It was one of those cold and snowy days out at Rural Oaks Farm that comes in February. Our driveway was frozen solid with the packed snow making any effort to get down to the mailbox perilous. Up the hill stood the big main farmhouse overlooking the entire 500 some odd acres of family land. Several generations had been raised there. Now, it was occupied by a family friend who loved it just as the owner did. Huge boxwood led up the path to the porch and the large old trees surrounded the home like a Mother guarding her child. They were bare now but in the summertime, hung over the enormous grounds providing cool shade for summer picnics. A big barn, complete with all the farm implements stood to the left. They were of little use nowadays since tobacco was not grown anymore and most of the fields were either leased out or used to raise sheep by another family member.
The nearest neighbors are at least a quarter mile away in either direction, but everybody looks out for everybody else as is the custom in this small Virginia county, where everybody knows your name. Up the hill, another small farm with a brick house sitting back through the field can hardly be seen but once you get there, the hill becomes a pinnacle for a view of the valley behind the home. Beautiful fruit trees, summer crops, flowers, and everything good makes you want to just sit down and have a glass of lemonade in summer or on a cold winter day like this day, sit in the homey kitchen where cinnamon bread may be in the oven and a pot of navy bean soup on the stove. Tommy and Betty Sue had raised a family here and never expect to leave. It’s home.
Today, as usual when the weather is bad, Tommy goes out, cranks up his old tractor that’s sitting under the carport, and waits for it to warm up. Betty Sue is inside the warm house making breakfast. The usual routine is, once the tractor warms up good while they have breakfast, he backs it out, plows their driveway through the front field, and on down to the next house. Once the snow is removed from this one, he drives down the road to the next one, until every driveway on the neighboring farms has been cleared enough for folks to at least get their mail. Tommy was a quiet man, robust and happy. He was a former Extension Agent so he was doing his thing. Being outside in the elements winter or summer was no big deal to him. In summer, he grew buckets of tomatoes, corn, squash. It was not unusual to come home from work and find a huge bucket of produce sitting on my porch. No note, nothing. I knew Tommy has been by.
As time passes, Betty Sue realizes it shouldn’t take this long for him to come back inside while the tractor warmed up. She wondered what’s taking so long and decides to check to see if he had left without coming back in for breakfast. Tommy was there on the floor of the carport. Tommy, our good neighbor had apparently slipped on the icy floor as he prepared to plow the snow from his friends and neighbor’s driveways.
Seeing the emergency vehicles roar up the road, we knew something bad had happened. Sol jumped in his truck and made his way up the road where he heard the story. Good friends like the Barnes’s are hard to come by. We’d just had Christmas dinner with them that year enjoying time with their whole family. We were alone that year and they knew it, so they invited us to share their holiday meal around their table. In just a few weeks, he was gone leaving a great void in his home, church, and Southside Virginia near Rural Oaks Farm.
