Find Your Ridge

Find Your Ridge

By Mark Leitheiser

Exactly one hayfield south of my childhood home was a meadow of soft grasses. It was a narrow strip of land rolling east and west from a rough gravel road acting as a divider. A single culvert now drains from the east feeding the west with enough water to make it a wetland before disappearing into a peat bog on the western horizon.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in the day, we would take a cutting or two of the tall grasses that huddled there. It wasn’t up to the standard of good alfalfa, but it served as bedding or feed for a farmer in need.

When the meager cutting was taken and the baling complete, the peace of the west meadow would be split by the sound of my brother and I racing  . . . tractors. Why Dad felt compelled to buy not one, but two Canadian-made Cockshutt tractors is a secret he took to his grave, but in fairness, we never bothered to ask.

It was never a fair race. Although nearly identical in appearance, we both knew one tractor was faster than the other and of course, Doug, being three years older, always managed to end up driving the winner while I ate his grass riding a bum steer.

Yet, the challenge was too much to refuse. My heart would pound as we pulled up beside one another, revved our motors, exchanged insults, gave one another the finger and shouted, “Go!” We’d throw the clutch, pop a short wheelie and tear across the meadow floors at full throttle. With chunks of turf flying behind us and black smoke vapor trails streaming across our buzz cut heads, we’d race to the far west end. And then, we’d turn to the east, and do it all over again.

This couldn’t go on forever, of course. Dad made sure of that by turning our racetrack into a wetland for wildlife. He had already turned the flooded east side into a sanctuary for waterfowl by building raised nesting areas for protection from predators. Now, he planned to drain some of the water from the east side through a single culvert to flood the west side as well.

There was just one problem: the boys at the county offices wanted to bring in engineers, hydrologists, backhoes and supervisors to complete the job. Dad was having none of it. “Get the $#$$@#& out of my way and bring me two loads of gravel and one culvert and I’ll do it myself,” he told them.

“Impossible!” they cried. Dad repeated his demand and made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere until he got his gravel and culvert. This was one of those times when being stubborn and temperamental can pay dividends. A few days later, two loads of gravel and a culvert were delivered. There were no warm, parting words on either side.

The next day, Dad got to work with the faster Cockshutt, which now had a bucket, digging out the old road. He then poured a gravel bed for the culvert, moved it into place with chains, and used the remaining gravel to rebuild the road. As of this writing, that old culvert is still working perfectly, keeping the west meadow full of water while saving taxpayers thousands of dollars.

To the south of the meadow, a steep hill rises sharply, forcing a left turn in the road before falling away on either side until it lays flat beside the meadow. This was our sliding hill in the winter. With repeated attempts, a hard, fast track would be forged allowing someone to eventually scoot all the way across the meadow, an achievement celebrated by all of us through facemasks of frozen snot.

This leaves us with a ridge of land to the north. While not as wet as the east, flat as the west or high as the south, its sharp, scrub brush-covered face formed a shoulder of protection which offered a panoramic view of the entire meadow. Which brings us back to Dad.

Years ago, he had cleared a section on top of that ridge leaving an open, grassy area and it was here that he found his peace. At some point, a chair mysteriously appeared on the ridge. It was nothing fancy, just an old clunker ready for the dump, which made it perfect for its purpose.

What happened next has taken on the haze of a childhood memory, like a picture, locked in my dream space forever. For on those warm, perfect, mid-summer evenings, I would see Dad sitting alone in his chair, still as a portrait, silently watching over his meadow.

I never went to him at these moments. Something about him whispered that he wanted to be alone. His was the silhouette of a man who had put away the day’s troubles, debts and grievances for another time. In this moment, he simply wanted to be.

Dad was no peacenik. Far from it, he would tell you. But as the blaze-orange sun slowly set in the west, I would see a man who was at peace with the world, if only for an hour or so. As the light finally died, Dad would rise slowly, reluctantly it seemed, stretch himself out, trudge back to the old house he called home and lay his head down as the frogs in the meadow serenaded his family to sleep.

We live in an angry world. Recently we’ve seen republicans and democrats alike shot and killed for no other reason than the hate in men’s hearts. It’s deeply troubling. It’s deeply sad. Like many of you, I’m at a loss of what to do but somehow I think Dad’s summer evenings could be instructive for all of us. Maybe each of us needs to put away the day’s troubles, debts and grievances for another time . . . and find our ridge.