I’m looking at the enlarged photograph hanging on the wall of our living room.  It’s of our old barn surrounded by trees in their fall colors.  The old barn is in the fall of its life.  It’s unpainted and weathered.  Just the hint of an indentation can be seen in the roof where beams inside have rotted and broken.  The picture was taken by my son-in-law, Kevin Bradford, half-a-dozen years ago.  The indentation has since become a gaping hole.  Several of my children check the progress of the hole each spring, expecting that the weight of the winter’s snows will finally have collapsed the roof.

The old barn is well over 100 years old.  I sat imagining its construction.  It was perhaps built by a man named Crawford.  He envisioned the barn, drew up plans, gathered materials, and brought in employees and neighbors to help him.  The barn was a beehive of activity.  The barn was a necessity for the working of the farm.  There were stalls for four work horses, and a capacious manger in front of the stalls in which to pitch hay to feed the hard-working horses.

On the other side of the barn were stanchions to hold eight head of Jersey milk cows which were milked by hand every night and morning for many years.  Between the stanchions and the horse stalls was an open area with a four-foot-square opening centered in the ceiling.  The hole opened into the hay loft so that hay could be pitched down to feed the horses and cows.

The loft has a Johnson fork attached to a rail below the ridgeline.  The Johnson fork had a long rope hooked to it which led outside where it was attached to one of the horses.  A wagonload of hay was pulled up in front of the barn by a team.  The horse operating the Johnson fork was backed up, which lowered the fork onto the load where it clamped onto a big bite of hay.  The horse was then urged forward, which lifted the hay and moved it into the loft where the man in the barn tripped a lever and dropped the load where he wanted it.  While the Johnson fork was pulled back outside for another load, the man in the loft pitched the hay into the corners and made room for the next dump.  It was hard, dusty work requiring a crew of men and boys.

The old barn served well.  It was needed.  It was the center of every day’s activity.  Every farm had one.  Every farm milked cows.  The cows were milked for their cream which was put in big milk cans and sent to the creamery by a wagon which daily made the rounds of all the farms to collect the cans.  The milk was fed to the hogs that were kept in the pen behind the barn.

Tractors, mechanization and electricity came in the 1930’s and 40’s.  By the 1950’s work horses and little dairy herds were things of the past.  The old barn was used less and less.  As a boy I lambed my sheep in it.  My kids farrowed an occasional sow in it.  I milked the family milk cow there, and raised a few calves.

But now the barn is empty.  Months go by without anyone entering.  Indeed, entering can be dangerous.  There are nails to be stepped on, and rotten flooring in the loft through which one could fall.  Children are warned not to go there.

The barn is a symbol of old age.  Old age happens when one has worn out his usefulness.  Old age comes in the fall of life.  Old age is when things break down, cracks and holes appear, and doors fall off their hinges.

Nestled in front of the spectacular golden cottonwoods of fall, Kevin saw the old barn as a thing of beauty.  Old age is often a thing of beauty.

Old age is also idleness where there once was great activity.  Old age is decrepitude.  Old age is loneliness and nostalgia.  Old age is not being needed.

I have some of the symptoms, but I’m not there yet.