What is it about a bologna and cheese sandwich with Miracle Whip on white store bought bread that takes me back to that six year old girl playing in the freshly turned dirt of the field? The cool tanginess of the Miracle Whip soaking into the softness of the bread makes the first bite feel good. The combination tastes like summer. It tastes like taking lunch for my dad out to the field with a big jug of iced tea and a Ziploc baggy full of cookies for later. (Any kind of cookies. My Dad LOVES cookies.) My mom, my sister, and I loaded up in the old green ford with the arm-strong steering and the pump ‘em-fast brakes and headed out to whichever piece of heaven held dad’s attention that day.
Once we got there, we had to wait in the gate hole until he came around the bend or over the hill and saw us there, at which point we found a shade tree under which to park. I can still hear the rumble of the John Deere as he pulled up with whichever implement on the back and hop off. I see his face, blackened with the fertile soil he tirelessly worked. I close my eyes and still see him take off his sweaty, sun-faded t-shirt revealing his drastically contrasting white chest and brown arms as stark in comparison as the chess pieces we had been battling with in the evenings. He wipes his soil-blackened face with the inside of his stinky shirt (Eww!) and chugs water from the thermos on the tractor as I munch on my, now sun-warmed bologna sandwich.
I still taste that sandwich.
By the time he made his way to the tailgate of the truck, my sister and I had our lunch unpacked, and our sandwiches were half gone. If we finished before dad, before he returned to work, we got to play on the tractor and in the fresh, black dirt he had just turned over. We chased bugs and searched the fence lines for sweet, purple mulberries. While we wiggled our toes in through the hot brown top of the dirt down to the cool blackness he had just revealed, Mom and Dad visited quietly through their leisurely lunch, like a pair of turtle doves perched on the tailgate. The rustle of a breeze blows through, cooling dad’s hot, sun-baked body while Mom encouraged him to drink more.
When Dad finished eating his lunch, if one of us girls was lucky, she got to stay with dad and ride on the tractor for the rest of the afternoon. The tractor blared in our ears, and the conversation wasn’t great, but the time with Dad was priceless. His silences deep as the black, Nebraska topsoil, made us feel safe, secure, provided for. He always answered questions we posed, but rarely initiated conversation on his own. It was a time to contemplate the dirt, the seeds to be put in it, the bugs we could see and those we couldn’t, the weather, the sky, and the time. It was just time to be. Often, it was time to take a nap, snuggled in tight at Dad’s feet, lulled by the rocking and hum of the tractor as it traced the rows.
As I grew up, I was the one who had those warm bologna sandwiches and ice cold jugs of tea brought to me in the field. I came to relish the time I spent on the tractor alone almost as much as those long gone days with my dad. When he brought me lunch, the warm feelings of those childhood days came flooding back as he and I perched on the tailgate for our lunch. I was no longer chasing the bugs in the warm dirt, but we did sometimes still hunt the sweetness of mulberries for our dessert. Our conversations about the seeds, the pests, and the weather took on a much different tone, and I longed for him to hop onto the tractor and go a few rounds with me, the way I had with him.
The pattern of the rows back and forth across the expanse of the field took hours. It was almost meditative, just enough stimuli and responsibility to keep me on track, but also ample time for idle thought. With the tractor running, one can hear nothing else: no birds, no insects, no radio, no cars passing on the road. You can’t even hear the wind. The constant drone of the tractor blocks all other auditory stimuli. I felt peace and accomplishment and respect for the earth I was working. The organic, musty fragrance of freshly worked dirt is one that I recognize instantly to this day. It conjures up that six year old girl I once was, eating bologna sandwiches on the tailgate and digging her toes through the hot powder to the cool blackness below where my big, strong, tanned Daddy had just turned the earth. Funny how when I ask others, “Can you smell that?” The answer is usually no.
This page has been visited 55 times since 09/05/2011
| http://www.hpcnet.org/peru/schoolartsandsciences/language/clemente/fall2006/creative/work/creative/one/balogna | Last Modified: 09/26/2011 |