The Hemingway

My grandparents called it Hemingway Ranch, the place I was born. Grandpa always said Hemingway was overrated in his opinion but he led an interesting life and that's what he wanted for his family and the following generations. By the time I came around, what started as a ten acre tenant farm was a ranch the size of a small city. The man my grandpa rented the plot from got into some tax trouble after the firt world war and put everything in my grandpa's name. When the fighting men returned home the crop harvests were bringing in three times more than they ever had before and beef was as good as gold. Grandpa paid off the tax lien and bought out the remaining acreage and they never heard from the lessor again.

My father worked the land from just about the time he could walk right up to the time he couldn't. But the way he says it, there was a time when he almost took a different path. It was the year 1952 and my father had just gotten his first guitar. He was 14 years old.

Evenings, on the front porch, Grandpa picked the guitar some but the banjo was his instrument of choice. So when my father asked for a guitar for his birthday, Grandpa said that was a fine choice as it would balance out their sound. Father took to it right away. He wasn't a savant by any means. He just worked hard and was surrounded by pretty decent musicians. His mother taught piano and one of his aunts played the fiddle, so he learned a lot just by being around it. By the time he turned 18, there wasn't a song on the radio he couldn't play as well as or better than the professionals.

"That's some fine pickin', son," Grandpa would say. "Maybe you should enter one of them talent shows they have at fair time this summer?"

"Maybe," my father would reply. But, he had bigger aspirations than that. It wasn't a hastily built plywood stage in the town park father saw himself on, but one under spotlights broadcast on national tv. He knew he could do it. He just wasn't sure how to tell Grandpa he didn't want to stay on the farm. Sometimes, though, life makes decisions for you.

Grandpa collapsed in the field the following week. The strongest man I'd ever heard of was killed by his own heart. My father took over the ranch and that was about all she wrote.

When I told my father I wanted to move to Nashville to try and become a professional musician he just stood there, shaking his head.

"Son, that's crazy," he said. "Your future is this ranch." he said. "I built this for you and your kids. You can play that guitar as well as anyone I've ever heard but that doesn't make you a professional. It doesn't guarantee you anything. This ranch is a guarantee, boy. 10,000 acres of something that will never go out of style. It's a legacy, son."

"It's your legacy, dad," I said. "I was just born here. You made this and I'm grateful for everything you've given me, but can't you understand, I want to make something on my own. That's what you taught me."

"I'm going to bed," he said. "Got a lot of chores in the morning. We'll talk about this another time. Maybe. Goodnight, son."

"Goodnight, dad," I said.

I knew I had what it took to be successful if I had the chance. I didn't want to choose between my father's dream for me and my own dreams, but I needed to at least try. Sometimes, though, life makes decisions for you.

I found my father in the field the next morning. He was barely breathing. The doctor told mom and I that we probably saved his life by getting him to the hospital so quickly, but from now on, he'd have to take it easier around the ranch. I loved my father and was thankful he made it through, but I couldn't help thinking how this would be the end of my dream of becoming a musician. They would need my help on the ranch more than ever.

"Son, he'd like to see you," mom said. "He's awake and talking but maybe don't bring up anything unpleasant, ok?"

"I won't, mom," I said.

"Hey, dad," I said. "The doctor said you'd be coming home soon. That's good news."

"It is, but it's not what I wanted to talk to you about," he said. "I've had some time to think laid up here like I am and I realized something. You were right about the ranch being my dream and my legacy. I don't think I'd forgive myself if I tried to stop you from chasing yours. I don't want you lying in some hospital bed someday wondering what could've been."

"What are you saying, father," I asked.

"Go, son," he said. "Go to Nashville or wherever you need to go. There won't be any bad blood or told you so's. I'll support you as much as I'm able. I'm not going to force you to live a life you don't want. You've got the talent, son. It would be a shame to waste it on our front porch."

"But what about you and mom," I asked. "Who will help on the ranch?"

"We'll figure it out, son," he said. "I promise."

Three months later, I was on a bus heading East with a suitcase and a guitar.

Two years after my grandfather passed away, father got married to a local girl and a year after that, I came along. The ranch was doing as well as it had ever done led by technological advancements in crop management and mechanization and being a large producer of food, got my father out of the selective service draft. He could get more done with fewer people and less time than in the past, so he started picking up the guitar once again.

Success didn't come as easy as I thought it would once I got to Nashville. Mostly, it was playing back up for local bands at the honky tonks. I thought a corner had been turned when I started getting asked to play a few recording sessions for a few up and coming talents, but that was short-lived. Three years after I'd arrived in Nashville, I was drafted for a 2 year stint in the army. If I'd stayed on the farm, I would have avoided it. Fortunately, it was peace time and all I really did was run around and clean things. There were a lot of guitar players in the Army and I realized that maybe I wasn't as good as I thought. A few of them could play circles around me. So, every free moment I had, I learned from them.

My dad finally entered that talent show at the county fair and came in fifth. He said he would've been third if he had sang. Mother said if he had sang, he probably wouldn't be allowed back in town for fear of starting a stampede. Mom was usually right about things like that. Not winning didn't dissuade him any. Every night, when the sun was painting the clouds that orange and purple you see in so many paintings, my father sat on the front porch, picking away.

After my two years were up and I hadn't earned a promotion or developed a particular desire to seek one out, I accepted my discharge and went back to Nashville. I stopped by the ranch first of course, to show off my uniform and the new guitar techniques I'd learned from my army buddies. It was hard to tell if my father was impressed by either, such was his health at the time. I told him to keep listening to the radio, I'd be on there someday soon.

My father never did win that talent contest, not that he minded much. He'd had a dream when he was a kid to play on the stage someday and though it wasn't the stage he envisioned, he played in front of people he loved and that was enough. He was growing old with family all around him on some of the prettiest land anyone'd ever laid eyes upon, playing the sun off every evening with the same guitar he'd had since he was 14 years old. He told me once, "I can't think of any dream that could top that, son." I think he was right.

A year after getting out of the Army I was back playing the bar scene. It was different now, though. The music industry had boomed and scouts and producers were looking everywhere they could for the next big thing, even little hole in the wall honky tonks. After a show one night, a producer introduced himself to me saying he'd never heard playing like that before and where did I learn it. I told him I learned it from my father. Three months after that, I had my first song on the radio. Mom told me later that she thinks he held on just to hear it, that achieving my dream gave him life she thought was gone. For several years, I was a mainstay on the radio and toured the world more than once. I had lived the dream my father inspired me to, even had time to make a little family of my own along the way, but I was ready to settle down. I decided to buy back some of the land my mother sold after my dad passed and we built our own house on it. I made sure that it had a big front porch. One night, my son picked up his great aunt's fiddle and we played a little duet. It was a song I'd written a long time ago about the place where I'd grown up. My first radio hit, "Hemingway Ranch."