There are transition moments in every young man’s life.  Moments when he knows he is getting older, when the mantle of responsibility comes a little closer to the shoulders.  The moment when one generation starts ceding power to the next.

We all have those moments.

Mine started on a warm June day in northern Minnesota.  Our hay racks, the large flat trailers used to haul hay in from the fields behind one of our trusty tractors were falling apart.  After morning chores, Dad made the announcement over breakfast.

We needed to rebuild those racks.  And we needed lumber to do it.

Not any lumber would do, we would need good, sturdy, Minnesota lumber, two by fours, two by sixes and two by twelve’s, not some fancy planed stuff either, but real, rough lumber from the lumber mills scattered to the east in the forested areas towards Park Rapids.

And the search would start today.

Newly armed with a learners drivers permit, only five months shy of my sixteenth birthday, Dad informed me as we were putting on our best seed caps, I’d be driving part of the way today.

This was a big moment in a young man’s life on our farm.  Dad didn’t cede control of the vehicle easily.  He was the driver - of the farm, of the family, of most things.  I don’t think he liked to turn the keys of the beat up old Ford to anyone.

Climbing in, we set off through town, Dad barking encouragement all the way through town and out onto Highway 200, in between comments on crops, weather, and running through the list of the lumber that we would need.

The defining moment came beyond Roy Lake, approaching Zerkle (a real town), Dad, reviewing the list of lumber turned to me, looked over his glasses and gave me the classic father question, “You’re going a little fast here aren’t you?”

Looking at the speedometer, then out the window, I looked at him and said, “Dad, I’m doing forty-five in a fifty-five mile an hour zone.”

Dad seemed at a bit of a loss for words for a minute, looked at the approaching fifty-five mile an hour sign coming up, leaned over and looked at the speedometer, sat up.  Turned to me, scowled, and said very matter of factly, “Just because the speed limit says you can go that fast, doesn’t mean that you have too.”

You can’t argue with logic like that.

We drove through all the little forest towns between Park Rapids, Bagley, and Bemidji, finally finding the right pieces of lumber at a lumber mill outside of Lake George.  I don’t know if Dad noticed me winking at all of the girls on the side of the road as we passed through Lake George (it was the biggest week of the year with the big town festival that week), but when we stopped for lunch at the little dinner on the edge of town, he took over the wheel again.

The trip was, overall, a great one.  It was a great trip with Dad, learning, talking, and visiting as men do.  Time that, with three older brothers, was often a rare thing.

But me being me, I just couldn’t help myself.

Driving home on Highway 200, I looked over and said, “Going a little fast there aren’t you?”

I swear I saw a smile behind that scowl.

 ”Oh ya, that was a heck of a vind, eh Bob.” One old farmer chimed in as we entered the Red Apple after the big wind that spring day of 1994.

“Oh ya!” Dad replied. “Lost my hayshed.”

“Da heck ya say!” Came the reply.

“Ya.” Dad replied.  “Good thing I sold my cows this week.”

“Ya.”  The old farmer replied, “Ya can’t beat that timing!”

As the night wore on, the tales of more damage from friends and neighbors started coming through the little café.  One person brought news of a neighbors truck forced off the road by rolling grain bins (the wind literally forced the bins off their foundations and rolled them at forty miles an hour, bumping and bouncing across the landscape). 

A couple of barns were destroyed, a lot of trees were down, and some shingles were missing.

“Der saying it was just straight line vinds.” One neighbor came into report.

“How come I got tree’s down facing south? Vind had to be from the nort too - not sayin’ it’s a twister, but dat’s pretty strange.” Dad replied.

“Ya, and the barn at the ol’ Johnson place sure looks like it she was blown in from the south.” Came another reply.

“Don’t ask me, its dem darn veather men.  Can’t never trust’em.” Came the reply.

Driving home that night, in the quiet still of the evening, the clouds to the west gave an eerie glow to the country around us.  The carnage from the supposed winds only hours before was still very evident throughout the neighborhood, with leaves and branches down on roads everywhere.

The night passed quietly.

The next morning, Dad was up at the crack of dawn, with no cows to milk, we might as well get moving and clean up the carnage.

Taking the loader tractor and a hayrack, we made our way across the yard, Dad driving and shouting instructions to me as I hoisted sheets of metal, chunks of timber, and large branches onto the flat rack that we used to use to haul the hay in from the fields.

