Well, just about everything.
Whenever I pass a Kubota tractor dealership, I think of my dad. He never owned a Kubota. Kubota was just one detail from a greater conversation we shared on a pleasant day at a tractor show during the last year of his life. At 88, he possessed a sharp mind and a vivid memory. His interest in learning remained keen and he required little assistance in getting around.
He actually talked more about the Oliver 88 that day than he talked about Kubota.
His folks had an Oliver 88 “on the farm.” But, it’s the Kubota brand that triggers the memories . . . go figure.
Two horses for a tractor
My dad grew up in northern Minnesota on the Mesabi Iron Range, the only boy in a farm family. I have a picture of a huge barn he built, together with his dad and some helpful others.
He once told me that he felt great freedom to explore and imagine and build most anything he wanted growing up.
After careful research and a well-planned approach, my father once convinced his father that replacing their two horses with a tractor would improve their lot. It did.
From the stories that he shared on that same Kubota morning, I concluded that his ideas mattered to his Finnish-immigrant parents.
Surprised . . . and surprised again
But, about that “Kubota” thing . . . Today, when I see a Kubota sign, I experience some vague something of my dad—not so much a specific memory as an impression laced with pleasure, gratitude, deep love, and missing him, all wrapped up in a moment.
It happens when I use polyurethane too.
Dipping the brush in the can carefully to load only the bottom quarter inch or so of the bristles and then patiently letting the excess drip into the can, avoiding scraping that would add unwelcome air pockets, and then tilting my head to find the perfect angle to view the polyurethane take to the wood as I stroke the brush in one direction only, slowly, precisely—I feel my dad.
As a kid, maybe six or seven years old, I must have watched him do that, just like I watched him study a problem under the hood of a car or lay out his tools to do regular maintenance on the lawnmower.
It happened unexpectedly yesterday.
The hand-written phone number
I had just created a hand-written list of five items I needed to address with my boss, who was out of town. We arranged to talk briefly by phone at a certain time. I wrote her cell phone number in the margin by the list, and at that moment—writing her phone number—I experienced a bit of my dad.
He would call my grandfather every other Sunday. We lived in the Chicago area and Grandpa was in Minnesota. Long distance calls were expensive then, but less expensive on Sundays. To ensure a productive call that stayed somewhat brief, my dad would list things he wanted to talk about on a slip of paper that he kept by the phone—maybe ask Grandpa if he got those tires for the car, or verify the dates that we would visit in August. He would write Grandpa’s phone number on the slip, just to have everything he needed in one place.
When I add numbers in a neat column on the back of an opened envelope (an echo of the way he reconciled his checkbook) or return a tool to it’s designated place on the pegboard in the garage, I think of Dad.
What detail today will be the Kubota sign of tomorrow?
I wonder what details will fill this day—particularly the details that unfold when I tend to unremarkable kitchen tasks while carrying on a conversation with my fiercely observant five-year-old granddaughter.
Today’s details comprise tomorrow’s memories. Somewhere down the road one or two of them may emerge as a gift for others, wholly unexpected, but welcomed.
Top photo: Joost J. Bakker from IJmuiden, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Morris Sampler 