Embracing Adventure and Encouraging Curiosity
Granny’s Wisdom: The 70’ high farm silo climbing story.
I told this story at my Granny’s funeral, and I think speaks a lot about who she was to her children, grand or otherwise.
When I was 12 and 13 in the summers between 6th and 8th grades, my parents sent me up to the farm to help out with the haying. While there I stayed at Granny’s, it was just her and I in the house, and I knew no one else around, even if I could find someone the nearest neighbor was a mile away. By the second summer my cousin Jeff and I had attempted to quit, but unfortunately for me, I did not live in Vermont and was stuck there. So I had to acquiesce that I had no other option but to stay and work. Jeff lived there, and so was likely to be off with his friends in the area, which left me in the lonely circumstance that I did not have anyone to pal around with in my free time. So when I wasn’t working the 12hr days (I had every other Sunday off as I recall( I would entertain myself by roaming the farm, which was 1200 acres at that time so there was a lot of roaming to do.
One day I looked at the two silos that held the corn feed for the cows, and decided I’d challenge my fear of heights by climbing the tallest of the two, 75 foot if I remember correctly. It had a metal ladder up the outside of it, attached to the metal rings that bound the silo’s sections together. The ladder did have a sort of strapping cage around it that you climbed up inside of, which may have saved in a hail Mary sort of way, but there was definitely enough room for a falling 12yr old thrill seeker to plummet to his death.
Well I slowly white knuckled my way up that rickety ladder and pushed through the trap door at the top, letting it close beneath me and making this former door now the floor of the crows nest I would then huddle on while I tried to enjoy the view between waves of terror. What I saw from up there was most of western Vermont! It was gorgeous, all green and gold for miles.
After staying up there longer than I wanted, due to being more afraid of the climb down than my strangle hold on the bars of the perch I was on, I started making my way back down. Upon finally making it back onto solid ground I needed a rest and made my way back to Granny’s to recuperate.
When I went inside, there was Granny at the front kitchen table drinking her afternoon tea. I explained what I’d just been up too (pun intended) and how high I’d been above the Vermont soil. Now, those of you with Grannies of the normal variety would expect her to hem and haw, or even scold or punish me for climbing this dangerous trek at such a young age. But that is not who my Granny was. She was always up for an adventure, and loved to hear about mine and my cousins, even late into our adulthood. No, my Granny did scold me… but it was “Oh My! you should bring a camera up there next time!”
I’ve always loved that about her, and use that type of style when I converse with young people myself. Don’t get in the way of their adventures, give them good advice on how to make it better and maybe safer, enhance the natural curiosity of the adventurous youth so you can vicariously enjoy the pictures when they return from the summits of life.