Little Gaylen Stories

My Daddy only whipped me three times in my life and each time he taught me a great lesson.

The first time I was counting the stars out-loud while Mom and he were forking silage from the pit into the truck for a late night rendezvous with hungry cow mommies. Time and time again I left out the number seventeen... it did not exist in my world. I was restarted at one and coached through sixteen. I think Dad's hand stung more from frustration than my little rear did. He did eventually teach me not to mess with the order that some wise old sage back in the annals of history laid out for us to suffer with. I think it is hereditary though, my own son had a little problem with seventeen!

The second time, Dad taught me respect for fine tools, almost church-like reverence. I liked his vernier calipers, the most precision measuring device he owned. I held the tail against my belly and rolled the little thumb roller back, buckling the little depth measuring wire into a tight arc. He was twiddling a full strand of baling wire as a temporary cure for some machine at the time he spied my dilemma and I am glad he dropped it before he taught me to pay attention when dealing with tools! The third time had to do with my sisters shoes and I will go no further.

Mother taught me well also, she made my clothes but not always to my taste so she taught me to make them myself. My wife still has a pair of those plaid seersucker pants with plaids matched on seams and pockets in the cedar chest.

Mom saved cardboard from cereal boxes and we freehand laid out something similar to those punch-out, fold and tab-together farm sets, only I liked airplanes, so I had them in 3-D and color (crayola). I built a couple car models but my love was airplanes so I built as many warbirds as we could afford, mostly with little parental help.

My parents could afford books. The relatives (they were all rich in my eyes) helped a lot at birthdays and holidays, usually with books. Most of the Important things in the world are written somewhere in a book or magazine. I never had a single comic book but I had the Golden Encyclopedia, a world travel set for children, War history books, and true story books of adventure in foreign lands written by missionaries in their retirement.

I was fascinated with Ham radio and eventually bought a Heathkit Amateur receiver kit. I completed it after finding a couple of gray spots in the assembly manual and calling the company on them. We collected anything and everything. It was free entertainment and total fascination. I specialized in snake skins, bird feathers, rocks, bugs, and butterflies.

Mother and I, later in life received quite a bit of public attention over our feather collection. We had crest, breast, wing, and tail feathers from most of the local bird population represented in a 3-ring binder. We never killed a single bird. Most of them were found dead along the road just before they smelled too bad. Some were found by neighbors and friends.

A Red Tailed Hawk was delivered by the rural electric workers one day. It had become entangled in the wires and put the whole area out of power for a day. I think Mom may still have a few dead birds in the freezer.

I caught cottontails and jackrabbits while disking wheat stubble after harvest. I kept them in a box in the house. When they got too big to stay in the box we turned them loose and unfortunately one of the 28 resident cats had meat for supper. Tame rabbit must taste good too! I loved to burn the trash, an unheard of thing in suburbia. On the farm burning beats wallowing in it and most of the ashes blow away. Where "away "is, nobody on the farm has ever thought about! Must be into the "next county" where "the sandy ground goes if you plow it in the fall"! The fire made most things crisp and light but it made some things mushy and liquid and that fascinated me (as plastics still do today).

When I was in third grade a buddy and I got scrubbed with dry paper towels and threatened with use of a wire brush. We were scrounging the small graphite rods remaining in the cool incinerator on the playground from all the pencils that somehow get in the there. The fire never hurt the inside of a pencil a bit, but just try to get the lead out without a fire! I still like to play the results of fire in our company's foundry.

I had a bicycle, a faded, red J.C. Higgins 24 inch. It had extra-heavy inner tubes full of oozy goop to combat the rampant goats-head sandburs. I USED that bicycle. I carried two buckets of water at a time, riding no hands, to quicken the job of watering my calves.

I made Parochial Academy tuition by bucket feeding holstein steer calves purchased from local Amish Dairymen. I staked them around the farmstead on a 20 foot chain and they mowed the grass for me. I learned of the reality of business here as Dad got paid for the pasture and feed bill at the going rate.

