Field of Dreams

The sunny and dry weather we’ve been having lately brought back a childhood memory. I drove by a hay field the other day. It was a breezy day and I could see the wind dancing on the seed heads of the grasses.

I’ve written before about growing up and living across from a big field. It was called the bean field, however the days of growing beans in that field had ended long before I was born. During my early life it was just a hay field. By the time June came around the field was thick with hay. When I made the field my private play ground I was just tall enough to see over the top of the grass, but I could easily go down and feel comfortably lost in my private jungle of grass.

I spent hours, days, months and years in that field. I discovered the insects of the field. I discovered warrens of rabbits. I discovered the birds that lived there. I discovered the joys of resting my head and body among the grasses and watching clouds drift by in the summer sky.

I remember being in the field at dusk and seeing a rise of fire flies flashing like millions of out of sync marquee lights or like fireworks from the next town over.

When I left New Jersey nearly 22 years ago there was probably only five acres of that field left. What was left wasn’t pretty at all. It had been developed into a shopping center on one end and the other end was the home for a bank and a failed shopping center that was never developed further than the cinder block stage. Though I haven’t seen it I understand all the remaining real estate of the field and the wooded hills in the back ground are all over-priced condominiums now.

When I drove by the local field the other day I hoped that there was a kid like me that lived near-by that is able to take advantage of the wonders that fields like that have to offer. I’ve forgotten many of the school lessons that I learned during those years, but I’ll never forget the lessons I learned in that field.