Castle on a Hill

My all-time favorite piece | Written in October 2012

One day, he said, we’re going to build a house on the hill.

One day, he said, you kids will each have your own bed to sleep in, and your grandmother and I will have our own bathroom.

One day, he said, we’ll live like kings and queens.

Basking in his greatest desire, my grandfather, the poster child for Midwestern farming and the enduring American dream, had abandoned reality and leeched on to the prospect of a better life. He had to forget that Grandma washed zip-close bags to save a few dollars. He had to forget that he had postponed knee surgery because crop profits had been too low. He had to forget that the only way my mother could attend college was to maintain a perfect GPA on a full-ride academic scholarship. He had to forget that, viewed objectively, he was a struggling farmer from Columbus, Neb.

However, these small details — roadblocks centered on the lack of money my grandfather earned — did not keep him from dreaming. He told his kids, who then passed it on to their kids, neighbors, the milkman, his favorite grocer, Pastor Bornemann — the entire population of Columbus — about the house he hoped to build. It became not only a pipe dream but also a motivation and obsession.

My grandmother was the only person who believed in my grandfather, believed that one day, the family would build a house on the hill. My mother and her two brothers were convinced that my grandfather somehow had brainwashed her. On nights when the three kids would find Grandma hunched over at the kitchen table, dog-tagging pages from Good Housekeeping or Better Homes and Garden — the basis for her amateur floor plans — they thought she had gone mad. At the end of the 1960s, the house on the hill was an obscure mental image. A hazy dream, an ambiguous shape, clouded and blurred by the harsh reality of the present.

Grandma secretly saved all her floor plans — my mother later discovered them in a sealed box, hidden in the cubby hole by layers of keepsakes and suppressed hope. It was evident that she had explored all realms of possibility because she went through many architectural phases; there was the purple Victorian dollhouse, the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Usonian house, the wooden mountain lodge and, her favorite, the Gothic stone fortress with stained glass windows. Although drastically different, all of the drawings had a recurring theme: five stick figures, holding hands, smiling and wearing crowns. The inscription at the top of each page read, “One day, we’ll live like kings and queens.”

So 11 years ago when my grandfather called a family meeting, joining three generations of hard-working Saalfeld family members in the cramped living room of his one-bathroom farmhouse, we predicted what he was about to say.

Staring at the faded green walls, browned from years of overexposure to sun, we sat there, listening to the same old story, an Aesop’s Fable engrained into our minds. We could predict the moral: pursue your dreams. As we uncomfortably heard the details — blueprints — of the house my grandfather dreamed of, down to the emerald color of the carpet in the study and the cream panel molding in the dining room, my cousins and I exchanged awkward and anxious glances. We wanted my grandfather to be less dependent on his fantasy.

After he finished his story, he looked down, fingering the loose button on his collared shirt with his calloused, blistered, leathered hands, hands that had wrestled the horns of a bull and birthed a litter of kittens.

Then, his shoulders popped and he looked up with an unfamiliar glint in his slate-blue eyes.

“That day is today.”

As the room erupted into shouts and cheers — an explosion of happiness and shock — my grandfather, my rock, my hero, started to cry. He wept tears of joy and shook with unabashed pride in the midst of our celebration. After 50 years of hard work, physical and emotional labor and distress, he had accumulated enough money to move his family out of the humble farmhouse that was 100 years old and into the castle of my grandfather’s limitless dreams.

Construction began the day after my grandfather told us the good news and was finished within four months. The house sits on a hill, overlooking 40 acres of my grandfather’s pastures, corn, rhubarb and soybean fields. It is prime location to witness the Maker paint His canvas with vibrant purples, yellows, reds and oranges to create an unforgettable Nebraska sunset. It is perfect location to launch water balloons and smoke bombs at the cows that graze the pasture lining the backyard. And it is an ideal location to foster the growth of relationships — grandparents to grandkids, husband to wife, father to son. Sitting high and mighty on a luscious green hill, it embodies my grandfather’s age-old dream; it is perfect.

In this small-town community of farmers, sacrifice wasn’t a burden or a chore. It was “normal.” Sacrifice led to a few dollars saved here or there. For Uncle Kelly, waking up at 4 a.m. to milk cows from the day he could walk until the day he left for college was normal. For Mom, remembering her first outfit that wasn’t a hand-me-down of one of her cousin’s, a $9.95 patchwork sundress from the Sears catalog, at 8 was normal. For Grandma, hand-washing the family’s clothing in the gyrating tub and line-drying it — winter, spring, summer and fall — was normal. Sacrifice was a way of life.

But in the back of everyone’s mind, sacrifice was a fleeting light at the end of the tunnel. It was the key to escape the near-poverty they experienced daily. And when hard work and saving paid off, it didn’t just feel good. It felt great.

According to Grandma, saving and sacrifice was a magical combination, so she encouraged my family to save. The family didn’t buy groceries. Instead, everything came from the farm. Milk came from the cows. All produce — potatoes, strawberries, corn, rhubarb, apples, peaches, pears, onions, asparagus, peas, tomatoes, lettuce — was grown. Eggs came from the chickens.

But, the dollars not spent on groceries were allocated toward the elusivehouse. Whether it was a mental reassurance for my grandparents that every earned penny was saved, or whether the accumulated cash truly did take a chunk out of the ultimate price they paid, an “I told you so” look was plastered across Grandma’s face the day my grandfather announced the good news.

The new house is the final piece to the puzzle of my grandfather’s farm. Scenically, it complements the natural beauty and simplicity of rolling Nebraska hills, deep valleys and ever-flowing streams. It juxtaposes the dilapidated barn, ruled by the hierarchy of wild barn kittens, rusting silo and corrugated aluminum machine shed, home to my grandfather’s tractors and farm-wheelers. The gravel road leading to the front door connects the old farmhouse with the new fortress, keeping the “old” alive and accessible in the midst of so much “new.”

The old farmhouse still stands strongly and valiantly. Grandpa rents it to carefully selected tenants but has no intent to sell it. It is a family heirloom that has been inhabited by Saalfelds for nearly four generations. (I think Grandpa built the deck on the house on a hill just so he can watch over the old house; from this deck, it is a perfect view.)

Each night, as the sun sets, Grandpa reclines on the deck, says a prayer and absorbs the beauty of the sunset. He is out there every night, rain or shine. He says he stays up to watch over the cows grazing in the pasture; but I know, he is watching over the old house. It will forever be a part of him — a part of his past, an aesthetic view in his present and a reminder in his future of what he has worked so hard to obtain.

The new house represents the endless pursuit of a dream and the relentless and unselfish quest of one modest farmer to provide a better life for his family and himself. Founded and bounded by love, my grandfather is finally peaceful in this castle on a hill. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, my family will live like kings and queens.