The Pond
Childhood memories VOL. XII
One day I dream of having memories about my childhood that are neither horribly depressing nor stark raving mad. Yeah... still working on that.
In the wilds of Massachusetts, deep in the rural outskirts, there are still places where the land itself remembers Shays' Rebellion. Although hardly any one family has remained in those spots for the full run of American history, it's as if the very act of existing and living in those domains, even during the relatively short period of several decades, imprints a form of rustic individualism into a familiar bloodline. These are places with an abundance of history and a history of abundance.
One such place was Pop's farm. From what little I know of that particular parcel of land, Pop had created a thriving turkey farm in only the course of three years based only on the simple formula: buy land, build house, build coop, buy turkeys, feed turkeys. To me it still seems like some form of unholy tribal alchemy, but I've been assured that's exactly how it worked. Pop raised organic turkeys back when the term "organic" was mostly applied to green tinted jars filled with volatile chemicals on the backshelves of laboratories. But we're not here to talk about the turkey farm. The turkey farm was retired a decade before I was born. During my time the only traces of the farm that remained were a tired old man, a faded red farmhouse warmed by a wood-burning stove, the remains of an incubator and hatchery that now served as a garage and storage shed, and the pond.
Pop had built the pond out of a swamp with his own bare hands. Once again, this is some sort of ungodly alchemy of which I have little understanding. I've been assured this permanent shaping of the landscape involved little more than shovels and several tons of clay. It was created as both a watering hole for the turkeys and as a fire pond (which is apparently what they used before fire hydrants). As I recall it, the pond was larger than seven or eight swimming pools and eight feet deep in the center. The area around the pond, and the entire farm itself, took on the hue of a deep shadowy green the likes of which I've only seen elsewhere in IMAX documentaries about the rainforest. Fed by decades upon decades of turkey shit and then left alone the land became lush and thrived. Once, the pond was the opera house for a nightly orchestral chorale of thousands of frogs, but that was before my time.
There were no longer any frogs in the pond. They had been replaced by a population of inbred largemouth bass my parents had introduced back when the farm closed. At Pop's behest, my parents captured three of the same species of fish and dumped them into the pond. Years later there were fish in the still waters, but the frog population took a significant hit. The frogs didn't sing anymore. Of course, the solution was obvious to my parents: buy a fishing rod, hand me a straw hat, and set me to fishing for the duration of my visit like I was Huckleberry Fin. I spent days upon days pulling fish out of that pond. The final count was fifty-three of the plumpest bass you've ever seen. Small, but plump. Before we left, we threw a combination clambake-fish fry and gorged ourselves on various delicious aquatic creatures.
Years later I returned to Massachusetts by myself, by which I mean my parents bought me a plane ticket and sent me off to a different state while they lived the life of suddenly, though temporarily, childless adults. My other Grandparents dropped me off at Pop's for a couple days. Pop and I immediately talked about the frogs, and I was surprised to discover they had not returned. He really missed the frogs. Clearly fish were to blame for this injustice! I spent that entire day trying to fish, but I caught absolutely nothing. As the sun was setting I walked back to the porch, defeated by lesser gilled creatures. As twilight drew to a close we sat on the porch eating dinner. Then it started. First a chirp, then a croak, then a glorious cacophony of hundreds of amphibians singing their wonderful little half-lungs out. I listened in stunned silence but Pop only sighed, shook his head, and went back inside the house. That's how we found out Pop had become almost entirely deaf.
A year after that Pop had a massive stroke. The last time I saw him he was in a nursing home. Time had crippled and twisted the mad alchemist who turned corn into turkeys and shifted the very landscape to create a pond. He didn't even remember who I was. The property was sold shortly after Pop died. I'd like to return to Pop's farm some day, but I know the magical place I had the honor of visiting no longer really exists. It's someone else's now, and the turkey farm is just a remnant, like the Indian arrowheads, discarded clay pipes, revolutionary war era detritus, and ancient bottles you'd be able to dig up in the forest just beyond the farm.
