That was beautiful. But it made me really homesick. I partly grew up in a small town (pop. 82) in Illinois on the Iowa border, right across from a grain elevator.
My grandad would wake up really early on Saturday mornings and take me with him to the diner. It hadn't been redecorated since probably the 1920s, and neither had the inhabitants. I would get a donut and coffee that looked suspiciously like milk and I'd sit while this bunch of farmers talked about things I didn't understand: auctions and corn and soy. On the way home, although it terrified my mom, he'd let me ride in the back of the truck.
He died when I was about nine, and those are the strongest memories I have of him. It's so strongly tied up with my memories of the grain elevator (he was foreman in addition to being a farmer: it was a cooperative) and the Midwest, whenever I hear descriptions of Iowa summer, all I can think of is him.
Homesick...
I partly grew up in a small town (pop. 82) in Illinois on the Iowa border, right across from a grain elevator.
My grandad would wake up really early on Saturday mornings and take me with him to the diner. It hadn't been redecorated since probably the 1920s, and neither had the inhabitants. I would get a donut and coffee that looked suspiciously like milk and I'd sit while this bunch of farmers talked about things I didn't understand: auctions and corn and soy. On the way home, although it terrified my mom, he'd let me ride in the back of the truck.
He died when I was about nine, and those are the strongest memories I have of him. It's so strongly tied up with my memories of the grain elevator (he was foreman in addition to being a farmer: it was a cooperative) and the Midwest, whenever I hear descriptions of Iowa summer, all I can think of is him.
Okay, now that I sound like a sad country song...