It was one of the few days of the summer Dad would shut down operations on the farm a little early.  The tractors would be put away, the milking done a little earlier then normal (just so that cows would barely notice).  Mom would have a good - but light supper ready when the cows were milked, for she knew…junk food would be consumed in bulk in a very short amount of time.

This was the time of the county fair.

Our county fair always used to seem to hit at the hottest time of summer, either late July or early August.  The sight of heat lightening as we walked from the car to midway always stuck with me.  It seemed like every year (when in reality it might have been two or three times) we were met by the sight of the natural fireworks far off in the western sky as we walked through the ancient stone gates that lead to the county fair grounds.

The fairgrounds themselves were really something.  The four main features were all products of President Roosevelt’s New Deal via the Works Progress Administration.  The front gates were all field stone.  The barn, the main exhibition building, and the grandstand were all solidly constructed by the same program.  The barn was very unique - with its three story lofty design.

As a family, we would walk through the exhibit hall, usually with a malt firmly in our hands bought from the county dairy association malt booth close to the gate.  We would look at the wheat, the corn, the vegetables, the canning.

Then off to the commercial building where businesses and organizations had their booths set up with raffles, give-aways, and promotions.  But usually it was a lot of friends and neighbors visiting and supporting each other.  Which was sometimes commical.  Seeing the County Democrats carefully watching the County Republicans booth (”Oh, Vernon just went to grab us all malts.” one of the volunteers in the Democrat booth told us when we inquired where her neighboring Republican adversary was.)

Then it was off to the barns.  The main building housed the cattle.  Steers, heifers, and cow calf pairs.  Maybe some dairy thrown in, but primarily beef.  The first annex  with the show ring held the sheep and lambs.  The west annex was all hogs.  The last annex held the balance of the dairy and the poultry.

This is when our folks would give my older brothers a handful of tickets and a dollar or two and cut them loose on the Midway to find their school friends and get caught up on the happenings of the summer.

Mom and Dad would take us younger kids around the midway.  Dad usually hung back and visited with the other fathers.  Mom made sure we had our tickets and would sometimes join us on the rides.  The scrambler and the tilt-a-whirl were the favorite of Mom, and so naturally they were the favorite of us kids too, even though I sometimes found them pretty scary.  The fear factor was taken out when you had the safety of Mom sitting next to you and it just became a thrill.

The last ride was usually the carousel was usually the last ride of the evening.  Mom and Dad would watch us go around.  We were all pretty tired and I remember thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me - was that my Mom and Dad holding hands?  Wasn’t my Dad afraid of getting girl germs?

Once they had us all rounded up, a final treat of cotton candy was passed around as we made our way back to the car as the heat lightening still shimmered in the distance…

The Knights of Columbus picnic always marked the turning point of summer.  We knew, that once the picnic came, summer was half over.

Usually, the picnic was held in the parking lot of one of the country church about eight miles east of my hometown.  There was no real lake (more like a muddy brown slough), but there was always plenty of trouble…er…fun to get into.

After church, the family would pile into the car, and after a quick stop at home to grab some food, chairs, and blankets, away we would go.

My dad wasn’t, and still isn’t, a big one for eating outside.

“I have to work outside everyday, I don’t want to have to fight bugs for my lunch.” He used to say.

And we couldn’t hardly blame him, but the picnic was something special.

Usually, it was the same group of people that showed up every year, and looking back, it is amazing how clickish things were, even amongst the grown ups.  Usually, we knew who our group was - the Bushettes, the Kettners, the Leins, the Jiriks.  There was always some cross polination, but everyone had their cores.

Once the car hit the parking lots, the same thing happened every year.  The fathers would all congregate.  They would talk farming, politics, and local gossip (of course they wouldn’t refer to it as gossip…it was local news and events…).  The mothers all went to work putting the food out, making sure the hot things stayed hot and the cold things stayed cold (I don’t think it was so much food safety as much as the fact that if anyone got sick, they knew they would be the ones cleaning it up).  And us kids made a run for our own groups.  The older kids went to the quiet of the cemetary where they could drink the beers they swiped out of the coolers.  The middle aged kids would head behind the pastor’s house.  The young kids would head for the ancient playground.

