Fran reflected back to the previous Sunday when he had attended church in Spring Valley. He stopped at his Mom’s place afterwards and she had snapped a cute photograph of him standing on the front step of her house alongside his youngest son Jessie.
Fran struggled to continue writing while thinking back upon that idyllic morning he had spent at his mother’s farm, and the next thing he knew the time machine suddenly charged in, wrested away control of his thought process, and zipped Fran Blahnik back to a much earlier decade on that same modest Minnesota ranch his materfamilias called home…….
……..no, no–Listen up now, Reader!!–it’s not like Fran didn’t love his Mom. To the contrary: He loved her very much and without reservations and could well appreciate everything she had done for him throughout his young life.
But work with her for a living? Manage a farm with her until she died?? Talk with her every morning while trying hard to hammer out difficult business decisions that would be in the best interests of all parties involved???
NO FUCKIN’ WAY!!!!!
That sort of business arrangement just didn’t work out worth a damn……
After Fran returned to southeastern Minnesota from Vietnam in the summer of 1969 and then attended school in the small community of Waseca for two years while earning an Associate’s Degree in Animal Husbandry, it was every bit his intention to return to Spring Valley and farm the home operation. This was the same estate he had essentially been managing by himself ever since he was a mere eighth grader with the exception of the aforementioned military and educational sabbaticals. That was his plan and his lifelong dream anyway. Turned out there was only one big obstacle which ultimately stood in the way of this lifelong dream, and you can probably guess what that obstacle was…….
His mother…….yeah, dear old Mom………
Fran gave it a whirl, gave his plan a suitably long and fair trial, did the best he knew how, did everything he could under trying circumstances–and……and…….it just didn’t work out…..
No, things just didn’t work out as Fran envisioned.
What more really needs to be said?????
Who knows, maybe they were too much alike, his Mom and him, maybe that was at the crux of the problem……
But whenever Fran would sit down to talk with her on important matters, he felt just like he was back in sixth grade again; his mother would unfailingly treat him like a little boy incapable of making any major decisions by himself. She refused to relinquish any real control over the farming operation to him. Rather, she had to keep her nose and fingers stuck in every little niche of their farming enterprise from A to Z. His mom just wouldn’t let go of ANYTHING farm-related—plus some things that definitely weren’t!
Take the car, for instance…..
They both knew they needed a new vehicle to drive–that fact the pair could easily agree upon–yet Fran didn’t have any car he could call his own. Not to mention he was fully immersed in a socially active period of his life and therefore needed transportation far worse than his mother did at her advanced age. So when the two of them went and picked out a really nice “used” car–a snazzy, two-toned Pontiac sedan showcasing a jet-black roof–their joint understanding was that it was supposed to be Fran’s vehicle.
HIS car, mind you, not their car!
Yet because Fran was still living at home at the time and accordingly parked his new automobile in their communal driveway, his mother felt absolutely no compunction about going outside, jumping into the vehicle, and driving off whenever she felt the urge–and without ever asking for permission from Fran either.
In HIS car, remember!!!
Yeah, I know, I know……alleged ownership of the new vehicle was in theory only and resided somewhere far off in the province of Fran’s wishful thinking, I guess……
But dear old Mom’s frequent and cavalier “borrowing” of my older brother’s car was an apt microcosm for her domineering attitude insofar as the management of everything else on the farm as well.
Yet despite his extreme frustration and sometimes outright anger, Fran could kind of understand where his matriarch was coming from. After all, she had started from practically nothing and subsequently worked her ass off her entire adult life just to purchase that treasured modern farm north of Spring Valley with her late husband Louis. And through all the blood, sweat, and tears members of the Blahnik family–including she–had poured forth over the previous ten years, they had collectively managed to put Mary Snyder Blahnik in a relatively stable financial position for the first time ever.
But the legendary Silker farm—its house held the distinction of being one of the oldest surviving dwellings in Fillmore County–wasn’t hers quite yet; there was still major debt owed on its original mortgage. The last thing in the world widow Mary Blahnik wanted was for some cocksure, inexperienced novice to come shouldering into the picture at this late stage of the game and mismanage her cherished piece of land, thus jeopardizing her enormous lifelong financial stake in it. To Fran, it seemed as though his mother was unnaturally paranoid about losing “her” farm, but when he stepped back and thought about the situation for a second–he could grudgingly appreciate her concern.
Okay???
There, the guy came right out and expressed sympathy and empathy for his life-giver; are you satisfied now???
Yet that rampant paranoia of his mother’s certainly didn’t make Fran’s job any easier!!!
He was a grown man, he was soon to be married, he wished to immediately start a family of his own, he had fought for his country overseas with bravery and valor and garnered a shitload of gaudy medallions to show for it in concert with a tranche of metal shrapnel which remained in his hip and would be his constant companion for life, he had gone to college and learned all he ever needed to know about farming plus more…….he was ready to run the damned Blahnik farm all by himself RIGHT NOW, for Christ’s sake!!!
Fran sure as hell didn’t need or appreciate having some other person around every waking second snooping over his shoulder and second-guessing his every move. That had surely NOT been a part of the dream he had long envisaged as a boy.
So–after days, months, and eventually years of enduring perpetual torment and demeaning maternal bullshit—the emotional weariness which had been accruing over that time period finally reached a breaking point. Fran didn’t want to permanently wreck the collegial personal relationship he continued to enjoy with his mother, but he could certainly envision that invariably happening–And quite soon too!!–if he continued trying to wrangle a business relationship with her that obviously hadn’t been working out and doubtless ever would.
Actually, as the days of frustration accumulated over time and then piled slavishly upon one another and as his wedding day rapidly approached and then came and passed, the agonizing decision to quit farming hadn’t proven that tortuous after all. In fact, you might say the unique set of vexing circumstances Francis Edward Blahnik faced in the mid-1970s ended up making the decision for him.
Ergo, in the late fall of 1977—on November 10th, a gorgeous, sun-drenched Saturday that culminated with a megatherian dairy cow dispersal sale on “his” farm north of Spring Valley—Fran Blahnik walked away from his lifelong dream. He felt immense relief at the conclusion of that momentous day……but also a gnawing, remorseful regret. After all, dairy farming had perpetually been his life’s dream; Fran had no “Plan B” in mind because he never thought he would need one, but now that idyllic dream of his was officially over.
As the last bellowing cow was herded onto a waiting livestock trailer and its new owner drove away with his lucre, Fran stared morosely into the freshly vacant barnyard, suddenly facing the grim realization that his boyhood yearning was now irretrievably shattered. He recognized with stabbing despair the fact he would almost certainly never return to his first love of farming on a fulltime basis, and this staggering epiphany smacked him hard in the face and sucked all the air from his newly unemployed lungs.
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