I was born in the summer of 1988, a hot one in the town of Farmington, Minnesota.
My parents have deep, multigenerational roots in the agricultural community of Farmington. They started dating after singing in the same high school choir and have been together ever since. One of my maternal great grandfathers was the trusted local blacksmith and a member of the fire department. His daughter, my grandmother, owned a print shop at a time when that wasn’t common for a woman. She balanced the business with homemaking on the farm and was a longtime volunteer for countless community causes. On the Akin side, the old family farmhouse that still stands today predates the incorporation of the town in 1872 by a dozen years or more. My grandpa returned to Farmington after serving in the navy, delivered mail as a postal carrier, then worked at the FAA’s air traffic control center on Spruce Street. He was the mayor for nearly a decade.
When I was growing up, my mom owned the local flower shop and served at one time or another on nearly every volunteer board and organization that existed in Farmington. My brother and I were often recruited as “cheerful volunteers” who begrudgingly helped out with whatever tasks we were assigned, though we were more authentically cheerful when a glazed donut from the Farmington Bakery was promised as payment. My dad worked in the neighboring town as a package designer at a corrugated cardboard plant. He’d introduce himself as either a packaging engineer or a box cutter depending on his mood and who he was talking with that day. Good to keep ’em guessing, I suppose. He served as a board member on the Dakota County Agricultural Society and helped run the annual Dakota County Fair. (It’s the best county fair in the state, I might add, though those Steele County folks down in Owatonna have a pretty good one too.)
You may think that deep roots mean deep pockets. As a child, my brother was confused about what he saw as a discrepancy between our middle-class-or-slightly-better lifestyle and the fact that a major road and an elementary school in town bore our last name. Today, what was once the Akin farm is now comprised of several residential developments that helped the town grow from 5,000 to 25,000 people over the course of my life. I’m sure the land is worth eight figures. Alas, it was sold in the early 1980s before the expansion of the Twin Cities suburbs hit full crescendo. This is unfortunate for several reasons, including that a trust fund would come in handy for international moving expenses and canine orthopedic surgery. Oh well.
I am among the sixth generation in my family to be raised in the same small town. I am the first-born son of a first-born son and a first-born daughter, which means something, I figure, but I haven’t found a psychologist or astrologer who can tell me what exactly that might be.
All of this is to say that I’m sure you can understand that an international move, even to neighboring Canada, even to the town where my wife grew up, feels like a significant twist in my branch of the old family tree—a 90-degree turn to the east and a 2,000-mile journey into the unknown in Nova Scotia.
And that sweltering summer of 1988, when I was born? I learned later that it was the beginning of what was perhaps the worst drought since the Dust Bowl.
Is it any wonder that I’ve always been drawn to the water?
- JJ Akin, writing from Bayview, Pictou County, Nova Scotia.
Welcome to Pictou. I grew up 3 houses down from Hayley's dad and family.