She's making something with sweet corn, and of course she has this clever little trick to get the kernels off the cob—and I couldn't help but remember the hot summer days of my youth. I grew up on a "farmette", not a full-fledged farm, but definitely out in the country and perfect for a dreamer's soul. To this day, even though I have only lived "in town" since I've been out of high school, I cannot imagine how some people survive childhood in the suburbs. Obviously it is done, but I just don't understand how it works. Where is the quiet time? Where do you play "ice cream shop" or "school" if not in the stale shed? Where do you sneak away and strip off your clothes to run naked through the field at dusk?

The field that butted up to the eastern portion of our lawn belonged to a kindly widower around my father's age. His youngest daughter was in my grade and we were best buds growing up, and we used to get into all sorts of trouble playing in her attic which was completely spooky and the coolest place to pretend. The farmer was always very generous with his crop and gave us carte blanch to harvest as much as we desired—green beans, peas, and sweet corn. Most of my father's large chest freezer is homegrown fare, and rarely does anything enter that isn't frozen in Zip-loc or wrapped in white butcher paper. It gets you spoiled growing up that way. Nothing ever tastes quite as fresh, and I just about embarrassed the pants off of my college roommate the first time I had seen store-bought ground beef—it looked so different...like hundreds of tiny worms!

Our neighbor would invite Dad into the corn field while he was operating the combine, and fill the back of his pickup with ears and ears and ears of corn. We would separate a few of them off the pile to eat in the upcoming days, but after that, it was time to freeze. Charlie and I were assigned the task of husking, sitting with our feet dangling off the end of the truck bed and not realizing in the slightest that our "city-kid" friends didn't do this every summer.

Our light would be fading by the time we finished, and me and my brother, gritty and tired, would wander into the house, where the rest of the process was taking place. We didn't have air conditioning in our house until much later, so you must appreciate a hot, humid Midwestern night, a small kitchen, extra bodies, and boiling water—conditions that last for hours. It was sticky work, and you felt the sweat dripping down the small of your back and down your legs.

My dad had taken a 4-inch square of wood and pounded a sturdy nail all the way through the center, so that it stood erect when the piece of wood was inverted. Mounting the cob on the nail, he would apply a corn stripper. I loved watching it—and partly because my role in all of it was done by this time, I'll grant you—but also because I would imagine myself to be my namesake, the girl my mother had so deeply loved when she was a child, living off of the banks of Plum Creek...living off of the land...working hard with your family and feeling that good kind of tired that just seems to make the world a nicer place to be.