Just a few years ago everyone came from the farm. This guy did. He's the first photograph in an album from somewhere on the Montana-North Dakota border.

And up there he might have stayed on the farm. Or he might have grown up a few more years and found his way down to Kansas City, or over to the Pacific Northwest.

For now, though, he's a little interested in that sow and her piglets. No one has told him yet that these are the bacon and the sausage that he enjoys, but this is the year that his parents will have to share the ugly truth.

That might be enough to send a bright eyed, optimistic slew footed boy into the city.

When this photo came to me it was fixed firmly in a scrapbook, by far the oldest of the bunch. Perhaps it was the old man in the younger generation's photos. Most interesting of all is that crease in the middle.

Someone folded this photograph and carried it somewhere. Where all did it go? How much comfort did it provide to a homesick soul whenever it came out of hidding from a pocket or purse?

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