(Originally published June 15, 2005)
We were pulling away from downtown Jewett, Texas, pointed down U.S. 79 toward Franklin and Hearne, when my wife said, “Wait, can we go back?”
Leah promptly clarified what I already knew; she wanted to visit the roadside produce stand we had just passed.
My wife will tell you that she loves to pick out fresh produce whenever we come across such stands while traveling. That is true, just as it is accurate that she also enjoys cooking and eating fresh beans, squash, tomatoes, peas, etc.
However, this particular stand had another element that made it exceptionally difficult for her to pass it by. A definitely elder gentleman, his jeans supported by suspenders and his hearing not quite enhanced well enough by the aids in his ears, tended it.
Maybe it is that she recognizes and values the treasured experiences such fellows harbor in their memories. Maybe she simply hopes the money is better spent closer to the source of those whose toil extract the vegetables from the ground. The cynic would say that maybe she’s only looking for a better price.
I think she’s attracted to older guys and their vegetable stands because they remind her of our fathers.
My dad grew up a farmer, raising tomatoes, cotton, peas and no telling what else in Bowie and Red River counties in far Northeast Texas. He dropped out of school after the ninth grade because he figured he would be farming all his life. Like many of our plans, his projection was off and he left the farm as a young adult.
Many years later, he again did some truck farming outside of White Oak, eventually all but replacing his tractor with a good, hard-pulling mule. He may have been his happiest while following old Kate down a furrow.
I was grown and gone myself before Daddy got very involved with roadside stands. However, Leah and I more than once found him set up along Highway 80 with a few other farmers offering fresh produce.
Special Squash
Yes, those memories probably play a role in the soft spot that required me to circle a few blocks through Jewett so she could acquire black-eyed peas and peaches that made their way to our dinner table that evening.
To tell you the truth, though, the produce may be merely a tasty byproduct of the attraction.
Leah’s father grew up in the city. Even though Sulphur Springs was hardly Metropolis, his family’s business was the funeral home, so his background was vastly different from my dad’s. Additionally, he completed his education after the war and became a teacher. Decades later, when he started doing what he loved, it was working on old houses.
What does an old farmer with a ninth-grade education have in common with a jack-of-all-trades holding a master’s degree? Well, they are both fathers, something we more readily notice this time of year, but there is more to it than that.
Just the other day, my dad was telling about the time he and his father spent two days driving a small herd of horses from near Lydia to the other side of Texarkana. Strange as it seemed, that was a story I did not remember hearing before.
A few days later, Leah’s dad was talking about an early break he took from teaching, when he went to work in a lumberyard. Probably because of his education, his new job included doing some bookkeeping and laboriously typing out letters to some of the company’s bigger customers.
Like most stories, both sounded better when told first person.
Yeah, maybe old guys in overalls have more important stuff to share with us than six ears of corn for a dollar.
(c) 2005 by Steve Martaindale
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