As my 86YO mother continues to decline in her cognitive functioning due to Alzheimer's I've been thinking more about my father's absence. He was a 50's dad, a WWII survivor; a 1940's University of Maine grad, MIT student of engineering, traveling about with his great engineering mind designing farming equipment and such; the son of a chicken farmer in Bethel, Maine, during the Great Depression.
When he passed on and my mother closed the house up I grabbed the sign from the front of the house/business in Bethel, long ago left to rest in Dad's garage on the wall. I bring it out every spring, hanging it in a shady spot, bringing my father out with it to my new patio, keeping him and the rest of his family nearby. I have numerous bird feeders about, my favorite being the finch and hummer feeders, making this piece of Central California something of a "Feathered Acres" as well.
For the longest time I contemplated this sign briefly then moved on, certain that its shape was oval. Nah, it's not oval, is it? Is it? Like, DUH?!!!
I just felt compelled to share it today. I miss him, even though he couldn't appreciate his girl-child in the ways he did his boy-child. He was, nevertheless, proud of her . . . finally.
Linda, daughter of a chicken farming family
