BT: Wow! Incredible barn. This would make a great house!

FH: Ain't a house. It's a barn. Great Grandfather built it in 1883. Him and the neighbors.

BT: I was at a fundraiser last week. Save the Sunflower Foundation. It was in this barn, but it was a house. With an elevator! Can you believe that?

FH: Get to my age, Young Lady, pretty near forced to believe most anything. Likely turn out to be true.

BT: At the office, they said you're the last dairy farmer in Bucks County. Oohh! What's that smell!

FH: Since the Fricks sold out, maybe so. Maybe not. That smell, as you call it, is the glorious aroma of the lactating bovine. Smellin' it all my life. When I would come into the house, Janey, may her dear departed soul rest in peace, would say I'd become that smell. Make me shuck my clothes and climb into the tub.

BT: Your wife died?

FH: Never thought George Frick would sell. Always the same reason, whichever the family.

BT: They get tired of the smell?

FH: Developers. Come at you like gnats on a hot day, stingin' ants climbing your pants leg.

BT: They want to buy your land?

FH: They ain't buyin' milk. Look out that door. Time was I could stand in it and as far as I could see nothin' but cows grazing in meadows and the barns of other farms. Knew every neighbor. Could call on 'em for help. Now, we live in a neighbor desert.

BT: Looks to me like you have lots of neighbors.

FH: All them houses? So close you can hear every miserable wife screaming at her husband. Make out every word. Women know how to cuss nowadays. Them ain't a dairy farmer's neighbors. Not a one of their kids ever come over and said, "Hey mister, got a job for me?"

BT: They wouldn't like the smell.

FH: Big ol' twenty room elephants on an acre of land. Makes no sense. Can't even keep a milk cow out back if you wanted.

BT: A milk cow?

FH: I remember when lots of folks livin' in town had a cow out back. Fresh milk every morning. And a garden. Put your own cream on your own strawberries.

BT: Milk cows in New Hope?

FH: A couple buys one of them things and then they run like frantic squirrels to pay for 'em. In the afternoons their kids go wild when they get off the school bus 'cause their mothers ain't home.

BT: I'd like to have my own house some day.

FH: I took a letter down to the mailbox yesterday mornin' and this woman come down the road like a bat out of Hell. I swear she was both powderin' her nose and readin' a magazine whilst drivin' a car.

BT: Sometimes I put on my makeup in the...

FH: Spot them developers right away. Come drivin' up the road in on of them fancy German cars. Starts with an "M."

BT: Mercedes?

FH: Never had much use for anything German since the War. My little brother Eddie was killed. Right in Germany itself. Not even 20 years old. Some German tourists showed up here once for a tour.

BT: You give tours? Oh, that's interesting.

FH: That's one tour didn't go none too well. Janey lit into me after. Said I had to let go of the past. Called me an old coot. Had quite a row. Not about the Germans. About calling me an old coot.

BT: Your brother was in a war with Germany?

FH: Still miss Eddie. Smartest of we three boys. Hadn't of been killed, he'd be right here with me. Could use his mind right about now. Smart as they come.

BT: I took a course in college. "Wars of the 20th Century." I thought we fought a war with Japan.

FH: Jeep run off in a ditch. Drivin' a fancy officer somewhere. Nary a scratch on the officer. Even wrote us a letter. Knew a college boy while back. Had a odd name for what happened to Eddie and that officer. Nice kid, but talkin' to him you could only figure out every other word or so.

BT: Was it simile? No. Metaphor.

FH: Eddie would've had some ideas about these dang developers.

BT: You don't like developers?

FH: You know Gucci loafers? I can spot 'em at 30 paces. Like to drag them fellas into this here barn in their Guccis and take 'em down the aisle whilst milkin'. Fun to watch 'em dance around the cow plops. They'll do most anything if they think you might sign on the dotted line.

BT: Cow plops?

FH: I ask 'em all the same questions. This here barn, I say. What'll you do with it? They hem and haw around and kick their fancy shoes in the dirt and then admit they'll tear it down. Pshaw! I say back to them.

BT: They could turn it into a house.

FH: Then I say, that there stone house, built by my grandfather. I was born in that house. Along with my two brothers. Our father before us. My son grew up in that house and died in that house. What'll you do with it, I say.

BT: Your son died?

FH: More hemming and hawing. They'll tear the house down, too. Hmmm. Here I am ramblin' again. One of them Grange ladies tells me, real polite like, that I ramble. I think she's sweet on me. Now what was it you wanted, Young Lady?

BT: They said you're the last dairy farmer.

FH: The last dairy farmer. Sounds like somethin' you'd bring home from the library. Another of them Grange ladies told me I should write up my story. I told 'er that if I did, I'd call it "The Old Fart in the Milking Parlor." She sorta went off in a huff over that.

BT: I'd like to write a book some day.

FH: Tell you somethin' else, Young Lady. I'm the last Hake. When I'm done, that's all.

BT: What will happen to this farm?

FH: That there's a question drivin' these developer fellas plum wild. Got me a lawyer the other day. Young, but smart. He's got a plan for when I'm dust.

BT: What happens?

FH: Ain't sayin'. Ain't tellin' nobody. But them developer fellas won't be none too pleased. Now let's see. You're here for an interview? Hmmm. Strikes me as how you're new to this.

BT: To be honest, Mr. Hake, this is my very first one.

FH: Well, don't you worry none, Young Lady. I've done this many a time. Had a famous newspaper editor fella tell me once that I'm what you people call a perennial.

BT: A flower?

FH: First thing you do is ask me how long Hakes've been here. I tell you since the Civil War and we talk about my great grandfather. Then you ask me how many cows I've milked in my lifetime and I give you the number. How's that sound?

BT: That sounds very interesting.

FH: If you're real clever, you'll ask how many times cows have been milked by all the Hakes in the last 140 years. Be surprised how many of you young writers startin' out miss that question.

BT: Yes sir.

FH: Got you a tape recorder? Works best with a tape recorder.

BT: It's in the car.

FH: You go get it and then come on in the house for some iced tea. We'll put together one bang up interview with the last dairy farmer in Bucks County.

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