Jim Croche wanted to put time in a bottle, but not me. If I bottle anything in the world, it would be the smell of cut alfalfa drying in the field. In the dark of winter or in times of great loss, one whiff would lift my spirits.
Every time the rich, grainy aroma – a close cousin to fresh baked bread – wafts across a field and tickles my nose, it uncovers a memory that lie deep in the core of who I am. Suddenly, my sister, brother and I are in the back seat of our old Chevy on a hot, summer day. We’re tormenting each other as Mom drives our old Chevy down country roads. Dad is sitting in the passenger seat, his arm out the window, his grin wide around the pipe stuck between his teeth. He’s checking the crops, commenting on the dirty bean fields, asking Mom to pull into a farmstead’s driveway to see if the owner has time for a Sunday afternoon chat.
In that memory, I am too young to know what I know now. Those Sunday afternoons were when Dad was happiest. No longer a county extension agent because multiple sclerosis was ravaging his body, those rides were the remnant of his twin passions: farming and people. Those days when he could be near to both were when he was most fully and joyfully alive.
Oon those afternoons, the smell of cut alfalfa, baking in the blazing Iowa sunshine poured through the open car windows, mingling with road dust, pipe smoke, and Dad’s flashing, joyful smile. Hot and sweaty in the back seat, exasperated with my pesky siblings, his smile made my world safe and happy.
And whenever the smell of drying alfalfa meets my nose, I am once again safe and happy in the shadow of my father’s smile.
