It was twilight as I drove down the road. Darkness had begun to slowly close the door to the sky. It was not cold, but warm it was not either. No hurry was I in to get to whatever unscheduled destination I was bound.

A red-tailed hawk accompanied me above on an unseen avenue of air. That air was heavy with wet waiting to fall in splashing droplets. All seemed at peace in a world grown quiet and a day slowing to completion.

They were standing just inside the pasture gate. One, whose head of white accented itself against the grayness of the approaching night, leaned his lanky frame against one of the posts supporting the rows of barbed wire that framed the pastoral scene. A cow, standing parallel to the fence with eyes turned toward the white-topped two-legged creature, perhaps chewing cud, tossed her head up and down in apparent assent. Between the heifer and he with the upturned head a little boy listened in what appeared rapt attention to what was being said. Young curled fingers scratched the cow’s flank in absent-minded wonder.

The man’s arm rose and gesture swept his hand out over the grazing lands, etching a semi-circle back toward the house on the rise above them. The boy’s eyes followed the invisible boundary prescribed by a gnarled index finger. “All of this …” the white-headed speaker seemed to relate, and a boy took in “all of this” and the words which accompanied it. They turned to walk up the rise to the house. The heifer moved only her neck to follow their progress.

I slowly regained the speed lost when first I observed this sharing of generations. The hawk circled as though wondering what slowed my progress. What secrets, I wondered, had just been shared?  What instructions about the care of the land had been imbued? Was the moment, for them, as precious as it appeared to me? I slowed again to look out the rear window. They had disappeared into the brick ranch-style house atop the rise. The moment was over, the privacy gone, for no doubt others waited under the artificial light of the house. The hawk screeched loudly in apparent dismay at my lack of direction. He banked his wings and soared away, disappearing behind the forested rise ahead, in seemingly impatient dismay.

As I meandered on down the lane I remembered other times and another little boy. I remembered the chicken coop and Papa. I remembered being taught to throw the grain out for the clucking creatures to gobble, and to retrieve ever so carefully the brown eggs lying on fragrant nests of hay to carry to Mama for breakfast. I remembered floating on the boat on the lake in the mountains waiting impatiently for fish to bite but squirming not lest the dreaded “Shhhsssss!” be spewed from my hero’s lips. I remembered being taught to make a whistle with a pocket knife and a tree limb. I remembered the stories shared about Ty Cobb and the Atlanta Crackers, of the Cherokees and the gold found in Dahlonega. I remembered the cool wetness of the water sipped from the spring that is the source of the Chattahoochee River.

I thought of that little boy in the pasture behind me. He is gaining something most of his generation will never know. He is learning family, tradition, and secrets only grandfathers can tell. Most importantly, he is learning from where he has come.