"The Good Old Days"

My Grandfather, Gus, has always loved to talk about the "Good Old Days". I have seen quite a lot of him at his home in Hermance, Switzerland, over the last year. He has just celebrated his 90th birthday. Life has brought quite a few challenges his way along with his advanced age. I find that he is increasingly happy to talk about the past, which has become very golden to him.

Gus, April 2012, at my Aunt's funeral.


I understand this desire to romanticize the past as I tend to do as well as I remember the years that we farmed here with our small children, trying to balance work, the farm and family. The reality was that there were times that we were frustrated and overwhelmed with the challenges, but people don't tend to want to reflect on those feelings.

My father, Eddy, with his grandson, Aidan, checking the cows.

Gus feels that the early years on the farm were the true golden time when they lived very simply and their needs were few. He felt that as they connected to the "outside world" that their expenses increased without the corresponding rise in income. The farm has been through many passages of stress and conflict. Farm property has been sold in an effort to bring in some money. The forest has been ravaged and stripped of profitable wood.The family has threatened to sue others and others have threatened to sue the farm. There have been periods of unrest and abandonment by the farm partners. Gus told me of a time when Eddy went logging for many months off the farm and discussed with the family not returning to the partnership on the farm. The trips to New Zealand often would produce a desire to move there, at one time we actually looked at a farm that was for sale. All of this we have limped through, until the most recent years.

Eddy with his pipe in his mouth and his trademark orange toque, select logging the farm forest. Eddy practiced selective logging on the property for many years.

Christmas 2011, Eddy's grandson asked for an orange toque, like his "papa's". We pay homage to the past, but the "Good old Days" are right now. 

June 2012, in the farm house, celebrating Aidan's Birthday. We don't look to the past, nor yearn or fear the future, but live in the moment. This is a good old day.

The trail of tears I walk,

like the Iroquois before me,

so many have suffered the same fate;

The Roma, Rohingya, Tibetans…..

Driven from their homes and livelihood, the victims of

obsessive hatred, jealousy, harassment.

Their history rewritten, made out to be monsters.

There is no comfort in our numbers.

 A wrong against one is a blight on all.

The wise ask, “what can I learn from this?”

Allow hatred and resentment to perch gingerly on the edge of your chair,

offer them no food or water.

Keep the visit brief and uncomfortable.

Such visitors never last long without nourishment.

Then pick up the threads of your life, your loves.

Wrap that around you tight.

Then all I can add is to seek

Solace

In the moment.