At first, the sirens were unremarkable. When you live just a few blocks from the volunteer fire company, you grow accustomed to the bleating and wailing as engines speed past. By the same token, you also recognize when the customary becomes extraordinary.

The longer your senses are assaulted by the noise, the more you notice that this is not a typical response. One minute, three minutes, seven, twelve – how long can they continue coming?  You send up a prayer for whoever is on the receiving end of that much help. You selfishly hope your loved ones are safe. You try to wrangle your racing thoughts into submission. And then, the phone rings.

Minutes after it began, a raging fire of suspected electrical origin claimed the life of a 90-year-old barn at Pot Pie Farm. It was a summer holiday week and the owners’ family, from both coasts, had come together to celebrate. Five children under the age of ten, the oldest of whom managed their own meanderings on the nine acre property, were among those gathered.

Thank heavens no one was injured. It could have been so much worse. These were the lifelines to which everyone clung in the aftermath of the event, even as they reeled from the magnitude of what had happened.

When he called me that afternoon, my husband knew I would be devastated. For thirteen years we’d lived at this farm. It was our daughters’ first home, where their earliest aspirations took shape. They appreciated every bump and tumble place, every high and mighty place, every cool and silent place. We all knew the barn so well that any one of us could navigate it in the dark. Sometimes I’d play a little game with myself and do just that, even when I could have turned on a light, because it reminded me that there was nothing to fear.

Fifteen years earlier, the structure had been extensively renovated. Modifications made under the direction of previous farm stewards had weakened its integrity, causing the sidewalls to cant precariously away from the roof.  It needed an intervention to go on living. After the work was completed, it seemed ready to stand for another century.

One of the upgrades included the addition of a cement pad in place of the compacted earth which had previously served as its only floor. Our girls, two- and four-years-old at the time, pressed their tiny hands into a corner of the wet concrete, leaving a lasting impression. Another print, the size of a four-egg omelet, was laid down at the same time, dwarfing theirs. It belonged to Luther, a man just shy of 80, who had served as the farm’s caretaker for more than 50 years.

Though still strong as a mule (and nearly as stubborn), pictures of a more robust Luther had hung inside the barn, from back when dairy cattle and sheep were among those making use of the space, and when the upper reaches of a Loblolly pine along the lane might not have been so high as to be beyond the reach of a nimble, climbing child.

Local lore indicated that the barn was built around 1920, and from that time forward, it anchored the property through numerous owners and offspring. Also on its walls were pictures of the farm’s owners, their children and grandchildren, my children, generations of people who’d been held in the bosom of that space. The barn was the nerve center of the farm, the congregation point for weekly harvests and wedding parties, dinners and dedications, free-range youngsters and unhurried conversations.

In a river of activity, there was an eddy at the barn where beautiful moments whorled around and lasting memories settled out. It pulled people in and somehow, inexplicably, left them feeling more complete than when they arrived.

One might attribute the transformation to any number of factors—the gentle energy of animals, the constant supply of the most delicious food, the box seat views of both sun- and moonrise, the distinctly measured pace—and certainly these were part of the experience.

But there was something more, something magical, something sacred. Emanating from the walls of that barn, mingled with the seductive scent of dirt, and sky, and history, was the essence of potential.

No doubt, you can identify places of equal merit in your own life, sanctuaries that bring you back to yourself, connecting you to the past, coaxing you toward the future while simultaneously, wondrously, anchoring you to the now.

For a small, working farm like Pot Pie, the barn and its contents were invaluable, the lost historical records irreplaceable. When it was safe, I searched the rubble hoping the find a remnant of the handprints, but the intense heat had left the cement blackened and crumbly.

Fire cares nothing for legacies. But neither can it devour spirit. The pulse of a place is not so easily destroyed. Emerging from the promise of possibility, there is resolve. There is hope.

This essay, in its original form, was written just weeks after the event, a decade ago. Like the fire itself, it could not be contained. It billowed out of me from a place of deep knowing and deep loss. Revisiting it now, I still instinctively curl inward as if to shield myself from the intensity. It’s hard to read, but it’s not the end.

Two years after the fire, a new barn with a smaller footprint was constructed on the former site. It didn’t replace the original—nothing could—but its walls now gather in their own stories. Rehabilitation is a process and, when it comes, notable. To rebuild is to rise and, to once again, make way.

