RUDIMENTS, pt. 482
(blam!)
It has been said that
'When God made time,
He made plenty of it.'
(Yeah, yeah, I know
about the He stuff, but
it's an old quote; sorry.
So did She, OK). Not
that's there's any better
reflection on the state
of things, but once I
got to Pennsylvania, a
few things disappeared.
The foremost one was
Time. There just no
longer was any - one
got up with the daylight
or just before, and stayed
at it until darkness. A
lot of one's day was
spent living on 'Cow
Time.' The rest be
damned, and you
certainly didn't need
a clock. When you
have 30-50 cows,
thereabouts, and they,
by necessity, demand
two full milkings a day,
that's the schedule you
need to live by. Let's say,
5:30 AM, and again at
5:30 PM. That was
farm life. In between
was haying, harvesting
or planting, corn or oats
or whatever grass-stock
you were growing. The
spreading of manure, the
chipping of corn for silage,
tending the silo(s), cleaning
the chain-drop, tending to
the cows, pastures, and
vehicles. Sometimes all
the 'vehicles' stuff was a
job in itself - if they
didn't run they weren't
good to anyone. I used to
think about Avenel people
when I was there in farm
Pennsylvania, how they
didn't have a clue as to
what any of this was
about; the real and the
harsh practicalities of
everyday natural life.
Oils and gasolines (each
farm had one or two 100
gallon tanks, their own
little gas stations, to
keep things going. Fuels
bought in bulk, and
delivered in. A big factor
in the expense accounts
and farm ledgers too. It
wasn't like St. George
Ave., or Route One,
with some sort of fueling
station or happyland
snack bar every 500
feet (Plus the no-tell
motels). And just pulling
out to a 'supermarket' was
a big task, besides being
what 'wives' did anyway.
All this stuff meant big
work and some heavy
lifting too. Certainly a
watch was not needed.
Back in the printing
industry, it used to be
said that, in a print shop,
there was only one thing
you did by hand. (It was
a jerk-off joke). Most
everything had been
automated or optimally
motorized. On the farm,
though that could also be
said, there was still a lot
of chores that just required,
by definition, hands, muscle,
lifting and hauling. It was
hard work. The big meal
of the day, also, was about
2pm, latest. Called always
'Dinner.' Not Lunch. And
rung for with a clattering
bell. Not Supper. 2pm was
about the slackest part of
the day, unless there was
some big project going
on, like painting the barn,
or re-roofing the house or
whichever. They'd be
sure to break for a real,
sit-down dinner, and
for conversation.
It always surprised
me, the things I'd hear
- one Summer, Nixon
un-linked the dollar
from the gold standard
or something, and whatever
the financial factors of that
were, no matter how deep
and how esoteric, these
farmer guys, wives, and
farmhands, all went on
about it, as if they were
freaking economists.
Same thing with the
Pentagon Papers, when
all that was a big crisis
moment, what with
Watergate and the rest
too - a million political
experts, milking cows.
-
If there was any
downtime, and I mean
real downtime, it was
spent, not chasing wives
around the yard or
taking them upstairs for
a romp (the way these
guys talked you'd have
thought that was all they
ever did), but trolling
around in pickup trucks,
with Easy-Rider rifle-racks
on the back windows,
cruising slowly to see
what could be killed.
Shot at anyway. Inside
the back window there'd
be a rifle or two, and
anything out on the roads,
hillsides, ridges, or gullies,
became fair game, unfair
actually : deer, squirrels,
gophers, (groundhogs),
and whatever else turned
up. Nobody ever needed to
explain things; in season
or out of, a farmer had the
'right' to protect his land.
'The deer have been eating
my corn crop,' or, The fox
has been killing my layers.'
Whatever. No one cared.
Half the time they'd just
leave it there, wherever it
fell anyway, dead, to rot
for the next scavenger to
come by so they could
shoot that too. Yeah, man;
God's 'Peacable Kingdom'
for sure, and with time
right out the window.
-
I noticed other things too.
There was never, any longer,
any creases on pants. Wrinkles
a'plenty, yeah, but no creases.
No crazily-shined shoes either,
unless you were maybe some
Gomer Pyle geek type; and
there were some of them too.
Buttons, what there was of
them, were OK to be replaced
with safety pins. No one cared.
Nowadays, or shortly after the
years I'm speaking of, the pin
through the nose, or ear, or
cheek, or (yes) any other
personal area, was considered
cool, and a fashion statement
by the Metro-hipster crowd.
But not here. It was more
apt to get you your eyeball
punctured...for being a jerk.
-
I had a silver fox running
around on my land for a
while. It was killing off,
one by one, my little flock
of geese and ducks, living
around the pond. Word got
around, and the locals
started snooping, spec'ing
out the property. The
poor old silver fox one
day was located, foolishly
napping and sunning itself
on a big, old tree-stump,
or remnant of what once
once had been a massive
tree. Blam!! It was over
in a minute, poor old fox.
Probably never knew what
hit it. They asked me if I
wanted the tail. I said no.
No comments:
Post a Comment