Here goes. I mentioned I would print some of my writing on my blog now. Below is the first writing I did. It is kind of long and probably is not interesting to most people. I based it on a true situation but many details are meant to make listening fun for the grandchildren but really the details are fiction. For older brother Dave, who may remember the actual details, I hope you are not offended.
Carmen Lee
Adult Ed writing assignment #2
January 19, 2012
A SECRET NOT KEPT
When I turned the red and gray Ford tractor into the drive way I was excited. Most of the time my older brother Dave and I were required to work in the fields until sundown but not tonight. It was the first Friday of the month and that meant Farmers Union meeting night. I really did not understand what Farmers Union was all about but what I did know is for me it meant fun, games and treats. I looked forward to our going each month.
Of course the meeting was nothing but the treats and ballgame were fun. It always started with,“is there any old business?” and then“is there any new businessz?”. Of course there rarely was so then it was on to the program. That always consisted of a sing along. I enjoyed singing and actually would often sing most of the day as I sat on the tractor in the field so the sing alongs were always fun Some people even told me I had a wonderful deep bass voice. We all knew that Rolloff, who farmed a half mile south, would raise his hand first and want to sing ” sing your way home”. Of course everyone would laugh about singing your way home first but, the piano would start and the sing along would take place for the next 15 to 20 minutes. After that there was the Kool-Aid and cookies and then if there was still daylight a softball game with fathers and sons. I often begged my dad to hit fly balls to me at home so any time he would engage in a game with us kids was a time to cherish.
Those thoughts ran though my head as I drove the tractor up to the gas pump and turned the ignition. I could tell it was going to be a pleasant evening as I walked to the house. The earth and then the tall grass were already feeling a bit cool on my bare feet. We still had some tall grass near the house. Just a few days before Dad had brought home our very first lawn mower. Up until then we had used the mower on the back of the Ford tractor and because of that many places mom wanted mowed never got cut. I always enjoyed the feel of dirt or grass on my bare feet. I remember late in the summer I would run through the thistle patches with bare feet and not even feel the stickers. I always thought that was cool. Summer was a time of no shirt and no shoes unless there was Sunday church or a trip into town.
Once in the house I was surprised that mom and dad were already dressed to go and it was still an hour before the meeting. It took only 5 minutes to drive there as meetings were always in the rural one room school where I attended. Mom said they were not going to Farmers Union as dad had been asked to show his slides of Washington DC to the camera club in Lidgerwood. For a moment I was angry. It seemed I had watched those stupid pictures a hundred times and besides why would dad choose to show them at camera club and not come to Farmers Union? I knew he loved those trips and to show his pictures to the club was important to him but it also meant that if we had time to play ball after the meeting he would not be there to play with us. But as soon as those thoughts came I pushed them aside as I knew any ball game was fun with or without my dad. As they went out the door dad said we should be sure to go to Farmers Union and we would have to walk. I thought how else would we get there as we only had one car anyway.
The school was a mile and a half away and we had walked there hundreds of times so no big deal. I was kind of upset with Dave as he seemed to take forever to get ready. I thought if he takes any longer we may have to run. After all I could down our supper quickly as all we were having was hard boiled eggs and bread. I never really tired of eggs as they always seemed to hit the spot with mustard, salt and pepper. Actually my usual supper was 5 or 6 eggs with mom’s homemade bread. Not cream and bread with eggs, just plain bread with lots of mom’s churned butter and maybe a bit of chokecherry jam on top. I think that kind of diet is what made me such a good ball player. Anyway Dave took forever to get ready but finally we were set. We had 10 minutes to get there and we did not want to be late. The earlier we started the meeting the more time we may have for a ball game after the treats. Dave looked at me and said “why don’t we drive the big red truck? Dad will never know.” Something told me that was not a good idea as Dad had said we should walk but what the heck. We were late and I did not want to short change our ball game. As we got into the big red truck, well it really was not that big but it could haul 190 bushels of oats if the oats weighed 38 pounds or so per bushel, we made a mental note of just were it was parked in the yard. There was tall grass around all the wheels as it had not been used for some time and we never moved it when we mowed the grass. It started right up and we were off to Farmers Union.