Home There wasn't much left to show for all the work I had done after I paid interest, feed bill, and the initial purchase price after I sold the calves. Somehow past work has less value than that impending. One can capitalize on that fact if he will.

I dreamed of a bike with a motor. One day I applied appropriate noises with my hands on the horns of one of my half grown (less than male) calves. I sat astraddle his bony back, but could not "STEER" very well. He gave me the rub on the nearest barbed wire fence, cutting 3 ragged kerfs through my jeans into my right leg.

I finally talked Dad into the idea that a Motorbike would be an "asset" around the place - gas was getting expensive. He bought half and I bought half. When we bought the tags it was odd-cents and I got controlling interest! I loved that Bike! I balanced a flat front tractor tire on the seat, then sat up on it all the way to town. I got it fixed and headed back to the field amid headwags and stares. I clamped down diggers, tamper, shovel, and 3 posts in a burlap bag in the same way to repair fence that was out of reach of the pickup because of wet ground.

The highlight of my biking was rounding up and driving the cattle. Dad loved his horses and we had a kind of competition of who could do the best job in all situations. He bested me in this but I am sure his horse appreciated the sweat I saved her. This is how:

We rented this low-lying pasture that had a creek running through it. The creek divided the pasture completely about one third from the back of it. There was no "good" place to cross the small creek on the bike and this vexed me as the long legged horse had no problems.

A few cows always lived on the other side of the creek. At roundup time the creek had to be dealt with. I dreamed up this idea utilizing one spot in the creek where no water actually flowed above the ground but it was wide and watercress grew there. I figured that a running start would give me enough water-ski action and flotation that I could make it across. Dad warned me to let him deal with the cows on the other side but I was determined.

I backed up and let her fly, hitting the cress at about 35 standing up and leaning back to keep the front wheel light. I might as well have hit a brick wall. The bike went about 5 feet into the muck and stopped. I continued and when my feet hit the handlebars, I went upside down.

The momentum drove me about waist deep, headfirst into some of the richest farmland muck I have ever tasted. I fought my way out of it and there was Dad on his steed on the bank trying not to fall off from laughing "with" me! He even offered to toss me the lariat to pull the bike out. I probably should have accepted because the cress had wound itself around the rear wheel so tight I had to unbolt it to get it out!

My Sophomore year in high school I built a steel pipe gate and learned to weld. That summer Dad sharpened my skills hard facing all the chisel shovels for the season. Later dad bought enough steel gates from a factory to build portable corrals at two of our places. Dad always had enough money to snatch up a bargain. Maybe farming was somewhat profitable in that respect. A bargain might cost $5 or $5000 but it was usually a 10:1 value. Dad never bought anything on speculation or because it was good merchandise. He only bought junk if he needed it or wanted it.

Dad got a lot of things for free just by being there at the right time. We hauled off used bridge timbers when the county rebuilt many of the wooden bridges in our community. My job at 8 years old was to drive the spikes out with a hammer and a punch. He got a few miles of the poles and cross arms from the telephone company when they buried all the lines a few years ago. I guess it is instinctive that we are packrats as he still has most of it. What he has used made the effort worth it.

The farmstead has corrals made and repaired with bridge plank and railroad ties. Oil field pipe graces most fence corner braces. He got tuned to this guy who wrecked old buildings and acquired some 10 inch pipes poured full of concrete. When he sets those in the ground they will be there until the earth ends! Nobody wanted to haul them off, they were so heavy.

Dad always over killed on his engineering but he only figured he would live long enough to do it once. The feed bunks he built as a young man are still in daily use. They are made of common lumber but are strapped together with bolts and iron. Nails are like pegs you hold a tent up with, you drive them with the idea of them coming out soon. The feed bunks periodically get the contents of a tractor crankcase liberally applied to them and they are far from rotten.

To be continued...