I had a dream about my Uncle Dale last night. It is the first dream I ever remember having about him, and he has been gone for more than 30 years. In my dream, we were all in the dining room at the farm and we heard the doorbell ring. This alone was strange because the farm house has no door bell. Maybe that is why in my dream, none of us got up to answer the door. A minute later, Dale was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. I ran to give him a hug and say how long it had been since I'd seen him. He didn't remember my name and called me Amy. I wasn't upset about it at all. I guess I figured that since he hadn't seen me in so long it was ok that he forgot my name. The most interesting part of the dream to me was that Dale looked like a much younger man than he was when I was a kid. He looked more like pictures I had seen of him when he was in the service when he was younger.
Dale lived with our family on the farm until a few years before he died. He never married and never had any kids. There are a couple of things I will never forget about Dale. He was always the one to milk the cows. He always wore bib overalls...and always the striped ones. More often than not, his hands were resting inside the the top of the overalls. He also made more noise yawning and stretching than anyone else I have ever known. His room was the first bedroom at the top of the steps and when he yawned and stretched, you literally would hear him wailing throughout the entire house! Another funny thing about him was how many Easter eggs he could put away. He would eat six of the them for breakfast each morning at Easter time. Of course that meant we got to dye tons of eggs, so we were happy. In his last years, he would go to Mackinaw Island in the summers and drive a team of horses to help people get around the island.
One of my favorite memories of Dale was when Mike and I would go for rides with him in his truck. I'm not sure why we went with him because he never took us to the root beer stand. We would always head across Ench Mile Road and then turn left. That would take us down a very curvy road into the valley. (This is the same valley that my dad liked to fish and trap in and later liked to just drive through to see the deer.) The rides in Dale's truck always seemed to take forever, and yet each time, Mike and I would be sure to go along. Whenever we asked where we were going or where some place was, Dale would always say, "Down yonder." Everything was "down yonder". Mike and I would laugh about that all the time. On this ride through the valley we would come to one very sharp turn in the narrow gravel road. As we made the turn, we went over a very rickety old bridge. In honor of Dale, Mike and I started calling this bridge "The Yonder Bridge". I remember telling Eric about The Yonder Bridge when we'd take Daddy for rides in the valley years later. Of course, by that time, the bridge had been taken out and there was just a culvert running under the road. I tried calling it The Yonder Culvert, but it just didn't have the same ring to it as The Yonder Bridge. To this day, when we make that drive through the valley, I always anticipate getting to The Yonder Bridge and still think of Dale each and every time.
At the church we attend, a few times each year, there is a bluegrass band that plays our worship songs. My favorite is 'When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder'. I am not much of a singer, but even I can't help but join in when that song is played. When we found the old Victrola records in the farm attic, I found 'When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder' and brought it home with me. When I bought the Victrola at our church garage sale, I was finally able to hear the record. As you would expect, it is scratchy and sounds like something straight out of The Waltons. The Baldwin sisters probably would have danced to it after having a few sips of 'the recipe'. But that song makes me think of Dale and his "down yonder".
As the song goes, "When the roll is called up yonder, When the roll is called up yonder, When the roll is called up yon....der, When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there." Yes, when the roll is called up yonder, I plan to be there. And I bet I'll find Dale waiting for me at The Yonder Bridge.
No comments:
Post a Comment