Many were the benefits of living on a farm back in the day, some not so evident to the untrained eye or thoughtless mind. In our spoiled, modern times, many people take their vehicles to the automatic car wash places, where you can get an underbody wash for an extra few bucks. Some even pay big dollars for a Ziebart coating, professionally sprayed to protect the underside from salt deposits collected from the splash-up from salted roads during wintry road conditions. Some old-timers even go so far as to drill into discreet parts of the vehicle body and spray oil to help deter rust and corrosion from water that inevitably seeps inside the doors and other enclosed body parts.

Farms back in the 1950s didn’t need to worry about the vehicle undersides. How was that? Well, a little back story may help. The “Gianotti” farm was inherited from Gram’s family, the Prukis. After they immigrated in the late 1800s, they settled in northern Minnesota along with an influx of Swedes, Norwegians, Italians, and some Finns (people from Finland)—the proverbial melting pot of America, spread westward from the eastern seaboard. Apparently, they (the northern European immigrants at least) found the climate of Minnesota similar to what they left behind in the old country.

After arriving, thanks to the Homestead Acts of 1862, the Prukis acquired eighty acres (two adjacent plots of forty acres) on what is now Highway 1, about ten miles south of Ely, Minnesota. This act of Congress granted ownership to any US citizen willing to settle on and improve the land (usually in forty-acre parcels) within five years. The act brought seventy-five thousand people to Minnesota in its first three years. This took place sometime after 1862, which was, by the way, in the thick of the US Civil War. No record exists that any of my Grandmother’s family was among the twenty-two thousand Minnesotans who served in that devastating war, but I am sure they knew many families whose sons died.

In the midst of or shortly after the great national turmoil in their new country, Mr. & Mrs. Pruki (at this point their given names remain hidden in obscurity) settled the eighty acres of prime real estate. The geography of northern Minnesota contains some of the oldest rocks found on the planet and is part of the Canadian Shield. Lakes cover the land; thus the state is called the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, and the headwaters of the Mississippi River are located up there as well. It was there that the Pruki family and later the Jack and Gustava (nee Pruki) Gianotti family settled.

The farm road traversed the property from the old highway to where the Prukis built their first home and barn. It ran about the length of a football field (three hundred feet) or more (down the middle, through the swampy front land, just before the back forty began). Over the years, though initially cleared and simply maintained as a dirt road with potholes continually being filled each year, the farm road formed two ruts for first the wagon wheels, then motorcar wheels, and all sorts of trucks and cars. The ruts deepened over time. By the time I came on the scene, Gramps would, maybe once or twice a year, cut the long, narrow strip of grass between the ruts. But all I remember is the swishing along the underside of our blue-and-white 1960 Chevy station wagon, with its silver crown (rooftop rack), large decorative but imposing fins above the rear lights on either side of the drop-down tailgate, and rear-facing seat, where my brother and I spent countless hours on our annual vacation from Illinois to the farm. The underside of that vehicle got a free cleaning from grease, dirt, and remains of dead animals we ran over on the trip up. Yes, small thing as it was, this is one of the memories etched indelibly in my mind.

Truth be known, Gramps had the strange fear that in the heat of summer, when the grass turned brown, its length would be a fire hazard from the underbody heat of the vehicles. But to my young mind, it was all part of the adventure of two weeks at the farm. And now, almost every time I see a dirt road with grass running down the middle, I see a hint of the greatest place on earth.

And every time I see a sunset, the brilliant starry night sky—every time I catch a glint of a smile in friendships, of people living in harmony, of a new life being born in Christ—I see the hint of a far greater place than the farm. I catch a glimpse of heaven!