Carrot Cake: The Next Generation

The other day I wrote about going to the farm as a child. After I posted that, I thought back to when my children where younger. I had started working for a relative who lived in Big Lake, TX. It was another Great-Uncle, this one from my mother's side of the family, Uncle Olen.

He owned a large farm and a water well drilling company. We lived in a small house on his property. Every day we went down to their house to visit. In late summer my uncle and I would take my son, Jeffrey to the watermelon patch to pick a few melons. The three of us would bring back our harvest for the rest of the family and sit on the porch to enjoy.

Other evenings I would take my son down to the pond to fish for catfish. Not many people actually fished there so it was easy for him to catch something.

The pond was surrounded by a field that my uncle kept goats in. Part of my job was to feed them every night. Jeffrey always wanted to go with me. If, for some reason, he didn't get to go, he would sulk all night.

Once he stood there in the middle of these hungry animals as I fed them. They all fought for a spot close to the food, ramming each other. One of them got rammed in the side and fell over into my little four year old boy. As I lunged to help him, worried he was hurt, he stood up and walked over to the goat that started this chain of events. Then grabbed it by the horns, twisted and dropped it much like a cowboy dropping a steer.

I could always see that this was a magical time for him. What more could a little boy ask for? He got to go to work with me, not just feeding, but to drill the wells. Oh, the mud he got to play in; thousands of gallons at a time. He had several hundred acres to play in, he had family close, he got to see and ride in all the tractors and equipment.

One of the memories that I took from this time was that as a child my family took time to visit. While there, Uncle Olen was pouring concrete for a sidewalk from his shop to his house. Olen asked that my brother and I put our hand prints in the wet cement. Being kids, we gladly obliged. As an adult, I was helping him repair this same walkway, he made the same request of my kids. There, right next to my imprint, is that of my children's hands.

Now Jeffrey is a teenager and I know these things don't mean much now. Someday though, I hope that some of these experiences will be like his own carrot cake and kool-aid.