James A. Olson

Originally authored September 24, 2008- published January 28, 2021

The field of which I will be referring to is miniscule by the open country standards of farm-belt America.  It is, rather, just less than an acre patch of green bordering a large undeveloped area of woods in the quiet neighborhood of Piedmont Heights in Duluth Minnesota. 

My parents took a risk and in the mid 1960’s, extended themselves financially past their comfort zone by taking on the cost of securing from a neighbor that parcel directly behind their house.  It was, for them, a lot of money; but in hindsight priceless.

This oasis behind the line of homes along Hillcrest Drive became the arena for “sandlot” everything….sandlot football, baseball, red-rover, dodge-ball; and dodge-rocks sometimes when tempers flared.  It takes no embellishment to conjure up the memory of as many as 20 kids at a time doing what kids did best in the 60’s and early 70’s……wearing out clothes, yards, and each other during marathon outdoor activities.   We still played “war” back then with sticks doubling as guns.   Strange that in that 20 year wake of World War II, the Korean War, and that then current war in Vietnam, that it was still considered normal child’s play for kids to physically enact imaginary war battles in the name of good versus evil.  Quite politically incorrect today to see such displays; if any displays at all of outdoor group neighborhood play.  We charged evil enemy strongholds in the woods surrounding the field and we took the high ground up the adjacent “big hill” that seemed so large to 10 year olds; standing victorious at the summit.  In the winter that summit became the stuff of Olympic dreams as we drove our wood toboggans, sleds with metal runners, and the newest of plastic rockets down the slope and over enormous jumps we constructed; crashing into each other and the trees below in fits of laughter. 

Within the fenced area my father set along the property lines of the field were two gardens and a strawberry patch.  The smaller garden of say 20 feet by 60 feet was where my grandparents would visit from their house among the extremely close-quarter homes of Duluth’s West End neighborhood. They would come to enjoy some sun and spacious outdoor time in which to toil (spelled PLAY) in the dirt; producing rich vegetables that my Grandmother would delight in processing.   My grandfather would take breaks, leaning heavily on his hoe and watch with a smile as we “toiled” in contest.  Out of love and respect we were always careful to avoid any trespass into those garden spaces with an errant ball or misguided tackle.  I can remember my grandmother on sunny days in her dress working one end of their patch with my grandfather on the other end of the garden. Just another Minnesota summer day in the city as I knew it.  

My mom and dad’s garden on the other hand was insanely large by any city neighborhood standard and was the envy of those having grown up with fall canning and processing of fresh vegetables in which to stock for the winter months. The six of us Olson kids, well, at least the oldest four of us, saw the garden less for the bounty it provided and more like a scene from the movie  “Cool Hand Luke” as we chain-ganged our way out to the field to meet our weekly chore of “weeding the rows”.  My temper was not the quietest thing about me in my youth and the frustration of having to perform such chores exploded one day as all my friends played, in my field, while I struggled amongst the rows of corn.  I stormed back to the house porch and shouted through the door to my dad that I was done by gosh and I was going to play ball now.   He calmly, as always, directed me back to finish my chores first.  As he turned away, I punched the glass on the storm-door that separated us; resulting in shattered glass and a trip to the emergency room requiring six stitches in my hand.  That display of unbridled emotion cost me five weeks from the field of play and subconsciously provided a lifelong lesson on temperance.

The field of play also represented a substantial mowing effort in comparison to other yards in the neighborhood and when I reached an age allowing for the additional chore of cutting the lawn; it took some of the shine off of the field’s splendor.  I got through the hours of mowing by imagining the Viking’s and Twin’s field at the “Met” and by thinking of  those lucky enough to ground-crew in the presence of Killebrew and  Oliva, Tarkington and  Gene Washington; and  of course the vaunted Purple People Eaters of Page, Eller, Marshall and Wally Hillgenberg.   The “ground-crewing” increased when, in my teens, dad installed a dual wood-fuel oil furnace and cords of eight-foot-length wood were delivered to one end of the field. There, my dad with occasional help from myself and younger brothers would cut, split, and then wheel-barrow it to the other end of the field for stacking.  Yes, the magic that was the field was providing a lesson in maturity as it became a field less of play, and more a property of work.

As the last of us Olson kids grew into our teens, the sandlot games subsided and the gardens slowly disappeared with the passing of my grandparents and the need for a far lower volume of vegetables needed to support the Olson brood.  It was then that this acre became my parent’s field of play.  My dad, as a true jack-of-all-trades, created a small landscaped pond and rock garden where my mother planted and tended to wild roses and other bouquets of color she would sow. 

Dad chased his love for technology advancements when in the early eighties he created, from local industry left-overs, one of the first home-built “satellite dish” apparatus in the city, right there in the top corner of the field.  I can still see two close friends and I straining against a long rope to hoist the ten-foot dish into position while my dad risked all the digits on his hands by slamming home a pin that would secure the behemoth in place; all the while perched precariously on top of an eight-foot step ladder that the dish would have crushed had the rope snapped.  I laugh about it now, remembering him there nonchalantly balanced and patiently waiting the crucial moment to complete the task.  He never so much as broke a sweat.   That construction endeavor also entailed placing what seemed to me to be thousands of feet of ground-wire and coaxial cable into the ground between the house and throughout the field.  I still wonder what historians will make of that archeological dig in the future as they check to see what Minnesota branch of NASA was located on Hillcrest Drive. 

In one intersecting year since childhood in the late eighties, all six kids were home for Christmas and my two youngest brothers and I took that path through the field of play to the “big hill” once again with sleds and howls of insults and laughter.  For the most part however, it has been a quiet field for many years with loving grandparents long absent and the strength of my thoughtful father having left this earth in 1997.  The concrete bench my dad placed with care next to the pond has seen the most use in these quiet years, including my most private and intense moment of grieving in the field’s peaceful solitude the day of Dad’s funeral.

At the age of 82 in 2007, my mother finally relinquished the duties of lawn-mowing the field that she had taken on after Dad’s passing. It is now, when I am cutting the lawn, that I am vividly reminded of all that I have written here.  I see the shadows and hear the echoes of my childhood friends, siblings, parents, and my treasured grandparents. I still smell the strawberries in the air, and sometimes, I can actually taste fresh-from-the-ground carrots as when pulled from the garden when I was 12 years old.  

In such reminiscing, I wonder if the current field of work will continue to reverse itself and if I will again find within my grasp, that field of play.  

Perhaps I already have.