My Best Friend

In loving memory of my very best friend. Ade knew me when I was real, before school and society changed me into who I became. I miss you Ade!

He’d tell you his favorite thing about the farm was when we fed the cows together. Every day I’d wait outside for him to pull up. He’d be wearing a pair of old, faded coveralls and a plaid shirt. Down the driveway he would drive with his dull, red, rusty, pickup truck filled with grain. He’d stop, get out of his truck, come over to the fence and ask me in his deep, raspy voice if I wanted to go help him feed the cows. I’d immediately say yes and each time he would make me run inside and ask my mom for permission to go, chuckling to himself as I sped away. Mom would always say yes, so I’d race back outside and he would put me in the front seat of the old, dusty, pick up.
Ade was the sixty-year-old farmhand who was my very best friend on the farm. We would ride out to the feedlot together listening to the old, country music playing on the AM radio. When we arrived at the feed trough, we’d get out and Ade would lift me up into the back of the pick up. I would help him scoop the grain into the feed bin. The cows would immediately tromp towards us. I was small, but fearless. I copied Ade’s movements and commandments to the cows. I wasn’t afraid of the large steers that were a million times my size. I bossed them around just as Ade did. “Yah, Yah” as I waved my hands wildly to get them to move away. I guess cows are pretty stupid, because they listened and got out of my way.
When we were all through, Ade would let me ride in the back of the pick up to the hayloft to get some hay down for the cows. I loved the wind blowing in my face. I loved it so much that I felt the need to undo my tightly braided hair so that I could feel the breeze blowing across my scalp. Ade blamed it on those darn rubber bands breaking. He took bailing wire and with his thick, wrinkled hands, he did his best to tie my hair. Sometimes I would purposely pull my braids out of the rubber bands, just so Ade would tie them back up in the bailing wire. He’d always blame it on those darn rubber bands and my mother couldn’t figure out why they kept breaking. They never seemed to break any other time. I suspect Ade and my mother figured out what I was doing, but neither of them said anything. Ade just kept tying them back up.
I guess I didn’t realize that an old man could be my best friend. As I grew up Ade and I always had a special bond. Every time we saw each other we would reminisce about those days on the farm when we fed the cows and he had to tie my hair with bailing wire. Ade passed away a few years ago. I never actually told him that he was my best friend. But he was during those years before I went to school and all summer long when you hoped school would start up again. Everyone except me. I'd rather spend my days with Ade.