{"id":375,"date":"2019-07-22T18:40:49","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T23:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=375"},"modified":"2019-07-22T19:09:20","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T00:09:20","slug":"the-bear-ass-detective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/the-bear-ass-detective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bear-Ass Detective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

            Farming\nis not easy. Crops are dependent on the weather, and you never know when you\nmight get wiped out by too much rain or drought. If you farm organically, like\nwe do, your crops are vulnerable to invasive species like the gypsy moths that\nmowed down four rows of our blueberries a few years back. I work extremely hard\non my little blueberry farm, mowing, pruning, trimming, weed-whacking, pulling\nup bittersweet and poison ivy and managing the pick-your-own stand in July and\nAugust. For the most part, it\u2019s gratifying, especially when there is a stellar\ncrop like this year.  But once in awhile\nsomeone will escape the blueberry patch without paying, which makes my heart\nsink since we used to use the honor system for many years without any problems.\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do my best to keep an eye on\nthings with a camera that dings on my phone when a customer comes up the\ndriveway, and which I can observe on the screens of any device in the house. I\neven have a camera pointing down to the blueberries so I can keep track of the\nnumber of cars in the field when I\u2019m in my office or the other side of the\nhouse. And, I often drive down on my little tractor (to save the time of\nwalking back and forth) to check on who is there and give best picking advice. When\nI step out for an errand, I have a friend or neighbor sit in the barn. Now that\nI\u2019m retired from teaching, this is my full-time job in July and August, and I\ndepend upon the income. I\u2019m usually out in the barn helping customers and when\nI\u2019m in the garden weeding and harvesting, I have my phone on with the camera so\nI can see people drive up. The other day I was catching up on some office work\non the porch where I could keep an eye on the field. Imagine how stunned I was,\nwhen I watched one of those huge \u201cEarth Destroyer\u201d types of SUV\u2019s, big enough\nto transport a soccer team, pull away from the field without coming up to pay.\nI ran out to the barn, thinking they may have walked up to weigh and pay\nwithout my seeing them. But sure enough, they didn\u2019t fill in the log or leave\nany cash in the till. I jumped in my car to chase them down, but they were long\ngone.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I was driving down the road,\nwondering which way they went, I was reminded of a favorite family story about\nmy dad.  When my parents were first\nmarried, in the 1940\u2019s, they were care-takers on one of the large estates along\nLake Cochichowik in North Andover. My father was the farm manager for the chickens\nand the produce, my mother ran the farm stand, and my Uncle Bob was Mr. Bigelow\u2019s\nchauffer.  It was during WWII and money\nwas scarce, gas and other items were rationed, and everything had to be metered\nout carefully.  Since there was a gas\nration, it was surprising that anyone would drive all the way out from downtown,\nor Lawrence just to steal vegetables, but apparently someone was doing just\nthat several times a week. My dad was determined to catch \u201cthe sons-a-bitches\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night, the dog started\nbarking around midnight and my dad jumped out of bed to look out the window\njust in time to see a car pull away from the farm stand. They lived in the\nservant quarters above the carriage house on the estate. He immediately ran\ndownstairs and jumped in the truck, hoping to catch the license plate. Great\nPond Road was Narrow and curvy. Gas pedal to the floor, and the engine whining\ninto fourth gear, my dad  saw the taillights\njust as he reached the big turn toward the Old Center. Then the truck began to\nsputter and cough. Looking at the gas gauge, I can only imagine the string of\ncuss words he let out. He would have to walk home over a mile and a half. There\nwas only one problem. He was stark naked and didn\u2019t have any shoes on.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father has slept naked his\nwhole life, much to my mother\u2019s embarrassment. She scolded him on more than one\noccasion. \u201cWhat if there was a fire! What if someone comes to the door!\u201d Having\ntoted a bag full of resentment toward authority his whole life, my dad was not\nabout to take orders from anyone about sleeping in the buff, much less from a\nwoman. Her admonishments only served to solidify his commitment to sleeping nude.\nIt\u2019s a good thing he got a farm deferment during the war. He wouldn\u2019t have\nlasted a day in boot camp.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, the farm truck was a\ndusty mess with grain bags and rags behind the seat or strewn on the floor, but\nmy Uncle Bob had borrowed the truck that night for a date  and had removed everything from the cab in his\ncleaning frenzy. There wasn\u2019t even an old newspaper tucked under the seat. My\ndad was in a pickle. Ordinarily, it wouldn\u2019t be a problem to walk down Great\nPond Road butt naked in the middle of the night. There was very little traffic,\nexcepting the vegetable thief, and most people were asleep. This was a rural\ncommunity and a time when electricity was still a novelty.  However, during his car chase, my Dad noticed\nthat the Country Club (which used to be his Grampy Foss\u2019s farm before it was\nturned over to all the rich folks for tennis and golf), was lit up like a\nChristmas Tree. They must have had a cocktail party that night.  As he made his way home, he had to dodge the\nlights, hopping from tree to tree for cover.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can bet my Uncle Bob got an\nearful when my dad finally made it back. He rousted him out of bed, and I can\njust hear it now\u2026\u201dJesus H. Christ \u2013 God-damn-it all\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, my dad went\ndown to the General Store to get the Sunday paper. When he walked through the\ndoor, the owner of the store loudly proclaimed, \u201cWell, if it isn\u2019t the\nbare-assed detective!