We passed the bus as made our way down the road, picking up sheets of tin up and down the road.  Around the block we went, picking up pieces almost a mile away and other pieces of debris, maybe from our farm, maybe not.

I barely made it back to school for my third period class, taking the old beat up pick up in about fifteen minutes before it started.  I had spent a great deal of time that year home farming, and a first and second hour study hall, along with two understanding study hall teachers that always counted me present helped that situation a great deal.

Count it my luck that today would be the day that I’d be stopped by the head of discipline, Mr. Bauman.  Mr. Bauman also knew my situation and had helped get me into class before.  Stopping me in the hall, he asked, “Where have you been?”

“Home picking up debris from the storm last night.  Our hayshed was scattered for a mile.” I replied.

“Had to be a heck of a sight.  Don’t let the principal catch you in the hall.” He replied.

It was a sight.  A heck of sight.

 So there I was, in the middle of the big wind of 1994, up the stairs and into the main part of the house I scrambled to try and find a radio.  With trees crashing down on each side of the house.  The house rocked in the wind.  Mature trees seemed to bend down to earth in the face of the mighty roaring wind.

I found a radio…of course with batteries that didn’t work, and grabbed a flashlight, and as luck would have it, just in time for the storm to subside and move off to the east, almost as quickly as it came.

The sight was one to behold after that mighty gust of wind hit that spring day in 1994.  Carefully carrying Mom upstairs, much more carefully now then when we carried her down, we went out to survey the damage.

It was shocking.  Branches of all sizes littered the yard.  From small twigs to mighty branches.  Not a tree touched the house, but they were laying on three of the four sides, being bent low by the wind and then snapping like toothpicks. 

“How could a straight-line wind from the west knock a tree down north to south?” we asked to no one in particular.

The yard was strewn with wooden shingles from the old barn, only recently retired from fifty years of use, it survived yet another gale, perhaps a little twisted and missing some of the shingles that held on for over fifty years, but standing none-the-less.

It was down by the driveway where the carnage was the worse.

The hayshed, a roof, open on all sides to allow the hay to have air circulate (no direct water could hit it from above and soak in, so the hay was properly ‘cured’), the hayshed was gone.  Or to be more precise, the lean-too that was one on the west side and during the farming years held all of our straw was gone.  The wind caught the lean-too and literally flung it across the yard, across the open fields for half a mile.  The tin and small boards flying through the air and rolling unhindered across the landscape.

The hayshed itself merely folded over, the four by fours snapping at the base from the force of the wind.

The destruction, though messy and impressive looking, was not that significant and would only warrant clean up, some massive cleanup, but aside from the hayshed, no other building would sustain a body blow (pun intended).

With no power to cook, we loaded Mom and little sister into the car and headed for the Red Apple for a bit to eat.

 It was the funny line of clouds that made us suspicious.

We were planting the garden on a nice spring day, Dad and I.  Normally, we would have been feeding the cattle and preparing for milking, but only that week, less than one week before my high school graduation, Dad had sold the cows.  We had milked for the last time.

That is why we could see the cloud line move in.

The line was a bit surreal, jagged and rolling across the western sky.  The day was nice, and there wasn’t a threat of severe weather.  Behind the line of clouds, the sky looked clear.  It was peculiar.

“Why don’t you put the tractor away and I’ll go up to the house and check on your Mom.” Dad said.  Mom was in a wheelchair and unable to come out and help with her normal gardening duties.  The line of clouds, though probably nothing, did look threatening as they rolled, literally rolled, closer.

I climbed on the loader tractor, the old reliable 656 International, and headed towards the shed.  Driving inside, I closed and latched the doors behind me.  Leaving the shed, the first gust of wind hit me, it was cold.  Bitterly cold.

Scrambling to the house in the brute force of the gale force wind, I barely managed to close the screen door behind me.

Dad was already safely inside with Mom and younger sister.

“It’s really bad out there.” I said.

“Go on.” Dad said, brushing my fear aside.

“Really Dad, I’ve never seen anything like this, come and see.” I said.

“Ah, it’s not that bad.” Dad replied as he came and looked over my shoulder out onto the farmstead.

Just then, our hayshed, the large metal, open sided building where we had traditionally stored our hay for the winter rolled across the driveway and across the open field.

