The 6 acres we call SugarField has been in our family for 3 generations. The first being Fred. Most people would call their dad’s dad, grandpa but Fred wasn’t much of the warm grandpa-like figure…he was Fred. 

Fred passed away when I was pretty young, so the only memories I have of him are very much through the lens of a child. Things I remember very clearly were his yellow truck, his chair, his dogs, and his Fritos. 

He had an old yellow pickup truck that he would drive all over the property. One of his favorite things was to drive out to the honeymoon tree (more on that later) and point out that it was a white pine. He would pull right up to the tree and pull a handful of needles inside the truck. He would point out that the needles grew in a cluster of 5. One, two, three, four, five. W.H.I.T.E for white pine. Next, he would take off zooming around down by the creek and up the big hill. I’m pretty sure he sculpted the hill to be the perfect peak to pop you off the bench seat of his banana-yellow truck. 

Fred’s chair was in the “sunroom’ of the house. It was an old enclosed porch. We would all hang out around his chair when we were there. That is where I learned to play poker and make bets with butter tubs of pennies. Fred also had a handgun holstered to the side of his recliner. Once, he called me over and had me hold out my hands. In my outstretched kindergartner hands, he plopped the heavy gun and said, “It’s real; it’s loaded. Don’t ever touch it again.”

He had 2 beagles. Ray and Dio.  Say them together :). Dio had passed away so I only ever knew Ray and his sweet brown eyes. 

Fred was a diabetic. He always had snacks close by, and one of those snacks was a small bag of Fritos beside his chair. They were always already opened, and the top was carefully folded over and clipped shut with a clothespin. I would ask him for Fritos, and he would give me one or two.  They were Fred’s Fritos and Fred didn’t share. 

There is so much more to the man that was Fred. He was an engineer without going to college. Henry Ford met with him to learn about using light to balance radiator fan blades. He ran his own machine shop for years to exacting standards. He used his 46 acres as his giant sandbox, digging ponds that wouldn’t hold water and crafting metal structures to hold water pumps, making bridges with I-beams and fence posts that will outlive anyone reading this today.

Fred. He was quite the grandpa.