Let me tell you how bad it is:
Last week
my neighbor was out in the field
trying to get some kind of crop in.
He got stuck.
Another neighbor
helped pull his rig out of the mud.
None of us
has had a crop to speak of
since ’92.
He’s a good man…
farmed ’round here for almost thirty years now.
After he got his tractor out
he went home and shot himself.
He was a good man.
© 1995 Martin C. Fredricks IV
Image by Aleksandar Malivuk via Shutterstock
Martin C. “Red” Fredricks IV here. I’m husband to an amazing woman who is also my best friend, dad to three outstanding kids, Fargoan (North Dakota, that is), proud introvert, veteran messaging strategist/copywriter, blogger (https://ivwords.com) nonprofit founder (https://theclimateknights.org/) and big-time reader. As they say, if you're gonna write good stuff, you have to read good stuff. A ginger, too - ergo the "Red" - although some of it's going white. Cinnamon-Sugar, I call it. Tattooed to boot; seven so far. At age 54, I'm stilling crankin' AC/DC & Metallica, but now and again I spin some Eric Church and Black Uhuru, too. I love hanging out with my (much) better half, spending time with our kids, writing, hiking, riding my mountain bike and reading.
I will tell you the thing / I will never forget. / Watching them die / in breathless regret...
First published in the Fall 1995 edition of "Reflections," a quarterly by Wordshop Publications in Conway, Ark.
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