Return of the Farm Boys

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, Beloit Shopping News and Walworth County Sunday, 10-5-2015)

The memories came flooding back as my brother and I examined the 65-year-old Allis-Chalmers WD farm tractor on display at the Rock River Thresheree.

It had been a long time since I had seen one of those, but everything was just as I remembered from the pair of WDs we used on our farm. The choke and the starter underneath the steering column. The hand crank on the front. The toolbox attached to the inside of the left fender, which served as a perfect seat for a young passenger.

One thing not present that I vividly recalled was the smell of my dad's tractor. The steering wheel contained an aroma that is difficult to describe, almost like a combination of burnt rubber and oil. And suddenly, that odor from 35 years ago was fresh in my mind.

People are surprised when they find out that my childhood was spent on a dairy farm. My life since high school certainly doesn't reflect that background. Advertising sales, writing and community theater are a far cry from driving manure spreaders and carrying milk pails. Neckties were rarely worn with green seed corn caps.

It was a life that I have come to appreciate far more now than when it was my daily reality. As the baby of the family, my siblings were all a decade or so older and were out of the house when I was still young. In effect, I was an only child, and a pretty spoiled and bratty one at that.

When my siblings went to school, our neighborhood was still dominated by family farms. By my childhood, things were starting to change. Subdivisions were creeping in, and my closest school friends were not the offspring of farmers. Their lives were different. They took summer vacations and their hardest chores seemed to be picking up their room or drying the dishes. Meanwhile, farm kids were expected to help in the barn and in the fields. Rather than truly understanding the sacrifices my parents made to keep a roof over our head, resentment crept in. I am not proud of my behavior or attitude in those days; it's a regret that haunts me.

So my trip to the Thresheree was more than just a day spent for entertainment. It was a day to reconnect both with my farming past and with my older brother, with whom my ten year gap seems not nearly as long as it used to.

Naturally, the tractors that caught our attention first were the ones similar to those we grew up with: the Allis-Chalmers, the IH 560, the old Farmall. My brother pointed out a John Deere model B my uncle once owned, a 2-cylinder nicknamed the “Johnny Popper” because of its distinctive sound.

We marveled at older, early 20^th Century models that were astonishingly large, resembling steam railroad locomotives more than farm machinery.

Always present in our minds with these beasts, old or new, is the danger factor. We both knew about that all too well. While working in the hay fields with my father one day, he barely escaped serious injury – or possibly death - when his pants leg got caught in the power take off shaft between the tractor and the baler. The machinery ripped off his pants, leaving him straddling the shaft in his underwear, boots, and unbelievably, the belt around his waist. Bolting from the hay wagon to the tractor to kill the ignition was the fastest dash in the history of my life.

That was just one chain in the acres of information my brother and I shared that day. He inquired about my memories and offered his. We compared notes and told stories the other hadn't heard before. It was almost like we grew up on the farm in different eras, like a TV show that changes characters over time. He was Trapper John, I was B.J. Hunnicutt.

Sitting and watching a parade of antique tractors go by, a Simon and Garfunkel lyric came to mind.

“Old friends/sat on their park bench like bookends...”

Giving It Up For Vacation

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 6-30-2015)

My father was a dairy farmer, the type of one-man operation that has all but disappeared from our area. From the time of his honeymoon to his retirement nearly 37 years later, he averaged one day of vacation a year. Often, his lone day off would be a trip with my uncles to play the ponies at Arlington Park. My mother rarely received even that limited respite from her responsibilities as farmer's wife and its daily regimen of cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. Any leisure time my parents afforded themselves needed to fall between the morning milking and the evening milking. Their bosses were literally bossies; four or five dozen Holsteins who dictated the work schedule.

 

When I think about my parents' lives, it makes me all the more grateful to have a job that allows me to take vacation, and that we have the opportunity to use that time to create family memories. My wife and I and our two college-age children recently made the long drive out west to visit all five of Utah's spectacular national parks.

I've come to think of vacations as more than sight-seeing tours. They have become the mental equivalent of a cleanse, a detox for the soul. Like a Lenten Season Catholic, I give up things. This year's list was longer than usual: work e-mail, Facebook, caffeine, soda and, um, shaving.

 

Shaving aside, these took some determination. Not checking my work e-mail – and doing actual work – can be a challenge for me. The urge is strong to make sure all is going smoothly with the job that finances these trips. I've written proposals from log cabins Up Nort' and responded to ad agency inquiries standing by the Hollywood sign. But the point of this trip was to be present with my family, consumed by nothing except our time together and the amazing works of nature around us.