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncle Bob had already made the\nrounds and the news was spreading around town. Of course, my mother was\nmortified. I\u2019m sure she wondered more than once what she had gotten herself\ninto. But my dad relished telling that story for years. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stealing from farmers is as old\nas dirt. It\u2019s just one more notch of resentment in the belt which divides rural\nfolk from city folk. Small-time farmers walk a tightrope of tension between\ntheir rural roots and the urbanites who really don\u2019t understand the culture and\nthe value of living simply. If you are a child of a farmer, you carry the scars\nof all working-class oppression even though you might look thoroughly embedded\nin the middle class. The tension on that rope is even tighter than what your\nparents faced, and the precipice deeper and wider, because you long for\nsomething bigger than the small world which was presented to you, a chance to\nearn a living without living on the edge of disaster; perhaps a better\neducation and a seat at the table. But rural roots run deep. It\u2019s tough to\nloosen the dirt around that mistrust of people who come from the city or a\nplace of privilege. I understand why there is such a political divide between\nthe heart of the land and the coastal elites, though I can\u2019t for the life of me\nunderstand how my people could fall for such a draft-dodging, racist, entitled\nrich-boy con artist like Trump who doesn\u2019t understand the heart in the\nHeartland. But coming from a family of the hired help, <\/em>I do know the\nseat of their resentment: the wealthy people who assume you should work for\nfree, and who can afford not to pay for the snow plowing and haying you\u2019ve done\nall year; the haggling of people with a regular income, who don\u2019t know the true\nvalue of your product; the assumption that you must be ignorant and uneducated\nif you choose to work the land which puts the food in their mouths. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While recognizing the con of\nTrump who thinks he\u2019s got our number when he plays to the anachronistic\nassumptions that all rural people are racist, anti-immigrant, and misogynistic,\nI also recognize the con games of my own people, who can smell a city slicker a\nmile away. My dad lays on his country ways trying to impress upon every\nstranger that he was a farmer and proud of it. His Yankee accent gets thicker,\nand the pretense of a bygone rural life which included teams of horses and hay\nwagons, conjuring up a Currier and Ives lithograph, is laid upon anyone who\nwill stop and listen. But I can read between the lines.  I know he\u2019s letting it be known that he\u2019s\nsmarter than you think, and that he\u2019s worked hard all his life, pulled himself\nup by the bootstraps, earned every penny he earned and ended up with nothing. He\nembellishes the misadventures of falling through the hayloft in the barn, and\nnumerous tractor accidents and mishaps which left his body broken and deformed\nin old age. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This pretense is a cloak of\nprotection played up while trying to sniff out whether a person is one of us or\nsome city slicker who will rob you blind.  But I remember being on the other end of the\nstick when we used to go \u201cup country\u201d to Warren New Hampshire for a quick\ntwo-day vacation so my father could fly-fish while my mother and I sat for\nhours reading books on the banks of the Baker River. We would stay in Mr.\nHazelton\u2019s cabin for free and had to go to Claude & Leona Foot\u2019s farm to\nget a jug of water and the key. And boy, didn\u2019t Claude lay on his thick New\nHampshire accent telling garrulous stories about hunting and drinking\nescapades, while my father tried to outdo him in an effort to prove that he was\none of them. After all, we were the city slickers to them simply because we\ncame from Massachusetts. It is no wonder that I lack a sense of belonging,\nhaving been raised by people who were always trying to prove that they belonged\nto one group while building walls to exclude another. After all, \u201ccity-slickers\u201d\ncould be a euphemism for any group of outlanders, the people who come from \u201caway\u201d.\nIn my family, city-slickers were the people who would steal your vegetables\nfrom the stand or the blueberries from your field. After all, your neighbors\nwouldn\u2019t steal from you because they knew what it was like to work your ass off\non the land with little or no profit.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it weren\u2019t for the farmer\u2019s\nmistrust of city folk, I probably wouldn\u2019t be enjoying my little Mini\nSchnauzers. In order to protect the fruits of their hard-earned labor from thieves\nin the marketplace, German farmers created the German Shepherd. The shepherd\nwas a great watchdog  for chasing away\nwould-be thieves while the farmers slept in their carts overnight. However, as\nbig and scary as he is, the shepherd is a sound sleeper and needed a little alarm\nsystem.  Hence the mini schnauzer which\nwas bred to go after rats and other vermin. The schnauzer has a keen sense of\nsmell and hearing. After all, they will go to ground after a mole digging\nbeneath the soil. German farmers took to bringing their mini schnauzers and the\nshepherd to the marketplace. The schnauzers made for a good bed-fellow, being a\nborn schnuggler, but their keen sense of hearing and smell made them less than\nsound sleepers.  The rustle of a rat or\nthe soft footstep of a thief would rouse the mini schnauzer into an alarm that\nwould waken the whole village. Once the shepherd was alerted, those city\nslicker thieves didn\u2019t stand a chance. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My schnauzers aren\u2019t great alarm\ndogs, which is fine by me. They are more interested in tail wagging and treats.\nIn the meantime, I will rely upon my own wits, keeping an eye on my field and\nmy farm stand, hoping I won\u2019t have to engage in any bare-assed escapades like\nmy dad.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Farming is not easy. Crops are dependent on the weather, and you never know when you might get wiped out by too much rain or drought. If you farm organically, like we do, your crops are vulnerable to invasive species like the gypsy moths that mowed down four rows of our blueberries a few … <\/p>\n

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