Here we are on the last day of April, 2022

 TERRY

Well here we have the last day of April as we spring into May tomorrow.  There is really nothing new with Terry.  As I write she is in bed with the paper.  I would say she is doing pretty much the same as in the last few days.  So it is one day at a time and we will see where it take us.

It is one day at a time and Terry seems to be doing OK.  Terry is doing OK and we will see where it takes us as the days go by.  

Well as the days go by more and more people are leaving and heading up north again.  Our neighbors to our the left headed out today and they have a home in Kansas City.  I don't know when the neighbors on the other side are leaving but I do think soon.  By this time next month I think  of the 46 people in our circle I am guessing two thirds will be gone.  Then it will be a few months of people and quiet until they return starting in October again.  

I do not have any plans for the next few days.  I need to get on the bike at least once a day and spend 15-20 minutes riding.  Other than that I think I need to get things cleaned up around here and make it look like real people live here.  I have not gotten things cleared away for some time so it may be the time to make this people look like people live here again.  

I think I may go back in time for a while.

It was the summer of 1959.  I had just finished 6th grade and Dave and finished 9 grade.  Little did I know that was the last summer Dave and I would spend together.  The next summer Dave would be off to Kulm and we would be together during the school year but not in the summer again.

It was a glorious summer.  There were bike rides to the lake and back almost every night.  There were the boring days of picking rocks.  A task that never ended as for every rock two rocks you picked one more would appear out of nowhere!  There was the harvest of the wheat field to the east of our farm.  Dave and I would eat chokecherries until we could not eat any more.  There was the plowing to the west of the place where we almost burned the entire field.  There was the over the top straw to the east where we almost burned Bert's wheat field.  There was the contest to see who could run right across the thistle patch. AMD then there was the ultimate prize of going to the MN state fair when all the work was done.  

There was all that and more as it turned out that was the last time Dave and I had the summer to ourselves.  The summer after that Dad allowed Dave to go to Kulm to work.  He did that after his sophomore year and junior year and then he was out of the house.  He packed his bags and headed to Kulm and then onto NDSU.  There we again got to getter.  It was golf most of the time.

So I had several years kind of alone on the farm.  It was then that I made my golf course.  It was then that I cleaned up the entire hog barn thing so that it was clean.  The hog barn had been an eye sore for years so it was with determination that I cleared out all the old cement and made it a pleasant place again.  It was there that I played golf on Sundays on my one hole golf course pitting Arne, Jack and Gary against each other and funny things Arne always won!!!

So it was with determination and guile that I weather those years.  And the final act was coming back after Janet died one last year.  BUT then I had my motorcycle which kind of saved the day.

So all that is in the past.  Today, at the age of 75, I am kind of in the mode of kicking back and remembering what was and also what is.  It is a memory of love and not so much.  Of farming and doing things like a walk up to the lake to picking rocks and all the mandate things.  BUT really for the most part is it a story of what was.  No regrets but some items of maybe how things could have been different.  But it is what it is so be it.  

I have no regrets but perhaps maybe some things that could have been different.  But it is what it is to let bygones be bygones.   Here is it mid morning so maybe I should get some work done.