Some More Nice People

This week’s nice people:

1) The farmer and his wife – hi-ho-the dairy-oh. Thirty-five kids and their parental entourage from my son’s preschool descended on the farm of this nice couple like locusts. The noisy bunch devoured up fun and hot dogs for an intense three hours and then slipped away so stealthily I didn’t realize my kids and I were among the last ten still at the farm. The farmer approached me as I tried to get my kids out of the corn and into their shoes and I thought for sure he was going to ask if we were ready to leave yet. Instead, he squinted at me from his round, diffident, sun-blessed face and meekly said, “There aren’t as many kids here now, so I can get out the lawn mower train if you’d like. I bet your kids would like that.” He had an old red tractor, the kind with the lidded pipe on front that flutters on steam when it gets chugging, with a bunch of comparatively characterless riding mowers wagging their tails behind. My kids thoroughly enjoyed bumping along on their own, personal John Deer, gripping and turning their big, black steering wheels with both hands. After the tractor ride I was really feeling guilty for overstaying our welcome, but when we passed the goat pen on our way out, I noticed a goat escapee and felt I better run in the store and let the farmer’s wife know. She told me it gets out all the time, “But would your kids like to feed the goats?” She hopped down from her chair and bounced outside with me following her gray visor on her gray head - an agricultural coronet. Chatting with me all the way, she filled four buckets full of ground corn, then filled my children’s hands to overflowing, and pushed them gently toward the goats. While my kids giggled over the goats pink tongues and white teeth tickling their hands, the farmer’s wife told me all about her life and faith in such a neighborly way I wished I lived next door. The farmer and his wife should have been exhausted by the large five and under crowd they had just entertained; instead they went out of their way to make sure we were filled to the brim with bucolic joy. What nice people.

2) Sorry, this prejudice might crop up a lot, but my husband – I promise he really is a nice guy. I found out from my neighbor today that before he went out of town to do some work for a couple of months, he asked her to come down to our house and take the kids away sometimes. He told her not to ask if she could, because I’d tell her no and that I was fine. He told her to make me let her watch my kids. Darn sneaky boy – thinks he knows me.

3) The Grandma of a couple of girls who I have been trying to get registered for girls’ camp for a few weeks now. I went by their house and she invited me in, a complete stranger to her, and started talking me ragged in the most kind, grandmotherly, I’m-so-glad-you’re-here sort of way. Thanks for making my soul feel loved.

4) My Aunt Kris and Uncle Ron who are staying with my Grandma right now while she gets better from surgery. I wouldn’t mind having them hang out with me either if I was under the weather.