(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 6-8-2014)
People
are often surprised when they find out that I grew up on a dairy
farm. Apparently, I just don't seem the agricultural type.
And
at times during my childhood, I certainly didn't want to be. A small
family farm was a 24/7/365 proposition. Dairy cattle don't take
vacations. And when you're a sole proprietor like my father, you
can't afford to hire someone to do the milking and the chores for a
week. My father's yearly vacation was generally a single day, when
someone else milked the cows and he accompanied my uncles to
Arlington Park to play the ponies.
We
farmed 141 acres, and my adolescence included chores like hauling
milk pails, stacking hay bales and shoveling feed. Like the dour
farmer in Grant Wood's painting, I used a pitchfork...and once
managed to spear my toe with it. And then there was manure, lots and
lots of manure. We scraped it, shoveled it, spread it, walked through
it, and sometimes wore it.
Of
course, there was an aroma that accompanied said product, and that
was one of the embarrassments of my youth. I still remember one night
that I was out with friends after milking the cows, when they
informed me that my hair reeked of barn odor. The horror...the
horror.
Those
were the things I focused on when I was young. What I didn't
appreciate at the time, and didn't realize until years later, were
the life lessons I was learning from my parents. In retrospect, they
were more valuable than anything I picked up in a classroom.
One
lesson was teamwork and dedication. Dad and Mom were a strong team.
Dad ran the farm, and my mother was the ultimate farm wife and his
full partner. He took care of the physical farm work as well as the
business and accounting, and she took care of the meals, the kids and
the house, as well as jobs like plucking and cleaning chickens and
washing and sanitizing milking machines. When the kids had all left
the nest, this woman who never had a driver's license learned to work
a tractor so she could help in the fields. It was a beautiful
relationship. She was the Oates to his Hall, even when they were
haulin' oats.
We
also learned about providing for your family through hard work and
sacrifice. Dad toiled and labored every day, even when he was sick
and hurting. Combing through his tax forms after he died, I was
shocked at how little that work actually paid him. He had to be
frugal, yet we never wanted for anything. And somehow, he saved and
invested so wisely that my mother, widowed at 58, has not had to work
a single day in the 29 years since his death.
Dad
knew farming was tough, and he could see that the future of family
farms was not bright. So he encouraged my brother and I to not follow
in his footsteps, and we complied with his wishes. Thus, we are the
first Lyke generation in at least two centuries – and possibly more
– to not make our living providing food. If he had his own wish, it
would have been a generation earlier. Dad wanted to go to college and
study ag science. But despite being class valedictorian, a snafu with
required high school courses cost him the college scholarship he had
earned and desperately needed. He made sure that would not happen
with his children; he saved and paid for our college education.
Our
farming life is far, far back in the rear view mirror now, but I
think about it often. I sometimes wish I could revisit those years
and relive them with the wisdom of age. I would whine less, work
more, ask a lot. And be much, much more grateful for the examples
being set for me.
