Memory from S

I had a nice visit from brother S and his wife T this past weekend. He tells me that he remembers some things a bit differently, but thinks I'm mostly accurate. But, several times he made a point of saying that I was spoiled rotten. Actually, I really can't argue with him. Compared to the work Dad had them doing at a very early age, and their more constant exposure to Dads temper....I suppose I was lucky. As the only girl and the oldest, I can't deny that I would have seemed like "Daddy's little girl" to them. I probably was. But he also held me up to a very high standard and I would have died rather than disappoint either of my parents. I had chores to do in the barn. Light chores. And I had to help with hay baling. I had to help with opening corn fields so the corn picker could get in. This consisted of hand picking the first rows next to the fence. I had to get up in the grain bins after each load to push grain (oats and wheat) aside for the next load. We had to this while it was loading too and the dust would choke you. Same with the silo when it was filled. I especially remember each of those chores, because hay baling is hot and dirty. And, I've never liked being in the sun. Heat makes me feel drained, weak, dizzy....just miserable. Still does, in fact as I get older, it's worse. Being stuck in the hay mow, pulling the bales away from the loader always made me dizzy. I only had to keep them from blocking the loader, there was always someone stronger to stack them. But, when I did any heavy lifting I would get weak and dizzy. (I'll tell you about the aneurysm in my head that was causing all this later. We didn't know anything was wrong with me then and Dad would get angry and call me lazy when I couldn't keep up) Hand picking corn, with or without the gadget that fit our hands and hooked the ear, always tore my hands to shreds. And it always came early in the school year. I hated the way my hands looked when I started a new school year. And now it's been proved that grain shaft and dust causes damage to our lungs, so I know why breathing was so hard when we worked in the grain bins. Country life was fun, but it was a lot of hard work too. And, I did have the easy jobs. J and S grew up working the fields, keeping the stock fed and safe and all the multiple jobs like cleaning out barns and fixing fences. Hard dirty work made harder by a Father who expected them to anticipate and know everything before they were mature enough to do so. Dad had an awful temper when he thought you could do better...and we could always do better. We all three went running when he yelled. So, I did try to stay in the house with Mom every chance I got. And Mom helped me stay there as much as she could. It's just that on a farm, everyone has to pitch in to get things done. Mom was stuck doing Dads assignments too. I've just remembered an example of Dads yelling. We three kids were helping load stock for the stockyards to sell. This entailed sorting the animal or animals for sale and getting them on the truck. We had a big stock truck and a loading shoot. The truck was backed up against the shoot. The shoot was a narrow flat to the ground, and then raised solid wood structure. There was a narrow fenced lead to the shoot next to a grain building so the animals could be forced up the shoot and into the truck once you herded them into the lead. Forcing them meant an electric (battery, just a small jolt) prod, or before we had that we had to twist their tails or poke them to make them move forward. The last animal had been loaded and the truck door closed. Dad had gone back to the barn, but we three tarried outside. Then we heard Dad let out a cantankerous bellow and we ran. Arriving at the door just in time for another bawling bellow, we saw the bull making all the noise. It hadn't been Dad! But, without a word we had all thought it was, and had run before we could get in trouble. Standing at the barn door we got the giggles and it's probably a good thing Dad wasn't near to ask us what the laughter was about. (Years later I told Dad once that he had mellowed a lot since we were kids. He told me, "No, I just don't have to deal with you kids anymore.")

I want to tell you a story that S relayed to me during his visit this weekend. I knew some of the results but hadn't heard all of it. I guess country kids can cause trouble and get into it. Boys anyway. I never did anything like this. They were about 15 and Mom and Dad had decided we were old enough to be left alone. They went to the Chicago Stock Expo and cattle show with friends for a weekend. I went out for the evening on a date. When I got home, the house was a disaster. The boys had a party. With beer. I tried to clean up what I could, but I was mad at them and wasn't worried about them getting caught, so I only straightened up a bit and wiped up what was sticky. When Mom returned to the house she kept finding watermelon seeds. On top of window sills. In light fixtures. On top of the cabinets. Stuck to curtains and walls. She found beer caps down in the kitchen stove burners. Dad discovered bullet holes (22's) in the tin roof of the garage. They had been shooting at birds. So, they got caught and were in big trouble. But, it would have been a whole lot worse if Mom and Dad had known what S told me this weekend. A car load (too many actually for the car) of drunk farm boys had gone over to a neighbor, who I must tell you more about sometime because this woman was a witch, and they threw a cherry bomb in her bedroom window. Her house was falling down and she and her retarded son lived in the chicken coop. I'm afraid I did know how much the neighborhood (and others) tormented this woman. Anyway, these boys parked the car, not one of ours, at the end of the drive and snuck up and threw the cherry bomb. S says he stayed in the car because he had delt with Mrs. P before and knew she was crazy. S says before the boys could run back to the car, she came out of the chicken coop in her nightgown, with long hair blowing straight out in the wind (it hung to her ankles) and lifted her shotgun and started shooting. The boys made it to the car, but the back of B. P's car was shot up and he had to go home to his parents and explain the buckshot in the back of their car. I don't know how they managed to keep that from our parents. But I never heard it before. I need to talk to my brother again. I'm sure he has other stories he could tell me. Nest time I'll try to remember more about our neighborhood witch, Mrs.P. One story comes to mind right away. She was crazy. Even before the kids tormented her. I stayed away because I was afraid of the retarded son. He was even more scary then Mrs. P.