“Just your swimsuits. Everything else will be taken care of.” Pa grinned proudly as the rest of the crowd side-eyed each other with a measure of skepticism.

Morty cleared his throat. “So . . . we’re swimming on Harvest Day?”

“That’ll be a part of it, yes. But only if you want to. We’re gonna have a picnic and just some good, old-fashioned fun.”

There are seasons in a life that one may choose to remember best. A time where the good outweighs the bad enough that the bad is pushed into the foggy crevices of the mind, while the good is crystal clear. Sure, the good may be shined up with a bit of embellishment, but that’s sometimes necessary in order to survive the more desolate seasons. The whole year of 1985 is one of those seasons for me. I hold on to that year like a talisman, allowing my memory to shine it up in such glowing appeal that I can hardly recall any shadows it might have held.

Tobacco season was the smoothest, most prosperous.

Vance’s kisses and attention the sweetest.

Peg the most agreeable.

Both sets of twins laughed more than ever.

Boss continued to be boss.

And what shines the brightest is the fact that a familiar version of Pa finally arose from the shell of a man he’d become.

1985 could also be called the season of indulgence for the Foster family. Pa had come home with things every so often that floored us kids, like an electric ice cream churner that blew our minds. We literally had ice cream at every meal for two solid weeks before giving that poor machine a rest. Pa got wind of the elementary school redoing the playground, and the next thing we knew, he was hauling in their discarded metal slide, which he mounted on the end of the dock by our pond. A merry-go-round and seesaw showed up next and were set up in the side yard.

That was all great fun, but the most memorable thing he brought home had to be the giant portable radio and a box of cassette tapes to go with it. Up until that point, all we had was the record player in the living room and a small AM/FM radio that stayed at the eastside tobacco barn because it was the only one with electricity.

“It’s a Panasonic Platinum boom box,” Pa declared the day he brought it home. He presented it the same way he’d presented us with the funeral home limousine, so I was skeptical at first, but the shiny, silver behemoth of a radio turned out to be a blessing just as the limo did.

Anyone who declares music not to be therapeutic is not to be trusted for their opinions. I witnessed its effect on the entire farm, from the humans to the animals to the crops.