So when i was like… Six? Seven? My family and my Dad’s parents took a trip back to Iowa to see the family there and record a video of all the places Grandpa grew up. Which resulted, at one point, in all of us hiking out to a cement slab int he middle of a cornfield and Grandpa saying “This is where the schoolhouse USED to be.”
The whole thing is pretty hazy becuase I was having heatstroke/carsickness most of the time but I remember the following:
- Grandma in the backseat with me and my sister, working on the HUGE catherdal window quilt she hand-stitched to pass the time. It ended up being about 9ft by 12 ft when she was done, and we still have it at my parent’s house.
- an ungodly amount of corn
- which I realize everyone says about iowa, but the corn is one of the few thingsi recall with VIVID detail- the musty but very ALIVE smell of it photosynthesizing, the rouch texture of the leave and how my bare arms and legs got scratched up from hell to breakfast when i went wandering it. The violently geometric rows that would snap back to noneuclidian madness- I could never get to where I intended if i tried to cut across fields- Always on the wrong side or too far past where I wanted to come out. or on the wrong property, on one occasion.
- You’re never alone in those fields, not really. There’s a distinct Otherness about being three feet tall in the midst of six-foot corn, the closeness, with gaps where you can see forever and ever, the constant rustling like you’re being pursued. I’m willing to chalk a lot up to paranoia but I know the Wolfdog has better senses than me and that when she growled at something, she meant business.
- The one thing we did find in a field was a swan.
- Just chilling, sitting in one of the troughs. It was there with a bunch of Canada geese, hiding in the shade from the midday heat. It let me get within arms length before putting it’s head up, looking me dead in the eye from a sitting position. It began a low, continuous buzz, like bagpipes right before they scream. Mazel warned it with a low “Whurf” noise, and it stared her down for a minute, before it decided I had some kind of prior permission and decided I could stay.
- I also found a small ceramic otter, half buried in the dirt.
- That field used to be a lake, apparently.
- I’d also never been anywhere with lightning bugs prior to that august, and didn’t believe them until one of the Iowa cousins caught one for me and showed me that it was, in fact a bug and not the lawn about to explode from swap gas.
- Maybe I was just sweaty and prone to spilling punch on myself but they rather liked me, landing all over my skin and hair. I felt lighter than air when they came, like I could float away with them into the night.
- To the point where I went chasing them rather far into the woods until I ran into an old barb-wire fence, mostly rotted and easy to pass, covered in blackberries. I was about to cross when half a dozen turkeys came running full-tilt at and then past me, hardly chattering at all. I decided to take their lack of words and went hack to the cabin.
So you have some context for the WEIRD part of the trip.
We’re driving around the county of I can’t remember I was six and Grandpa is driving, and he turns down what I’d assumed was another dirt road when Mom starts asking about “Uh, do you actually KNOW the people who live here?” “Oh pshaw. it’ll be fine.” and I realized we were in some backwater Iowan’s DRIVEWAY, pulling up to a house, right about the time when the Bull charged the car.
“EDWIN THERE’S A BULL.” Shrieked my grandma, grabbing both me and my sister and heroically yanking us out our seatbelts and to the other side of the car, behind the quilt, in hopes it would protect us from potential impalement. Gandpa, Bless Him, stopped the fucking car and leaned out the window to look.
“Aren’t you handsome!” He laughed and the half-ton of angry pot roast stopped up short, blinking stupidly, before cautiously trotting up the rest of the way and attempting to stick his head in the car for skritches. He was stopped by the fact that his horns didn’t fit in the damn window.
Grandpa proceeds to drive the rest of the way up to the house, bull following us, before casually… getting out of the car, walking right up to the front door and ringing the bell. A Pair of the most American Gothic-looking people answer, looking bewildered at the elderly, plaid-covered man in front of them, offering them a ham of hand.
“My name’s Edwin, and I grew up on this farm- Did you ever meet the Fitzgerald’s? I was hoping I could show my family around where I was a boy.”
“Oh my god.” Said my mother, burying her face in the seat. “He’s going to be shot.”
