I could have been born where the sawgrass meets the sky or where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain or even beneath the smoky mountain rain, but I was born in this place where the tall corn grows. A place where city meets country and where the Mississippi and the Missouri divide. A place where humidity can grow as high as the corn and where the landscape weeps at sunset. A place where you can see a Goldfinch sitting on the stem of a Wild Prairie Rose bush flourishing beneath the shade of a mighty Burr Oak tree. A place that was once the home of a people Native Americans called “The Sleepy Ones.”
.
I was raised in a land where the corn tassels grow well above a young boy’s head and I was taught at an early age to not panic if I was ever lost within a cornfield. My father told me to follow a row and it will lead me to the edge of the field and if I didn’t follow his instructions I could still be there in the fall when he harvested the corn. Many times I traveled blindly through a cornfield to take a shortcut to a friend’s house or to challenge myself for no other reason than to see how long it would take to reach the other side. Sometimes I would run as fast as I could through the rows of corn and whiz by the heavy ears hanging from sturdy stalks like they were dotted lines on a speedy highway. Pollen would fill my eyes and the corn leaves would cut and scratch my face and my forearms, but the discomfort was quickly forgotten when the row came to an end and the world opened back up again.
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Corn is appreciated by all of our senses, our sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing. Deep dark green in color, the plants can grow as high as twelve feet, making it highly visible and very captivating. The feel of the leaf blades are rough on the topside and soft underneath and the stalk is sturdy and fibrous. During Summer’s humid evenings you can smell the corn sweating all around you. The taste of sweet corn is delightfully delicious. It has been said that on a still night you can actually hear the corn growing and with a gentle breeze a field of corn will speak to you with a thousand voices. I feel fortunate to have been born here where the tall corn grows and I still call this land my home and find its serenity simply A-Maizing!
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Rick Friday is a farmer (from Union County, Iowa), cartoonist, and writer published worldwide with a weekly and monthly print circulation of 193,000. He’s also a Union County Supervisor, and has a whole passel of grandchildren, a couple of them are shown with him.
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I love Rick’s paean to the land of his birth!
He’s a gem!
🙂
Poetic, very poetic.
It sounds like my birthplace, a little farther north, where the Mississippi and Minnesota become one.
Itasca?
Mendota with St. Paul and Minneapolis across the Mississippi just s the Minnesota flowed into it.. Itasca is 100 miles further north.
Our “kids” live in St. Paul, so we had to explore some of the state, even on up to Key West. The old elevator was still there when we explored in 2002. (Stories in “Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots” since her father tried to make a go of it up there during the early 1900s.) https://joynealkidney.com/2019/04/08/key-west-minnesota/
What an interesting story, Joy. Key West is a new one for me.
Your kids live in the best of the Twin Cities.
Dan used to have a condo in an old apartment building just east of Lake Harriet. It was a fun neighborhood. They love St. Paul.
That Lake Harriet area is really nice once you get to know how to navigate the streets. Now as for the layout of the streets in St. Paul….
Ex Gov Jessie Ventura said it best when he opined that the streets in St. Paul were laid out by a drunken Irishman.
Ah yes, Jesse!
Thanks for introducing us to Rick Friday, Joy
Thank you, Don. Oh, I hope he publishes a book with his compelling essays and stories. What a legacy for his kids and grandkids!
And if he doesn’t, maybe one of his grandkids will.
Rick’s reverie about corn fields has certainly sparked my feelings of nostalgia-growing it, shucking it, eating it. 🙂
Yes! Although Rick’s is field corn which is for livestock. ha
What a pleasant post, Joy. Rick is a man who knows and appreciates the nature he live in.
He’s also a cartoonist, makes such fun of his such-a-good-sport wife, and is a county supervisor!