Lyle Link tells his granddaughter Carly Dreher about growing up on his family’s farm and how he couldn’t wait to leave, and the adventures he went on with his wife Marion and the pain of living without her.
Originally aired May 2, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Lyle Link (LL) and Carly Dreher (CD)
LL: My father believed that any man that needed a vacation should get a different job. Because for him, those hundred-and-ten acres was the whole world and he needed nothing else. But farming wasn’t for me. I wasn’t happy picking corn or shoveling manure. Although milking cows was good because I could sing opera in the farm milking cows and that was great.
CD: It sounds like you were the black sheep.
LL: Yeah, I drove my poor father nuts. He couldn’t understand me. I remember his saying one day, ”Son, you cannot think the thoughts you think.” My brother was totally a farmer. He never made another footstep that my father hadn’t made before and I couldn’t walk in my father’s footsteps to save my soul. So the day came I left.
CD: Tell me about how you met grandma.
LL: She came to the church that we attended and I said to her, ”Someday I’m going to ask you to marry me.” And I took her hand and it went from there.
CD: You have grandma had so many adventures in your lives.
LL: You bet.
CD: Your honeymoon was just driving across the country.
LL: Yes. I had a ’36 Chevy and I was able to lay a mattress in the back seat. And we spent our first night in that car on a bluff over the Mississippi River. My father by the way did not approve of that kind of outrageous living. But I was willing to break new ground. And your grandma really was ready to break new ground.
CD: Yes. I know that, um, it’s hard to talk about grandma but what made you love her so much?
LL: I don’t know. I don’t know. It was something I couldn’t help.
CD: Hm.
LL: We have been in love for almost 70 years. And she now died and all I can say is that life was so beautiful.
CD: Is.
LL: It is so beautiful. I’m terribly, terribly lonesome.
CD: She was pretty amazing.
LL: Very. Yeah.
CD: Do you have any regrets, Grandpa.
LL: No. Well, no. We lived a wonderful life. I think when we got married, we’d made all new tracks. And we never stepped in any old tracks. I want you to do the same thing. Live with courage.