We did get there on time and the meeting went true to form. No old business, no new business, Rolloff asked that we sing our way home first, which we did and then the sing along lasted for kind of a short time maybe only 10 minutes. That was fine with me because I was always eager for the treats and then we would have a longer time for the game, I loved to play ball. I missed dad in the game as he always seemed to do and say the right things. I thought that when he was young he must have been a really good ball player. He still could hit the ball a long way and usually made the difficult catches and this was when he was kind of old! He even showed me how to throw a curve ball which I never really mastered
The sun set and darkness halted the game with my team winning and I even hit a home run. As Dave and I got into the truck I asked him if he smelled something funny. He said it did smell kind of burnt but really our big red truck was well past its prime It seemed that it always sounded funny or smelled funny or drove like it was on its last leg. The smell seemed to get worse as we arrived home but we were able to park it in the same spot as before with tall grass around all the wheels. As we walked to the house Dave mentioned that he hoped the truck was OK as there was that smell and some vapor coming from the engine.
We did not hear mom and dad come home. Dad must have enjoyed that meeting too much with his stupid slides and all. Usually when they went to camera club we would be awake when they got home but tonight we did not even hear them pull into the driveway and come into the house. If we would have known we could have gone into the dirt basement, gotten one of mom’s canned peaches and had it for a nighttime treat. We would do that from time to time and then carefully put a new quart jar on the front of the shelf as if nothing had disappeared. Now I am sure mom know what we did.
Now farmers are known to get up early and work late when there is work to be done but for us kids we just never were very good early risers and mom and dad really never pushed the issue often. Sometimes during harvest it was up way too early or work way too late but harvest was still a month away. So it was surprising to us when we heard a gruff voice call up the stairs. Dave and Carmen get down stairs right now. As we scurried down the stairs in our T-shirts and underwear we knew something was up and it even sounded like we could be in trouble. Could dad have found out we used the truck? No way as we parked it in the very same spot as it had been for the last couple of weeks. No one could have told them we drove to the meeting. It was early in the morning and the most useable phone we had on the farm was a tin can from government commodities attached to a wire that Dave and I had made a couple of weeks ago for communication when we played cops and robbers. Anyone would know that cops and robbers would use a phone like that. As we hit the last step we were in the kitchen and one look at Dad’s face told us he was angry and we were in trouble. “Did you guys drive the truck last night?” “ Yes Dad we did”. “Didn’t I tell you to walk?” Yes you did but we were late and we wanted as long a ball game as possible. At this point I visualized several years ago when I had cried because I could not go to town with him. It had taken a short trip behind the house and a couple of swift hard swathes of Dad’s hand to tell me I was wrong. That was several years ago but could this be a repeat? “There was no water in the truck radiator. I was going to haul a load of grain out this morning but the engine will not turn over.” We stared at the floor as dad stomped out the door and into the yard. As the screen door shuttered to a close with a bang nobody spoke. Mom busied herself with putting bowls on the table for breakfast. Even though it was my breakfast nightmare, boiled wheat berries that had been soaked in water for a couple of days, I dared not say a word. Today I think of those wheat berries and believe they may have offset all the eggs we ate but really the taste was dreadful. I ate it all as did Dave. When we finished our breakfast mom turned from her cook stove and said dad wants you guys out in the wheat field right after breakfast with the rock wagon. Now picking rocks was way down on the list of fun things to do. There were times we would pretend to ski on our bare feet as one of us hung onto the back of the rock wagon and the other drove. We also amused ourselves by pretending the smaller round rocks were shot puts and we would have contests but today the games were far from our mind. It seemed like we could pick thousands of those things and the next year there were thousands more to pick. Usually we could delay or wriggle out of an all-day rock picking and make it into an half day or so but today and we sort of figured we best not complain or delay.
Dad worked for the next two days in silence as he overhauled the Big Red Truck and we toiled in the wheat field picking rocks and vowing to listen to dad in the future.
