Dad and I went asparagus hunting. Yes, it is what it sounds like.
We'd drive out to a rural train track area, tall conifers on either side, slight slopes rising from the tall grass to the tracks on the East and West sides of the iron thoroughfares.
The asparagus grew close to the metal. Dad and I walked along, Bob's frame leaning down with his pocket knife in his right hand grasping the stalk with his left. He'd push the blade through the thick gree veggie with his thumb until it sliced the stalk, and then drop it into a paper bag. I'd run along beside him, my hero, grabbing the tracks to feel for vibrations, (I feared the train much more than the old man did, after all he made his living loading cars on them for American Motors) and collecting shotgun shells that he allowed me to pocket.
I often found the glass electrical insulators from power lines laying around too. With his cockeyed grin and a mop tousle with his free hand, he allowed me to keep those too.
I can't stand the stuff now, but I loved asparagus back then. We'd drive back home where mom would substitute it for the chipped beef in the gravy for the Wisconsin staple, "Shit on a shingle". Or creamed substance on toast.
God, I loved that stuff. A I miss and love my Dad.
This is what core memories are all about, brothers and sisters.
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