Farmers Market Saturday

Janesville has a Farmers Market every Saturday in the summer. Today was glorious, sunny and not too hot, so my husband and I headed downtown. It became clear that we have very different objectives for our time at the farmers market. He makes a beeline for whatever he wants to use in meal preparation. I meander, taking pictures, sipping hot coffee, stopping to socialize with people I know. He bought lettuce and tomatoes; I bought parsley and basil plants. He got impatient; I reminded him this was not a grocery store, but rather an event. I think next time we'll go separately.

Remembering Dad

Ralph and Gene Pierce, about 1933

Ralph Pierce, about 1936

Ralph Pierce and Carol Tess, about 1946

Dad and Mom 1982

I tried to write a post on Father's Day, but I couldn't do it. I've been scanning old family pictures and storing them on the internet because I am afraid that some day we'll have a disaster and all those family records will be lost. When I started going through pictures of my dad, it was overwhelming.

My parents were just twenty years older than me, and I imagined that when I was a retired lady (like now) we would all do things together. What, I'm not sure. As a family we didn't take vacations, both because my dad was a dairy farmer tied to his work, and because my mother's attitude was "There's no place like home." I just thought that we'd all reside on planet earth into our old age. Dad died in 1983 of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, aged 52. Mom joined him in 2005.

My dad was a farm kid who took over the dairy operation when he and Mom married in 1949. He used to ride a Harley back then, but Mom convinced him to sell it to a friend once they started a family. At Mom's funeral the friend confided that he still has Dad's bike, which must be worth a fortune these days. Anyway, despite ulcers and bad knees, Dad milked until about 1967, when he sold the herd and went into business with the friend who bought his Harley, and they sold John Deere equipment for several years. When the business was sold, he became a parts manager for another Deere dealership, and that was his job until his death.

I always thought that his cancer might have been caused by all the chemicals on the farm, all the herbicides and fertilizers that were poured and spread and sprayed on the fields, but his oncologist thought otherwise. I suppose it doesn't matter now, but I think about it.

I had a terrible time coping with his death, but an interesting thing happened. About a month later he came to me in a dream. I had been depressed, thinking I saw the back of his head in pickup trucks ahead of me in traffic, what people do who lose people they love. In the dream the bedside telephone rang, I picked it up, and it was his familiar voice. He said, "Sherry, I'm fine. I want you to stop worrying about me."

I woke up certain in my heart that the voice was real, though in my head I knew I couldn't be. Still, something changed. The grief softened, and I started to live my life again. He was fine because he said so; I could be fine too. I still miss him though, every day.

Gone Fishing

I caught my first fish today.

Actually, it was the second time in my life that I went fishing. The first time I was seven, and my dad took me along in the row boat, but I don't remember having a pole. I remember he had a cane pole, and I remember it was hot on Lauderdale Lake. Dad had chores to do on the farm, so we brought the bluegills home in a pail, and he dumped the fish into a stock tank, thinking to clean them later. Unfortunately for us, the heifers, and for the bluegills, it was a hot day and the cows were thirsty. By the time Dad got around to collecting the fish after milking the stock tank was dry and the fish had expired.

Fast forward fifty years. I recently admitted to an outdoorsy friend that I had never gone fishing, or at least had never caught a fish. So over the weekend he called to ask if we had a joint husband/wife fishing license. A what? I asked. Anyway, the license was bought, and we got up at an ungodly hour to drive to his house. My first impression was that it takes a whole lot of equipment to go fishing. What happened to the cane pole and worms, the row boat at the lake, and the galvanized pail? This was a motor boat with comfortable seats hauled behind an air-conditioned truck, with tackle boxes, nets, rods and reels, a cooler, and I don't know what all. I am not complaining; I just did not realize all the stuff a fisherman has. It was beautiful on the lake, hazy, the air thick with humidty, birds and dragonflies everywhere. The view of the Monona Terrace and the state capitol building was stunning. The mood in the boat was congenial.

It's fortunate that I was enjoying the scenery and the company because it became clear that I was not winning any prizes as a fisherwoman. In fact I only caught one bluegill, though the three of us reeled in enough for supper.

The other part of my fishing experience is that I learned how to clean a fish. I had never approached a raw fish with a knife before, and this was an event about which I had uneasy dreams. I imagined the fish's resentful glare, and I feared an accident similar to the one in an art class involving wood carving, and resulting in four stitches in my left pointer finger. I have a nifty scar to this day. Instead I just took a deep breath and went to it. My more experienced fishing friend did me the favor of filleting the bluegills, to prevent me from mangling the few precious fish we did catch.

The end result was I had a great day, and an even greater supper. My husband, who decided not to learn to gut fish, did a marvelous job of pan frying them, with sides of homemade potato salad and grilled asparagus. We're looking forward to some fresh raspberries later on. This was a good day.