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Before that night, Craig and I were a couple of regular boys growing up on a farm in South Dakota. My parents had some acreage, grew soybeans, ran some cattle, raised vegetables we ate daily and my mom canned for winter, and harvested eggs to sell to the neighbors. Those were long days, up before dawn thought about lighting the sky, completing homework, helping Mom with chores, then crashing to bed only after exhaustion set in. But it was the life we knew, so it wasn’t as if we felt like we were missing out on something. Dad assumed we would both remain on the farm after we graduated from high school. And Craig might have, if things had turned out differently.
I had saved up money from doing side jobs and helping Dr. Morrison, the vet, during calving season. It was Spring Break of my
