This is a story told to me at a campfire …

Like his father and grandfather before him, the farmer continued to work the land. He was alone now. He didn't need to work the land, it was just that he'd done it all his life.None of his children or their children had wanted to follow in the footsteps of the previous generations, and that saddened him. Every Saturday night, when a week's good, hard work was done, the farmer liked to sit on his porch to watch the sunset.As the sun went down on Saturday nights, throwing shadows of planking on the dirt inside the riding ring in the pasture, the farmer always found himself thinking about the children, and the choices they had made. After sunset, he liked to go inside to play Big Band tunes from long ago on his old stereo.The years passed, adding up steadily like the furrowed rows he made over and over in the rich soil. As the seasons of crops rotated through the land, he found himself coaxing life out of smaller and smaller plots.One day he realized he had brought the big tractor to a stop and was just sitting there. Morning sounds began to crop up out of the sudden quiet, and he found he liked the absence of mechanical noise. Right then he resolved that he'd continue to farm, but return to the simpler ways of his grandfather he'd sell the tractor and buy a plow horse.Down at the farm equipment and supplies store he scanned the ads pinned in the entry doorway. There was only one for a plow horse. He was disappointed at his first sight of the old white horse, but the seller convinced him that the horse was an honest worker, gentle, and in good shape at 17 years old.The farmer found he really enjoyed plowing in the old ways. There grew a companionship between the farmer and the old white horse, and he found himself talking to the horse at length as they worked.At some point an odd thing began happening. Every Sunday morning, he'd find the top rail to the gate of the riding ring on the ground. One Saturday night, he decided to stay on the porch, hidden in the shadows, as the Big Band music played.Just after sunset the old white horse approached and jumped over the gate into the riding ring, knocking down the rail with a back hoof. The farmer watched as the horse began to move, seemingly in time with the music, trotting with a high step in place, leaping with an arched back to hang suspended in the air.That night he realized that his old plow horse had once been one of the famous performing white Lipizzan stallions. And he also realized that he'd never seen the horse for anything more than what he was in front of the plow, never thought about what he might have inside.After that, the farmer left the riding ring gate open on Saturday nights. Some of his friends began joining him on the porch each week to watch the horse perform.It still makes his eyes sting to remember the first time the men gathered there clapped at the end of a song, and how the horse had swung its head to the sound and stood, quivering, before prancing in a sort of victory lap, chin tucked, its tail a high-set plume.He'd been wrong to begrudge the children for their choices, he now knew. Their roots were in the soil, but their talents were elsewhere. The horse had taught him that sometimes it was best to leave gates open, to allow others the freedom to fulfill their heart's desire.Good luck, graduates! Follow your dreams.