At the age of 18 I left the farm and moved to Minneapolis where I attended college.

Wednesday, June 27, 2001

At the age of 18 I left the farm and moved to Minneapolis where I attended college. I came home whenever my classes, my job and chasing girls would allow. My parents never came to visit me. My father lived on a farm and confined most of his driving to rural roads and the streets of small towns.

Once when I was home, I mentioned to my mother that she and my father should at least come once to see where I live. I didn’t think much more of it, but Mom must have thought it was a fine idea and immediately went to work on Dad, because about two weeks later, she called me. My parents were going to visit me in the big city of Minneapolis. I waited for them. I even cleaned my room. They were three hours late.

Dad got out of the car and said, &uot;I don’t like driving up here.&uot;

I told him that I didn’t think he was supposed to like driving in Minneapolis, no one else did. They were late because they had gotten lost. They had never really been lost before, so they didn’t know how to stop and ask directions. I inquired as to how the drive up had been, other than the part about becoming lost, of course. I shouldn’t have asked. Mom said that she hadn’t seen Dad so nervous since the last time they had danced. The drive had been hard on my father. It was difficult to drive as fast as the rest of the traffic and still try to see the sign for his turn. Dad was surprised that his old car was able to go so fast. My mother added that it really bothered him that he could not wave at everyone he saw. Back home, Dad waved at everyone on foot, horseback, bicycle, tractor or in a vehicle. My father said that he didn’t swear, but he could see where it might come in handy if a man was going to spend much time driving around Minneapolis.

&uot;Your father even had to use his turn signals,&uot; added my mother. &uot;It was quite a change for him. At home, he never needs to use them. Everyone knows where he is going to turn. I looked at the faces of some of the other drivers and they looked awfully grim.&uot;

&uot;That’s for sure,&uot; my father pitched in. &uot;They appeared to be in a big hurry to get someplace that they didn’t really want to go. We drove past a couple of golf courses. What a waste of good pasture. A fellow could raise a lot of cattle on those greens. We went by a couple of lakes and saw all kinds of people running around them. Why are they doing that?&uot;

&uot;They do it for the exercise,&uot; I answered.

&uot;Exercise?&uot; snorted my father. &uot;Why don’t they just get a job if they need exercise?&uot;

My father said that he was hungry. I didn’t have anything to eat – I was a college student. I suggested that we walk to a restaurant and give my father’s nerves a chance to settle down a bit. I don’t think I could have gotten him into the car again. Even a bus would have been out of the question.

&uot;Where do you want to eat?&uot; I asked.

&uot;Any place as long as they have meat and potatoes,&uot; he said.

We walked to a fast food restaurant – a famous one. My father had never been to a fast food place before. He was definitely a meat and potatoes kind of a guy and this restaurant had French fries. They were most certainly potatoes. They had hamburgers and they might have been meat. My father ate the French fries and part of his hamburger, mumbling that if what he was eating was really a hamburger, they must have expanded the definition.

After eating, having a brief tour of the campus and a quick look at my what was clean for me apartment; my parents prepared to head back home to the farm. There were cows that needed milking. My father said that he was glad to see where I was living and going to school, but he hoped I wouldn’t be offended if he never came to visit me again. I told him that a lot of people live in Minneapolis.

&uot;They just think they are living,&uot; said my father and with a wave he was gone – driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.