 

There are ways to break habits, and as Occam's Razor states, the simplest solution is usually the right one. Once upon a time, I had a tendency to spend weekend afternoons woofing down an entire package of Double Stuf Oreos. At some point I realized that, gee, if they aren't in the house, I can't eat them. So I stopped bringing them home from the grocery store. Likewise, to ensure there would be no succumbing to temptation on this trip, the Gmail application was completely removed from my Smartphone. Ditto the Facebook app, as virtual interactions with friends had become habitual to the point of addiction. Once deleted, however, I didn't give either a second thought. Out of sight was truly out of mind.  

 

Foregoing caffeine had the potential to be painful, and by all rights, it should have been. When your usual daily intake is the equivalent of over a full pot of coffee and/or multiple sodas, you should expect a honey of a caffeine-withdrawal headache, but it never came. It feels like I cheated the system, going cold turkey without adverse symptoms.

 

Naturally, once vacation was over, the e-mail app was re-installed. So was Facebook, though I seriously considered deactivating my account and walking away from it for good. Unfortunately, I feel like I can't, because people would either think I unfriended them or died.

 

Not all of the vacation sacrifices were temporary. My eschewance of soda has been completely maintained; good riddance to aspartame and brominated vegetable oil. And I've only had caffeinated coffee during my regular Sunday morning visits with my mother and brother. Not because I find their company to be sleep-inducing, but because it seems wrong to drink decaf out of the Waffle House mug that I keep at my mother's house. Drinking decaf at a Waffle House (or at my mom's, for that matter) would be like eating a veggie burger at Culver's.

 

As for shaving, I met that one halfway. Let's just say this column might need a new photo.

A Head In The Clouds

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 8-30-2015)

"The sky is an infinite movie to me. I never get tired of looking at what's happening up there.”

-k. d. lang

When this year's Perseid meteor shower was at its peak, my son Rob and I drove to the countryside, away from the lights of the city. Atop a blanket thrown onto his car, we lay on our backs, scanning the heavens. It reminded me of going to a drive-in theater in the days of my youth, but no outdoor screen ever compared to the vast canvas we were viewing. The Milky Way we were enjoying didn't come from the snack bar.

Unlike your typical B-movie fare, there wasn't a lot of action. The only thing resembling drama was when the odd motorist's headlights found us and wondered why two guys were parked on the shoulder looking at the sky. But our patience was rewarded with three bright meteors and a bonus glimpse of the International Space Station when we were alerted via text message that it was coming into view. Another memory came with it, from about 40 years ago, of a night when my father and I watched the skies over our farm to see Skylab orbiting overhead.

The Perseids aside, this summer has been an amazing one to look at the skies, through fair weather or foul. We've seen double rainbows, incredible lightning shows, and hazy sunsets dimmed by Canadian wildfires. When my wife and I take our regular evening walks, the setting sun always seems to create a new shade of pink, purple or orange shining brightly as we look down the railroad tracks to see the western horizon. And the cloud formations we saw during a stormy evening trip to central Illinois were like something out of a Hubble Telescope photo.

Some Wisconsinites have even been fortunate enough to see the Aurora Borealis this year. I have only seen the Aurora once, but like a major historical event, I will never forget where I was when it happened. Unfortunately, it was in the days before smartphones so I couldn't capture the moment, but the mental picture I took remains clear and unpixelated.

My renewed appreciation for the cosmos may have been spurred several years ago when my son and I camped with the Boy Scouts in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. In the middle of our first night, I ventured out of our tent to answer nature's call. The number of stars in that crystal clear sky, far from any hint of light pollution, absolutely floored me. It was easy to believe Carl Sagan's assertion that there were billions and billions. After a few moments of standing and staring in amazement, it finally occurred to me that I had better get about my business before a bear or cougar spoiled my stargazing.

That same trip also treated me to the most wondrous sunrise I ever witnessed. Our guide had us get up early and hike to the top of a mesa, where eight of us silently watched the day begin as the miles and miles of New Mexico before us emerged from darkness. I am not ashamed to admit that the beauty of it made me weep.

Funny how in a world filled with just about any amazing thing you can think of, sometimes the simplest pleasures are the most satisfying. We look at our computer screens, we look at our televisions, we look down at our phones. Too often, we forget to look up and see the wonders above us.