23 The Sea and the Farm

I’ve had a wonderful life.

I had a wonderful wife, a great occupation. It all started after I enlisted in the navy. There I learned electronics, which supported me and my family all through my working years. My life at sea combined my love of electronics with my love of the sea. There’s nothing like being out at sea, breathing in fresh salt air and being to look in every direction and see nothing but the sea. Even though there were 5000 others aboard the aircraft carrier, I somehow felt alone with the sea.

That experience led me to write this:

The Sea Bag

I remember the day
When I was a sailor, far away
All my possessions fit in my sea bag
Leaving little to boast about or brag

The commute to work and meals
Required little time and no wheels
I’d climb up a ladder and over a deck or two
And soon my daily commute was through

A little liberty, a cold beer to drink
Nary a lot about which to think
Then back again, out at sea
Salty air, fresh as air can be

But on the sea and far from home
This sailor found himself all alone
Those memories from a log ago and younger day
Now I am home from the sea to stay

Long after my sailing days had passed, I reached another goal that took 30 years to attain. I finally had my farm. The love of my life and I worked at jobs in Springfield for 8 or more hours a day and then returned to the farm to work until dark in our garden. We lived in an old farmhouse that never got finished until we arrived and somehow with everything else we had going on we finished the interior of the house. We worked like slaves in those days, but it was a labor of love for us. We finally completed our tasks and it was time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labors. We had grown old by that time and even though we had finished our remodeling of the home’s interior there were still a lot of tasks outdoors on the farm that never ceased needing attention. We agreed that we needed to sell the farm and move to town.

That was a good move, within a year my love had a brain aneurysm that nearly took her life. Had we still been on the farm, she may have died by the time we made it to the emergency room at the hospital. As it was, she was near death anyway and the difference between time from the farm and time from town to hospital may have ended her life earlier than when she actually passed. Her recovery gave us another 4 years together.

Now this old sailor lives with his memories of better days at sea and at the farm and with the love of his life beside him. Without those warm memories, life would not be worth living.