Country Strong

It's early Saturday morning and I am wide eyed and willingly rise at 6 a.m. Every Saturday morning my dad and I go into the town of Ruggs to meet at the Morrow County Grain Growers, whom he does all of his business with. My dad is a wheat rancher, and we live on a ranch of 6,000 acres in Heppner Oregon. I love driving into town with my dad, my hero that drives his combine tirelessly through those endless fields of grain. I jumped out from under the covers and out of my pajamas throwing on a pair of dirty jeans, a hand me down sweatshirt and of course a Morrow County Grain Growers hat (my dad was never without one). He was already waiting for me, in the old red and white pickup truck, the paint all faded from the long hours in the dust and sun.

I am 9, tall and lanky and definitely my father's daughter as I run and jump into the old Ford and scoot across until I am sitting right beside him, his warm strong torso providing a feeling of comfort. He reaches for the shifter, pulls it down into drive, and we are off to town. Wind whistles through the triangular vents and the cab smells of hay, dirt and gasoline. There is a floorboard missing and looking down you can see the pavement streaking by the white lines of the highway below my feet. My dad whistles and taps his rough working hand on the steering wheel to Jonny Cash and Garth Brooks. He told me he felt like that was his church when he would drive and listen to his music with the windows rolled down. This was true, when Cash led the choir, I guess you could say it got his hear burning like a 'ring of fire' for sure. Listening to the soundtrack of his life, he gives every oncoming car a friendly wave... I grew up thinking wow, my dad knows everybody, and I would ask him, "do you know him? him too?". This is a very small-town thing, and you know you are in the country when every passing car gives you that friendly wave. It is more like just a lift of the hand from the steering wheel. Sometimes my dad would even let me drive. I remember sitting on his lap driving through town, now at nine years old I was being taught to drive on my own, practicing in our back yard of endless dirt roads and fields. But this was different, this was big time, it was the big highway with just a thin white line you could see for infinity. the pavement was so hot you could see the heat rising up. Occasionally a rattlesnake would stretch its long thick shiny body out across the hot pavement, and above us is just endless blue wild yonder, and surrounding us by every direction you look are fields of beautiful gold. My father loved to stop at this one point and say, "Tiff, look, every point that you can see from here is ours, our ranch. This is your hometown." I felt larger than life at that moment, queen of my domain, strong and accepted and the feel of family. Home.

We turn onto main street and head up to the loading dock and elevator to the silo which is where all of my dad's wheat will be poured into. While my dad is chit chatting with other business orders and doing his thing, their voices get quieter as I wander the equine aisle, touching all of the halters, lead ropes, brushes and blankets for the horse that canters through my dreams each night. I want to be a professional jockey though everyone has already informed me that I am already too tall.

We hop back in the pickup truck. My dad takes me to the candy store, where the smell of waffle cones baking wafted through the air. He buys us each a coke, a large bag of peanut M&M's for him and a huge jawbreaker for me. I have this thing for jawbreakers and have quite the collection going at home that I have not gotten through yet. My dad lets me drive back.

We had chores to get to on the ranch as it was harvesting season. This is a very busy and exhilarating time in August. He drops me off at the house where my mom is making lunch and my favorite snack, graham crackers with her homemade frosting. Nothing beats my mother's frosting. I could live off of this delicious concoction. I quickly gather all the fixings I can find to make the most amazing sandwich, every meat on hand, a slice of lettuce, tomato, and dons forget the miracle whip. I make a batch of country time lemonade, fill a thermos and hop in the pickup truck and drive out to the field where my dad is working. I run through the field of gold, and wave him down in the dirt and dust and heat. He sees me and stops and comes down off his combine. I head towards him, mice and crickets scurrying with my every step. We sit and have lunch on those huge combine tires, the shadow of the cab up above providing shade, and enjoy the moment in complete silence, as I sit looking, in every direction, as far as I can see, is my home.

I'm forty-two now, the same age my dad was when I was born. He's gone. the ranch is gone. Well, it still remains beautiful stretching through three counties, it is just owned by someone else. I miss him, and I miss home. Everything is still there, the house, the hanger my dad built for his helicopter and airplane, and since we no longer own it, it would actually be considered trespassing now. My dad's big John Deere tractor and some old combine parts rust up in the hanger where we lived right at the top of Sumner Road, the road named after my dad. Us. We are Sumner.

To this day this is where I feel at home. The longitude, latitude of 45,14,29 N, 119,52,2 W, is tattooed into my skin above my heart. This is the spot I can stand in and still can hear my father telling me, this is your home. Going back to this place, people know me, as they knew my father, " the man, the myth, the legend" they call him when people speak of him. Being a sixth generation, Oregonian I am proud of my roots. The wagon wheels of the Oregon trail are etched through our land. My great grandmother was the pioneer queen settling in Prineville, a distant town. I receive the familiarity and friendly wave of every passerby and my boys look at me with awe as they think like I once did, that I know everybody on the road. This concept of a small town is foreign to my children as they have grown up in a suburb of Seattle. Even though dad is gone and buried in Portland Oregon, I feel his presence in Heppner. This is where he is. This is where his spirit lingers in every golden stalk of wheat. This is the place I run to when I am feeling lonely or homesick. It reminds me of who I am. Strong. Hard to break like this ground I grew up on. I am, country strong.