November 2005 – December 2005
I took the month of November off from work to focus on classes and to help get the alpaca barn ready before our end-of-year deadline. My dad needed my help, and with the amount of schoolwork piling up, something had to give. By the end of October, the papers had begun to accumulate at an alarming rate. My major had always required a lot of reading and writing, but this semester was more than my regular schedule could handle. I normally juggled work, school, and the farm without issue, but this time the balance collapsed. I had enough money saved, so finances weren’t a worry. I just needed time—and margin—to get everything done.
My U.S. Presidents and Religion class required four papers and presentations analyzing the religious views of assigned presidents and how those beliefs influenced their presidencies. Some presidents barely spoke about their personal beliefs, which meant digging deep in library stacks to find anything useful. Out of the four presidents I chose—Lincoln, Garfield, Cleveland, and Polk—Lincoln was the easiest to research. Polk was the hardest. He was a nominal Presbyterian who rarely discussed religion at all, so large parts of his spiritual life were inconclusive. Fortunately, our professor knew certain aspects would remain unknown. It was perfectly acceptable to present the findings we had and simply acknowledge where the historical record fell silent. Each assignment required a detailed written report and a fifteen- to twenty-minute presentation. The only downside of the class was what we didn’t discuss: the broader impact of religion on America as a whole. We never explored how the First and Second Great Awakenings shaped presidents and the nation. Still, I enjoyed the class.
Public Administration was straightforward but heavy. Many of the concepts—policy analysis, bureaucracy, and organizational theory—were fascinating, but the readings were endless. Bureaucracy itself is time-consuming, and studying bureaucracy is somehow even worse. We spent a lot of time comparing administrative structures, learning how government agencies evolved historically, and examining the link between public policy, bureaucracy, and public service delivery. I participated in many discussions because I genuinely enjoyed organizational theory and trying to understand how large systems could be improved. Even so, the workload outside of class felt enormous.
World Literature I was another mountain of reading and writing. The class covered literature from the beginning of written history through the 1500s. We read creation narratives from cultures all over the world—Apsu and Tiamat from Mesopotamia, Atum from Egypt, Pangu and the world-egg from China, and the Aztec Five Suns. We studied Cherokee and Navajo stories about the origins of the sun and moon, and then moved through Egyptian poetry, Gilgamesh, the Bible, and Greek and Roman works. I loved this class. Having a Christian worldview shaped how I reacted to the literature. Comparing my beliefs to the worldviews presented in these stories didn’t weaken my faith; it strengthened it. It pushed me toward a deeper understanding of the nature of God and gave me clarity about what I believed in contrast to other cultures.
Terrorism required constant research as well. We studied two thousand years of terrorism: Jewish Zealots, the Indian Thuggee, Muslim Assassins, and early twentieth-century anarchists. We followed modern news sources and government think tanks, turning in weekly reports. My professor made the class compelling. Born in France, her family had moved to Iraq to teach at a university during Saddam Hussein’s regime. She told us horrific stories of what she witnessed—stories of Saddam’s men randomly abducting people from their homes and returning their bodies days later by dumping them in their yards as a fear tactic. She had also survived two attempted plane hijackings. I admired her. She was knowledgeable, honest, and wanted us to learn without propaganda or influence. Her real-life experiences alone made going to class exciting.
All the classes were fascinating, but with each one requiring its own stack of papers and research, it became overwhelming.
Whenever I wasn’t studying, I was helping my dad in the house. We were doing interior work again—shaving and rounding drywall corners, leveling floors, and fixing uneven places. The biggest project was the massive fiberglass shower for the upstairs bathroom. The “bathroom” wasn’t a bathroom yet, just an empty room with exposed studs and no drywall. The floor was uneven, which made getting the shower level nearly impossible. The house had been built with timber milled on the property in the late 1800s, which meant none of the corners were square.
Trying to balance that shower turned into a comedy of frustration. Every time I adjusted my side, my dad’s side tipped out of place. When he corrected his side, mine went off again. Back and forth we went, until we were both tired, hungry, and agitated. After a particularly tense exchange, we decided to walk away before we bludgeoned each other. We grabbed food, talked through the irritation, and reset. After dinner, Dad looked at me with a grin and asked, “Do you like me again?”
“Yes, Dad,” I sighed. “I like you now.”
“Good. Let’s get back to work.”
The solution ended up being epoxy. We spread it over the floor to level the surface and set the shower on top once it hardened. This time, it stayed.
Thanksgiving was a welcome break. We drove up to Moon Township by the Pittsburgh Airport to spend the day with the Chisholms—old friends from the church we attended when I was a kid. Mr. Chisholm had been our preacher, and his three daughters were around the same age as my brother and me. We’d grown up together. When they moved to Indiana during high school, it was sad, but reconnecting felt natural. It was like no time had passed at all. We ate a fantastic dinner, watched football, and at some point I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up to the family watching Robots. Outside, it was fourteen degrees—the coldest day of the year.
