I‘m lying here awake on the longest night of the year, at least it seems that way; the night we set our clocks back from Daylight Savings Time to Central Standard Time. It adds an extra hour to the night; an extra hour that I lay here wishing I could sleep. I know it’s really hard for those midnight shift workers who have to put in an extra hour especially when you add that to an already twelve-hour shift, it could be exhausting.

I looked at my clock and it read 4:30. Of course, since it’s just a regular clock, not one synced to whatever it is that automatically changes the time for you like my Fitbit does, it didn’t change the time. But that got me thinking about all the things that we now take for granted, things I don’t understand, and never have, how the magic works that powers all the things in our lives.

But as I was lying there thinking of that, my mind started thinking about simpler times in the past. I’m not saying easier times but they were simpler. My mom grew up on a farm about six miles from where I live. That area of the county (as are most areas that were rural) is now all subdivision. I loved Grandma and Grandpa’s farm and I always enjoyed exploring the farm. The house had a summer kitchen attached by a covered porch and in the yard was a smoke house where after butchering season, meat (hams maybe?) hung from the rafters. There was a root cellar behind the smokehouse that I thought was the coolest thing. Stairs that led down into a cave-like room lined shelves stocked with glass canning jars.

They had a big barn with a hay loft that my cousins loved to jump from. I don’t remember if I ever did, but I can remember standing at the open door and looking down at the hay strewn below. They had cows and chickens and raised seed corn which we delighted in shucking off the ear and feeding to the chickens. I loved to explore the creek and look for rocks and fossils. I found one I kept for many years and it is the best one I’ve ever found.

My cousins and I would take turns swinging on a grapevine across the creek. I enjoyed that until the time the grapevine broke and I dropped about ten feet into the creek. I remember one of my cousins ran to get my mom but other than my pride being hurt and my butt wet, I was okay.

There’s just something about open spaces and growing things and raising animals that really, really appeals to me. When I was working the street, I was often assigned to the north zone of the county, the zone that was mostly farm fields and river rats. As soon as I left the city behind , it felt as though I could exhale. There is a peace and serenity I feel when surrounded by rural land that I don’t feel any where else. Maybe this is why I fell in love with the television show,  Walton’s Mountain. I wished I had lived on that mountain back then.

My mom has been gone now for 35 years. But if she was still here, I’d love to ask her about her life on the farm. Like, what was your favorite thing about living on the farm? What was your least favorite thing about living on the farm? Did you have a garden? How did you get to grade school? Did you go to Zion? Did Grandma and Grandpa go to your basketball and softball games? What did they think of Dad when they met him? What was the most fun thing you did on the farm? Did you have regular chores? Do you remember when the bathroom was put in the house?

So many questions about a simpler time and now no one to answer them.