Remember When?

Do you remember when people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? If you didn’t have an immediate answer did they offer up helpful suggestions? Like you needed to decide the rest of your life, and let them in on it. The next thing they wanted to know was “why”.

As a kid I couldn’t wait to “be grown up”. I wanted to be big, to be older, to have a job so I could make money, so I could buy what I wanted and do what I liked.

I never wanted to work in the yard, clean the garage, or tend the garden.

The subject of retirement came up the other day. Just like the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question did years ago.

I started thinking about my Granddaddy. He retired and bought himself a truck farm and a sporting goods store. Sporting goods store makes it sound grander than it was. Thats what he called it though. The store was a bait shop that sold a few guns and fishing poles. A truck farm raises vegetables and sells em off the back of a flat bed truck, mostly on the honor system.

The farm had a pond with a few fish in it. I caught my first one, a crappie on a cane pole. If Grandpa’s chest got any bigger it would have burst. I went on my first bird hunt when Grandpa said I could tag along. He hung back with me so we'd get the ones that sneaked by the dogs, cause that's what the best hunters do. I was five. He didn’t get any birds that day, everyone else did.

I can’t think of a better life. When I grow up: I want a truck farm with a pond, some pan-fish, and good bird hunt’n. I’d add a small orchard and a cider press to the deal if I could.

Granddaddy had all that for just a few years before the cancer got him. I’d like to have it a little longer if I could. If it's not too selfish of me, I’d like to have it sooner in life than he did.