Most of the food was the same as well.  You knew the Kettner’s would bring their great pulled pork.  The Bushette’s make some of the best bars.  The Lein’s always brought the fruit.  My Mom always brought her lemon bars and her five bean hot dish.  The highlight for most people (the lowlight if anyone was trapped with them in a car the next day - the beans, dripping with brown sugar and bacon were delicious was toxic 24 hours later which begs the question, how could anything that tastes SOOOO good smell so very, very, very bad such a short time later?  I digress).

We all ate around 1pm.  Each family to their own family group (there seems something so bibilical about that).  After eating, the mothers cleaned and visited.  The fathers visited.  The kids did organized games.

The games consisted of three-legged races, sack races, wheel barrow races, and races races.  I sincerely think that they were just trying to wear us down with races.

But it never worked.

Ultimately, the few fathers that we selected to organize us kids gave up (like we knew they would), and the real games began.

The ancient playground next to the church consisted of a rotting swingset, a large slide, and a very small, but well greased, merry-go-round.  It was the merry-go-round that was the main attraction.  It was diveded into four equal pie shapes.  The older kids would select younger kids to take turns grabbing onto the middle post while three or four of them stood there and spun it as fast it could go.

This was where the nickname of the puke machine came from.

After kids were loaded down with pork, beans, bars, and punch…you just knew that one of them was going to loose it.

I have to compliment my older brothers.  They would never let them put us, their younger siblings, on the puke machine.  Either they loved us, felt responsible for us, or wanted to torture us at home in their own special way.  Either way, I don’t think any of us had the pleasure of feeling the fine meal going both ways.

About 4pm, you could tell the families that had dairy cows.  The fathers were fidgeting to get home.  Before long, the food was packed, the kids were being herded towards the cars, and the good byes were being said all around.

At the time, the event seemed so natural, so American, so part of life, that you never pictured the tradition coming to an end.  But over time, fewer families would come, there were fewer kids to try to corral, and life got busier and the event faded from existance.  But the memories of family, friends, pulled pork, baked beans and the puke machine will live on for years to come.

We looked forward to the day with anticipation.  It was kind of like Christmas time…though you always knew when Christmas was going to fall.  This day, this day of days in the summer time, was a little more elusive.

And was also a lot more work.

One day in late June or early July, usually over supper after a long day working outside.  Mom would casually say, “I called the berry farm today, they are picking.”

My Dad is a stoic individual, but you could sense the smile welling up deep down inside.  Something primordial, something good, something decent.  Something hungry.

“Oh really.”  He would reply.  “Well, I guess I really didn’t have anything for the boys and I do to do (which we all knew was a lie - Dad ALWAYS had things for us to do), I guess tomorrow might work.”

Strawberries.  Sweet.  Delicious.  Fantastic.  Scrumptious.  Delightful.  Glorious Strawberries.

Oh yes, and they are good for you too.

“Well,” we kids would say, “while we had hoped to pitch all of the manure out of the calf shed or get all of the moldy, musty hay out of in the scalding, unearthly heat of the hay barn, I guess we will suffer with the task of helping to clean and top strawberries, for the good for the family of course.”

It was hard to sleep on those nights.  Strawberries danced in our heads.

The next morning, Mom and Dad would be on the road early, leaving us kids with the chores and milking, unsupervised.  They knew we would stay in line.  They knew we wouldn’t fight.  For strawberries would be cleaned and ready for eating by tonight!

Typically, they would have to drive about forty miles to the nearest berry patch, then pick for hours on end in the early morning light, fighting off the mosquitos.

They would arrive back home about noon, with the car loaded down…with strawberries…

Typically, they would pick the berries into ice cream pails, then they would spread them out into shallow beer cases - so that the delicate berries wouldn’t be smushed.

Into the house they would come, like a hunter bringing in the kill.  Our faces would light up.  We would each grab the biggest one we could find and eat it.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Then the work began.

One person would be set to work cleaning.  Wash.  Strain.  Wash.  Strain.  Wash. Strain.  Three times each batch had to be washed.  A colander was filled, and at least two people, sometimes more were assigned the task of topping.  A potatoe peeler worked great, a knife worked if the peelers were all being used.

The washer had to strain to keep up when the toppers hit their rythme.

Mom would sort, cut, and sugar the berries.  A strawberry is good, but when you added a little sugar, the magic really happened.

The strawberries and sugar made juice.  You could use those sugared strawberries for hundreds of things.

