The Buddy Seat I Gave My Granddaughter

At The Elevator

We hauled the north eighty’s corn into town that afternoon. Kim drove the loaded semi and I followed in my truck with Ava.

I had told Ava that the last part of harvest, the part most kids never see, is the elevator. That is where the corn turns into a number, and the number turns into the year.

The co op elevator in our town is a tall white tower of concrete bins you can see from four miles out. At harvest the trucks line up out onto the highway, farmers in dusty caps leaning on their fenders, waiting to dump.

And standing by the scale house, in his good coat because he was in town, was Walt Jorgenson.

Walt owns the north eighty now. My father sold it to Walt’s father fifty years ago in a hard winter.

I have rented it back and farmed it every year since. Walt and I have a handshake deal older than my marriage.

He is eighty one, and he still drives to the elevator at harvest to watch his ground come in. Farmers do that. The ground does not stop being yours in your heart just because somebody else works it.

Troy was there too. He had hauled a load off the home place and he was waiting on his weigh ticket.

He was standing with Walt, talking the way men talk at the scale. His two nephews were up in his truck cab drinking pop.

Walt saw me and raised his hand. Then he saw the little girl climbing down out of my truck, and he smiled the way old men smile at children.

“Well now,” Walt said. “Who’s this you got helping you, Marlene?”

And before I could answer, Ava walked right up to Walt Jorgenson, eighty one years old in his good coat. She stuck out her hand the way I had never taught her. She just did it.

“I’m Ava. I ran the yield monitor on your north eighty today. The whole field.”

Walt took her little hand in his big spotted one. “Did you now,” he said.

“Two hundred and fourteen bushels an acre average,” Ava said. “The low end by the crick went two twenty six.”

“The moisture stayed under eighteen the whole field except the north fence line, where the shade keeps it wet. That went eighteen point one. So we might get docked a little on that one load, but not much.”

The scale house got quiet. A couple of the farmers in line had turned to listen.