11,970. RUDIMENTS, pt. 771

RUDIMENTS, pt. 771

(fill 'er up)

I was never much of a stickler

for clothes. Fashions and

styles always eluded me and

I never cared. The good thing

about the way I'd been living

was that neither did the streets

and marginals I lived with and on,
care. That was good  -  even better

was getting way up to the country

where no one gave two second's

thought to any of that. A farmer's

way of life was his clothing. You

could dig down twenty miles and

you'd still never find any of that

later-style Ralph Lauren high

fashion rural wear crap that his

models and stores and ads

portrayed. They must have

been crazy. A farmer's 'country'

habitat was mostly dirt, cow-shit,

pig-slop, gas and oil, lubricants,

and nearly liquefied manure.

In addition, the fermented

stenches of silage, silo-corn,

run-off, and grease. I used

to walk out of there a'stench,

reeking of cow-smells. And so

did everyone else  -  it imbued

all articles of work-clothing.

Everyone had it  -  it got so that

I'd get somewhere and as soon

as I and others walked in, farm

guys, the aroma of the whole

room changed. It was funny, but

farmers joked about it and never

cared much. Except maybe for

the Sunday stuff  - everyone who

cared tried to fancy-up for that

day. I never did that either.

-

Some things just wouldn't matter.

There are plenty of country places

where it's considered 'trophy' to

have a second home, live in a

rural format, strut your Country

Gentleman, and Country Jane,

stuff; but out where I was, even

the downtown bank stunk. Maybe

in trendy parts of Vermont or

Connecticut such Ralph Lauren

stuff was tolerated and promoted.

Not in Columbia Crossroads nor

anywhere within 40 miles in

either direction as well. You'd

be laughed out of the hot tub

you were hoping for.

-

That was right up my alley. Endless

jeans, flannel shirts, hot weather

tees, an occasional farm hat, mostly

with some tractor name on it  - 

given out freely at the Oliver dealer,

and other places too. I used to wear

boots  -  lace-up, combat kind-of

boots  -  that went through every

sort of obstacle, chemical, liquid,

and ordeal you could think of, and

still held up. And protected my

feet too. Warren used to say that

being a farmer was the second-most

dangerous job/profession in the USA.

I don't know where he got his info

from. I'd asked, 'What's in front of it?'

He'd say, 'Dentists.' Huh? Dentists?

I guess they got their fingers bit off

a lot or something. We'd say funny

stuff between us. He had some quirky,

sixth-grade kid of humor sometimes.

Like, 'Why'd they have to stop the

leper hockey game?  -  Because there

was a face off in the corner.' Stuff

like that. It was otherwise weird,

because, in the barn, he'd often have

a radio going  -  for news. All sorts

of things were happening, and he

wanted, somehow, the blow-by-blow.

Like 'Attica.' The prison riot. All
that was going on. He followed that

closely. And the Pentagon Papers

thing too  -  always on about that,

with the radio. On time, it was

maybe September, maybe still

August, but I remember it was

blistering hot and we were

harvesting corn  -  I was driving

this large tractor towing a

corn-harvester unit behind,

pulling through 2 or 3 rows of

corn at a time  -  it would manage

to slide through and pick out the

ears, which fell into a wagon.

Anyway, it was time for 'dinner.'

Warren had been in the barn

while I ran the fields. We met

up in the house, to eat, and he

started a really precise and

complete run-down of this

whole economics and monetary

thing; like he was Paul Samuelson

or something. Nixon, that day,

had de-linked the dollar from

the gold standard, floating the

currency, as it was called  -  and

Warren had all this information

and knowledge about that down

pat, running on about it like it

was dessert or something. I was

awed. Pretty impressed anyway.

Then I got to thinking  -  who's

he getting his information from?

The radio? Some dumb-ass

commentator? That's part of the

problem with that 'along the way'

learning. Easy enough it is for

you to just pick up erroneous or

biased info. But, Warren did

seem to have it in good order,

and, anyway, what did I know?

Four quarters make a dollar was

about the extent of my monetary

knowledge. That couldn't be

wrong. Right?

-

So, inasmuch (Hey! That's a pretty

weird word, a sort of almost random

compound) as it caught my attention,

I was momentarily impressed at what

I thought was his command of an

issue. One time, a friend of mine

from up Vermont way, Rutland,

came to visit, stay a few days, and

the first morning  -  wanting to see

this farm routine in action  -  we 

got  up and left the house about

6am and walked the field over to

the cow barn. I'd gotten in the

early habit of getting started,

having the cows alerted and set

for milking, and the rest. My

friend, noticing that Warren had

yet not come out of the house, 

nearing 7:30, got a big kick out

of then referring to Warren as

my 'Gentleman farmer' friend.

It was a 'laugher,' and what he

meant was how I'd made it

leisurely for Warren to lay

back a little, take it easy. And

I guess I had, but I never thought

of it that way. It was more just

a 'job' and those were my hours. 

I had no say in what he did.

He, of course, did come about,

about 8.

-

It was a deal anyway  -  I was

getting paid some, cash, no tell;

I was getting 'milk and meat,'

as it was called  -  food; and I

had the use of vehicles, and 

gasoline too  -  not that I was

really going anywhere with

his stuff. Any real 'road' trips

were my own. (Each farmer had

a 150 or 200 gallon gas-tank

and pump in the barn-yards;

some were even larger). That

personal gas-station aspect was

also very cool. There'd be vehicles
slumped all around people's yards.
I loved that stuff too.  When your
car finally did quit, you just left
it there. It was funny. Like that
Jennings guy said to me once,
'If it don't run, it ain't no good to me.