You could freeze them and use them through the year.  You could make jelly and jam.  You could eat them with cake.  You could eat them plain, with creame, with ice cream, with milk.  Grandma used to tell stories of her Dad making strawberry wine.

By milking time, we had huge vats of strawberries in both of our refridgerators.  We milked cows, came in for a simple supper…and a lot of strawberries.

For breakfast, some sugared strawberries over Rice Krispies is fantastic.

For dinner, some sugared strawberries and fresh cream from off the top of the milk jar.

For a little lunch in afternoon, sugared strawberries and ice cream.

For supper that night all of the above.

Gradually, the strawberries came to an end. 

Mom set to working canning and freezing and we raced her to see who could put away more (her canning, our eating).

We knew strawberry season was coming to an end when Mom was making the last batches of jam.  While it warmed the house and made it uncomfortable, I know of no better smell then cooking strawberries. The sweet berry smell would fill the entire house.  She would skim the foam off the top of the cooking jam and place it in a special bowl.  Strawberry foam on crackers…

You know a food is good when even the FOAM makes your mouth water.

May 2nd.  There was no fanefare this spring.  No parades.  No speeches.  No reinactments.  Not even a cone raised in tribute.  The day past uncelebrated.

Few realized that it was the 10th anniversary of “The Great Ice Cream Run of ‘98.”

Like most Quixotic events, it started on a bar napkin.  Like other great memorable events, the Crusades, Columbus discovery of America, the American Revolution, Parachute pants - this too was to some, audatious, to some unthinkable, to others crazy.

To me, it was a good final chapter to a crazy four years in my life.

In a small college bar on the back of a cocktail napkin, the initial plans for “The Great Ice Cream Run of ‘98″ was born.

As a senior, a senior who spent more of my college time at Dairy Queen then I did at the local tavern, it seemed like the perfect send off.  Ten ice cream emporiums in ten hours.

We would start off sharpely at eleven at the Dairy Queen on University Ave, from their, procede down to the Frozen Yogurt shop, then to the Dairy Queen on the south side.  This would be followed by the A & W several blocks away.

We were just getting warmed up.

Stop #5 would be the Dairy Queen on the western edge of town.  Stop #6 would be the Mom and Pop Ice Cream Shop.  Stop #7 would be the Dairy Queen across the river.  Stop #8 would be Happy Joe’s - Pizza and Ice Cream.

We would be on the home streatch.  One Dairy Queen and one A & W left…we would celebrate with a beer…root beer…float.

I was reminded of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Lonesome Dove, as the two hero’s of that movie were discussing cutting a new cattle trail from the Mexico border up into Wyoming.  One of them states, “Hell, they’ll be writing songs about us for generations.”

This was the pinnicle.  My children and my children’s children would enter the hallowed halls of my alma mater and here the tale of the brave few that no cone could conquer, no parfait could melt their enthusiasm.

But it was about more then ice cream.  It was about comradery, it was about friendship.

All those trips to Dairy Queen were never alone.  It was with friends and fraternity brothers.  Some of the most serious, or most outlandish discussions took place in the parking lot of one of those many ice cream locations.  Problems were solved.  Fears were revealed.  Friends were made.

No hang overs, sometimes just an ice cream headache and a little bloating.

We started on time.  About fourteen hearty - and hungry - souls.  Most of them fraternity brothers, friends, and just curious folks that I had mentioned it too.

We paced ourselves.  Most had a small cone, some a Blizzard, others a parfait.

The numbers dwindled.

By stop #4, we were down to six people.  Dedicated…but ever filling…souls.

Stop #5, was the tipping point.  We were about four hours in.  The Dairy Queen in West Fargo. 

Maybe a break the final six said, maybe just a couple of hours off…lets go bowling!

I resigned myself to my fate.  No songs would be written, no children begging their parents to tell the story, no heros made that day.

Though they said the quest would go on, I knew.  I knew in my heart of hearts that the quest was over.

We bowled, we ate pizza, we talked, we laughed, we enjoyed the end of a school year.

With a bit of sadness, I realized that would be the end of an era in my life.

To those few, who stayed until the end:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that eats ice cream with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen throughout the land now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That ate with us upon St. Waldebert Day.

