You know, seeing the difficult things in my life crammed into a few paragraphs, makes my life sound like it was a real sad experience. Yah, there were times but most people by the time they get to my age (67 in October) have had their share of difficulties and sadness. If you were to count the months that were mentioned in that post, they would seem nothing compared to the total of months lived that were happy and normal.
Thanks for your complimentary comments but there was nothing great about me in that story. I am an "only child" who was blessed to have been brought up by Christian parents who demanded hard work, responsibility, and respectability of me. My father's parents lived across the street so I was very outnumbered. They all presented to me a wonderful example of people who are excellent roll models in their family, community, and church. Being farmers, they were always there, maybe out in the fields but always there.
So if they were out in the fields of the rented farm, then I probably was too. My earliest memories of working were of driving a bulldozer that was hauling a trailer in the corn field when there had been a very wet fall. We couldn't get the horses in the field so everyone in the family, women included took a scythe and they cut down the cornstalks and layed them on the trailer. My job was to climb up on the bulldozer and push a lever that put it in gear and moved it ahead in a straight line. Imagine!!! I was maybe 5 years old.... Nowadays they would have been arrested for endangering a little kid like that. That year they sold the horses and bought a tractor.
I can still remember sitting on the barnyard fence by the barn watching the huge flatbed truck with the stake racks going down the long driveway past the house with the horses in it.
Not long after that we bought a farm that is still in the family today. My earliest memories of that was in the spring after the fields had been worked up for planting was being out in the back field picking up stones and putting them on the trailer. It was my job to get on the big old John Deere and move it ahead. By that time I was old enough, probably 7, to know how to operate it totally. I was scared to death of the flywheel that didn't have a safety cover on it. Scared too of the power take off doodad (under a protective cover) that stuck out behind and could catch your clothes in it and kill you. Learned early on to be sooo careful of machinery with moving parts. It's a wonder any farm kid lives to grow up. LOL.
Once my uncle David had gone over to a piece of property about a half mile away to work up a field. They had never done that field before. It had a very steep hill on it and him being an teenager didn't use his head and got part way across the side hill and began to realize the tractor was about to tip over sideways. He didn't know what to do so climbed on the tractor tire that was on the high side and sat there until Grandma realized he hadn't come home for supper. So they went to see where he was and there he was perched on the tire. I guess they hitched another tractor and chain to the high side of the tippy one and got it out of there. After that my dad or grandpa did that field.
It used to "rot my sox" that grandpa would hire a neighbor boy to drive tractor at times when we were running two, but never paid me to drive.
Speaking of Grandpa. His daddy had died when Grandpa was very young. He was the oldest of 3 boys and had so much responsibility put on him. Somehow it shaped him into a driven, strict, rather grumpy , what I thought was, old man. After the milking was done, it was my job to hose down the "milking parlor". It was rather fun to do. I got to play in the water while still making the place nice and clean. I took pride in doing a good job.. One day he came in and pointed out that some of it wasn't done yet. As I hadn't gotten to that spot yet and knew it, I didn't take kindly to his comments. I yelled, "Damn it, do it your self then." and threw the hose down. I was maybe 16 then. I turned on my heel, climbed up by the stanchions and exited where the cows went out because I didn't dare go past him. I went home and told my mom exactly what had happened because I was sure he'd tell my parents the story. Imagine swearing at your Grandpa!! Especially your Christian Grandpa whom I had never heard swear in my life. You know----he never said anything about it to my folks. LOL.
Where'd all that come from?? Got me remembering.
