"A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. Everything within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage of the trees, the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the little green islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the waterlilies floating on the surface of the stream, the distant voices in boats borne musically towards him on the ripple of the water and the evening air, were all expressive of rest. In the occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, or twittering of a bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog, or lowing of a cow - in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath of rest, which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened the fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon the purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. Between the real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division; both were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn mystery of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart, because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful."
From Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit"
Book the First, Chapter 28
 |
e had a choice of ways to our destination: the Northwest, and lesser traveled road, or the nasty, ugly, crowded, and distressing, but more direct thoroughfare. It was after 4, and we were still in city pent. Though it remained (and for the final evening) Daylight Savings Time, the sun would be going down by 6:30, and we had miles to go before we could play. The decision was made: The longer and quieter way it would be. For the Katy Freeway is a bad business; tawdry beyond description, the scene of bottle-necking wrecks at any hour of any day. Its atmosphere is oppressive and palpable, closely lined with businesses in every state of dereliction, without the smallest meadow to alleviate the hub-bub. The Northwest Freeway, conversely, is not yet completely developed, and still has frontage pasture, and overgrown acreage forested with Chinese Tallow, a tree not native and regarded by folk as a nuisance, but responsible most years for the only autumn display this county sees. The clean lanes of US 290 can rusticate you far more rapidly (except at weekday rush hours) than the Interstate, and deliver you to the town limit far more pleasurably.
 |
As you can see by the map below, we could have taken a
"third way", like the French and Indians in the good old days of appeasing
communist wickedness, though I suppose that enabling tyrants is now pretty much the
province of the United Nations. However, Farm Road 529 these days, at least as far as
Highway 6, has about as much to do with farms as a Potemkin Village did with thriving
commerce and a fulfilled proletariat. It has its charms, for those who like traffic,
traffic lights, and strip centers, and is a delightful display of progress, with the
aesthetic aroma of Astroworld on a Saturday. But as regards the Soviets, the U.N.,
Astroworld and Wal-Mart, thank God for America. As P.J. O'Rourke has observed, "The
free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly
and just as stupid, except there’s nothing in the mall and if you don’t go there
they shoot you." We chose, on this day, not to go there.
So, with the sinking sun ahead and southward, we made our cheery way Northwest, and back South, along the twin-laned Farm Road 362, lined on either side by grassy ditch, barbed-wire, and the Texas version of hedgerows - i.e. uncut brush at the fencelines, with here and there hackberry trees, and various thorny looking bushes, occasionally festooned with trumpet-vines. Over the grazing prairies back to the east, the city buildings shone gleaming distantly through the clear Waller air. The cows sauntered and the cowbirds milled with them, feasting upon the grainy gleanings in the harvested fields. To our west now,by the sky,by the long streaks of high cloud, and by the sun slowly settling to glorify them both in furnace gold and cotton candy rose, was high drama degree by degree enacted.
Now finally, some few hours since the lap announcement, we pull into a large dirt, rock and bermuda parking lot, overwhelmed with SUVs, with bumpers proclaiming that their children have accomplished something. Should need be we have stocks of tater tots, Gatorade, and Frappucino, while I still retain two toaster sammies, if the night wears on. The welcome smell of livestock and dirt-dust clears me of city-blight, as we approach the ticket counter, where the pleasant proprietor, having ascertained I have no coupons, gives me the dollar-off-per-head value anyway, and we march through the entry barn, where Texana, pies, and cold soda allure the throngs of country-life celebrants, and then out into the grassy fragrant spaces, where I notice this: There are hundreds of people here, a great many of them very active children, but I hardly hear their festival. The fields of corn rattling in the slight breeze are more audible to me than the shouts of children at their play, the honking goose and the peahen ruckus piercing some aural filter, which the merry-makers cannot pierce. The dense smoke from the BBQ pit exposes Meat as a Platonic Ideal, and I, the Devourer at Sonic, realize that I desire this meat, with a true hunger, as also, some corn: food as Harvest Feast.
Astroworld, too, has hundreds, nay, thousands of people. But Astroworld is the town, is London in August, updated with chewed gum on every surface, and the underside; and is full of the rabble. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," as I've heard Jerry Seinfeld quoted in a different context. The rabble are, after all, people too; but they're a hot-breathing, noisy lot, and do not seem to mind being packed like cows in Amarillo. We writers are a weaker brethren. Charles Kingsley, the champion of "Muscular Christianity", had to go periodically for long spells to the seaside, to forestall his nervous complaint, and the poet Cowper is a byword for writer's cramp, a condition requiring seclusion and a cessation of stir. Let us skip lightly over "Mild Spenser", as he is called by the poet Wordsworth, who himself would have required salts, should he ever have beheld Astroworld in all its beauty. Even Bath was too vibrant for most of these gentlemen, though Addison might have enjoyed "Greased Lightning" and a taco and cola in "Mexican Village", for the sake of variety. The essayists were always a different breed than the poets, and have generally preferred to abide in the metropolis. Like Lisa Douglas, they "just adore a penthouse view", from which lofty perch they deplore the mob which, in its turn, ignores them to a nullity.
