I have a supply of fence posts and rails that I keep in the barn for special occasions, and it seems that several times a month there’s a special occasion. I’ve often told my wife we should call our place The Broken Fence Farm.
I have a lot of experience fixing fences. I have a fencing tool that combines a hammer, pliers, wire cutter and a finger pincher in one convenient package. I use this to impress my urban friends. I once tested the strength of a gate I had recently hung by driving an old ford tractor with bad brakes through it. The metal gate survived. The wood post, which supported the gate, did not.
The current special occasion is my son’s high school graduation reception. There will be many people walking through the front gate to wish my son well in his new adventure, and for this I am trying to make the place look like somebody cares. But I must tell you it is hard.
It’s not that hard to fix a fence, which is fortunate for me as God did not bless me with the handyman gene (but after almost forty-eight years I’ve learned to live without it). What makes this current diversion most difficult for me is the stinging realization that I am getting both the farm and myself ready to say good-bye. “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys,” so wrote Peter Yarrow.
You’d think that I would be used to this sort of thing by now. My darling daughter graduated from high school four years ago, left for college, and graduated – and through it all I survived. And, besides - I’ve had 19 years to get ready for this.
The highlight of my summers growing up in Belle Plaine was Bar-B-Q Days. Dad would always have a roll or two of ride tickets for us kids to use at our leisure. When I was about twelve or thirteen I remember getting a new shirt for my birthday a couple weeks before the carnival came to town. I saved it for the opening night of the fair.
Even though the carnival was set-up across town from our house, you could hear the fun that people were having from a mile away. I walked to the park that night feeling pretty cool in my new shirt. It was a beautiful summer evening – a bit warm but not too hot. My friends and I spun ourselves dizzy on the tilt-a-whirl (before its official status), rode the Ferris wheel - where from the top we could survey the entire town, and tried to stay out of trouble until we parted ways at a few minutes before midnight.. That evening as I lay in bed drifting in and out of sleep, with the breeze blowing through the screen, I could still hear the carnival. Every summer I go back to Bar-B-Q days searching for that magical feeling I experienced in 1972 – but it’s gone.
I’ve learned that most changes come uninvited and unannounced. You don’t always know when the last time has come and gone and that special moment becomes only a memory.
No fence I have ever put up kept anything home for long. Birds fly, dogs jump, goats climb and children grow up and leave. That’s just the way it is. I know that fences won’t keep a child at home, they were never meant to. The boundaries established at home are put there to provide protection and direction. So hopefully the posts I have set will guide him on whatever road he chooses.
And Nathan – just so we’re clear, the gate will always be open.
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