The Old Oak

Chapter 1

The gnarled oak tree off the porch of my boyhood home talked to me.

But that was long ago.

The stirring of its leaves first whispered to me the summer before my first-grade year. I heard it last the day my father was buried in the family plot beyond the barn.

Generations of Petersons had worked the family farm, each generation passing the farm to the next. Dad had three brothers, but he was the blessed one, not because he was the firstborn but because his older brother wanted more adventure than a lifetime of work in the dirt could offer. Dad's younger brother would have taken the farm if it had fallen to him, but he was more likely to sell it than work it. If the tradition was still in place when Dad died, I would be next in line, but at nine years of age, my interests were more along fanciful lines, such as defending against the zombie apocalypse, protecting the solar system from galactic invaders, and the hazards of long-term space travel.

Dad had a presence that engendered confidence. Over six feet tall, his height alone commanded a room, but add to this the longstanding worthiness of the Peterson name, and he was like a magnet that drew others around him. He served as master of the local Grange, two terms as a councilman in our county government, and chairman of the church board. A trip to the local feed and seed co-op often included lengthy conversations with other farmers about the price of fertilizer, the trend in the futures market, and pressures on the price of corn and grain.

Dad was a Christian and not the two-hour variety. My earliest memories of the Risen Savior Community Church were of Dad greeting members and visitors in the foyer. Dad drove Grandpa's 1937 Dodge pickup early on Sunday mornings to open and ready the church. The old floor-shifter was the last vehicle purchased by Grandpa and Dad's most prized possession. Dad kept it in pristine condition, locked in the barn. My Saturday chores included washing off last Sunday's dust or mud, depending on the season, from its black-painted exterior and wiping down the interior of the cab to remove every speck of the weekend's drive. Dressed in his best on Sunday morning, Dad would take the key ring off the coat rack near the front door, unlock the barn door, check the motor oil, and start the engine. He insisted the engine warm up five minutes before leaving the barn. Mom, my sister, and I departed thirty minutes later in our post-war Chevrolet sedan—it generally looked like it had spent a year in the field. It wasn't true, of course. I washed it now and then, but for sure, the day before Easter and when the county fair opened.

Dad's smile with a warm handshake was the face of our church. We saw his other faces at home, but not to be too harsh, the Bible isn't all beatitudes and blessings. Dad attempted to balance judgment and forgiveness, but my sister and I thought he was heavy on judgment. Now that I'm an adult with two adolescents of my own, I'm not quite as clear about this.

Mom parked the sedan under the old oak in our front yard. She said the oak canopy sheltered the car just as well as the barn sheltered the old pickup. When the snow started, she parked the Chev next to Dad's pickup. The barn was eighty-three of my six-year-old steps from the house. It didn't seem like much until the winter blizzards arrived.

With the sedan in the barn, our yard looked abandoned. The Petersons didn't have time for yard work, but sometime before my birth, Mom planted daffodils along the driveway. The flowers pushed through a matte of pasture grass that separated the driveway from the cornfield in the spring. Dad waited until after the flower stems faded to tractor-mow the pasture grass into the semblance of a lawn.

Our nineteenth-century house and barn with the solitary oak looked like a minimalistic painting one might see in our downtown public library. Dad often bragged that the old oak was the largest in three counties. I never heard anyone argue differently. Its massive branches spread over our house like a sheet lifted by the wind as it hung drying on the line. In summer, it shaded our home and much of the yard from the hot sun, and in the winter, it stood as a silent reminder that life's events shape our lives.