Peace

I was raised on a corn farm in South Jersey. Not just any farm, a silver queen corn farm. The best eating corn in the world. It was a very small family farm. My mom was the youngest of 6 and each time one of her siblings married, my grandfather gave them a piece of the land. Four different families shared the responsibility for the corn. We all grew our own tomatoes, beans, carrots, onions, potatoes, and asparagus. I did not like asparagus because as a little boy, it was my job to weed the asparagus patch. It seemed to me that asparagus was just attracted to weeds.

My favorite time, as a boy, was to sit on my grandparent's wrap around porch. It wrapped two thirds of the way around the house. It had large wooden rocking chairs and I could rock for hours. I loved it when it rained. Safely tucked into the warmth of the roofed porch, I was fascinated watching rain drops plop into wide-mouthed empty milk bottles. In those days, the milk man delivered your milk. We would set the empty bottles on the big back porch for pick-up.

I loved the peace of that plop, plop, plop. The sound of steady rain outside the safety of the porch, interspersed with the base notes of plop, plop, plop and my violin like rocking chair accompanied by my humming. That was peace. Even the memory bring me peace.