As it happens, this farmland is now in another phase of transition. Ann and Charlie Yonkers, guardians since 1991, have just handed the keys over to a new family, the 14th recorded stewards since the late 1700s. Before that, the Choptank, the Nanticoke, and scores of native peoples who, like all of us, came there for community and sustenance.

The barn fire at Pot Pie Farm occurred as those who loved her best converged to celebrate Independence Day. I can’t help but see the political challenges of our time reflected in the crisis.

Historic structures are storied, precious, and vulnerable, and our efforts to protect them troubled by expected and unnatural forces. Many decay. Many fall. But there is a vitality, a pulse of energy felt from within, that endures. From there, I believe it’s possible to to recreate form and function. It may not look like it once did, but it carries on.

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported digital publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.

From the author: This essay is one of a developing series called “Men Who Mow” that begins here. 

_______________________

People call him Chub. He spells it with one b. For reasons he’s never understood, others use two. At some point, he just let that go. His real name is Edgar. Edgar Leon Thomas, Jr., after his father, but he’s been Chub since he was small. To hear him tell it, though, he’s never really been small.

“I was a fat little baby,” he laughs. “That’s how the nickname got started. And now? Well, I’ve got a mean sweet tooth.”

Chub is unassuming but not shy, his voice deep, subdued, rounded. He’s 6’2” and, best I can tell, his heart is pure gold.Though I can’t pin it precisely, I’d wager we’ve been crossing paths for 20 years. We met when he was part of a mowing crew that serviced the property where my family and I lived. Guys on high-speed machines buzzed around like antagonized hornets with little regard for my two youngsters, who were apt to zip across a patch of lawn nearby.

Chub was the only one who noticed, always making time to idle the mower long enough to offer a cheerful greeting, his gold teeth glinting out from a giant smile. Even now, when we see each other, the first thing he wants to know is how the girls are doing.

No matter the temperature—and our summers can be brutal—he wore a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head. I couldn’t fathom why he’d cocoon himself into such heavy clothes, and I remember feeling a little featherbrained when he explained, simply, that it kept the grass out of his ears. These days, a pair of noise-canceling headphones offers a cooler solution.

For a few years, during the mowing season, I saw Chub weekly. When we moved from the farm, I saw him only occasionally, but always with the same big grin and interest in how the kids were faring. The only predictable encounter was when I stopped to pick up barbecue.

Oh, the barbecue! Before I get to that, and it’s so very worth getting to, I want to tell you how Chub came to be part of this community. Like me and my husband, he didn’t start out here. Locals have another nickname for people like us. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived here, if you weren’t born here you’re a “come here.”

Chub came here from Reddick, Florida. His parents were seasonal workers for a gladiolus farm run by a man named Gus Schlag. They worked in the Sunshine State, and when the operation expanded, they traveled north to do the same thing in a new place. In the early spring of 1966, possibly during a stay in Wittman where the Maryland farm was based, Chub became a glimmer in his mama’s eye. He was born down south the following January and continued making trips back and forth with his parents throughout his childhood.

When he was 28, he relocated here for good, continuing to work for Mr. Schlag. Seven days a week, eight hours a day, for $5.15 an hour, he and others handled thousands of gladioluses destined for markets in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Every spring they prepared fields, planted bulbs, tended plants, and harvested flowers. Every fall they dug, cleaned and stored bulbs. They slept and ate in a former schoolhouse, often enjoying fresh vegetables and locally caught seafood. If they worked straight through for six months, without a day off, they were given a bonus.

Not too long after settling here, Chub met Pat. In fact, she made a point of meeting him, asking people she knew about the guy she’d seen across the street. He was 31. She was 44. He told her she was robbing the cradle.

He proposed, once, and she laughed him off, suggesting he’d had too much to drink. He never asked again. But over the years, he’s bought her five rings, at least one of which set him back a mighty pretty penny. As fate would have it, every one of those rings was lost, but the relationship has remained in place for 26 years. Her health isn’t what it used to be, on account of a battle with cancer, but they press on together.

Chub describes himself as a jack of all trades, master of none. Before the flower farm, he worked with horses, helping break as many as 400 mares a year. Later, he took up landscaping and handyman work. What he enjoys more than anything else is his food business: Chubbs’ Grilling on the Move.

