Sooner or later, everybody pines for the good old days.

For example, a preschooler who is waxing nostalgic might say, “Things were better back in the day. All of my meals were brought to me, and I didn’t have to bother with this nonsense of sitting at the table. I didn’t even have to get out of bed to use the toilet! Yep, the world was a much better place when I was two.”

I’m showing my age here, but I miss the time when it was common for area farmers to raise flax.

Back in the day you could go for a drive on a summer morning and see what appeared to be lakes that ran up over the tops of hills. It was as if a gravity-defying body of water had been conjured out of the ether.

But it wasn’t miraculous water; they were fields of flax.

When I was a teenager Dad gave me a small field to farm in lieu of that summer’s wages. I decided to plant flax on those eight acres.

The crop turned out extremely well despite my total lack of experience with raising flax. This taught me the truth of the expression, “Better to be lucky than to be good.” Flax earned a spot in my heart, and not just because of the visual delight of its lovely blue flowers but also because of the financial delight of green in my pocket.

It warmed my heart earlier this year when my dairyman neighbor Marv Post mentioned that he planned to plant 30 acres of flax. I drove past Marv’s place the other morning and it appeared that a 30-acre rectangular lake had been conjured out of thin air.

I stopped to examine the flowers. They were just as I remembered. Each blossom had five delicate sapphire petals with a saffron pentagon at its center.

I asked Marv what had motivated him to plant flax. After all, there isn’t a local market for the diminutive oilseed nowadays.

“I had never raised flax before and just wanted to try it once,” Marv said.

So, this isn’t an exercise in practicality.

What do you plan to do with the flax after you harvest it?

“It would be difficult to mill it down enough to make it into feed for our dairy cows,” Marv said. “But I bet flax would be good for them and would give them nice, slick coats. I remember how Dad would use a coffee can to measure out flax meal for our cows when I was a kid.”

This field of flax sure is pretty.

“I think that it has raised our land values substantially because we now have oceanfront property. I told the neighbor lady that their real estate taxes will likely go up because they now have an ocean view from their front window.”

I would agree that the field sort of looks like the ocean, especially when it’s rippled by a breeze.

“I think we could charge high school seniors a sitting fee for letting them have their senior photos taken in our flax. But they would have to get here early in the morning. The blossoms begin to open at sunrise, but the petals drop off by noon. I’ve noticed that the flowers follow the sun as it travels across the sky.”

An expression I heard when I was growing up was that flax runs like water.

“I’ve been told that your truck has to be waterproof and that you will still likely lose half the load on the way to town. I’ve also heard that flax straw is so tough that you will break the head off your sickle in the first few yards. I guess we’ll see.”

Speaking of which, what do you plan to do with the straw?

We can both recall how there used to be ginormous stacks of flax straw bales scattered throughout the country. I don’t think anyone in the area buys flax straw anymore.

“We are going to put it up in small square bales and give our grandsons Zach and Michael the opportunity to throw flax straw bales. I was paid a penny a bale to throw bales when I was a kid, and I think we should give Zach and Michael the same opportunity to receive that wage.”

I bid Marv goodbye, and as I drove away I saw that his wife, Joy, had joined him in their flax field. Zach and Michael were holding up their phones and snapping photos of their grandparents.

It’s clear that Marv didn’t raise flax for the money. He did it for the memories.

— Jerry’s book, Dear County Agent Guy, is available at http://Workman.com and in bookstores nationwide