Back home, we finished the alpaca barn enough to empty our final storage shed. Everything got stacked on the top storage level inside the barn, which still smelled like fresh lumber. Canceling that last storage payment felt good. November had been cold, a quick shift from the warm October we’d had. I stopped shaving because I had no incentive to bother, and the laziness eventually turned into a look. By the time I returned to work in early December, some coworkers didn’t recognize me at first. One laughed and said, “Hey look! It’s Obie-Bob-Kenobi!” Even I thought it was funny.
By December, I was finally in a good place academically. Papers were finished and turned in, and we were moving into exam season. The farmhouse was coming together. The alpaca barn was almost ready for its new residents. Progress—real, tangible progress—felt good.
December also brought snow, and with it, danger to our animals. Hawks patrolled the skies year-round, but in winter the ducks were especially vulnerable. One afternoon, driving down the driveway, we noticed a hawk standing unusually still on the ground. As we got closer, we saw Littlefoot—one of our ducks—pinned beneath its talon. Her throat was gashed open. There had been no sound of struggle. It had happened silently. My mom and I went into the house while my dad took care of her. Losing animals was part of farm life, but it never became easy. Each one had a name, a personality. Littlefoot was no different.
On December 11th, my parents left for Canada to pick up two alpacas. The border had recently reopened for transporting alpacas back into the U.S., and we’d been waiting for that. Almost a week later they returned with Isis and Orbit—two all-white males. Their names came from their sires, a standard alpaca-breeding tradition. My first impression was how inquisitive they were. Calm, cordial, curious—they liked people, especially if you had food. I met my parents at Cracker Barrel when they returned, and then they took the alpacas to John and Barb’s farm, where they’d stay until the new year.
Around that time, our local postmaster, Bev, had become a good friend to my parents. The Four States post office was tiny—about the size of a food truck if you put wheels on it—just a counter and walls of PO boxes. Bev was personable and welcoming, and my parents saw her often enough that conversations naturally turned into friendship. Four States wasn’t a wealthy area, and many families struggled, especially at Christmas. When Bev mentioned that some children in the community needed gifts, my parents didn’t hesitate. We got a list of items, went to Walmart, and bought toys and clothes. We wrapped everything and gave the gifts to Bev so she could distribute them quietly. We didn’t want anyone to know we had helped—better to let the kids believe the presents came from Santa. We also arranged for a load of pulp wood to be dropped off beside the post office so anyone who needed firewood could take what they needed. Helping the community had been a family tradition since the 1920s. This was simply our way of continuing it.
After exams, it was finally time for vacation—and I received straight A’s. Out of all my semesters in college, this one felt the most gratifying. I had never read or written so much in such a short amount of time. For a while, I wasn’t great company. Most people wanted to talk about everyday things; I wanted to discuss universal paradigms between the Bhagavad-Gita and the Mahabharata. Honestly, I’m still like that.
One afternoon, Mom burst through the front door holding a DVD over her head. “Look what I got for five bucks!” she said triumphantly. It was National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Rummaging through Walmart’s $5 DVD bin was one of her favorite pastimes. She once found a Happy Gilmore/Billy Madison two-pack and acted like she had discovered a lost treasure. We planned to watch Christmas Vacation together that year, and the thought of it warmed my heart.
We didn’t travel for Christmas. We were still working on the alpaca barn and didn’t want to lose momentum. It was the first year we put up a full-sized Christmas tree. The rotating base was as old as I was and still played music when plugged in. We decorated it with lights and ornaments—no tinsel, ever since Buffy had tried to eat it one year and ended up with a glittery problem. The tree brought festive light to the living room, glowing beautifully through the large front windows when you drove up at night.
On Christmas Eve, we visited Uncle Danny and his family. We relaxed in the living room, watched TV, and enjoyed the food. Christmas Day was split between two gatherings. The first half we spent with the Martins, a family from our church small group who blended right in from the start. The second half was at John and Barb’s. The four of them—my parents, John, and Barb—sat around the kitchen table talking alpaca talk for hours. I stayed until my supply of cute alpaca stories ran dry, then retreated to the living room where I found the largest collection of stop-motion Rudolph specials I’d ever seen. Bing Crosby narrating, the snowman who looked like Colonel Sanders, the blue whale with the clock on its tail, the elf who wanted to be a dentist—I watched them all like I was four years old again.
I closed out the year working the evening shift at Cracker Barrel. New Year’s Eve wasn’t a big deal to me; I usually went to bed before the ball dropped anyway. The restaurant was busy during the dinner rush and empty afterward. No customers, no music except for what played faintly in the store area. Everyone was low energy until I surprised the staff with party hats and noisemakers. We had our own little celebration while closing up. My manager didn’t mind, and a couple coworkers were grateful that someone tried to make their evening festive.
Driving home that night, the world felt still. Snow covered the fields, the barns, and the roof of our house. As I turned into the driveway, I said out loud in the car, without thinking, “This is home.”
That was the moment I knew.
I wasn’t comparing it to South Carolina anymore. I had a good job, new friends, and a church family where I could grow and worship alongside my parents. I felt comfortable here. I felt settled. Even though we still had the gun-brandishing trial coming up in January and the fear lingered in the back of my mind, I wasn’t going to worry about it that night.
Tonight I was content.
Tonight I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
With my parents.
On our land.
In a place we were rebuilding—boards, beams, relationships, and all—together.
End of Part 3