One of my favourite photos was a drive-by shooting. Pedal-by, more correctly.
The sun had just clambered up the eastern sky as my vintage five-speed and I pedaled past a farm lane. I could barely see the farmer through the dense row of trees, but he had a rake; seemed to be smoothing the gravel. And the sun hit him just so.
To stop to stare would have seemed impolite, so as I passed I slipped my camera from my pocket, captured the moment, and cycled on by.
I pass that farm fairly often. Not daily, but often enough to have noticed a few things about the man with the rake. He drives a good truck, and his wife drives a little car. Sometimes I hear their dog barking as I pass, but I’ve never once seen it—it’s never running loose.
He treats his cattle well, the man with the rake. Grooms his land. Maintains his sheds. Grows grain that at harvest-time looks like waves on the ocean. Stores enough grain and hay for a long winter.
He works hard. Fixes his fences. Keeps the grass mowed. And he pays attention to little things.
The farmer startled me one day. I didn’t expect to find anyone there; hunched over the grass, fixing something.
Watching his large hands, deft and sure, I commented on a killdeer I’d just seen, and how it tried to coax me away from its eggs by mewing and dragging its wing. Without looking up, he told me, his voice as natural as the grass under him, how much he likes those birds. “I get off the tractor sometimes,” he said, “just to move the eggs.”
Not embarrassed. Just sayin’.
You get to know a little about a man by passing him by every now and then. Not all. Never all. Why he’s in the lane so early? Couldn’t he sleep? Had his wife complained that she would lose her small car in a pot-hole? Was he knocking back the to-do list on the fridge? Expecting company, perhaps? Had he eaten breakfast? Was he using that time to pray?
A few hundred yards down the road, I hopped off my bike and wandered closer to that man’s cattle, grazing in the field beyond. They lifted their heads, stopped eating, and ambled over to stare at me. I stared back, noticing that their tags dangled not from their ears, but from the thick skin of their chests, like a necklace.
Farmers attach tags soon after a calf enters the world. Tags track vital bovine information, like bloodlines, birth dates and vaccinations. He also keeps careful track of things, the farmer in the lane. The cattle told me that.
You can tell a lot about what people are made of by passing their place every so often. Hearts spill out. Goodness runs over. So does the other stuff. And passersby notice. But lest we judge, let’s remember:
Only God knows the core of a man.
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The late Paul Harvy wrote a beautiful tribute to some of the finest people among us. Take a moment for “So God Made a Farmer.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWpeNAUe5Vw for those reading this column via RSS)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWpeNAUe5Vw