Life Matters - January 8, 2025
When Dat (Dad) told his three, teen to preteen, sons to take the flatbed wagon to bring in something or other from the harvested fields one balmy early fall day in the ‘70s I’m sure he took for granted that we would do the job the conventional Amish and traditional-to-our-family way; by harnessing, then hitching, two of our able-bodied work horses to the 2-horse forecart, pinning a flatbed wagon to it, then have David drive the horses with Paul and I riding on the wagon being trotted to and from the field. A peaceful idyllic scene, right?
There were two variables, however, that Dat didn’t take into consideration as he left for his all-day business trip to town. One was David’s sixteen-year-old propensity for craziness and the second was the International - 1960s model (albeit steel-wheeled) tractor parked in the top floor of our bank barn that housed (or rather, barned) cattle and horses below, plus hay, feed, straw above, some pieces of equipment that didn’t fit in the implement shed, and said tractor that was used as a power unit to run the hammer-mill feed mixer and to spin the seasonal silage cutter/blower used for filling the towering silos.
Dat left for town. The ongoing arrangement on the farm was that the oldest should take responsibility and be in charge, so me being three and a half years younger and Paul being one and a half years younger than I, gave David ’top dog’ seniority.
’Top dog’ David soon informed his two young ‘subjects’ that we were using the tractor instead of the horses thereby saving time for more 'free time’ afterward. ’Free time’ with David’s creative ideas, sounded good and exciting to his ’subjects’ as that creative free time had a history of producing such things as the 3-person (or more!) treehouse in the huge spread-out canopy of the heritage Sommerambo apple tree! Or the six foot kite with the twelve feet long tail that flew so high that it faded into the bright early-spring skies! And more! Possibilities were endless!
So the ‘possibilities’ got down to business. The business of ‘getting the job done’ first.
We pinned the flat-bed wagon to the tractor, then with Paul and I sitting on the wagon with knees-on-down legs dangled over the edge, David swung onto the low-slung tractor seat and took off out the ‘back lane’ to the asphalt road that ran alongside ½ mile of our farm. If ‘took off’ brings to mind such things as stock cars taking off at the races you’re probably not extremely far off the mark. Paul and I were soon balancing on our feet to avoid the incessant steel-wheeled springless washboard seat-bumping of steel on gravel driveway that took us past brother Leroy’s house where David, of necessity, slowed down to turn onto the asphalt road. (Possibly also to alleviate concern in the case of anyone looking out the windows of said house?)
Whatever the case may be, once we topped the rise that covered us from said windows, the closest neighbor was Billy Martin, a good half mile away, with all that open road, a slight downhill grade to the back field next to Martins, ahead of us.
David shifted into high gear and opened the throttle! Suffice it to say that the whooping and hollering of said ‘subjects’ soon quieted to a concerned attempt at retaining balance on a careening wagon with balance being complicated by sudden weavings due to a slightly loose wagon-steering mechanism. The realization dawned on me that this was feeling dangerous and when my concerned sight fixated on the dangerously high-jumping pin connecting the wagon to the tractor drawbar my concern erupted into desperate yells, at David’s impenetrable back, about the possibility of said pin jumping out. I was, however, favorably amused by the sight of David’s back hunkered over the steering wheel…
Well, said pin did jump out! And David and tractor kept going, David’s hat clapped tightly onto his head with his unbuttoned coat flapping behind him in the wild winds of ‘freedom!’
I don’t know what Paul was thinking, but as the wagon tongue, now loosed from its moorings, led the hapless way of our careening wagon, I, for one, was considering my options…
Our hapless ride suddenly ended with only one option left open to us as the right front wheel dropped off the road edge, the tongue veered right, the force of the wagon buried the end of said tongue into the low bank along the roadway, the force of sudden stop forced Paul and I to run forward on the wagon, jump the gap between bank and wagon and stumble to a relieved stop in the neighbors field.
I looked up just in time to see the back of David’s hat become his face. He was too far away by that time to see how far his mouth dropped open, but his instant response assured me that he understood that our adventure had veered off the original plan!
As woke-minded, feeling oriented, policies have become openly disengaged from reality, the wonderment has turned from the weird policies themselves to the lack of reality checks (fact-checks, if you will) in those who keep going, weirdness flapping as a flag, in the wild winds of a feckless sort of ‘freedom.’
Biblical freedom is to have the courage and presence of mind to face reality. To go back and reconnect with ‘the wagon.’
Life Matters!