He operates from a roadside setup that includes a large, mobile grill, a folding table, a pop-up tent, a few coolers, a camp chair, and a radio. Most weekends, locals and travelers can find him behind Carroll Motor Fuels, a small gas station and car wash on the south end of town. The only signage is a relatively new BBQ flag out front. This is not a business with an advertising budget. It relies entirely on word-of-mouth referrals and on Chub’s reputation for reliably flavorful food.

On weekend mornings, he arrives early to get the fire going, giving the heat time to moderate. When the coals are ready, he loads the cooker with seasoned half-chickens and racks of pork ribs. Instinct tells him when to turn them and when to take them off the grill. Pulled pork, from shoulder cuts cooked long and slow, is started the day before and either sold in containers or piled onto individual buns. No matter what meat is selected, two sauce options are offered on the side: a thick, sweet commercial type, and a thin, vinegar-based, homemade type. That’s the one I prefer.

This March, a tree fell on both his and Pat’s vehicles, hers just 10 days old. Chub had been hoping to buy an enclosed trailer to store his gear and offer him a place to get out of the wind in winter. Instead, he’s making payments on a new van.

“Both cars!” he repeated, shaking his head. “How does that even happen?” And then he laughed.

Chub works until all his goods have been sold, or until the selling feels done, whichever comes first. With advance notice, he fulfills orders for parties and events. Otherwise, it’s just a day’s worth of eats on the grill, rain or shine, Friday, Saturday and most Sundays. He gets especially busy right after church lets out.

He’s not a church goer himself. He had his fill of that in childhood. His grandmother was a minister, his mother a devout Baptist. He was in church every day, some days all day. Once, he asked why people who claim to be ‘saved’ seem like the first to ones to put down the less fortunate.

He sounds a little wistful as he recalls his mother’s answer. “Chub, a lot of people in the streets are going to heaven. And a lot of people in church aren’t.”

“For me,” he says, pointing to his barrel chest, “Church is in your heart. It’s how you treat others. I pray for everyone. Don’t matter who. My church is right here.”

He’s learned to keep his distance from people who make him angry. He considers himself lucky to have five true friends. Though his mother passed away in 2018, his father (nicknamed “Satch”) still lives nearby. He’s in touch with his remaining siblings. He keeps up with a daughter from a former relationship, and a niece who completed her college degree this spring, despite losing her grandmother (Chub’s mom), her mother (Chub’s sister), and her only brother as she made her way through school.

The last time Chub and I sat down to visit, I stayed nearly two hours. I bantered with people who came looking for grilled goodness: a woman disappointed she’d missed the pulled pork two times in a row; a man who manages the gas station and loves ketchup to the point of putting it on pizza; another man named Albert who caretakes on a property a few miles away, at the age of 94.

While we talked, Chub moved around his work station with ease, helping customers, telling stories. He strikes me as someone who knows exactly what he’s doing and how it needs to be done. He strikes me as a master of his craft.

When I finally stood to leave, I apologized for staying so long.

“Nah, it’s fine,” he said. “Sometimes it’s nice to hear something besides the birds and that radio.”

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported digital publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.

If there is a single characteristic that distinguishes Americans from people of other countries it is our fierce fidelity to individualism. These boots are made for walking, and we’ll do it our way, thank you very much (hat tip Sinatras). We want what we want and, for the most part, believe we deserve to get it.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with any of that. I’ve been the strident citizen, the person who stood my ground in defense of what I felt was right. So, what is it about so much of today’s agitation that I find objectionable?

I wish I had answers. I don’t. But I do have a few ideas.

First, I think we’ve heightened individualism at the expense of community. We’ve lost not just the mechanisms to support each other—like neighborhoods, civic clubs, church families and extended families—but also the will. For decades, we’ve been warned that something or someone was on the verge of taking away our hard-earned freedoms. Apply yourself, they said. Hustle, they said. That’s how it’s done. Later, we learned we’d given too much of ourselves away. Set personal boundaries, they said. Practice self-care, they said. That’s how it’s done.

It’s me and me against the world, isolating and transactional. Where, in these models, are collaboration and community-building? Where is there opportunity for mutual progress? Where is the health of the whole?

