Event Date: 1980–1984

Event Date: 1980–1984 Drafted: 2025-11-23

If the haymow was a cathedral and the tractor was a beast, then the pump house roof was a castle.

It wasn’t a tall building — just a small structure that protected the water system — but to a child, height is measured differently. A five-foot climb at age six feels like scaling Everest.

The shingles were rough and warm in summer. If you sat on them long enough, the texture printed itself into the backs of your legs. From the roof’s edge, you could see: • the goat pen • the big garden • the driveway curving toward the road • the pigpen in the corner • the barn doors yawning open • the entire sky

It felt like being above the world.

Helen and I would sit up there, sharing a bag of pretzels or apples — those little moments when Mom was busy, Dad was working, and the farm itself babysat us.

Sometimes we played spy games. Sometimes we just watched clouds.

Sometimes Dori would bark at us as if to say, “Get down from there before you break your neck.”

But we never got hurt. The pump house roof was solid, safe, loyal.

It was the first throne I ever sat on.