(My apology to Mr. Shakespeare…)

For in the end, it was not ice cream.  It was not about doing the deed, the audatious, the crazy, the quixotic…it was about friendship.

For that, I will gladly tip my cone.

We all have our heroes.

In times past, we have lionized them.  The George Washingtons, the John Adams, the Winston Churchills, the John F Kennedys, the Abraham Lincolns.

More recently, we have become disillusioned with our heroes failings.  Juicing in baseball, our statesmen leaving principles for politics, our football players getting involved with drugs, leaders of all kind getting involved in things they shouldn’t.

Our media has ripped down the once sacred veil between the privacy of the individual and the right of the general public to know about the character of the people we place upon the pedestal of life.

The general public isn’t usually happy about what they see.

A smooth talking politician may have one bad speech.  A sports hero may be pushed too hard and lash out in front of a cell phone camera.  In the age of internet, cell phone camera’s and the multimedia age, we see our hero’s with warts and all.

We generally don’t like it when our hero’s look too human.

But when it comes down to it, our hero’s - even the mythical hero’s of time past had their fair share of warts.

George Washington was very self conciense about his clothing.  He wanted to be seen as a gentlemen.  Many of the pictures that we see, he isn’t smiling - part of it is the way portraits were drawn, but part of it too was the fact that Washington hated the look of his false teeth.  You never hear about Washington’s overbearing mother or his crush on his best friends wife.  Or the letters that he sent to Congress, pleading for money and support.  You don’t hear about the rare times he lost his extremely voletile temper.  Nor the fact that he lost more battles then he won.  Instead, he is the stately, calm, cool, wise father of our country.

John F Kennedy is seen as the robust war hero, athlete from a family that pulled themselves up by the boot straps.  The master mind that saved us from the brink of war during the Cuban Missle crisis.  His one vice was his love of women.  But rarely do you here about how his family made their fortune.  Or how very sick he was as a child, or the fact that his father (a rich and influencial man) got him special permission to join the navy.  How his father pushed him hard and made the family compete against each other - playing them off one another.  How he was very alone and very scared in his decision about Cuba - it was only recently before the crisis that he had suffered some embarrassing defeats - one being the Bay of Pigs fiasco.  Instead, he is the young president of Camelot fame.

Winston Churchill was blamed for one of the worst defeats the British suffered in World War I, was cast out of political society in the 1930’s and was voted out of office after World War II (before winning the office of Prime Minister once more before his death) - but we only want to remember the man that gave the “lion his roar.”

We don’t want to know about Abe Lincoln’s politic defeats, his bouts of depression, his lack of self confidence.

In the end, it is good to have hero’s - and these hero’s must know that the world, or at least a few people - are watching them for leadership.  But we must not forget that all our hero’s have failings, all our hero’s where imperfect people that made bad decisions.

But the one thing they all had in common - they never gave up.

As much as they doubted themselves, they kept on trying.

As much as they felt they lacked education, they kept on trying.

As much as the world called them fools, they kept on trying.

The age of the hero, the age of the great leaders, statements, business person, athletes is not dead.

The crown may be tarnished and the pedestall may be a little shakey - but the hero’s live on in people that do the deeds, make decisions, push forward into the unknown and fail - but keep on trying.

That is the nature of progress.

That is the nature of being human.

I am no hunter.

Growing up on a dairy farm when milking cows had to be done morning and night - the prime hunting time for most animals - it was hard to get into the sport of hunting. 

But guns were still a part of our lives.

If you had to dispatch a wild dog or coyote, a good 22 caliber gun in the tractor cab was just the ticket.

If you had a flock of black birds descending on a field or near the feed bins, a good shot from the single barrel 12 guage shot gun got the job done.

Perhaps the sadest task, if you had a pet that was just in too much pain or that got the taste of blood - a taste that once it seemed to get it, never seemed to leave the calves or even the cows alone, the quickest, most humane way to take care of the animal was a quick - painless shot to the animal - a painful shot to the pet owner who had to pull the trigger.

Needless to say, guns were a part of growing up and gun safety was a must, even if we never took to the sport of hunting.  Gun safety training was a requirement of growing up.

After Dad sold the cows and coyotes and wild dogs were no longer a problem, I got a job at the local golf course.  Being one of the only farm boys on the grounds crew meant two things 1) some one that didn’t mind sitting on the rough mower for two days at a time (just like cutting hay!), and 2) someone that could safely use the BB gun to dispatch the many pocket gophers from the course.

