hadn’t been much rain in the summer—so he just ran down to the edge and took a quick drink. A bit further on there was a small gorge with a log as thick as a wine barrel lying across it. Brett ventured out onto the log, lost his footing, and slipped halfway off. He held on with his front legs while his back legs dangled free and circled the air like a cartoon character’s; then he fell rump-first to the ground. He caused a sizable thump when he landed, scattering leaves and small branches and a few irritated birds, and I was scared for a moment that he’d hurt himself. But he jumped right up, shook himself, and ran over to me, grinning.
We’d been out there for over an hour, but whatever it was that compelled me to ride was not yet spent that day, so we left the park and continued down the two-lane road that led farther out into the country. There were farms on either side of us, with cornstalks as tall as people that time of the year. I saw cows in the fields, and the ones closest to the road looked up as we passed, their big faces with expressions blank as dinner plates. There were a few horses too, whinnying and shaking their heads, and I thought, what a fine thing to be such a beautiful creature, posing in the light of the fading sun.
I was too young to realize what hard times country people were having then. Family farms that had existed for several generations were being squeezed out by the big industrial operations, or, more mundanely, losing their children to cities and towns and simply fading out. But the evidence was everywhere. Some of the old farmhouses were sagging and frayed, as if they were as tired as their people from the unrelenting effort it took to keep the farms running. Rusted tractors and other machinery sat unused near collapsing barns, and the silos, which must once have been filled with harvested corn or wheat, looked empty and forlorn. I biked past farm after farm, each one in worse condition than the last, turning down smaller unpaved roads to get deeper into the country, and kicking up dust and gravel in my wake.
And then, without warning, we arrived at a cluster of trailers. I knew from driving around with my grandfather that there were little groups of trailers tucked away in all manner of wood and field. In town there were actual trailer parks, and also single trailers on private land, where people were reluctant or unable to build houses. Neither of these arrangements was strange to the town—Uncle Pete and Aunt Bertha lived in a trailer on three acres just outside the town limits, and their son and his family lived in one of the trailer parks. And while the trailers were unsafe in volatile weather (once, a freak tornado hit while Pete and Bertha were at the store, and they came home to find their trailer upside down in the street), there was no particular stigma attached to the people who lived in them.
But the trailers in the country were another matter. If the trailers in town were discarded as people moved on to bigger trailers or houses, this seemed to be the place where the old ones ended up. The trailers I saw that evening were like taped-together scraps of metal, many of the panels not matching in color or even fitting together properly. Some of them didn’t even have steps in front—a bucket or a pile of bricks had been placed where the stairs should have been—and many of the windows were covered with plastic or cardboard. And the children who played in front of them were dressed in torn, faded clothes, their faces and arms streaked with dirt. They were skinny—their knobby knees were broader than their thighs—and their faces seemed collapsed somehow, absent of light, as if they were miniature old people rather than children. I knew these children existed, because a few of them were bused to school in town, including Billy Coles, who was in the other third grade class. They received baths there once a week because some of their trailers lacked running water, and they
We’d been out there for over an hour, but whatever it was that compelled me to ride was not yet spent that day, so we left the park and continued down the two-lane road that led farther out into the country. There were farms on either side of us, with cornstalks as tall as people that time of the year. I saw cows in the fields, and the ones closest to the road looked up as we passed, their big faces with expressions blank as dinner plates. There were a few horses too, whinnying and shaking their heads, and I thought, what a fine thing to be such a beautiful creature, posing in the light of the fading sun.
I was too young to realize what hard times country people were having then. Family farms that had existed for several generations were being squeezed out by the big industrial operations, or, more mundanely, losing their children to cities and towns and simply fading out. But the evidence was everywhere. Some of the old farmhouses were sagging and frayed, as if they were as tired as their people from the unrelenting effort it took to keep the farms running. Rusted tractors and other machinery sat unused near collapsing barns, and the silos, which must once have been filled with harvested corn or wheat, looked empty and forlorn. I biked past farm after farm, each one in worse condition than the last, turning down smaller unpaved roads to get deeper into the country, and kicking up dust and gravel in my wake.
And then, without warning, we arrived at a cluster of trailers. I knew from driving around with my grandfather that there were little groups of trailers tucked away in all manner of wood and field. In town there were actual trailer parks, and also single trailers on private land, where people were reluctant or unable to build houses. Neither of these arrangements was strange to the town—Uncle Pete and Aunt Bertha lived in a trailer on three acres just outside the town limits, and their son and his family lived in one of the trailer parks. And while the trailers were unsafe in volatile weather (once, a freak tornado hit while Pete and Bertha were at the store, and they came home to find their trailer upside down in the street), there was no particular stigma attached to the people who lived in them.
But the trailers in the country were another matter. If the trailers in town were discarded as people moved on to bigger trailers or houses, this seemed to be the place where the old ones ended up. The trailers I saw that evening were like taped-together scraps of metal, many of the panels not matching in color or even fitting together properly. Some of them didn’t even have steps in front—a bucket or a pile of bricks had been placed where the stairs should have been—and many of the windows were covered with plastic or cardboard. And the children who played in front of them were dressed in torn, faded clothes, their faces and arms streaked with dirt. They were skinny—their knobby knees were broader than their thighs—and their faces seemed collapsed somehow, absent of light, as if they were miniature old people rather than children. I knew these children existed, because a few of them were bused to school in town, including Billy Coles, who was in the other third grade class. They received baths there once a week because some of their trailers lacked running water, and they
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