Those are the things you can find on the hill above my grandmother's house. Grandma would send us up the hill with a yellow plastic pail to pick the blueberries. If we filled it, she promised to make blueberry pie. I didn't do it for the pie. I never even finished my slice. It did it because I was helping Grandma. This was important stuff.
The red door in the kitchen led directly out to the backyard. “Dad, can I burn trash this year? I've never had a turn.” The rusty barrel that sometimes contained burning garbage always dominated my attention when entering the backyard. “No, only adults.” “If someone put a spray can in it, it could explode!” my brother added. That thought hung in the air for a while until Brian and I slowly turned toward each other and nodded with a look that silently communicated, “Cool! We have got to try that before we go home.”
“Come on guys, get away from the barrel. We need to pick blueberries.” Dad's foot was already on the first cement step that led up to the road, his hand on the rail made from plumbing pipes. We walked past the shed on our way to him. Grandma's shed was newer than all the neighbors' sheds. They must be poor. They made their own out of old wood planks. Grandma's was from the store and made out of sheet metal.
“Dad, are we in a different town now?” “Yes, the town line runs along the center of this road.” “Hey, look, I'm in one town, I'm in another town, I'm in one town, I'm in another town.” I was very impressed. Brian was very clever. “Hey, look, I'm in one town...” “Andrew, come on, we need to pick blueberries.” I ran to catch up, scanning for bottle caps.
Two parallel paths wound up the hill from the far side of the road. We followed them up through light woods, past bushes and into fields of golden grasses. “Look for charcoal, the blueberries grow best where there has been a fire.”. Later Brian and I would discuss the possibility of burning the field in the woods at home. “Dad, do blueberry farmers really burn their fields?” “Yup”.
Dad held the bucket, so we boys held our shirts up to make a pouch. Brian dutifully filled his pouch and made his delivery to Dad's bucket. So, he went exploring further up the hill. I wanted to follow him, but I couldn't go until I did my share of the work. “But, it's hot.” “Come on, Andrew, we need to fill the bucket. If we fill it, Grandma will make a pie.” “O...K...”
Brian returned before we were done. Dad had set himself a much larger quota and I was determined to sit in the shade when Dad wasn't actively reminding me to keep working. “The top of the hill is filled with huge tires!” “Dad, can I go?” “Stay here and fill the bucket.”
I didn't see the tires until several summers later when I was less adverse to work. “How did all these tires get here?” “There used to be a construction company that parked their trucks up here.” “How do you know?” “I grew up here.” The thought that my Dad was ever a boy standing where I was standing was very foreign.
“We used to roll these down the hill.” “How far did they go?” We started down the hill ourselves. “Most of them hit trees and stopped.” “Most? So, some of them made it down the hill?” “Well, one. We once found a really big tire. It took all of us to get it on it's side.” “If it was so big, how did it miss all the trees?” “It knocked them over.” That made sense. The trees were bigger than the first time we picked blueberries. I tried to guess how much smaller they were when Dad was a kid. They must have been really small.
“We ran after it to see how far it would go.” “Did it make it to the road?” “Yes, it was headed right for my house.” “What happened?” “It leveled the shed and just kept rolling down the hill until it hit the creek.” If we were home, Dad would say stream, but here he said creek. “Did you get in trouble?” “No, they never found out it was me. Your grandmother was walking back to the kitchen from the shed when it hit. The sound scared her so much that she just ran inside. I ran up the hill”
I stood on the road overlooking Grandma's backyard, overlaying the images in my mind . I reveled in my Dad's mischief until I put the facts together. I didn't ask the question out loud. Did my dad grow up poor?
