date was etched into the east gable end. I remember the walls being almost two feet thick, the door hardware original and forged, and the majority of the window glass wonderfully imperfect with streaks and bubbles, still intact from the house's beginning.

There was a formal courtyard defined by a three-foot-high rock perimeter wall, a carriage house, an iron forge, and a gristmill two hundred feet down the path to the trout stream. A modern touch was added that included a wonderful built-in swimming pool with a twisting slide to boot. The house itself was amazingly archaic, except for the modern kitchen; each room possessed a working fireplace—seven in total. The den was the original kitchen, as it had a fireplace so big that you could actually walk into it, and still preserved was the wrought iron arm from which would have hung the main cooking pot.

The first minutes after arriving truly were a wild and even surreal experience, as we could not believe the house that we were about to move into. Even the floors that we scurried over were original, some boards being a foot and a half wide, others a mere six inches, all rich in color and soaked with linseed oil. This huge shell of a house echoed with the noise of our claims on the upstairs bedrooms and our delight at each new discovery.

My oldest sister Betsy was a senior in high school that year, which, among other things, meant that she would be going to college the following fall. And this meant that come late August, we all would have our own bedrooms! Unprecedented! Meanwhile, I would continue to share a room with my little brother Pat, which, looking back, was more of a privilege than a pain.

This was a farmhouse, as the property also had a large barn housing eighteen steers. I vaguely remember learning the difference between a bull and a steer. They had a huge fenced-in pasture where they were free to do what steers do. That pasture was one field of many that made up the actual property of the place. In all, we had one hundred and twenty acres to do what kids do. The trout stream ran right through all of it. Not deep enough to swim in, the stream was still bigger than a creek and had the fish to prove it. I learned how to hunt, trap, and fly fish during those years. I also learned how to drive a tractor on those acres. I think we all did.

About twenty of the acres were planted with field corn. Richard and his son Randy, who lived in a modest home across and down the road a piece, farmed the fields. Dick would lose his son Randy to a tragic accident about five years after we moved away from the farm. I remember my father telling of how he ran into Dick at a local bar sometime after, had a beer with him, and expressed his condolences. Condolences were mutually exchanged, as we too had suffered the loss of my sister since the two men had seen each other. Laurie and Randy were both the same age, just kids...twenty years old when they left this world.

Life is fragile.

—R.R.Watt