“OH WELL COME ON IN!” The Gothic Americans say, apparently thrilled. “WE’VE GOT PIE AND LEMONADE AND AIR CONDITIONING.”
“…Or not.” mom shrugs, relived. For the moment.
So the family piles out of the car and into this house, which while rustic and probably charming, is also crammed to the brink with more fucking memento mori than a dutch painting museum that got invaded by a Dia De Los muertos parade.
I’m talking taxidermy animals, portraits where everyone is skeletons, mannequins covered in flowing cloaks, pinned insects and pressed flowers, tiny skeleton dolls sitting in corners, a literal wall of scythes, a hall of livestock skulls and on the mantelpiece, in a glass bell jar, an actual human skull. I, six years old and a weirdo, am immediately in love with this place.
“That’s Great-Uncle Richard.” The lady says, fondly. “He’s the one that your grandpa’s family sold the farm to!”
“COOL.” I say as Grandma takes out her rosary.
“COME ON IN FOR SOME PIE.” hollers the gentleman from the kitchen. We go in and there is not one but like, SIX fucking pies on the table and milk and lemonade and whiskey and an angelfood cake and it’s all very Norman Rockwell except for the part where the kitchen is Not Immune and there’s a centerpiece pf chipmunks taxidermied to be drinking tea in the center. I am DELIGHTED, my grandmother is praying harder. My mom had decided she’s going to enjoy this encounter and sits down for a lemonade and a slice of apple pie while my Dad gently tell my two-year old sister to not lick the skeletons.
Everyone has a grand time sitting around the table with these people, Lucille and Barry, talking about the history of the farm and long-passed relatives and crop yields and whatnot. Except for my grandmother, who is Too Catholic For This, and when my ADHD ass gets bored and asks to go look at the animals, says she’ll go with me, despite being decidedly non agrarian.
We go outside to find Mazel sitting in the water trough, becuase being part husky in Iowa in August is HARD, and sometimes one needs to get soaked up to the neck to cope. The Bull is displeased by Strange Dogs sitting in his trough, but she leveled him with a look and low noise that was more rumble than growl to remind him she was Canis Lupis Decidedly-Less-Familiaris and she ate his cousins ground up for breakfast and he decided he had important Bull Business on the other side of the barn.
We get into the barn where there were about 20 dairy cattle having a nap in the shade that afternoon before milking, and I point up and shout ‘LOOK GRANDMA JUST LIKE CHURCH’. Growing up agnostic had left me fuzzier on certain religious matters, and I naturally assumed that the gaunt, rather tortured looking figure hanging from the rafters was a crucified Jesus.
It was, I would later learn, a sculpture of Great-Aunt Margret, wife of Richard-on-the-mantle, who had a wild sense of humor and had left instructions that she wanted to be strung up to watch over her beloved cows and also to terrify any would-be rustlers. Her family had the good sense to not leave an actual corpse hanging from the rafters, but whoever made that scultpure did a Damn Fine job capturing the pants-shitting terror Margret had been after. Grandma attempted to haul me out of there but I was much more interested in the cows, and merrily fed them scattered bit of hay through the bars of the queuing area before the milking stall under Margret’s watchful eyeless sockets.
I also found a nest of pitch-black kittens, a white and very arthritic hound that managed to get up and follow me around the barn anyway, and a fat, green-black chicken that came up to my navel and wanted chin scratches. There were various other odd decorations scattered around the property- the large, wrought-iron sculpture in the middle of the duck pond was particularly choice. It was constructed of several arches and a few curled spikes, so that when it was viewed with a reflection on a still day, it formed an eye. It was a splendid afternoon.
When I got back to the car, grandma had added another seventeen cathedral windows to the quilt out of spite and was ready to wring my grandfather’s neck. We hauled mazel out of the trough, patted the bull goodbye and left with some lovely family history and a furious grandmother.
Lucille and Barry passed away a while ago, but we always exchanged christmas cards, and I’m still Facebook friends with their daughter, Juliet. She;s thinking about turning the farm into an eco-amusement park.
So to actually answer your question, Jolly Ranchers.
