We have FF&F to either thank, or blame, for reminding me of this piece.


It's only normal for a child to look forward to a visit to their Grandparent's farm.  The open fields, the barnyard animals, the fresh country air.  Being what I considered a normal child, I also enjoyed these brief sojourns to a more rural atmosphere.  But, also being an astute child, especially sensitive to my parent's insecurities, I screamed and yelled in mock protest at being left, along with my older brother, for the weekend.

Throughout my childhood my thoughtfulness would be loudly repaid, by both Mom and Dad, manifold.

Of course, I had to continue this charade for a respectable amount of time after my parents had pulled out of the driveway, in order to obtain a sense of believability for Grandpa and Grandma.  It also helped me obtain a large dish of vanilla ice cream with a generous dose of chocolate topping.  After this frozen pacifier, and a stirring game of Chinese checkers, my composure became remarkably serene; serene to the point that I could endure an entire hour of Lawrence Welk.  I still couldn't enjoy it, but I could endure it.  My older brother would simply sit and watch in silent wonder as I underwent this Jekyll-Hyde transformation.  The realization that he could never hope to employ such tactics with any degree of success, having assumed the identity of a model child since day one, must have been heartbreaking.

Once we all had our fill of dessert, generic card games and accordion music, it was time for bed.  My brother and Grandma would retire to the bedroom on the west side of the house.  This room held the dubious distinction of being the place where Great Uncle Bob was kept after the incident with the hatchet.  Once this instrument of doom had been wrested from his clutches, he was quartered in this area of the house before he could quarter anyone else, and to await transport to another state where there were accommodations more suitable for someone in his condition.  But that's another story.

Grandpa and I would retire to the east bedroom.  There were no mysteries or grisly tales involved with this room, other than the ones Grandpa told me at bedtime.  If Grandpa ever suffered from insomnia, telling bedtime stories was his personal cure.  Unfortunately, they had the opposite effect on me.  For example, just as I became engrossed in the fate of the small billygoat gruff, after he confronted the troll, Grandpa would doze off.  By the time I roused him from his slumber, a little blonde girl had entered the story, delivering cocktail sandwiches to her aunt in Wisconsin.  As this routine was repeated the story became so interesting, and bizarre, I found it impossible to fall asleep.  About the time Little Red Riding Pig approached Rapunzel's castle and heard screams of "The sky is falling, the sky is falling," I would roll over and stare out the window into the darkness.  As I watched the moon rise from behind the silo, the gray cement storage cylinder seemed to be transformed from a giant PEZ dispenser into a huge "i".  Finally, I would drift restlessly off to dreamland.

Grandpa always rose early to milk Spot and do the morning chores.  I've never known why he inflicted this name on the cow, but I think I was seven before I realized he wasn't going out twice a day to milk the dog.  Long before the popularity of meditation had reached western civilization, Grandpa had discovered personal serenity in the form of milking Spot.  Twice a day.  Every day.  His standard position was seated, head buried in Spot's flank, a teat firmly grasped in each hand.  Grandpa had achieved enlightenment.

He could never understand why I didn't feel like joining him for breakfast when he returned to the house.  But, after spending the night trying to digest that large bowl of ice cream, not to mention those bewildering bedtime stories, food wasn't my highest priority.

After breakfast, which my brother always enjoyed immensely, Grandma not being familiar with the same fairy tales as Grandpa, it was time to gather the eggs from the hen house.  This job always went to my brother, for two reasons.  First, it was his penance for continually chasing the chickens when he was a small boy.  The second reason had to do with my deathly fear of the feathered creatures.  In fact, a wide variety of abnormal fears were extremely helpful in preventing my participation in a whole host of duties on the farm.

While still very young I found I had a gift, besides fear, for avoiding any meaningful work.  A method that took hardly any effort on my part, and no time at all to perfect.

Total ineptitude.

Long before there were malls or arcades where children could get hopelessly lost for extended periods of time, Grandpa could send me to the implement shed to retrieve a hand scythe hanging along the east side of the north wall near the thresher.  Simply sending me to the implement shed was enough to keep me busy for the better part of a day; all of the buildings appeared to contain implements.  With the additional instructions Grandpa would be lucky to see me before Labor Day.  And probably wouldn't have if Grandma hadn't sent him looking for me sometime after lunch.

I would rather have disappeared for the entire summer than go back to Grandpa and admit that not only did I not know which building was the implement shed, but that I had just recently mastered the most elementary directional concepts of right and left.  I sure wasn't ready for more complex navigational terminology.  All of which is really moot, considering I didn't have the slightest idea what this thing was I was looking for, or the vaguest notion of what it might look like.

I was saved this embarrassment, on occasion, because Grandpa was in the habit of referring to me as:   Nelsedeverlarnedstande...

