Pompo

Summers were hot in Eastern Washington. Not just your average hot, but skin searing, blood boiling, bright, dry heat. For the older kids, there was always plenty to do. More than they imagined, if they dared to utter the words "I'm bored". If you grew up on a farm, you'd know what I mean. A day's work is never really done, and there is surely something that always needs doing. I was only five when I realized those three words were never to be whispered, for fear a grownup might hear you.

This summer I was turning eight, and that was close enough to be charged with some of the older kid's chores, if you were caught standing idle or day dreaming. Which I often did, although I had all but mastered the art of not getting caught. I was the disappearing child. I had hundreds of acres to roam in the middle of nowhere, but I usually stuck close by the old barn. There were fascinating things in there. Plus, it's where my aunt kept the sugar cubes for the horses.

As I chomped on the sugar cubes, I would look at all the old things that were placed there. It smelled like hay bales, leaking oil from the tractors, animal smells (some comforting others not so much). Some items were like artifacts, long forgotten. While others remained relatively newer and semi functional, but still rusty and caked with dirt. This place was also where the mama kitties would come to have their kittens. I loved to feed the mama kitties, play with their babies and give them all names.

Till this day, I don't know if anyone ever knew where I'd disappear to after supper, but it was almost always there. Among the farm tools, saddles, animal feed and rusted vehicles, I'd just walk around inspecting things as I continued to eat the sugar cubes.

A few of the tractors still worked. I'd hop on and pretend like I was Pompo, driving around the property, feeding all the animals before the sun even had a chance to say good morning. When there were baby animals, like there almost always were in the early summer, he'd drive around to feed them twice.

I loved my Pompo. Between ten kids, god knows how many animals, and all of his regular farmhand work, there wasn't a lot of time for just us. After supper on those hot, summer evenings, I'd go down to the barn and wait for him. If I ate fast and got there in a hurry, I'd just be able to catch him before he started the tractor, hitched up the hay trailer, and went about feeding the animals for the evening.

It's one evening in particular that I remember. I was wearing my hee-haw overalls, my airplane shirt, and my favorite red sneakers. I actually beat Pompo to the barn on this rare occasion. When I heard the heaviness of his boots, I quickly left the kittens with their mama kitties and jumped out to surprise him. He This was something that never happened. Even the big kids didn't get asked to feed the animals. I felt honored. Pompo asked ME to help him feed the animals, and it wasn't a small job. There were goats, horses and cows that all needed tending to. We'd be out past dark, which was a no no. But, Pompo made the rules, so I jumped at the chance.

We walked over to the larger part of the barn where the barely working tractor sat, leaking oil. I helped him put the bales of hay on the trailer, and he hitched it up.

"Hop on Kid." as he patted his lap.

I looked at him with wide, disbelieving emerald eyes. "really?" I whispered?

"I taught your mom to drive the tractor around your age. I'll do the shifting and pedals, and you do the steering. When we get out into the pasture, you hop on the trailer and push the hay into the troughs. Deal?"

"Yes, sir!" This was more excitement than my almost eight year old mind could handle. Pompo was going to teach me to drive a tractor! I remember thinking, "wait till the big kids hear about this."

I hopped on his lap, we backed the tractor out of the barn and rode off into the waning sunset. I remember the ride, but not what we talked about. I remember feeling so proud of myself that he was proud of me for helping. I just remember laughing and smiling, and I can still hear his laugh as he puffed on his cherry wood pipe.

Pompo was my real life super hero. He could do ANYTHING. He survived two wars, raised five kids, had countless grandchildren, ran a farm, loved my grandmother as much or more than he did the day they were married. He believed in telling the truth even if you made a mistake. He believed in hard work and good people.

That tractor ride, was the ride of my life. If I only knew that the ride would be our last. I was only seven years old, and thirty three years later I can still smell his sweat mixed with Old Spice, his cherry pipe smoke, see the kindness in his bright blue eyes, and hear the song of his laughter over the clunk clunk of the tractor engine.

This one is for you Pompo. I will never stop missing you.

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