Last night we had a reunion celebration of the pond days, when my daughter and her friends (as teenagers) would camp out all weekend at the farm, staying awake and partying from Friday evening through Sunday night, swimming, roasting hot dogs, and s’mores. This went on for years, never causing any harm, just good ole boys and girls getting down on the farm. Last night the kids came back, so many I consider as my extended family, almost 30 years later, some missing, but mentioned in so many memories. I watched the tears, saw and heard the laughter, and now the grandchildren will have their own stories, their own memories as Dave and I had ours from decades back.

The last Friday night at the pond, the fire burning, the hot dogs roasting, drinks being handed out, and even s’mores, I saw. The farm was sold a while back; my daughter, Helen remains there until this week. She will start a new chapter, a new home, new memories and stories, It was a very bittersweet kind of night. To feel passionate about a place, a piece of land, an old house and barn in such major need of repair. The thought that after almost 100 years it is under new ownership, another family, but a good family: bittersweet is the only word that fits.

We all know time changes everything; this past year, maybe just too many changes, but not all for the bad. We have all gained so much strength, so much awareness for the reality and world around us. We have learned to move forward even in the most difficult of times. We have learned we can get angry and it is okay, we can still follow through on the wishes of those that have gone before us, and we can still love, even when we hurt.

I thought of walking through the last field as I walked around the pond last night. I didn’t. The last year everything has gotten so overgrown, I chose to remember how wonderful it once was. The music now coming from a cell phone being transmitted to a small box in a tree, the music the same as it has been for decades. Once played on cassette and eight tracks and even just on the radio — Tom Petty, Jim Croce, Neil Young, and even John Denver for one of a now 40-something-year-old-camper.

Yes, as I got in the truck and drove away, I felt very teary eyed. Why? I married into this, and over the last 40+ years it has become such a part of me. From pruning Christmas trees in the very beginning of my time there, from watching all the kids swim and fish over the years, from bringing in hay year after year. For helping Dave and Dad cut wood for three families, and later getting help from the kids, James, Taylor, Helen, Daniel and Tom Merasco, and all the others. I remember Deb Halbach out there on the tractor during hay season before her move to Maine. Riding Harlem through the field bareback in a full gallop as Dad freaked out I might get hurt — little faith did he have — in not knowing — I knew how to ride. My brothers and their kids sharing many Sunday afternoons with us just relaxing and enjoying a swim and catching the big ones out of the cow pond. My Brother Phil’s black lab, taking the fish from Phil and swimming across the pond and putting the fish in a bucket. He really loved his black labs. The summer of the Shaw reunion, the renewal of our wedding vows on our 10th anniversary. The wedding of our daughter, being driven up to the pond, with her girls, on the hay wagon being pulled by the old Farm All tractor. Chasing the snakes out of the swimming area as they swam between the kids’ feet (yes guilty of killing some).

I could go on and try to cover the last 44 years and the memories of a place I learned to love, a place I call a bit of peaceful paradise…But I think it is all good, and time to move on, a time to say thank you to a piece of land that brought so much pleasure to so many. Through tearful eyes and many smiles, in all the memories.

Ruth Halbach, August 2, 2019