Here at Dewberry Farm, with "land stretching out so far and wide", we could loose the reins on the kids and let 'em have a free gallop over the fields, tremendously unconcerned with the kind of weirdness possible at Astroworld, which would require the short tether. The worry here is not so much what a stranger might do to your children, as it is what your children might do to a stranger. The two in our keeping this day are twelve years old, and reasonably well-behaved, though they are boys. The Rules at the Farm are few and simple: Big kids are not to play in the Little Kids Paddock; within the Maze, stay on the path, and do not stray under the netting and through the corn; and lastly, one we learned during the hay-ride round the fields and to the pumpkin patch, per Farmer Bradshaw, and addressed specifically to BOYS: "The pumpkins are my property, until you break one; then it will become your property, at so many cents to the pound."
There is a Corn Cob Cannon, which I suppose like all objects near children in this world, could put out somebody's eye. But it comes equipped with an adult, ready to yell at the heedless and steer them out of the line of fire between the cannon and plywood effigies of Osama, at 25 yards, and Saddam, at 50. There are also gigantic wooden hoops, perhaps nine feet in diameter, inside of which one runs (like a hamster-ball), propelling oneself and the wheel across the field and back. The contraption, piloted by energetic boys, could doubtless roll over and injure the tiny and unwary bystander. The goats, too, come with a warning that, while you may pet them, they might mistake your fingers for some dainty and desirable morsel. Goats will test anything for edibility. Otherwise, the danger to foolish children is pretty much nil, and we sent ours off to neigh and pant themselves into a froth, while we, the husband and wife, sauntered negligently over toward the goat pen.
As can be seen above, the goat pen is a veritable Goat Paradise. As with children, give the goats stuff to climb on, and a steady supply of food and drink, and happiness is assured. With goats, as with children, it also helps to set firm boundaries, so that they can stay interested in life by trying to get around them. These nannies and billies have got it going on. In the middle of the pen is a two-story shelter, the "Goatel 6", wherein much goat relaxation and contemplation of goat affairs occurs. The Goat Walk, its first ramp pictured above, is a series of suspension bridges of goat-breadth, at the four corners of which are feed troughs. Dewberry revelers take their little sacks of goat snacks, empty them into a tin, and by means of pulleys transport them up to the platforms and into the troughs, there to be consumed by the awaiting angoras. This ritual goes on pretty much all day, until, having had their fill, most of them wander back down to grab a spot at the Goatel, under the wheeling moon.
I could have remained, draped over that fence, for hours. As it was, we were probably there for three quarters of one, as we fellowshipped with the more friendly and outgoing inhabitants, one of whom was great with kid, and quite pleasant. On the Goatel platform, however, things were far from pleasant, as the intricacies of pecking order had to be navigated, which generally seemed to mean that one goat would have to stand at the foyer, as it were, staring at another fellow above him on the inn ramp, for many many minutes, until some signal were given, or some point proved, which would allow later goat to shuffle up past earlier goat and claim a spot, in order to repeat the ordeal should somebody want to get past him. Sometimes, during the contests at the gate, it seemed as though one or both of the psychological combatants would forget what they were about, and doze off where they stood.
So like Lord Emsworth with The Empress, I leaned filleted upon the rail and scratched the good beast. Had I a stick, and knew which part of it the ferrule was, I would like Clarence have scratched her with that. Of course, his sister Connie would have destroyed his peace, whereas my wife did not mine. Someone else, however, did:
Behind me with the noise of Apocalypse roamed within their own pen four bellicose and honking geese, while upon their downy plumpness squatted an equal number of peaceable ducks, still at this hour not averse to an occasional paddle across their pond. A gaggle of boys, the natural enemy of all living creatures, were standing on a rail of the fence, their sneaker toes sticking through into the enclosure, which the geese, justly or not, perceived as a call to war. Honking alarums, they rushed upon the boys and gnawed at their tennis shoes in the most frightening way imaginable. Not having a lot of experience with geese, it recalled to my mind the episode of Bertie Wooster and The Right Hon. ...Filmer, treed upon the Octagon by a most ferocious nesting goose. "Gentlemen, Gentlemen," I thought, "Can't we all just get along? Consider the ducks!" but no, peaceful coexistence would not be possible; They brandished their sabered feathers in a menacing sort of way, like an orange-billed Kruschev from inside his walls, while his subject ducks drank vodka and built shoddy products.
The "Gentlemen" stalked around (in single file) with a tremendous aura of self-importance, and of puff-chested dignity, like some waistcoated minor personage from Missouri, palming his great and golden fob in 1880. Had I not been overpowered by the kind of hostility that Mr. F's Aunt exhibited for Clennam, I would have expected them to try to sell me a piece of land, its worth to be comprehended upon their word alone; but, having felt their wrath upon my shoe, I wasn't buying any of that, and repaired to the car for caffeinated refreshment.