Semaphore commands a place in history as the oldest form of long distance communication. Technically it refers to any device that passes along a signal received: smoke signals, mirrors reflecting sunlight, flags waved in certain patterns, and, in the case of my grandfather, empty milk jugs. With flags, communicators would stand on towers or on ships using hand flags in specified sequences, which were observed by other communicators through telescopes, who would in turn signal to the next tower or ship the same sequence of hand-flags. It was a remarkably effective communication method before electricity. As is the use of milk jugs

Grandpa used the milk jug method quite effectively to signal goodbye to us as we departed down the long farm lane after two weeks of vacation at the farm. The image remains etched in my mind as clearly today as back in that day some sixty years ago. Looking out from the rear-facing back seat of our family Chevy station wagon, the last thing we would see of the farm was Grandpa in his tank-top undershirt and khaki work pants, swinging those empty cartons like a sailor flashing messages to a departing ship. We knew exactly what the code meant: “So long until next time you come for another two weeks.”

But it also signaled the sad realization that our time with Grandpa had come to an end. After fifty weeks of eager anticipation, our vacation was now just a memory that would have to carry us on for the next fifty weeks. We made memories of piling into the old truck to head to the old swimming hole with our inner tubes (the real truck type, not the cheap, flimsy plastic ones—no, these were the real thing in wide use before the days of tubeless tires). That swimming hole was our place, below a bridge over Highway 2, on the outskirts of Ely, Minnesota, just down a piece from the farm.

Grandma didn’t like Grandpa allowing us to ride in the back of the truck for some safety reasons or something, so we dutifully climbed into the front seat (there was no back seat)—all three or four of us kids. At the end of the laneway some two or three hundred yards away, just beyond the gate opening to the highway (and most importantly, out of Grandma’s eyesight), the pickup would pull over, the door would fly open, we would scamper into the back of the truck, and off we would go.

After a good swim, we would always pass by the farm and head into town for a root beer float at the A&W. Nothing better—it was the stuff of dreams. It didn’t matter that this was right before lunch or dinner. We must have thrown back hundreds of those treats over the years. Back at the farm (of course, stopping at the end of the farm road), we would make it back for Grandma’s spoiling us with lots of pastries, with sometimes a scolding: “Gramps, you shouldn’t let the children ride in the back of the pickup.” Or “Gramps, you shouldn’t give them treats before dinner.” It didn’t do any good, as both grandparents would wink at us in turn, in a way that made it look to us like they thought the other wouldn’t notice. The pastries were good, too.

Other days, we went blueberry picking with Grandma, gathering them by the quart-full. This was not especially fun to do, as the berries were usually small and it took a lot to fill a quart, and the mosquitos were usually just as abundant. But the evening after berry picking—and most evenings after that— were filled with blueberry pie, blueberry shortcake, blueberries in a bowl of cream, blueberries on or in just about everything (including our hair). It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Summers in Ely were characterized by late sunsets (as late as 9:30 p.m. due to Ely being close to the western edge of the time zone change and being so far north), which made for long evenings sitting on the screened-in porch, playing board games, and talking before retiring to the upstairs bedrooms. Mom and Dad took one room, and we kids all bunked in the bigger open room. There was no indoor plumbing in the earlier days, so a porcelain pot was always situated by the door for bodily emergencies. When we grew older we had the option of going downstairs, and out the front door to the outhouse attached to the side of the barn. For us boys, usually it was closer to just go beside the house (which Gramps didn’t like, but we saw Gramps do it once). As for the outhouse, I could never understand why there were two seats in there. But that was the farm, and that was the way it always was and would be—until the year we arrived to a surprise: Gramps had converted a closet into a bathroom with an indoor toilet, complete with a fur-lined seat (apparently Grandma’s idea). That was weird.

Before indoor plumbing, we got water from a shed out back. It was an open well, about three feet in diameter, where water was retrieved with a bucket on a rope. Grandpa would announce, “Water-detail!” and we would all run to the water shed, taking turns lowering and raising the bucket and pouring its contents into the two pails to bring into the house. One of us boys (the guilty party shall remain unnamed) performed the natural boy-ritual of determining the depth down to the water by the time it took spit to splash down. Gramps put a stop too that right away!

The same went for the “wood-detail,” when Grandpa would gather us boys (he didn’t think it was a girl’s work to get the water or firewood, plus our older sister Mary Beth was beyond such dirty work—she preferred frill and dresses). We would climb into the wheelbarrow and Gramps would wheel us out to the woodshed. In those days, heating and cooking were all made possible by a wood-burning stove, and I mean a real stove in the kitchen that worked on wood. He got a lot of cut-off pieces from a local lumber mill that perfectly fit in through the holes in the top of the stove. The top had four “burners” with holes in the top with precisely fitted round inserts that needed a special tool to lift them out. Gramps would slide two or three pieces of wood into the “burners” that needed the direct heat. The stove served the secondary purpose of heating the house. In the mornings, we could hop out of bed upstairs and look down through the floor grate right down to the stove. The smell of wood burning in the stove is one of my strongest memories—and it signaled time to get up.

Yes, Grandpa’s swinging milk jugs in the air as we were leaving the farm with his message, “I’ll see you again soon,” was our hope for the future. It was what kept me going through the difficult times as a youngster. “Next year in Ely …”

That reminds me of a couple of verses in Scripture, the words of an angel to the disciples when Jesus arose into heaven:

“Why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

And among the last words of the apostle Peter,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3–5)

The message to us is not in semaphore, but in the written words of Scripture. This is not a child’s hope for going back to the farm of his youth, but our hope (our desire and expectancy) of Jesus coming back to us and then taking us to heaven. The farm in Ely was eventually sold, and the farmhouse torn down. Everything has changed; it will never be anything more than a childhood memory now. But the hope we have of heaven will never change. It will never decay or be sold. It is reserved for all believers, and it is waiting for us. Our earthly memories are replaced with the certainty of an eternal future. Whether I have to wait for fifty weeks, fifty months, or however how long it will be, that hope is what gets me through the wait, until He comes back. I can hardly wait!