The Barn Door

This is our story, but I don't think it's unusual....

Paul Bennett was 30ish when he bought a few acres north of Dewitt. He had a growing family and a full-time job at Oldsmobile, but had grown up on a farm and wanted his own. He planted crops for a over a decade, but the day job was paying the bills and none of the mostly-grown kids planned to become farmers. By the late '70s, when I was first courting Joan, the field had been leased to a neighbor and the family's only farm activity, besides the veggie garden, was raising chickens. The barn was healthy enough to justify a new roof a couple decades ago, but by that time it was mainly used for miscellaneous storage. As with many Michigan farmyards, the Bennett farm's active shelter has long been a pole barn.

Paul retired from GM in the early 1990s. He never seriously considered resuming the heavy work of planting and harvesting. Unfortunately, this made the barn's upkeep an expensive luxury. Paul and Thelma willingly put money into maintaining the house, but let the barn deteriorate.

A few years ago Paul was talking about letting the firefighters burn the old barn, but never made the call. Eventually the wind will help gravity do the place in. We'll be sad, but not enough to save it.