One True Hero

The smell of the earth freshly turned for planting. Putting in a crop and tending it till harvest. Rebuilding engines on tractors long past their prime. Nursing calves, lambs, goats, even piglets that wouldn't make it otherwise. Taking in strays. Barn cats. A three legged dog. Milking the dairy herd of neighbor layed up for almost a year by a heart attack. Finding 20+ years of farmhand work for the developmentally disabled grandson of an old friend of his father. Raising food and giving it away to family, friends and friends of friends who were struggling. Giving tractor and wagon rides and rabbits and puppies and smiles to a gaggle of nieces and nephews and random neighbor kids. Teasing. Joking. Laughing. Gentle and kind. Patient. Quietly loving and practically caring. Courageously hopeful, and incurably curious. Always trying to understand, yet fascinated with mystery. 

     Sunday rides to anywhere, with Paul Harvey, Tommy Dorsey, Xavier Cougat, Hank Williams and Roger Miller. Reading and traveling the world with National Geographic while cuddling little kids in the big chair. Driving from Ohio to Florida so the boys could witness an Apollo launch. Camping and motelling across America, avoiding the interstates, talking with real folks and seeing as much as could be seen from what was left of old Route 66, the original Mother Road. Fishing silent for hours. Walking, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, through the fields and woods. Looking with love and wonder at new growth, old trees, rocks laid bare by the wear of centuries. Finding time whenever possible to pause and watch the sun set.

 

      I wrote out these memories over a year ago.  Shared them at that time with some friends.  But some memories are worth sharing again...and some stories should be told more than once.  Because.

Especially today.

      Thirty six years ago my Dad passed on.  Three weeks before Father's Day.  One of my only true heroes.   But I can still hear his voice. “Don’t worry, Sport. There aren’t any wrong questions…” and…“Shhhh. Come over here. Look at this.”

Further Adventures In The Life Of Pi

“You want to buy circular food?”

“Yes.”

“For a sixth grade geometry class.”

“Yes.”

“And it has to be circular?”

“So it can be measured accurately.  ”

“I see.  Will oranges work?  They’re healthy.”

“They’re not circular.  They’re spherical.”

“And that’s a problem?”

“We’ve only covered the formula for circles.  Spheres are next week.”

“I see.  Could you wait until…”

“They’re celebrating Pi Day.  Today.”

“And you couldn’t just buy a pie?”

“Too easy.”

“I see. And easy is bad.”

“I’m a man.  I accomplish nothing until it stops being a task and becomes a life quest.”
“I sort of figured that out.  I suppose cookies would be out of the question then?”

“I prefer to have one big circle rather than a lot of little circles.”

“A giant cookie.”

“Perhaps.  If you have one.”

“I'll check with the bakery.”  

She checked.

"They have two."

"I'll take them."

The woman at the bakery looked more than a bit confused as I ordered 2 twelve inch cookies decorated with the symbol for Pi. 

"I didn't know there was a symbol for pie," she said.

I drew it for her. 

 Blank stare.

 Explained that it was a letter in the Greek alphabet.  Mathematical symbol.

 Still blank.  Tentative.  Darkly suspicious.  Eyes narrowing.  As though certain I was part of some obscure cult and had just asked her to carve a Toltec sacrificial rune into the back of a live ferret. (I really should stop dressing in black.)

 Further attempts at explaining the desire to celebrate Pi Day ("We have pies in the case right over there.") and the date and 3.14 were only slightly more helpful.  But I did finally get the cookies. 

I delivered them just in time to witness the spectacle.  Exercises in precision measurement and calculation, coupled with attentive and detailed exploration into the geometric wonders and rewards of sixth grade edible math.