Mighty Fine

There is a poignant moment in the classic film “Field of Dreams” when the Kevin Costner character realizes that one of the ballplayers from the cornfield is his father.  With wonder, the father surveys the baseball diamond under lights and asks, “Is this heaven?”  The son responds, “No.  It’s Iowa.”

There were so many times as a kid when I pinched myself and asked, “Is this heaven?”  The answer was, “No, not exactly!”  But it was close to heaven for me.  It was my grandparents’ hilltop home and avocado grove in Vista, California.    

In 1935 my grandfather and grandmother bought the property, about four acres in size atop a gentle ridge near the end of a winding and narrow country lane.  For the next seven years they spent weekends and vacation days developing the site, laying sprinkler lines, planting avocado “starts,” fencing the land, and building a house.

It takes about seven years from the time you plant an avocado tree until you see the first fruits, and they had planned it perfectly.  By the summer of 1942, the grove was ready to be harvested for the first time.  In that year Granddad turned sixty-five and retired with a pension from the Union Pacific; and they moved into their new two-bedroom home on the hill.

For the last time he took off his official ticket-agent hat, his crisply ironed shirt, his necktie, his slacks with the sharp crease, and his shiny shoes.  He traded them in for the broad-brimmed Stetson, the khaki pants and shirt, and those work boots that would be his uniform of the day well into his 80’s. He had fulfilled his lifelong yearning to be a man of the soil.

As a kid I was farmed out to Vista quite a lot — unaware at the time that my parents were shielding me from the family upheaval that frequented our lives; and some of those difficulties have been chronicled in previous entries on this blog.  What had started out as a planned escape for me became so much more. 

Oh, how I loved to see my grandfather’s ’48 Plymouth business coupe coming down the street.  He was coming to pick me up for the weekend or for Easter vacation or for a long summer visit.  Sometimes I took the Greyhound bus with the small square windows; and after the DMV sent my drivers’ license, the visits were even more frequent.  From the time my parents first dropped this toddler off with Jim Ned and Leona Johnson until my college years, it was my favorite place of joy and refuge. 

My grandmother was just lovely to me, always making my favorite dessert; but my grandfather and I were joined at the hip.  From the time we woke up at dark-thirty, until bedtime, we spent nearly every waking moment together — except for naptime.  After lunch he would take off his clothes, put on his pajamas, draw the drapes, crawl in bed and snore away for ninety minutes.

But for the rest of the day, we were constant companions.  Together we worked the grove, and I learned his pet names for each and every tree.  “Queen Bee” and “Shorty” and “Prudence” and “Patience” and “North” and “East” and “Strawberry Roan” and “Dallas” and “Waco” and “Horseshoe” and “Aunt Rachel” and “Skimpy” and … so on.  We always knew where to find each other in the grove, and there were always so many wonderful trees to climb.

We fixed the whirlybird sprinklers, looked for signs of “cinnamon root rot,” mended the fences, and of course picked the fruit in its season.  In addition to the avocado grove, there was as a Navel and two Valencia orange trees, a fig tree, an apple tree, a pear tree, a peach tree, a persimmon tree, a pecan tree, and a stand of sweet corn.  Three or four times each summer we took a carload of this provender to stock the pantry of the nearby boys’ home and orphanage. 

We spent time in the workshop, where I learned about the care and feeding of all kinds of tools.  He was very skillful, designing and handcrafting his own special use gadget to pick the fruit from the highest branches.  He also babied the Plymouth coupe and told me how to take care of her.

Of course, he taught me about avocados.  It you want to know about “Hasses” or “Fuertes” or “cukes” or “off-blooms,” or how to pick an avocado off the tree or out of the bin in the produce section of your local Vons, I’m your guy.  And if you want to make some “shut up” guacamole — the kind that is so good it leaves you speechless — well then, ditto!

But of all the things I learned from Jim Ned Johnson, it was a simple ritual that had the most impact on the arc of my life.  Each day after early chores and breakfast and before heading back to the grove, we sat down in the sun porch for my grandparents’ daily devotions.  This routine was etched in stone.  They sat facing each other in their Naugahyde rocking chairs; hers was white and his was red.  He stuffed his pipe with his favorite Prince Albert tobacco, and she took up her knitting.   

They subscribed to a bi-monthly publication that guided their morning Bible study: “Our Daily Bread.”  For each day there was a one-page homily.  From the time I could read, my job was to look up the Scripture reference that went along with the daily lesson.  Over a period of fifteen years, I slept at least 400 nights under their roof, which meant at least 400 mornings of opening the Bible.  That was a seed of faith which was planted in my life.

Their devotions ended in the exact same way every time.  Granddad would refer to whatever verses were cited that day, and would sigh, and say, “That’s a mighty fine Scripture.”  He was from Texas, mind you.  Mighty fine means really good.

And then he would continue:

“But my favorite Scripture is Matthew 22:36-40.”  He would then recite it from memory, quoting the King James version of the Bible.  Allow me to save you the trouble of looking it up.

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

If I heard it once, I heard it at least 400 times, and my grandmother thousands of times more.  While clicking the knitting needles, she rolled her eyes and mouthed the words along with my grandfather; but there was no mockery there.  She had a benevolent smile on her face and an expression that said, “You dear man.”    

There is for me a weekly reminder of that wonderful season of my young life when my granddad told stories and demonstrated tools and let me talk all I wanted and addressed his avocado trees by name and opened my heart to the Bible.  This is what is written on the wall in the foyer of our church:  Love God.  Love Others.  That is Bible 101, and those are some mighty fine words.