A Little Bit of Ghost Writing

I wrote this on behalf of a friend who wanted to pay tribute to his grandfather.

In Memory of Charlie Morris Freeze

(1917 – 2008)

“Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows.”

― Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: Writings on Farming and Food

W

hen I think of my grandfather – and I often do – I still see him wearing those weathered overalls, the well-worn baseball cap, and the wrinkled smile of a truly contented man. It all seemed to fit him so perfectly, so naturally. I see him behind the wheel of a huge blue Chevy truck, and his not thinking for one second that he couldn’t handle that beast. For most of his 91 years of life, Charlie Freeze, who went by his middle name Morris, lived where home and place of business were one and the same – on an Iowa farm. They say any farmland, no matter where it is, raises more than just crops and cattle. It raises character. Well, in the case of my mother’s father, that was never more self-evident. And for me he was, and always will be, the face of the American Farmer.

His first farm was just outside the town of Coin in the southwest corner of Iowa. Later he and his wife, Alice, moved to Shenandoah, also in Page County, and they started farming primarily beans and feed corn. Once or twice a year when I was a kid, our family would make the long trip across the state to Shenandoah to visit them. While my friends were going to places like Disneyworld for summer vacation, I was going to Iowa, and that was fine by me. Because every time we visited the farm Morris left such an indelible impression on me, first with his hard and meaty hands and tanned skin, then later on in my life, as I started understanding what it was he did on the farm every single day, it was his relentless and uncompromising work ethic. Morris became, in my mind, the ultimate example of what hard work, devotion and self-sacrifice are really all about.

It may be obvious to some, but until you see it firsthand you can’t really grasp the magnitude of the job – for a farmer the work never ends. From sunup to sundown, seven days a week every week, the crops need tending and the livestock need feeding; the machinery needs repair and the fields needs cultivating. Through seasons of cold and heat I can only imagine, Morris did all of that for the better part of fifty years, and did it without complaint. He never got rich or received any special recognition. He never had any regrets, either. He was, quite simply, proud to be the man he was.    

He always cared enough to do the little things right so they wouldn’t become bigger problems down the road. He cared for his wife, herself a woman of unfailing faith, in her later years as she suffered from acute arthritis that left her barely able to walk. Again, he did so without question or complaint.

I loved listening to him tell jokes and baseball stories from his youth. I loved sitting with him on a summer day, drinking iced tea and listening only to the wind. He was definitely a say-what-you-mean, mean-what-you-say kind of guy, and though he was never loud, when he talked, you listened.

Yet I think the fondest memory I have of my grandfather was a hot August day in 2007 when I took him to see a rodeo show in the nearby town of Sidney, Iowa. I had been visiting him for a few days during what was a very challenging time for me personally. I heard about an upcoming rodeo on KMA, the all-news radio station that Morris always had turned on in the kitchen. He was frail and battling cancer now, his beloved wife had passed on, and it didn’t take a genius or palm reader to figure his days on Earth were dwindling. All the more reason, I thought, that we had to do it - go to a rodeo, just him and I.

We sat in the bleachers in that Iowa sun for only 45 minutes or so, but looking back on it, the time seemed like hours. Here he was, this wonderful old man who had meant so much to me growing up, and he was so happy just to be there, to be treated not like some tired old ghost but like the everyday man he always was. We went back to the farm and sat out on the porch for a while. Somehow it all came together for me then, the realization that my grandfather would always be part of my life, and with him at my side everything was going to turn out fine.

            So, yes, I still see Morris all the time. And if in my lifetime I can help inspire others like he inspired me, I will be most pleased. And so would he.