Wealth of Knowledge

Last night, I was hanging out on my family's farm. My husband was helping my dad, my son was riding his 4-wheeler, and I was spending time talking with my grandpa. My grandpa is 92 years old. He lives alone, since Grandma passed away 5 years ago. He still does almost everything himself, even carries his own water softener salt into the cellar. We all look out for him, especially my dad since he is around the farm so much. Grandpa spends most of his days on his golf cart, tooling around the barn yard or scoping out the crops, gardening, and fixing old things most would have thrown away long ago. His latest project was a rototiller. The tiller hadn't run in years and was just sitting in the barn. Grandpa decided to see if he could fix it. The tiller was at least 30 years old, but after some tuning from Grandpa, it runs like a top.

Grandpa and I were standing in the barn chatting last night. He started talking about a farm down the road and timelines. He could remember when the house on that farm got indor plumbing and a furnace. He told me about an Indian Mound I had passed by darn near every day of my life and I had no idea that was what it was; I thought it was just a hill of dirt. He told me about the land he farmed, the farmers he helped after his own farming was done, and the tractors he owned. He told me how his neighbor asked Grandpa to help locate a well. Grandpa found it. With a no more tools than a stick.

At one point during the conversation I realized I was doing the majority of the listening, and Grandpa the talking. It was such a wonderful place to be. I watched my grandpa talking and saw his eyes light up when he could see that what he was telling me was new information. Just in the 30 minutes I listened to Grandpa, I found out so much. I wish there was a way to record everthing that was said; I want Gavin to know those stories someday. I tried to absorb all he was saying and remember it. My grandpa is such a wealth of knowledge. He knows things and has seen things we will never know or see. I just hope to retain a fraction of what he tells me so I may share his stories some day.

I am lucky. I am lucky to have a grandpa who does most of the talking while I do the listening.