We were fortunate as kids to have relatives who lived on a farm. The farm was

located in Troy, Ohio, which was about an 8 hour car drive from our house. I'm

still not sure what their relation was to our family. I believe they were like

3rd or 4th cousins. All I remember is they always seemed a bit surprised when my

father's car pulled up to their farmhouse. I kind of think my father forgot on

occasion to tell them we were coming. At least once, I remember my dad

bringing some type of official document from the courthouse with him to show

them that we were indeed related.

The last time we went there was in 1960. I was 13 and my brother was 11. We

brought a friend along with us for that final trip. For us urbanites, going to

the farm was like visiting an alien landscape. They had cows there, a bull, some

sheep, and lots of chickens. Besides the farmhouse, they had a full fledged barn

with tractors, tools, and a hayloft.

The barn would always be our first destination upon our arrival. While my

father, stepmother, and our older cousins were examining the court documents,

we'd run to the barn. Once there, we'd play around on the tractor, find hiding

places in the hayloft, and look for bats and toads.

They had many acres of property. Cornfields covered a good bit of it. The

cornstalks were always high and abundant during those summer days, and we'd

spend hours during the day wandering through the corn rows trying to get lost,

and sometimes succeeding.

Dinner was always our favorite time of day there because the food was always so

fresh. That was a genuine treat for boys who normally subsisted on leftovers.

The vegetables were always picked fresh in the morning and, though I never

witnessed it, I imagine the chicken was too.

 My brother, friend, and I even enjoyed getting up at the crack of dawn to feed

the animals and gather up chicken eggs.

We would normally spend about a week on the farm before going back to the land

of asphalt and concrete, but each of us loved the time we spent there. It

cleansed us, recharged us, and gave us great stories to tell our friends and

classmates.

My father also liked to camp and, for two or three years in the early '60s,

would take my brother and I camping.

The trips would only last two or three days, but they would always be thrill

packed. I saw my first eagle on a camping trip. It flew directly over our car on

a small dirt road. For an instant, it's shadow blotted out the sun. Then it was

ahead of us, flying slowly, the tips of it's wings nearly touching the trees on

either side of the road.

I also saw my first bear that wasn't caged. It was at night. My father, my

brother, and I were talking around the small campfire over the babbling of a

stream a short distance away. We suddenly heard loud splashing from the water

nearby. My father concentrated his flashlight beam on the running water. There

was a bear, a big one, holding a fish in it's huge paw, staring back at us.

My father calmly, and without saying a word, turned off the flashlight, got up,

strolled to his tent and zippered it all the way up. I guess he forgot about my

brother and I, left to fend for ourselves. Not to worry. We did the same thing

with our tent, only faster.

One time, my father and I went exploring in a wooded area in Pennsylvania known

as New Germany. After trekking for a while, we realized we were hopelessly lost.

I remember that we climbed a tall hill, hoping to get our bearings. As we neared

the hill's crest, we began to smell something peculiar, like rotten garbage.

When we reached the top we saw the reason for the odor. We were on the far side

of an expansive landfill.

We eventually were able to hitch a ride to our campsite on the back of an empty

garbage truck. Despite the smell, riding on the back of that garbage truck with

my father was the highlight of that summer.

Not many summers after that, my father passed away. It's these memories that you

hold on to, tightly.