Amidst our many arguments, one thing was never up for debate.
Dad and I both knew that I could never drive that ----- tractor straight…
“Son, I oughtta whoop your ass!”
The outburst of anger kinda caught me off guard. I turned to see that Dad was getting that look in his eyes–the look that I knew would soon be followed by him yapping at me so fervently that I could count on getting hit with at least 2 or 3 shots of stray spittle.
“Wha–? Huh? What are you talking about? I’ve been doing exactly what you asked of me for the last seven hours!” I shot back as I hopped off the tractor, rather confident that no ass-whooping was in order.
“Turn around and take a look at your handiwork, boy,” Dad seethed through his teeth, as–bless his heart–he was trying not to get too pissed off too quickly.
I turned around and surveyed the fruits of my day’s labor: one full quarter of Kansan farmland, barren at the dawn of that very same day, was now beautifully criss-crossed with row after row of expertly sown corn seed.
“Well, shoot, that looks like I just finished planting 160 acres of our highest-grossing crop–and an hour ahead of schedule even!” I said, unable to see why he wasn’t as proud of me as I was of myself.
“Were you drunk the whole time? And are you high right now? Boy, you just shat out some of the crookedest rows I’ve ever seen in my 50-plus years of farming!”
I took a second look at the earthen work of art before me. Maybe–just maybe–it wasn’t the masterclass in geometric perfection that I had fancied it to be.
“Ah, there may have been just a little swerve thrown in there here and there,” I ceded. “But hey–I got the job done, and if I remember correctly, you haven’t paid me one red cent for my hard labor.”
Apparently, this wasn’t the response Dad was looking for, as for no sooner than those words had wafted of my lips could I see his fists go into ‘Ima bout to strangle yo’ ass’ mode.
“Why the ----- can you not drive the tractor in a straight line for half a mile?!? How ----- hard is it?” he spouted at me.
Personally, if you ask me, this one was kinda on him.
“This isn’t my first rodeo, and you dang well know it, Dad! You know that I can’t drive a tractor straight to save my life–this is like the 20th curve-carved field in my plowing portfolio. And you’ve yelled at me after every single one–but this is the first time that you’ve been absolutely pissed at me about it!”
Every word I said was true: try as I might, no matter how much focus I tried to muster, I would indubitably fail to consistently produce straight lines across any given field I was unleashed upon, whether with plow or with planter.
“Oh, I’ll tell you why I’m so ----- pissed: just take a look to the north and what do you see?” he steamed, gesturing to the vast expanse of open farmland that stretched on for miles at end to the north (and in all directions, for that matter).
“Um…well besides all the other fields? Maybe that’s a cow way off in the distance? Or it might just be a cluster of tumbleweeds. Can’t really be sure this far away…”
“THE HIGHWAY! The ----- ----- highway is right there!” he frothed.
“That’s true, this quarter does border the high–” I was cut short by a man who had lost all patience for my ongoing nonsense.
“All your ----- curvy rows are going to sprout up and it’s going to be obvious to everyone driving by–you’re going to make me look like a ----- moron who can’t drive straight!”
Apparently, my old man cared quite a bit about what others thought of his farming skills. Well, at least cared about that more about that than his own son.
“Well, what’s done is–” my nonsense was cut off yet again.
“They’re going to think that I get all liquored up before handling heavy machinery–what a ----- embarrassment!” he bemoaned.
“Nah, I’m sure they won’t think that. Everyone in Morton County knows you’re not a lush,” I tried to reassure him in an attempt to save my own hide.
He wasn’t buying it, though.
“I highly doubt that. What other good reason would a man have for ----- up his field so badly?”
“Well, for one, it could be because you’re such a hard-workin’ sumabitch that you’re on the job even well into the nighttime hours,” I proffered.
He looked at me, seemingly slightly calmer, like what I was saying was actually making sense to him.
“After all, you do look like a man who likes to plow in the dark…”1In high school, I had come up with this phrase and loved it so much that I took a label maker and proudly plastered it on the side of one of my guitar pedals. I hate to have to break down why it’s so humorous/witty, but I just can’t risk someone not fully appreciating it. First, it’s a riff on ‘Glow in the dark’–I just substituted the G with a P, and BAM! Instant wit! Now let’s analyze this new phrase. In the more literal sense, it’s pretty funny considering my agricultural roots, and I can imagine any farmer would snicker at the thought of being so behind on farming that they have to resort to nocturnally tilling their fields. Figuratively speaking…well, this is just awash with sexual undertones. One might use the term ‘plow’ to mean ‘vigorously copulating, perhaps even involving some sodomy’. For everyone’s sake, I shall abstain from using it in a sentence. Anyways, sexual encounters often occur after sundown, many a times with the lights out completely (though I never understood what the fun in that was); ergo ‘plow in the dark’. This masterpiece of wordplay belongs on a ----- T-shirt. Or at least on a coffee mug…
The point of the story is that often one doesn’t see mental issues lurking beneath the surface only until reflecting on events years or decades later.
Only recently have I been exploring the very real possibility of having ADHD. And I gotta say, so many things fit that theorem. As I was writing this cheeky story in which I admit my inability to drive straight at low speeds, and how pissed/embarrassed Dad was over the whole ordeal, I realized…”holy sh*t, this inability probably stems from a lack of appropriate regulation of my focus.” Not that having an ADHD diagnosis back when I was in my late teens would have made a difference to Dad, but at least it would have helped me feel like less of a complete failure and familial disappointment.
Oh, and yeah, about Dad…years later, after I was out of college, he was officially diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. I only learned recently that he had been trying to self-manage it for decades on end before finally getting professional help towards the last few years of his life.
When I first learned about his diagnosis, it was like, “holy sh*t, all his mood swings and many of our unnecessary arguments make so much more sense now!” In other words, it helped me look back at my time with him with much more compassion, understanding and grace. I’m not sure how things would have been different had us kids had the luxury of growing up knowing his diagnosis (and had he been seeking therapy and medication during that time as well). Regardless, there is immense comfort in being able to reflect on my father’s life and realize that he was a much better man than I ever gave him credit for in the moment.
Sentimentality aside, it is also very useful from a practical point of view. Now both My Beautiful Bride and I know to be on the lookout for any signs of bi-polar disorder developing in me, seeing as how there is a very real chance he could have passed that down to me. After all, it wouldn’t be the only thing I inherited from him.
Like father, like son, guess who also turned out to be a man who likes to ‘plow in the dark’? Though for one of us it’s more literal, and the one more “figurative.”2Did you not read the earlier footnote?
I’ll leave it up to you, Dear Reader, to figure out which one is which…
Content created on: 30 July 2024 (Tuesday)
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