Since I had three older brothers, I could even withstand the taunts from the retired teachers as they golfed each morning as I set out with the gun in hand as they would shout, “Gopher Patrol! Gopher Patrol!”

I was no hunter, but I could get the sights lined up and usually hit what I was aiming at.  Nuisance birds and a few cattle chasing coyotes had met their end at the end of my gun.  The gophers on the wide open rough on hole #6 were thinned out pretty good by the end of the summer.  Only recently I went to an international conference where their was a skeet shooting contest.  Being one of the only Americans, I did our country proud and proved to be a crack shot - winning the contest.

I can still remember walking through a sporting goods store some years back with a college friend.  I asked to see a gun off the rack and the clerk handed it too me, I eyed it up, checked the sights, checked the chamber.  I handed it back and said, “Its got a nice feel to it.”

My buddy who is a big hunter said, “I didn’t know you were a hunter?”

“I’m not,” I said, “But everyone should know how to handle a gun.”

To which he said, “You have no idea how much I respect you at this moment.”

This last weekend brought me back up to the farm where I learned about Dad’s latest plague of chipmunks.  A couple of pan traps had dispatched one of the foe (who tend to a do a fair amount of damage around the homestead), but there was still a few that were brave enough to come right up to the door and the front porch.

The BB gun, a live trap, and nearly everything else my Dad could think of had been deployed to rid the farmyard of these pests…and yet they lived.  Worse, they seemed to be taunting my poor father…

No chipmunk taunts my father.

Sunday morning as I was doing some chores, I spied one climbing into the old recliner we had moved onto our front porch to give my Dad a good - comfortable - view of the world.

I grabbed the BB gun, put a pellet into the chamber, pumped it up twenty times, and slowly opened the door.

He was nowhere to be seen…but I sensed him…

I kicked the chair…and it chirped at me.  Bingo.  I couple of more swift kicks, and I stood back.  He made a quick run for the end of the porch and freedom.

He paused only briefly at the end of porch.

But that was enough for me.  One shot to the head, and one more to make sure that the poor little fellow was out of his misery.

I proudly went into the house to proclaim my victory to my Dad.  He actually seemed a little disappointed.  While he hates the little critters, Dad himself was never a hunter and always had a hard time killing any animal.  Plus, I think he liked the challenge facing off against them himself.

The other thing that struck me is, I’m not a big fan of killing things myself.  Sometimes its a necessary thing and for the ecosystem, hunting, fishing, and trapping are good things.  But for as destructive as those little buggers can be…well, shucks, they are pretty cute.

It made me realize that hunting may not me in my blood after all.

That afternoon, I spotted another one on the porch.  I grabbed the BB gun and aimed to kill.  Because as John Wayne says, “A man’s got to do what a mans got to do.”

I may not like hunting, but it sometimes remains a necessary part of life.

My crack shot was a little off, I missed the little guy by about a quarter of an inch.

Dad seemed surprisingly forgiving, he even laughed about it a little bit as he plotted how he might set the live trap in just the right spot.

Just don’t tell him the reason I know that I missed him by a quarter of an inch is because the pellet is firmly buried in the solid plastic tire of his grill…

It was a typical Sunday afternoon.  We were all sitting around my grandmothers apartment, visiting about events in the local community, the state, the nation, and the world.  My grandmother had an 8th grade education, but had one of the keenest minds that I’ve ever encountered.

When the conversation turned to the war in Iraq which was going on at the time (the first one in 1991), I remember my older brother John, twenty one years old and ripe for the draft joking, “Well I guess if they start the draft, I will just have to move to Canada.”

My grandmother got a hard look in her eyes that I had never seen before and looked at him, and with passion in her voice and said, “Then don’t ever come back.”

We were all a little surprised at grandma’s response.  This was a grandmother who loved and cared for us.  This was a lady that we all knew, loved, and respected.  Her country meant that much to her.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

She wasn’t born a citizen of the United States, she was born in Bohemia, part of the now Czech Republic.  When she was born, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and still under a system of near fuedalism.  Freedom was what ever your local Lord would allow for you.

Her father risked it all after a hail storm to come to America.

He took a family of five, including an eight month old baby half way around the world to start a better life and seek for this mythical thing called liberty.

