Friday, May 19, 2017

Drive - A Memoir 115th Installment

levels (4.0 in every class, every year); and I had amassed enough credits to graduate in three years. I would have been sixteen when I graduated, so Edith decided I wasn’t ready to go to college so I went ahead and became a senior. I think deep down they wanted a hired man for another year on the farm. That year I took every class the school had to offer – even home economics.

Chapter 33
There was always working to be done on the farm, even when the summer was over, like winterization and repairs in preparation for winter. Russ and I were fixing fence when we were called to the house.

Tex was hurt badly in an accident,” Edith told us.

No way!” I blurted out, my eyes shifting back and forth between Edith and Vernon. “Is he going to be okay?”

It doesn’t look good. The doctors did emergency surgery on him when they finally got him to the hospital.” Vernon said quietly. Edith and Vernon knew we loved Tex. We called him our godfather – the leader of our little posse, Tex the old mentor, Russ and me.
What happened?” Russ asked anxiously.

Tex always drove his tractor to the store to play card games, drink a little and get supplies every week. Sometimes he drove on the new roadway they’re building because it’s shorter. Last night he took the construction road home. They had dug a channel for a large pipe to go under the roadway, and Tex didn’t see it in time. He crashed into the trench and hurt himself real bad. When they got him to the hospital, they found he had a rupture in his aorta. They went ahead and did the surgery, but he had bled out real bad.” Edith told us in a steeled steady voice.

Edith and I are leaving right now for the hospital,” Vernon explained. “He’s been asking for us.”

We’re going too,” I cried. “He’s asking for us not you. Tex said we were his only friends – his only family. He said he could count on us. Get it! He needs Russ and me!”

No,” Vernon declared. “We need you here.”

The girls can do the work can’t they?” Russ asked in a shaky voice.

No, we need you here to take responsibility for the farm,” Edith said firmly. “We’ll probably stay overnight in town and may need to stay another day or two. We need you boys to be here!”

We had learned childhood came hard on a farm, and now we knew childhood was over.


Okay,” I said, knowing it was settled. Vernon and Edith were gone overnight and came home in the middle of the next night. In the morning they led Russ and me to the living room and sat us down. They looked as sad and tired as I’d ever seen them.

500 more words tomorrow

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