Stevenson's Place
For the past six years, I have made the sixty mile drive to Fort Collins two to three times a week. I have become quite familiar with that road – maybe, too familiar.
I check several spots during the drive. One is the ‘old Stevenson place’. I don't know what it is really called. I don’t even know if anyone by the name of Stevenson ever lived there. It’s just a name I came up with one day (remember I make this drive a lot and have plenty of time to think).
The old Stevenson place has a small but well kept farmhouse surrounded by fields of hay and corn. The crops were rotated yearly with hay being planted next to the interstate one year, corn the following year.
I have past the old Stevenson place early in the morning when the first rays of sunlight were glistening off the green corn field. I’ve past it at dusk when the irrigation sprinklers was running creating miniature rainbows. I’ve been by there in the Spring when the farmer was planting the field and in the Fall when he was harvesting. It’s one of those places you just keep an eye on as you pass by.
About a month ago, I noticed the farmer out walking in the cornfield. I had never seen him before, just caught glimpses of him on the tractor or in the combine. It seemed like he was just walking through the cornfield enjoying the crisp Fall weather. I pulled off the highway to watch him for a few minutes. He was reaching up and running his hand along the corn tassels. Then he’d walk a little, bend down, pick up a handful of dirt, and throw it in the air. As I sat there and watched, I concluded he had something on his mind or was wrestling with a problem.
I saw him again a few weeks later running the combine with the corn trailer in tow. I wondered if he figured out his problem.
Last week I drove by and there was a moving van out front. Yesterday I drove by and saw a sad site. A bulldozer was tearing the farmhouse down, earth moving machinery was setting in the fields, and a huge sign was facing the highway announcing yet another shopping center was going to be built.
I’m not sure everything we call “progress” is.
I check several spots during the drive. One is the ‘old Stevenson place’. I don't know what it is really called. I don’t even know if anyone by the name of Stevenson ever lived there. It’s just a name I came up with one day (remember I make this drive a lot and have plenty of time to think).
The old Stevenson place has a small but well kept farmhouse surrounded by fields of hay and corn. The crops were rotated yearly with hay being planted next to the interstate one year, corn the following year.
I have past the old Stevenson place early in the morning when the first rays of sunlight were glistening off the green corn field. I’ve past it at dusk when the irrigation sprinklers was running creating miniature rainbows. I’ve been by there in the Spring when the farmer was planting the field and in the Fall when he was harvesting. It’s one of those places you just keep an eye on as you pass by.
About a month ago, I noticed the farmer out walking in the cornfield. I had never seen him before, just caught glimpses of him on the tractor or in the combine. It seemed like he was just walking through the cornfield enjoying the crisp Fall weather. I pulled off the highway to watch him for a few minutes. He was reaching up and running his hand along the corn tassels. Then he’d walk a little, bend down, pick up a handful of dirt, and throw it in the air. As I sat there and watched, I concluded he had something on his mind or was wrestling with a problem.
I saw him again a few weeks later running the combine with the corn trailer in tow. I wondered if he figured out his problem.
Last week I drove by and there was a moving van out front. Yesterday I drove by and saw a sad site. A bulldozer was tearing the farmhouse down, earth moving machinery was setting in the fields, and a huge sign was facing the highway announcing yet another shopping center was going to be built.
I’m not sure everything we call “progress” is.
posted by Ralph at 7:18 AM
8 Comments:
This is a great post Ralph. I know what he was doing. He was being by himself.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
How sad. It sounds like it was an incredibly difficult decision he had to make, and I somehow doubt he was happy with what he chose. It seems to me this was something he felt he had to do, for whatever reason. I feel badly for him.
Based purely on that quiet moment you witnessed, of course.
Sorry, I goofed up before and thought it would delete it altogether and I could post again.
Anyway, this was a great post. I hate to see farmland being turned into malls, condos, apartments, etc. "Mr. Stevenson" was probably out there having some final alone moments and thinking on how he was going to miss this life and the land, and all the memories he had of the place. I don't like this kind of "progress," not at all. It is sad that so much land goes to developers.
This was truly a touching Blog. And they call this progress?
The same thing is happening all around us. City folk flee to the country. Schools must be built. Real estate taxes go up. Farmers can't afford to farm there anymore. They can sell 50 acres and buy 500 acres two counties away. Developers buy the land and build another faceless "vinyl village". And the cycle continues on.
Oh how awful. He was saying "goodbye." My stomach is churning.
Great post Ralph, but really sad. Pretty soon a hit song will come out titled, "where have all the farmers gone?"
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