My grandmother’s brothers and husband fought agaist that same Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War.  Some of her nephews fought against it again in World War Two.  Her sons had served the country well in Korean comflict and through the cold war.  Her two sons served in all five branches of the military.

She had suffered too.

The years in this country were not always kind. My grandmother’s family scratched out a living in the harsh nothern plains.  She dealt with a lot of adversity.  The government wasn’t always kind either - taking a farm or two for back taxes from her relatives.

But the years and her life in this country were far better then they ever would have been had they stayed behind.  The Freedom to live as you like, to worship as you please, to educate your children, to vote and have a say in our future.

Grandma knew that freedom isn’t free, that liberty is bought with hero’s blood and toil.

She made sure that was a lesson passed on with her hard look and sharpe word, but more then anything, a love for family and country in her heart.

There were some rules that you just had to live by growing up on a dairy farm.

The first was the livestock had to be fed twice a day, regardless the weather. 

The second was pretty darn close to the first. 

The cows always - ALWAYS - had to be milked twice a day.

Another rule, not quite as unbreakable, but up there towards the top, was when hay was out in the field, it came only after the care of the livestock.

We were fortunate to have a good baler and a good FarmHand bale accumulator.  The accumulator was a device that was attached to the baler and would kick out neat packs of eight bales automatically behind the baler, then later, you could come around with a loader with a special loader and pick up the packs of bales and put them on a hay rack.

We had making hay darn near down to a science. 

Dad would start checking the hay, walking the windrows, twisting the hay to make sure it was fit - not to dry, not to wet, but just right to make a good sturdy bale that wouldn’t rot, or worse, heat to a point where it would start a fire.

Once Dad declared the hay fit, he would go off in the John Deere 3010 and the baler, the John Deere 336 for most of my baling years, and get a good hour start on my brother Jaime and me.

Jaime and I would go out, Jaime, being older, driving the loader tractor, an International 656 (commonly known as the “656″) and me on the old Farmall H (you guessed it, affectionately known as the “H”).

Each of us would be pulling a specially designed hay wagon, hand made on the farm.  A Minnesota chassis, built with care by the inmates at the Minnesota state pen, extended and fitted with the best rough cut lumber in the state.  You could fit three packs of bales, or twenty-four bales, the short way, across, and two bale lengths across.  All totaled, about 352 bales, or about seven tons of hay.

Jaime and I would pick up hay until milking time, then head back out for one more load before it got dark (and before supper).

It happened about once a year - we would head back out, about 7:30pm - just as the western horizon started to cloud up.  When we made it out into the field, Dad would stop long enough to get a quick update on the cows, then he would say - watch that weather boys as we he took a slug on his water jug and moved back to baling.

We would scurry around the field and quickly fill the racks, Jaime nimbly running the loader as I positioned the racks.  We usually fought a little less as the threatening weather moved it too.

When the last rack was full, I’d hop off the H, run over hook up the second full rack to Jaime’s tracter, we would glance at the sky, glance at each other and know - we had to get home.

Dad was already heading home, the hay too tough and the weather threatening.

Jaime would speed off with the heavier and newer 656, and I’d rush off to the little old H.

The H was a light tractor, the oldest running tractor on our farm, and the only narrow front.  She ran smooth, but with seven tons of hay, she knew she had to work and would sound it.

I’d hop on and take her right to second gear.

“Frrooooommmm, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop” the H would respond.

I’d shift to second and quickly to third.

“FRRRROOOMMMMM, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop” said the H.

I’d hit the clutch as I approached the crossing, backing off the throttle, my foot tapping the left side brake a my arms fighting with the steering wheel as I turned onto the road that ran a good one and half mile home, with the storm on my heels.

I’d gun the throttle to full speed and quickly shift to road gear as the first cold draft from the approaching storm hit my back…

“FRRRROOOMMMMM, POP, POP, SNORT, POP, POP, SNORT, SNORT, POP, POP, WEEE, POP POP” said the H with ther front wheels now bouncing off the gravel.

I’d lean forward on the metal seat like a motorcycle racer trying to reduce the wind drag and get a little more out of the old girl (which probably made little difference with seven tons of hay sticking up fifteen feet in the air behind me).

I eased back the throttle, downshifted, use the brakes to help steer her on the drive way and made for the open shed doors where Dad and Jaime were waiting to close them behind me just as the raindrops started to fall.

