A Lifetime in the Fields is a painting by RC DeWinter which was uploaded on August 6th, 2014.
Title
A Lifetime in the Fields
Artist
RC DeWinter
Medium
Painting - Digital Oils-paintography
Description
Copyright 2014 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved
The Farmer's Tale
From the time I was a boy growing up
on a farm out in the middle of nowhere, Iowa.
I wanted to be a doctor.
Not sure why, really,
especially since most of my visits
to the doctor were unpleasant -
vaccinations, poking and prodding
and pressing swollen glands
and the seventeen stitches in my scalp
the time I fell off a hayloft ladder
when I was ten.
The drudgery of farm life was a heavy yoke.
Being the oldest boy
I was set to inherit the home place.
I hated the whole idea -
up before sunrise,
twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day
every month without snow;
baking in the blazing sun all summer,
winters shivering in barn fixing machinery
or sitting at a table tracking crop yields.
Never a master of one's own fate,
dependent on the vagaries of the weather
and the fluctuating market.
I think I broke my dad's heart
the day I finally told him I didn't want the farm.
We'd been out dredging weeders through the cornrows;
we were hot, dirty, tired.
When I said my piece, he snorted.
"You're thirteen years old.
What do you know about what you want?
And where in the name of the Almighty
do you think the money's coming from
to send you to school?
Putting food on the table
and shoes on the feet of the five of you
stretches about as far as I can go."
But I was determined not to be a slave
to wind and weather.
I studied as many hours as I could,
working hard to get the grades
for a scholarship to college.
My teachers were encouraging
and my chances were looking good.
I'd already been admitted
to the university in Iowa City
with the promise of a scholarship
when I got tangled up with Betty Parker.
I was crazy for her and finally,
the night before graduation,
she let me lift up her dress and we did
what we'd been dancing around for months.
The week before I was to leave for college
Betty told me about the baby.
"We have to get married, John Bales,"
she said, hard as nails.
And that was the end of my dream -
goodbye to medicine and being my own man.
I did the honorable thing and,
putting my tail between my legs,
told dad I wouldn't be going to college after all.
He wasn't best pleased about the reason
for my change in plans
but I know he was happy I was staying on the farm.
So here I am, almost eighty years
gone by since Betty Parker
became Betty Bales and made my life
a mockery of what it should have been.
She made sure to pop out another Bales
every three or four years like clockwork,
keeping me chained to the plow
and the neverending struggle with the insects, the weather
and all the rest of it.
We had four children and I did my best by them,
but I can't say I was ever a happy man.
Betty died ten years ago.
Soon as we put her in the ground
I signed the farm over to my second boy,
who must've gotten the farming gene from my father; he loves it.
My oldest, Rosie, is a doctor.
And even though the fact of her being
meant the downfall of everything I wanted,
I'm happy there's a Bales from nowhere, Iowa
with the initials M.D. after the name.
~ copyright 2014 RC deWinter
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Uploaded
August 6th, 2014
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Viewed 1,452 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 03/25/2024 at 12:10 AM
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Comments (86)
Sharon Duguay
Revisiting this fantastic work ,I love his expression ,& loved the description L/F/Twt/
Sharon Duguay
One image & you can see he's still looking over his fields as he has done for a lifetime ,what would we do without farmers like him ,very thought provoking image Gina L/F/Twt & Female Artist Promo
Hartmut Jager
Outstanding. With one image You captured the whole hard life of this man. Excellent. :-)
RC DeWinter
Thanks much, Sheri, It began as a photograph but has been radically transformed through digital magick.