It was, as they say a dark and stormy night Thursday, a lot of wind and rain and gusty winds, my favorite brooding weather. We met  Ed and Carol Gully for dinner at the Foggy Bottom Bar and Restaurant, known locally as the Bog. It was a perfect night to be at the bog, a cozy place with a good wood stove and a pool table. The Bog’s burgers are well known and much praised around my town.

We have become good friends with the Gulleys. In so many ways we seem different, but in so many ways, we are alike, we find many points of connection. Ed and Carol work brutish hours on their dairy farm, milking twice a day, hauling hay, fixing tractors. Ed is too busy right now building an addition to his house to make his popular junk art.

We talked about a lot of things. Carol wants to start a blog, Ed is eager to get back to  his art. He asked me why I thought he was so uncomfortable in crowds, I talked to him about attachment theory and childhood, Ed is a self-aware man, unlike many men, he wants to understand his life. We all talked about the complexity of raising children.

I told him I thought farmer fathers were often closer to their children because, unlike most men, they don’t go off and leave them every day, they work right at home and with their families nearby. Ed said that was true, but it was changing. Farms are getting bigger, the smaller family farms are closing, the big corporate farms hire immigrant workers to run the farm for them and milk their cows. It is unusual for the children of farmers to work with their parents anymore.

Carol talked about the grievous injury suffered by their son Jeremy, who was mauled in a traffic accident. He was in a coma for 40 days, Ed was the one who found him and he and Carol spent every day and night at the trauma hospital where he was taken. He has recovered, but Carol talked about the great pain of seeing her  youngest child so badly hurt.

Carol talked openly with us about how painful the experience was, how long it took her to get over it. Maria and I were both grateful she felt comfortable enough to tell us about it. The Gulleys are dairy farmers, they have a good life and a hard life, just about every day. They are open and honest and real. I hope we spent a lot more nights with them at the Bog. I think we will.

There is an artist in Ed, and it wants to come out. I think there is a blogger in Carol also.

Maria and I both asked her if Carol had gotten any help, she shook her said, no, she said, she wanted to work it through herself, it was a  hard time for all of them. I don’t think the Gulleys have time to get help, their days are too long and hard.

We spent several hours in the Bog with the Gulleys, I am sometimes at a loss to understand friendship, Ed and I come from very different places, yet not really. I love Carol, we were cardiac rehab pals together.

Carol is eager to start a blog, she wants to call it “The Farmer And Me,” she wants to tell the truth the family farm, how they run, what they mean. I think that would be a wonderful subject for a blog, I am going to help her get it going. We showed her how to use the video on her new Iphone 6, Ed and I taped a windbags video together. He will be great on a blog.

Friendship has come to me late in life. Scott Carrino and I have started a weekly lunch get together, we’ve done it two weeks in a row now. Scott came over with some bread for the donkeys and Chloe, and then we sat in the house for an hour or two and talked about the things we want to do in life. I think Ed would be great in the  Fabulous Old Men’s Club.