Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Dale was my “oldest” friend. When I was a very small child, he found me wandering around his barn and staring at the cows and he decided that as a grandchild of Fred and Betty, I was a friend of his.
Our friendship was one of curiosity and knowledge-sharing, wide eyes and chuckling. I was curious about everything and he was glad to tell me all about it.
To spend time with Dale, I got up much earlier than I was used to, sometimes before the sun. I threw feed down from the barn loft onto the conveyor belts for the cows, chased the barn cats, and watched the small birds swooping in the rafters. I rode tractors, bouncing around behind his seat, yelling my questions into his ear over the loud engines. I went with him to deliver corn and load it into silos. He pointed out crops in the fields on the way, telling me about how each should be fertilized and harvested. I rode behind him on a 4-wheeler, hanging on for dear life and yelling for him to slow down, which he pretended to hear as “go faster!” I argued with him about ground hogs - he told me all the practical reasons that they were bad to have around, I told him that they were cute and I liked them - and we agreed to disagree. Now I have a groundhog that lives under the shed in my backyard and I know that if I’d gotten to tell Dale about it, he would have chuckled.
Dale always told me that girls stop wanting to talk to old men like him once they start liking boys. I swore not to. Instead, I told Dale about the boys when I did start liking them. He asked polite questions and kept showing me that he was as interested in my life as I was in his. He came to my wedding and he kept calling me his friend.
Because of Dale, I have always loved the sound of tractors and the smell of diesel. Because of Dale, I have always known that age does not impede friendship. I don’t remember anything about beef cattle or field fertilizer, but I will always remember what it felt like to have a friend who was so happy to have me around. Thank you, old friend.