I went to visit my friend on his farm. He has been asking me to come for a while now; he wanted me to see what he was doing and the improvements made. I used to work as an extension officer, what seemed like three lifetimes ago.
As I approached in my old truck, I noticed that the path was recently cleared and he had planted ornamental flowering plants along the way. Hmm…. I thought, flowers instead of food, John is mellowing? He was one of those stanch believers that if anyway was to grow, it was to produce food. He was not one to plant flowering shrubbery.
Around the last bend, a small gate — the entrance of the farm came into view. It was a new gate. The paint was fresh and the wires and nails holding it together had not begun to succumb to oxides. A small hand painted sign said “Welcome to The Happy Farm”.
I was about to do a U-turn, this was not the John I knew. Happy and John never appeared in the same sentence. John was gruff with a dollop of misery but for some reason we connected back then, and have remained friends even after I moved on to other professional endeavors.
Nah, this had to be his place, he told me he was doing some work on it. So I jumped out of the truck and slamming the door, I shouted, “Jooohhhnnnn, I’m here!!!!!!!!”
Almost immediately I heard a shrill whistle. He was on the farm. I whistled back, mine was not as musically sounding but no matter we had our understanding.
I opened the gate and walked in. Right in from of me was a small gazebo looking like he built it himself. There was nothing that spoke to professional work. The roof was sloping slightly, a few of the coconut fronds were already falling out since the wire used to tie time together was actually a ball of wires — breaking here and there.
The flooring looked solid. He wanted a good foundation.
John was sitting on the step leading up to the structure and he had what we call a 7-dollar bread in his hand. It is similar in length to the average sized baguette but was made in our local traditional way — we call it butter bread and you can guess why.
In his other hand was a large barbequed chicken leg, the kind that are sold in local shops or by vendors who set up stalls. The chicken was cooked on an open charcoal grill and burnt to perfection I guess , I have not eaten chicken in over thirty years.
Between the leg and the bread was John’s face with the largest smile I have ever seen on him, perhaps on anyone ever.
That resulted in my laughing out loud and asking, “John, what happened to you?”
John joined in my laughing, “Ah found happy.”
I. Trudie Palmer
One Love