I also think we’ve elevated the merits of moral outrage while suppressing the call for personal responsibility. It goes like this: Look at me! I am incensed. With these words, I’m signaling alignment with my in-group, folks who are equally upset. Therefore, I am virtuous.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks (hat tip, Shakespeare).

Contrary to what we might want to believe, science tells us that indignation on behalf of others is more self-serving than it is altruistic. By pinning blame on third-parties, we assuage our own guilt and shore up our identity as good people. It’s worth noting that social media algorithms drive the proliferation of righteous indignation, because they are designed to reward posts with such content. Suffice to say, surprise! It’s still all about us.

This next thought dawned on me the other day and felt a bit like being smacked in the head with a protest sign: I think some of our perceived best efforts at speaking up for worthy causes are actually making matters worse. Here’s a recent experience to help illustrate.

The farmers market had just ended. Volunteers and vendors were bustling about, breaking down tents and tables. Someone moved an orange traffic cone a bit prematurely, tempting new arrivals to vie for recently vacated parking spaces. A car approached the barrier just as someone moved to put the cone back in place. The driver was met with a diplomatic but firm no.

“You can’t come through here. You’ll have to go around the other way,” he was told.

Never mind that the alternate route was no more than three car lengths to the left, the announcement set off a strong reaction. Though the car windows were shut, and I stood some distance away, the anger was evident. Mouth wide, arms flailing, fingers pointing, engine revving. The man throttled the car forward, compelling folks in close proximity to step back and opening a corridor for him to blast through. A fellow across from me flexed, ready to rumble. By now, the car’s windows were down and choice words flew back and forth.

For a few seconds, I thought about engaging. I had no plan of attack and no means of defending myself should things turn ugly, but in that moment, my cowboy boots and ‘how dare he’ attitude were enough.

Fortunately for all of us, the driver sped off before anyone could act on more impactful impulses, but we were all gobsmacked by the injustice that had occurred. Someone violated what felt like a reasonable request, and we were powerless to stop him.

At a basic level, there were two forces in play here—them what makes the rules and them what breaks ‘em. By ignoring the appeal to take a different route, the driver exercised control. Rule makers hold the power. Rule breakers get it back, fleetingly or not, through acts of rebellion.

Generally, rules make our lives easier and we obey them because, generally, they feel justified. Despite recurrent socio-political pleas to burn it all down, humans don’t actually thrive in chaos. If the law instructs us to drive on a particular side of the road, there is strong motivation to comply and significant risk in doing otherwise. Still, faced with policies we deem unfair or the apparent inability to achieve our goals, we balk.

And let’s be honest. We’ve all had our moments. Exceeding the speed limit. Jaywalking. Parking in a fire lane. Underage drinking. Tax evasion—not the big kind but the kind that looks like not declaring your tips while paying your way through school. Sneaking in. Sneaking out. Sometimes acts of defiance are just our way of sticking it to the man, reasserting our power, and emphasizing that we can’t be told what to do.

For a moment, let’s pretend that the farmers-market-crasher represents our current out-group, people whose views don’t align with our own. And let’s say the orange traffic cone and the directive to take a different route is our moral outrage. What happens when all that converges in the random parking lots of life?

Bolstered by American individualism and a fear of lost freedoms, our indignation makes the out-group more determined than ever to get where they’re going. When they succeed, we’re left feeling powerless and that a grave injustice has taken place.

Are we supposed to step aside? Let renegades run rampant while we stand back and suck in their exhaust? Well, that’s one option, but there are others that feel more balanced.

–We can apply ourselves, yes, and practice self-care. But we can also throttle back the competition. Assume good intentions, help others get ahead. Compromise and success are not mutually exclusive. We get what we give, and when we aim for common good, everyone benefits. More importantly, we cannot thrive when we refuse to see ourselves as part of a much larger whole. For better or worse, our actions are reciprocal.

–We can seek out solutions as often as we find problems. If we fracture our femur, the last thing we want is a group of people standing around on two good legs lamenting the brokenness of ours. We need someone who will call the paramedic, someone who can stabilize the injury and get us closer to healing. We can’t do everything but we can do some things, starting with deliberate efforts to engage in problem-solving.

–We can work on cultivating curiosity in place of judgement. Listen. Ask questions. Try a different approach. Be willing to be surprised and open ourselves up to possibilities. Sometimes, a shift in perspective is all that’s needed to bring about a better outcome.

