I remember sitting by the lake, watching my brothers, one older and one younger, casting their long fishing poles into the water, sending ripples splattering off into the distance. Looking over beyond the farm, I could see my father walking through the cornfields. He looked like something out of a movie in his overalls and big, wide farmer’s hat. I sat on the swing, my bare feet dangling below me. I was wearing a plain cotton dress, a faded print of blue flowers. My mother would have said the dress was “serviceable.” She meant that it was as good as anything to wear around the farm, good as anything to get your chores done in and then to bask in the setting sun of the day.