A few weeks ago, Dawn and I headed north for a visit. As is generally the case, we didn’t have much of anything particular planned for our visit, just hang out with family. A plenty good enough agenda for us.

When you have two nephews as delightfully entertaining as Otto and Perry, “just hanging out” is much more active than passive. Those two crack me up, and I feel quite honored when they ask “Old Man Joshy Washy” to play whatever it is they have dreamed up to do for the next 30 seconds or 3 hours. One never knows exactly what it is you are getting into, but all that I get out of it is always worth it.

They are in that window of time where life is play, an endlessly curious search for fun and adventure. That window eventually closes to varying degrees for each of us, but we should fight the good fight to keep it wedged open at least a crack. If we let it close all the way, we risk it getting painted shut with the many somber, mind numbing, and less than fun layers life can bring.

Just a crack, that’s all that is necessary to allow for a little breeze to carry in the sounds of play, and little voices asking you to join them.

Another little voice that invited Dawn and I into his world for a bit on our visit north, was the equally entertaining Eli, my cousin Kris Petersen’s youngest son. Eli is a pistol, and when we went to Beth and Laverne’s farm to pick apples he kept us entertained. Entertained and on the move, as he turned and waved his hand with a gruff “follow me” to show us the various “sections” around the farm yard where he likes to seek adventure.

It reminded me of when I was kid on my Grandma and Grandpa Chrest’s farm, and the various “forts” we had scattered throughout the tree groves and coulees. And like Eli, by order of Grandpa and Grandma, there were places on the farm we weren’t supposed to play. It was of course for our own good, but kids aren’t much concerned about their own good. So it goes.

They’re concerned about very little but following their curiosities, and are well aware that “orders” from Grandpa and Grandma can be bent and easily straightened with little more than wide eye’s and a bowed head of apology.

Their apple tree had a bumper crop this year, and when aunt Beth offered to lift me up in the bucket of their John Deere tractor so I could pick the apples higher up on the tree, I couldn’t resist a ride (or lift) through memory lane.

Grandpa Ardell loved to give us a lift in his John Deere tractor any chance he got. His “window” remained forever open further than many. Picking apples, picking juneberries, or just because, he’d rev the motor to get your attention, wave his hand and say “hop in, the good ones are higher up”.

With a recycled margarine container hung around your neck with a piece of yarn, compliments of Grandma Rose, “so you can pick with both hands dear” you would be taken for a purposely herky-jerky ride to pick the “good ones”.

The “good ones”. They certainly were.