I turned to Dad and our eyes met.  We didn’t have to say a word.  Both our eyes were wide with a mixture of thrill, excitement, fear, and surprise.

Without missing a bet, without saying a word, we rushed into the kitchen where Mom was seated in her wheelchair, we each grabbed and side and proceeded to carry her down the two steps into the entry, then the entire flight of stairs into the basement, younger sister right on our heels.

“Go up and grab a radio.” Dad said.

“Where is there a radio?” I replied.

“Find one.” He said.

This is where ‘honor they father and mother’ is tested.

 That last day we milked cows, I wasn’t there when the last dozen or so old girls were loaded, to be taken to West Fargo and sold at auction.  School came first, and even though it was the last week of school for me, Dad insisted that I go, that I leave, that I not be home.

So leave I did.  Driving the old Ford pick up truck with my sister in tow.  Going to school, sitting through class, while the only life that I’d known was loaded onto the back of the truck and hauled down the road.

Thoughout the day, I thought of home…had the semi arrived?  Did they have trouble loading them up?  How was Dad taking it?

Funny thoughts for a senior in high school, less then a week from graduation, with only one job lined up for the summer, and college looming, and college cost looming, and still the family matters (younger sister and ill mother at home) weighing on me…still the immediate thought was how the loading was going…and how Dad was taking it.

I was probably a funny eighteen year old, but I was a bit nastolgic about the farm life at that point, I knew that it was the passing of an era, I knew that with the cows loaded up and the milkers put away, the life of my father and grandfather - the life on the farm was gone, unless I could devise some way at some point to start again from scratch.  With three older brothers and a younger sister, the prospect of ever restarting the herd was, at the best, remote.

But there was something freeing about it too.  There were so many things changing, so many things that were being turned on their heads, that in so many ways, the innocents of my youth, when all the world seemed right ended over a year ago when Mom first got sick, that the passing of the farm, the selling of the cows, the ending of the era seemed like just one more change in the passing of life.

But there was also a sense, a firm belief, that life doesn’t end, that the ending of an era, of a way of life, wasn’t the end, it was a trasition into the unknown, a transition into the unexplored, a transition into something new and exciting.

The end isn’t an end, it is a beginning.

 That last day was a bit of a sad one. 

For as much as I complained about having to milk the cows every day - morning and night, during the heat of summer and the bitter cold of the northern Minnesota winter, for as much as I complained about it interfering with the social life of my teenage years - everything was done BM or PM…before milking or post milking (example: “I’ll make it to the football game…after milking.”  Or, “Sorry guys, I can’t stick around after track practice, I’ve got to milk.”) - I knew I was going to miss it.

There was something comforting about the work.  As horrible as the world was, as cruel as three older brothers could be, as confusing as teenage girls could be, there was always some solace in the manual labor and thought of a job well done each morning and night.

It also created some structure in the world.

For the last year especially, when Mom was suffering with cancer and Dad taking care of her, the barn and chores became a bit of refuge.  The house had completely changed, from being a place of comfort with Mom firmly at the helm in the kitchen, to a world where things were out of kilter - with Mom incapacitated and Dad and I working to make sure that meals were cooked, dishes and clothing washed, and the house relatively clean and my little sister cared for - all of a sudden the drudgery of the barn seemed, well, comforting.

In town too, especially in a small town, the cows were the convenient excuse.  “No everything is fine, just need to go and take care of the cows.” Was a response that could be used to parlay any of the intrusive questions, or the quandaries of trying to explain why you couldn’t do something that the other teenagers were doing.  It was easier to say I had to milk cows then help care for Mom and sister.

For as hard as it was for me, it had to be even harder for Dad.

Most of his life, he was a farmer, and not just any farmer, a dairy farmer: a man that knew the value of hard work and early mornings, a man of the land, but also a man that had the touch, the skill, the gift, to work with animals.

That last morning, with that last dozen or so animals had to be tough.

He really didn’t show it, but I remember it as one of the few days that he came out to help with chores before milking.  Usually, he would drink his coffee as I did the chores and got the cows in, than he would do the clean up chores as I went to school.  That last morning we milked, he was there for all of it - start to finish.  Feeding, getting the milk room set up, putting the cows in.

As fathers and sons do, I remember an argument or two as well.

