White Lightning Axiom: Redux

The other day, Lileks wrote about the farm and it's visceral memories as the generations slowly trickle away from the homestead. Our common heritage. The origin. It made me think back and dust off those old memories of weekends that we would spend out there in rural Minnesota. I distinctly remember wandering out the the slew behind the homestead across the street from a largish lake. There was a snapping turtle there that seemed to be older than time itself. It would graciously snap twigs in two for us as we poked at it. Then there were the omnipresent spiders, ticks and skeeters in the ditches by the road on the other side of the white-pine wind-break. And if the ditch was filled with water, we would stop short and make pine-needle forts with fallen branches. Of course, being called in for dinner/lunch with your hair full of pine needles was a medal of honor.

The best thing about the farm was Grandma. She always had a pile of Jolly Ranchers around the house somewhere or chocolate setting in the cold-room out back. She also had a heart bigger than the world and a love of children that she passed on to us. Never a shortage of creamed-(beef/beans/whatever) at the dinner table either. Of all the places we went on the farm; the pump-house, the quanset hut, the hay-loft ... the one place we did not dare intrude was the basement. I'm not even sure if it is stone, cement or block. For all I know, Al Capone's booty is laying about in plain site down there. It's a forbidden zone that was not denied us, but we never challenged the unspoken warning. Nobody (at least none of my cousins would admit to it) went there. Like now, the fact that some of my uncles are getting on in years and are considering selling off their shares. It's something that pulls at me because I feel that I must pull that silver cord back to me and keep at least the thinest fiber available for my scion. If they so choose, they will have the chance to recliam their heritage. I've talked briefly to my father about this and it looks like I'll need to start saving a considerable lump of liquid assets if I am to start buying 'shares' for the future of the family.

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