The Old Yellow Barn

The Old Yellow Barn

He stood on the side of the road looking across the farm house from his childhood. His mind drifted back almost fifty years, to a quieter time, a happy and sad time. A time filled with life and love, hope and sorrow. Long before the Internet and cell phones, it was a peaceful life.

This was the place he learned the value of hard work, and the satisfaction that came at the end of a day well spent. He was only nine when he first came to stay at his grandparents farm. A young boy from the city, scared and alone. After the accident that took his parents, this was the only place left to go.

As he stood on the side of the road, his eyes drifted from place to place and building to building, picturing how it was fifty years earlier. The little three bedroom canary yellow house was gone and replaced by the new owners.

He noticed that most of the apple trees were still standing. There were twenty three apple trees and two cherry trees when he was here last. The garden that his grandmother tended was still there. It was always filled with fresh lettuce, peas, sweet corn, potatoes, green beans, onions and more. What they didn't use right away, she would can for the winter months.

The expanse of the property spread out before him. Three hundred and sixty acres in all. It looked so much smaller now.

Looking across the eighty acre field where they used to plant wheat in the Spring, he remembered the winter they rescued a young Golden Eagle from a fox trap they had set. The young eagle must have flown down to grab the bait and got its let caught in the trap. His grandfather rescued it and brought it into the basement of the old yellow house. The trap had taken one leg completely off and they didn't know what to do with it.

For six months they tended him. They left food (fresh liver) on the wood pile everyday for him to eat. He remembered how he slowly gained the birds trust and soon began to feed him by hand. He could even get him to perch on his arm while he ate. He named him Harpy.

When Harpy could finally fly, land, and eat on his own (with one leg) they released him. For years they would see him around the property. They always knew it was him by the way he landed. He always had a slight wobble like a bird limp.

Finally his eyes fell upon the old barn. When he was last here it was mostly yellow but already starting to fade. Now, it was mostly a shade of faded gray wood and it looked like it was on its last leg. He doubted it was used anymore, but that old two story barn held some of his greatest memories.

Looking back now, he was surprised to think that this was the place he learned about hard work, adventure, the value of life and death, and peace.

Inside that old barn, he learned to milk a cow for the first time. And every morning after, he would be out there at 5am milking cows. This was before the age of automation and they milked all the cows by hand.

In the spring, they would make maple syrup in the woods in the back forty. In the fall, he learned to hunt deer to help store up meat for the winter. And every summer when it was hay bailing time, he would be in the hay loft stacking bales as they came off the shoot. Grandpa knew that if they stacked the bales, they could get an extra 1000 bales in the loft each year and sell them to the neighbor farmers who didn't have enough for the winter. It taught him economics and business. Lessons that he carried with him for the rest of his life.

He remembered the adventures he and his cousin used to have in that old hay loft. They hung a rope from the rafters (before it was filled in the summer) and swing like pirates sieging a treasure galleon. And on summer nights, when they knew a storm was coming in, they would take their sleeping bags and camp out in the hay loft talking for hours as the lightning cracked across the sky and the thunder shook the rafters until finally they were so tired they fell asleep to the beating of the rain echoing off the roof.

That old barn was also his peaceful place. Over the years, when the weight of his parents being gone and he was feeling all alone, he would climb in the hay loft to sit and think. Sometimes he would cry because he couldn't share his feelings. Other times he would talk to his Mom and Dad as if they were with him. He would share his life and the things that grandpa was teaching him.

It was in that old barn that he started his career. Although he didn't know it at the time. It's where he started to write.

He began keeping a journal of his day-to-day life. Eventually, he started writing stories. Adventure stories and mysteries until years later he published his first book.

His first two books didn't sell very well, but they helped him find his voice and develop his craft. Eventually he became a New York Times Bestseller and now has over 30 titles to his name. And it all started in that old hay loft.

A tear gently rolled down his cheek as he turned to go.

“Goodbye Grandpa, and thank you,” he whispered to himself.

Starting the car, he took one last look at that old barn, wiped the tears from his eyes and drove away.

* * *

The contents of this story are based on real life. I still remember that old yellow barn today. The lessons I learned on the farm I have treasured all my life. And I thank God for the time I had with my Grandparents. They are gone now. That old barn is still standing. And their memory lives within me.

Thank you for letting me share a piece of my story with you.