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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer April 4, 2016 - - No. 139 |
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Al Mergener, he has been gone now for many years. In the mind, one can still see him sitting there at the kitchen table in that old house on the hill along 88th Avenue; wood cook range to his left kept fired in winter by weathered and calloused hands, wood brought in from the cold of the woodshed just off the kitchen's west wall. You entered that pleasing old place of his, now long gone like Al himself, through that woodshed. The door opened in, a solid and paneled one, after a step up or two. No point in knocking on that one until you'd passed through the din of the windowless wood filled space within. The daylight that followed you in vanished like the flash of a camera as the door closed behind you. Minute streams of light filtered through small cracks and pinholes under ancient rafters at eaves ends. Items from times past hung on the walls surrounding you as you moved forward; a prelude to Al's greeting as you made your way into the kitchen after announcing your presence with a knock on the inner door. He didn't talk a lot; but, you knew that you were welcome by the way that he would gesture toward one of the chairs close to him. During your time there he would have at least one new story that you hadn't heard before. By the time you were on your way he had given you a part of himself that you weren't aware of before. He and Rose raised their family, farmed the land, had done their life's work, and lived out their last years in the old house that had also been the center of life for previous generations. The land there will always be, to many of us, Al Mergener's place. |