“You didn’t have her in road gear full open did you” Said Dad over the roar of the rain on the machine shed roof.

“Of course not, I know better then that.” I said, as I patted the old girl on her gas tank…

Summer Time

For a farm kid from the Midwest, summer time was more then just a three month vacation.

It meant real work

The start of summer, while officially landing on June 20th, really started on Memorial Day weekend.  By June 20th, we had better have had at least one crop of hay in the hay shed, the corn had better be coming out of the ground, and the wheat had better we waving in the wind.

Summer time meant checking fences, working cattle, making sure that the last of the cows had no problems calving, work on weaning those calves from the cows and move the older calves from drinking milk replacer to a steady solid diet of grains, hay, and water.  It meant watching the pastures to make sure the cows were getting enough hay.  It meant herding them around the slough next to the house so that they could munch on the fresh green grass kept fresh by the slough that rarely went dry.

Summer time also meant helping in the garden.  By June 20th, hoeing the corn and potatoes and plucking radishes from the ground were almost daily occurances.  Endless pulling of weeds and tilling between the rows started about that time too.  It also usually meant the first of the early peas and beans.  It meant sitting on the porch swing on a warm summer night and shelling the peas to bring into Mom where she would wash and freeze them.

Summer time also meant having a little fun. 

It was Sunday afternoon picnics - the Knights of Columbus picnic, or the Homemakers picnic, or a spontaneous visit by neighbors or relatives.  It was playing with friends.  It might be one of the rare visits to Uncle Frank and Aunt Marie or Uncle Omer and Aunt Julie’s cabin at the lake.

Summertime was the time of long nights.  Of working hard all day and coming in for a late supper just as the sun was going down.  Of our family sitting around the table in the warm summer nights, laughing and joking about the day, eating my mother’s wonderful cooking and usually topped off with a big dish of ice cream.  It was about sitting on the porch when the house was just to warm, about us boys sleeping in the living room to avoid the heat in our upstairs bedroom in the 1/2 story above the kitchen.

It was those quiet nights with the singing of the frogs and blissful beauty of the earth at rest.

That was a real summer vacation.

Going home usually requires a little bit of elbow grease.  My Dad keeps a pretty clean house overall.  Dishes are usually clean, or at least in the dishwasher, the floors are clean, their are usually few cloths in the hamper, and he does get a little bit of help in making sure the floors are mopped and vacuumed once a month or so.  But usually there is something that needs to be done - but the dishes from the sink in the dishwasher, wash some of the bedding, scrub some pots, dust something.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

I was doing some of those mundane chores this last weekend.  I cleaned off some of the things off the drier.  I made supper.  I was cleaning some of the dishes out of the sink.

A reached over, grabbed the clasp on the dishwasher, opened it slightly, and darn near fainted.

Gagged would probably be the more correct term.

I quickly shut the dishwasher and ran for a corner of the kitchen where I could either get a little fresh air, or quietly die from the fumes that I was sure was eating at my stomach lining.

“What’s wrong with you?” My Dad asked as he shouted over my dry heaves.

“There is something in the dishwasher that doesn’t smell to good.” I said.

“I rinsed everything I put in there.” Stated Dad flatly.

I walked back over to the dishwasher, at least prepared this time and slowly opened it, half expecting to see a dead skunk carass, rinsed perhaps, but decomposing none-the-less.

The smell was definately still there.  Although now it was more like rotten eggs.  But Dad was right too - everything looked thoughly rinsed.  Until I turned over those small tins from the poached egg pan…and saw the nasty remnants of a newly growing egg staring back at me.

“Did you rinse those poached egg tins Dad?”

“I forgot to grease them, the big chunks of egg wouldn’t come off.  It can’t smell that bad.”  He said angrily as he walked into the kitchen.

The angry look of a man that was being doubted changed to one of unpleasant surprise, followed by disgust, followed quickly by embarrassed understanding…

“You know, it is a nice night for a ride around the block.” He said as he made a bee line for the door.  “Lets get out of here.”

I quickly put the tins to soak in some hot soapy water, opened some windows, and was out in the car with Dad as we pulled out of the drive way.

“That really didn’t smell so bad” Dad said, then he followe up with  “But I sure am glad you found them and not me…”