At 39.7 North and 78.9 West sits a homely duplex surrounded by rows of corn fields and cattle farms. When I lived there, we split our half-house with the farm’s other resident cowboys who, like my father, worked on the dairy farm down the road. The drive out to our farmhouse wound through the Allegheny’s meandering hills and valleys, taking us thirty minutes to reach civilization each day for school and groceries. We played in the creek near our house, and took long walks with nothing but farms, trees and the rural American landscape to see in every direction.
While the image may be that of an utopic farmland in the rural, Pennsylvania hills, our lives were anything but ideal. My dad, the dairy hand, and my mom, the assistant manager at Burger King, were all of 28 and 26 years old at the time, with four kids spaced about two years apart each, the oldest of us finishing sixth grade that year. The owners of the farm knocked down the rent since my dad worked there. The inside of the hous…