For most of us, changing the approach to how we see and experience the world is new and therefore terrifying. What terrifies me more is what happens if we don’t.

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported digital publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.

I should have known. These were unprecedented times.

That’s not entirely true, but we’ll go with it for simplicity’s sake.

At any rate, I was lucky to find it at all let alone in the very first location. I guess that and the elation from having my 92-year-old mother back home, having survived a series of terribly unfortunate events and nearly a month of isolated medical care (but no Covid) had my hubris humming. A 12-pack of single-ply Scott rolls, the most dreadful excuse for toilet paper ever created in this part of the world, was not what I was hoping for. It might as well be a 4-pack, seeing as we’d have to use three times as much to get the job done.

I turned the package over in my hands one more time before digging my heels in. Nope. I could do better.

The shelves in store number two had been picked clean and store three was bare as bones. By now I was across town from the scene of my rookie mistake. I detoured to buy the fried chicken mom had requested for lunch. When the young woman at the drive-thru window asked if there would be anything else, I quipped, “Any idea where a girl could score some toilet paper around here?”

She laughed one of those cashier laughs designed to distract people like me from the involuntary eye rolling, but then she changed course and offered the idea of a discount store just up the road.

On it like a bonnet!

It didn’t take long to navigate there and make my way to the correct aisle, where I found a cavern of emptiness. On both sides. How could I have been so foolish?

Dejected, I grabbed a bag of chocolates I’d not planned to purchase and headed towards check out. On my approach, I glanced down. There on the floor, and very nearly in my path, was a multi-pack of Angel Soft. I stared at it for several long seconds before looking up to check, carefully, over both shoulders. I fully expected someone with overfull arms, who’d dropped it without realizing, to rush in and reclaim it like a fumbled football. There was no one. I picked it up.

In the line ahead of me was a sunny woman with socially distanced celebration supplies—poster board, markers and such. She wore a bright yellow top, black polka-dot pants, and coordinating shoes on tiny feet. Across from her, a child and a man with a basket of groceries were checking out. Behind them, another youngster with a soda and a bar of candy. The woman paid for everything, hers and theirs. I’m sure I was smiling when she looked my way. How could I not? We exchanged pleasantries.

It occurred to me, as she walked away, that she was a shiny soul in conventional clothes, there for the sole purpose of doling out happiness. Angel, soft.

Events like these are familiar, whether or not we choose to see them as anything more than a fluke. Bathroom tissue might seem a low-watt miracle, but in that moment it was precisely the gift I needed to be reminded that grace doesn’t have to be glamorous. When you miss the accident by mere moments, when you don’t miss the accident but survive, against all odds—that’s metamorphic. A pandemic toilet paper find not so much.  But it’s these we are more likely to encounter and these, because they are so banal, we may be less apt to notice at all.

There are times I flounder beneath waves of my own uncertainty, as a writer and otherwise, and am buoyed by occasional comments that blow me away. I don’t think people know that some days, and there is little rhyme nor reason for when or why, their words are the difference between pressing on and giving up.

And here, at last, is my destination today, the place these thoughts have insisted I revisit. You see, I believed this funny pandemic experience was about appreciating the marvelous even when it’s unsophisticated. I thought the moral of the story was to look for the enchanted in the everyday, the metaphorical toilet paper in the aisle.  It turns out, it’s not that.

Of course, I ought to notice when things like that happen, to expect them even. But all this time, I’ve been overlooking another angle: the angels.

What do I know? Maybe it’s gotten too expensive for the more experienced ones to travel. Maybe some of them have retired and their positions haven’t been filled. Or maybe they’ve lobbied successfully for fewer hours and more vacation time. Hard to blame them. But really, who’s to say someone like me–or her, or him, or you–isn’t exactly right for the job?

The point isn’t to look for the angels and the light they shine. The point is to be one.

Elizabeth Beggins is a communications and outreach specialist focused on regional agriculture. She is a former farmer, recovering sailor, and committed over-thinker who appreciates opportunities to kindle conversation and invite connection. On “Chicken Scratch,” a reader-supported digital publication hosted by Substack, she writes non-fiction essays rooted in optimism. To receive her weekly posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here.