I don’t know why, but every once in a while when I am editing photos, an image evokes a memory. And not necessarily a visual memory.  Some of them are audible memories like a conversation remembered, a snippet out of time.

Such is the case with a photo (see here) that I have named “Long Row to Hoe”.

Once now a fairly long time ago I knew a man who was in essence, a sharecropper’s son.  Nothing wrong with that, but it led to the occasional farm analogy.

Anyway, this man used to like to say he was “looking for someone to pull the plow with.” On it’s face it seemed quite romantic a thing to say.  Down the road it was discovered it really wasn’t so romantic. But I think that had to do with the true nature of the person, not the phrase.

But good or bad, the phrase and analogy have stuck with me because if it is to be taken in a positive light it is an analogy for a partnership. And in my opinion good relationships are good partnerships as well. That is not all they are, but that is part of the formula. You know the formula of love and mutual respect and so on?

It was what it was, but when I was editing my photos that phrase popped into my head when I reached this photo.  That and the story my friend Sara told me of driving past a farm on a road in Lancaster County where you could see an old man instructing an equally old woman on plowing or planting a field.  As in she was doing all the work and he was directing traffic so to speak.

I hope this photo to be something more positive than that in reality.  Or I would like to think so. It could be a mother showing her young boys how to plant. And I hope it’s that.  Otherwise, it is indeed a long road to hoe….with an overseer in a plaid shirt….