“You don’t put that much solution in that bucket?” Dad asked with some surprise and disgust as I pumped cleaning solution into the bucket that we used to wash the cow’s udder.

“You need to get them clean.” I protested.

We argued for a bit, me indignant and stubborn by the fact that I had done it exactly this way for the last eight or so years while Dad was up having coffee…Dad indignant and stubborn by the fact that he was the father and the boss.  Both of us losing sight of that fact that two squirts of udder wash or five…the last day we milked, it really didn’t matter.

 It was hard.

As much as I complained about milking those darn cows, as the trucks took the first lot away, suddenly, the barn seemed remarkably empty.

After over thirty years of being in the dairy business, only two months shy of his sixty-fifth birthday, and only about a month before my high school graduation, Dad was getting out of the dairy business.  Actually, getting out of farming all together.  He already had an agreement with the neighbors down the road to rent out the farmland.  But this first load of cows, the young ones, still with life left in them, was the first visible sign that the end of an era was coming.  The cows loaded up on that first day would spend the rest of their milking lives at a dairy farm up near Theif River Falls.  The remainder, the last fifteen, would be milked in the same spots they had been milked their entire milking lives.  For some of them, like the one with the spot the shape of Florida, fourth from the end on the short side of the barn, this would be something like eleven years.

I remember the day that she first came in fresh.

Heck, milking cows was all that I’d known too.  As a child, when Mom would have a meeting in town, Dad would make a play pen out of straw bales and put it in the middle of the alley way.  To the wide eyed wonder of a preschooler, it was awesome to see the hustle and bustle of the dairy barn.

To a five year old in kindergarten, it was a bit scary to be given the first real responsibility of feeding the calves.  Frist after school, but as I moved on to the first grade, those jobs extended to the morning too - since my older brother, two years older and I shared the same bed, we might as well get up at the same time.

So morning and night, I’d feed the calves, then work my way up to feeding the cows their ground grain and soybean meal mix, then the hay.  Slowly growing in strength and stamina as I went.

I don’t remember at what age I started milking cows.  It just seemed like one day, it was expected that it had to be done.  We couldn’t drive tractor until we were at least ten, but I don’t remember any such rule for milking cows.  But I do know that I was milking cows alone by the time I was in seventh grade.  With older brothers in sports and folks involved in the community, the work needed to be done.

That was why so many of the cows were also old friends.  That cow, the fourth from the end on the short side with the spot like the shape of Florida - I remember feeding her calf, being terrified as we tied it in the aisle, it was the first calf that I’d help take away from its mother.  In my six year old mind, I was worried about her remembering me and one day, getting paybacks.

But she was always a good cow - those gentle brown eyes never held malice.

And now, it was just her and slightly more then a dozen of the old girls left, waiting their fate, munching their cud, being milked for the last time by Dad and I. 

 He had his eyes set on me as a seventh grader, recruiting me into the organization formerly known as the Future Farmers of America.  As the Ag Teacher, part of it was his job.  Still, as a little seventh grader it was a bit of an honor to have a teacher harass you and invite you along to the winter shows in Crookston to jugde dairy cattle.  Technically, you needed to be in ninth grader to be in the ag classes and FFA.  But for the winter shows, the contests didn’t care.

I didn’t judge that year, mainly because I knew more about milking them then judging them.

The FFA and Erickson’s ag classes were well known in my family.  He was one of the favorite teachers of my older brothers and had a reputation for being tough but understanding.  Firm, but fair.  My brother’s used to speak almost in hushed tones about the knowledge that they learned…but also the fun they had in his class.

My ninth grade year, I found all they had to say to be true.

We were a rowdy bunch that year.  But Erickson could calm us down with a simple turn of a phrase: “OK people, lets settle down just a touch.” Or “Alright folks, that was the bell.”

I’m not sure how he did it, but he always managed to keep us under control and regardless if you were a straight ‘A’ student or the most marginal, you always respected Mr. Erickson, mainly because he treated all with respect and equally.

Erickson’s classroom skills would have been enough to make him a good teacher.  His demeanor, his skill of working the room and keeping students engaged, his ability to make students work hard to get a grade.

But there was another side of him too.