In the wilds of Massachusetts, deep in the rural outskirts, there are still places where the land itself remembers Shays' Rebellion. Although hardly any one family has remained in those spots for the full run of American history, it's as if the very act of existing and living in those domains, even during the relatively short period of several decades, imprints a form of rustic individualism into a familiar bloodline. These are places with an abundance of history and a history of abundance.
One such place was Pop's farm. From what little I know of that particular parcel of land, Pop had created a thriving turkey farm in only the course of three years based only on the simple formula: buy land, build house, build coop, buy turkeys, feed turkeys. To me it still seems like some form of unholy tribal alchemy, but I've been assured that's exactly how it worked. Pop raised organic turkeys back when the term "organic" was mostly applied to green tinted jars filled with volatile chemicals on the backshelves of laboratories. But we're not here to talk about the turkey farm. The turkey farm was retired a decade before I was born. During my time the only traces of the farm that remained were a tired old man, a faded red farmhouse warmed by a wood-burning stove, the remains of an incubator and hatchery that now served as a garage and storage shed, and the pond.
Pop had built the pond out of a swamp with his own bare hands. Once again, this is some sort of ungodly alchemy of which I have little understanding. I've been assured this permanent shaping of the landscape involved little more than shovels and several tons of clay. It was created as both a watering hole for the turkeys and as a fire pond (which is apparently what they used before fire hydrants). As I recall it, the pond was larger than seven or eight swimming pools and eight feet deep in the center. The area around the pond, and the entire farm itself, took on the hue of a deep shadowy green the likes of which I've only seen elsewhere in IMAX documentaries about the rainforest. Fed by decades upon decades of turkey shit and then left alone the land became lush and thrived. Once, the pond was the opera house for a nightly orchestral chorale of thousands of frogs, but that was before my time.
There were no longer any frogs in the pond. They had been replaced by a population of inbred largemouth bass my parents had introduced back when the farm closed. At Pop's behest, my parents captured three of the same species of fish and dumped them into the pond. Years later there were fish in the still waters, but the frog population took a significant hit. The frogs didn't sing anymore. Of course, the solution was obvious to my parents: buy a fishing rod, hand me a straw hat, and set me to fishing for the duration of my visit like I was Huckleberry Fin. I spent days upon days pulling fish out of that pond. The final count was fifty-three of the plumpest bass you've ever seen. Small, but plump. Before we left, we threw a combination clambake-fish fry and gorged ourselves on various delicious aquatic creatures.
Years later I returned to Massachusetts by myself, by which I mean my parents bought me a plane ticket and sent me off to a different state while they lived the life of suddenly, though temporarily, childless adults. My other Grandparents dropped me off at Pop's for a couple days. Pop and I immediately talked about the frogs, and I was surprised to discover they had not returned. He really missed the frogs. Clearly fish were to blame for this injustice! I spent that entire day trying to fish, but I caught absolutely nothing. As the sun was setting I walked back to the porch, defeated by lesser gilled creatures. As twilight drew to a close we sat on the porch eating dinner. Then it started. First a chirp, then a croak, then a glorious cacophony of hundreds of amphibians singing their wonderful little half-lungs out. I listened in stunned silence but Pop only sighed, shook his head, and went back inside the house. That's how we found out Pop had become almost entirely deaf.
A year after that Pop had a massive stroke. The last time I saw him he was in a nursing home. Time had crippled and twisted the mad alchemist who turned corn into turkeys and shifted the very landscape to create a pond. He didn't even remember who I was. The property was sold shortly after Pop died. I'd like to return to Pop's farm some day, but I know the magical place I had the honor of visiting no longer really exists. It's someone else's now, and the turkey farm is just a remnant, like the Indian arrowheads, discarded clay pipes, revolutionary war era detritus, and ancient bottles you'd be able to dig up in the forest just beyond the farm.