There are lots of talented people around here (Sleepy Eye) when it comes to operating big machines. Among them are several generations of Heiderscheidts in multiple enterprises. Since I was a kid, if you wanted earth moved or a building knocked down, you called one of them and let them figure out which Heiderscheidts you needed.

Later this summer, some combination of Heiderscheidts will knock down and haul away our old chicken house. Terry told us it will be a day’s job for men and machines. Pam’s been wanting it gone for a while. It doesn’t have much use anymore, so I guess it’ll be good to have that done.

When the parts of it are being trucked to the demolition landfill, I can’t expect the Heiderscheidts to know this, but they’ll be hauling away memories. When you live on the place where you grew up, there are memories around. In a way, you live with ghosts. The ghosts are family who are gone now, but also others who worked and visited here.

They are friendly ghosts. I can go days without thinking of the past, and then a certain angle of the sun on one of the sheds will trigger a memory. It’s a sensation I enjoy.

I spent my childhood here. The further I get in time from that, it becomes precious in a way I didn’t expect. Moments with my parents who raised me, a brother I grew up with, another brother I worked with are things I carry around. They are gone now, but I keep them in my heart.

I’ve noticed in conversations with friends, I often probe around about their childhoods. I like to get background on the adult I am engaging with. It’s one thing to know your current thoughts and opinions. But if I can peak into your past, I will know you better.

In my investigating others, it’s not uncommon for people to have no connection to the place where they grew up, the complete opposite of me. I ask if they go by their old house, or even stop there. It probably feels a little nosy. In some cases, the home of their youth doesn’t exist anymore. That always seems sad to me, part of a person severed.

Not everyone is as nostalgic as I am. There is a novel by Thomas Wolfe titled “You Can’t Go Home Again.” That’s become a phrase implying we can’t relive our youth. But what if you never left home?

I was thinking about childhoods. I have been involved in four of them intimately, my own and our three kids. All four were centered in this place. The farm of my youth and my kids’ youth is different. The dairy cows, stacks of hay, and piles of ear corn are gone. But the grove, the rock pile, the creek at the edge of the field remain. It’s the same house, with some nipping and tucking done in the generation between.

So much of what we become as grownups spins from the years we are children. We don’t completely understand that process. I remember as a father of a baby not really getting the reason for all the goofy face-making and baby banter back and forth. Instinct compelled me to do those things. Psychologists might be able to explain why it mattered, but we know babies need engagement with those around them to develop healthily.

Our earliest years we don’t remember at all. Then come years when we have flashes of memories, snap shots. Till we’re older and can remember situations and conversations. It’s clear that even in those early years, babies and toddlers benefit tremendously from being in a loving environment. To be in the care of kind and unselfish adults who sacrifice their time and needs is a great gift.

It’s interesting that I can remember vividly a few times when someone was mean to me. Sadly, there are kids that have lots of those. Growing up in a hurtful or neglectful environment is something people never grow out of. They might find ways to succeed despite that, but the scars never heal over. The worst childhoods can leave one with symptoms not unlike PTS.

We know that children are resilient, and some stress helps us grow. It’s like the tree that is made stronger by having to buffet winds. But life will find ways to stress us enough without coming from an unloving home. I was blessed with a childhood that was safe and warm.

Many hours were spent in the chicken barn that is soon to be a memory. My parents built it in 1960. With an addition in 1965, it held 10,000 laying hens. It was a unique style barn that was only built for a few years. It had ten large pens, five to a side with feed and water and egg gathering chains running the length of the building.

There was a center “dusting” area where the hens could go each afternoon to scratch around in wood shavings. It seemed a way that they could express their “chickenness.” Soon after, cage operations were developed. Within years, farms had hundreds of thousands of chickens. I think our barn would be considered humane now.

A lot of memories of my father came from time spent milking cows in the dairy barn and of my mother gathering eggs in the chicken house. Two chains with plastic cups brought the eggs to a gathering room where we would set the egg in flats of thirty which would go in cases of twelve flats. Both milking chores and gathering eggs leant themselves to meandering conversation where some of the best if unintentional parenting was done.

The dairy barn burned down on a winter night in 1984. My father was living then. I remember walking around the burnt edifice with him a couple days later. Briefly he came to tears, one of the few times I ever saw that.

The chicken house will go down soon. I wish there were pictures of the activities that went on there. Pictures of any sort were rarer when I was young. The only pictures are in my head. There, they are vivid.

— Randy Krzmarzick farms on the home place west of Sleepy Eye, where he lives with his wife, Pam.