Students that had little else where slowly sucked into the activities of the FFA.  Students that might not excell at sports or music, had an outlet where just good old fashioned hard work would pay off - with really hardware - trophy’s and ribbons, trips, and recognition.  He believed in the students that other people had written off.  He pushed his students to be better then they believed themselves to be. 

And he worked hard it.

For years, he pushed to change the system of how one of the highest honors, the State FFA Degree, was awarded.  He wanted it to be just that - a degree, rather then a contest.  One advisor from anther school once mocked him in front of a couple of us, “I know Erickson, all of your kids deserve the state degree.”

Erickson shot back, “Only the ones that earn it - and the ones that earn it ought to get it.”

Those comments were the reason that we loved him.

I will admit, he pushed me too.  From state degree to American degree, to being Minnesota State FFA Vice President.  All were things that I wouldn’t have achieved without Erickson.  All of them changed my life in ways that I can hardly comprehend.

Those are the things that took Erickson out of the realm of good teacher and planted him firmly in the camp of remarkable, extraordinary, and exemplary.

In a couple of weeks, Mr. Erickson is going to be retiring, with probably little fanfare, he will walk out of the school doors and into what I’m sure will be something less then a retiring retirement.

I hope that he knows that though there is little fanfare, there are hundreds of students whose lives are little better who are quietly prayer for him and wishing him well.  Godspeed Mr. Erickson, Godspeed.

 There are some things that are just never quite the same, growing up, society, technology, economics all change the world, all change habits and actions.  Some of those things disappear into memory.

Things like gravy bread.

Mom was a good…no….mom was a fantastic cook.  Give her a heat source and a couple of random ingredients and she could whip up a meal that would leave you begging for more.  While our family never considered ourselves poor, with a farm crisis and five kids, our family had to be, for lack of a better term, frugal.

But with a big garden, fresh milk, and ample pork and beef, we were able to eat like kings.

But Mom also made sure that nothing went to waste.

While we were clearly a meat and potato family - primarily due to the fact that we had a lot of meat (aka home grown pigs and cattle) and a lot of potato’s (aka the garden), there were, if you can believe it with our family, usually some left overs.

Dutifully, regardless the amount of meat and gravy left over, they were carefully stashed in the refrigerator in empty and cleaned cool whip containers, to be resurrected at a later time.

Looking back, sometimes these things were planned out.  If we had a nice beef roast for Sunday dinner and there wasn’t enough left over to feed the family, suddenly, beef was back on the menu Tuesday night.

But inevitability, those left overs would come out.

Warmed up back on the stove, the gravy - now cold and gelatinous, was slowly stirred and brought back to life over low heat.  The beef, cold and stiff - far from the tender morsels they were the day or two earlier - was cut up into smaller sized pieces and placed in the now warm gravy to bring back the taste and texture that they by rights ought to have.

The result was remarkable.

Combine this with a combination of vegetables (either reheated, fresh, canned, frozen, or a combination of the above depending upon the season) and the meal was complete.

When we sat down to the meal with the steaming bowl of gravy and meat, the vegetables, and a big plate of bread - which was normally missing from the table - Dad would always make the same joke with that wink of mischief in his eye: “We already prayed for this meal!”

With a clap of his hands and a bowed head, he would lead us in saying the blessing.  All of us looking forward to the meal that was on its way.

After the meal, we would each grab a piece of bread, put it in the middle of our plate, and then slather it with gravy with a couple of pieces of meat off to the side.

I’m not sure if that gravy was just that good or the combination of gravy and white bread just naturally tastes that good, but it was fantastic.  It was a staple of our diet too - and it never seemed to get old.  We were guaranteed to have it at least once a week, sometimes more and not once do I think that Mom ever heard a complaint about it.

I’m not sure if it is technology, preponderance towards more easy cook meals, or economics - a shunning of left overs, that has caused our family to move away from gravy bread.  Or maybe, we just haven’t been able to reach Mom’s level of skill with a little meat, a little gravy, and a couple of slices of bread.

 For those that were worried - wondering why the posts stopped - rest assured it was merely a trip back to where I was born and raised.

20,000 miles in the air, 2700 driving miles, countless friends and family, seemingly unlimited barbeques, and a solid reconfirming of that fact that I’m a very blessed individual later, I’m back in Melbourne - not quite rested, but very happy.

Expect the posts to be back on track this week - and a full recap of the events of the last two weeks.