Well, it is finally spring time. The season of those dreadful muddy roads. The time of year even those engineered roads heave, crack and break all apart. The winter chores were just about the only rest a farmer gets. If there is ever such a thing. The tasks to create a working farm has now arrived.
Now Gramps had a wicked sense of humor. Even though he was well into his 80’s he still liked to scare Gram right out of her classy work clothes. I stopped to visit and she was watching one of those animal shows on the television. Along came a whole bunch of snakes. Well ole Gramp reached up with his cane and just touched her lightly on the neck and hollered “snake”. Gram just about jumped out of her chair and left the television. She was never a woman to use foul language, but her face surely showed it.
When I arrived for the day, Gramps noticed I was wearing rubber boots. He quickly decided it was time to clean out from under the barn. This is not just grab a broom and shovel to sweep out the old hay. It was hay and grain at one time. The animals during the winter had processed this and it all ended down under the barn. Sort of the same as working with politics. They take the good stuff and leave the smelly stuff for us locals to shovel.
My job today was to start the tractor for Gramps. This seemed an easy task for the day. I had learned long ago the correct way to crank start the old tractor. When you want to give it that big yank for starting, you pulled up on the crank. If you were pushing down and it backfired, you may need a new shoulder. I got the tractor started without any problems and the real job was about to begin.
Gramp wouldn’t let anyone else run the tractor so it appeared to be an easy day for me. But old Gramp was slow on pushing the clutch in and continually stalled the tractor. I now had to climb over that huge pile of manure and yank on the crank. He would stall the tractor almost every time he got a bucket full of manure. I ended up staying right close to that pile of manure.
I kept thinking this is the one time one could take that political stuff coming out of Washington D,C. spread it all around and actually do some good. I had experienced what it was like when placed between folks like that. My mistake was always trying to be brief and telling the truth. This surely painted a target on my back. There was one time as a production technician I did make a wrong judgement call. Boy the Indian Chiefs gathered and were ready to burn me at the stake. When I was called into the meeting, the first thing I did was admit my mistake. I let all those high level chiefs know I had already corrected my error and things were fine now. One could almost see the wind leave their sails. This only increased their desire to burn me any way they could.
You see, I was just a country boy placed amongst a lot of know it all engineers. But I was quite used to handling a lot of manure. Working around the farm, one learns what is right and good for the farm. Thankfully, one day, I realized this was not the job for me. I was trained in my younger days to tell the truth. I left that job and became a construction foreman. There was a certain style of language one has to use as a construction foreman. I liked that a lot better. Ken White cob mountainman
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