And by the time he rattled this off he was often so out of breath he couldn't continue, or had completely forgotten what it was he wanted me to go after.  I suppose I should explain here that my grandfather was not gifted with instant recall.  His was more of a chronological memory.  Therefore, he would run down the list of partial names of all his male grandchildren, oldest to youngest, until he reached the one he wished to address.  My oldest cousin was Nelson, the next was Nels-Eddy Kay, then Nels-Edd-Everett, and so on down the line.    Being the youngest grandchild, and more difficult for Grandpa to identify, I stood the greatest chance of escaping further instruction.  But as Grandpa grew older, and the length of my hair was determined by the changing social mores of the ‘60's and ‘70’s, he just took to calling me Elaine.

About mid-morning on Saturday there was no escape.  By mid-morning Saturday Grandpa didn't care what my name was or how much I protested, it was my turn to ride Chestnut.  To most people the word "chestnut" conjures up the peaceful image of a roaring fire on a cold, gray wintry evening.  Or they see themselves strolling idyllically through a Currier and Ives print.  As for me, the mere mention of the name would be enough to send me scurrying off to find the implement shed.

Chestnut was the meanest, vilest, most ill-tempered shetland pony that ever lived.   Unfortunately, when it came to persistence, my Grandfather had him beat hands down.  No matter how many times I was thrown, Grandpa kept setting me back on that wicked Reader's Digest version of a horse.  By the time dinner rolled around, which was more like the chief sustenance for a 12 man threshing crew, Grandpa had worked up quite an appetite, having spent the better part of the morning retrieving me from various corners of the front yard.

For the unacquainted and culturally limited, in the rural Midwest your three meals were breakfast, dinner and supper.  I didn't even hear the word lunch until I went to school.  At my grandparent's, dinner usually consisted of such delicacies as fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, cole slaw, and homemade bread.

After the noon meal was finished Grandpa would settle into his easy chair against the west wall of the living room, and my brother and I managed to find comfortable spots nearby.  While Grandma cleared the table and washed the dishes, we all listened to the strains of "Matinee Melodies", a musical program broadcast from one of the nearest towns large enough to maintain a television station.  And trust me here; I don't use the term "strain" lightly.  All of the performers were local talent (a term which, here, I do use lightly) who would likely have had Ted Mack checking into a different line of work.

The remainder of Saturday afternoon would be spent visiting my aunt and uncle on their farm about a quarter of a mile away; going into town to fix the plumbing at my Grandpa's sisters; playing croquet with the Barker brothers; or, left to our own devices my brother and I would wander into the fields or up into the hayloft to give our imaginations a serious workout.

The evening would bring supper, more TV, more games in the living room, and at bedtime if Grandpa was battling sleep, God forbid, a brief visit from "Hansel & Spittle".

Sunday morning, without fail, right after milking Spot, come hell or high water, in fact, especially where hell or high water were concerned, Grandpa and Grandma went to church.  One would have been hard-pressed to find more dedicated Methodists in the surrounding 4 state area.

I'm certain part of the reason for Grandpa's perfect attendance at Sunday Services was to repent for having fouled my mind for the past couple of nights with those bewildering bedtime stories; but once inside, his main purpose was to sing.

Where it involves singing in large groups most people are somewhat self-conscious about tone quality, clarity, timing, rhythm, pitch, and so forth.  None of these factors ever occurred to Grandpa.  When it came time to make a joyful noise, Grandpa's only concern was VOLUME.  For sheer decibel level Ted Nugent had nothing on Grandpa.  He could probably be accused of many things, but lack of hymn participation would not be on the list.  Even the Baptist's, three blocks away, were witness to his spiritual glee.

Eventually, all the ministers in town began coordinating with each other to sing the same hymns, at the same time, much like a synchronized military maneuver.  This avoided interruption of other services throughout the village from Grandpa's sudden outbursts of "THIS IS MY FATHER'S WORLD"!

Once we had devoured the traditional Sunday pot roast Grandpa's musical inclinations wandered out toward the front yard.  While nestled into his lap, which had settled into a wooden lawn chair on the porch, for the remainder of the afternoon I, and everyone else within a three mile radius, enjoyed the rhythmic adventures of "Pat Malone", "The Elevated Railway", "Ol' Dan Tucker" and every other folk song or hymn that Grandpa had stored away in his memory.

Late in the afternoon our parent's would arrive and drag me, kicking and screaming, from my rural escape.  (Grandparents need reassurance, too.)  On the drive back home the question invariably arose as to what we had done over the weekend.  After carefully weighing the incidents of the past 2 days, and mentally chronicling these events in order of personal importance, my brother and I would each chide our descriptive replies simultaneously.

"Nothin'."

My own sons have continued raising me in larger cities, and, thanks to the love, patience, and generosity of my Aunts and Uncles my children have their own vision of farm life, as well as an appreciation for the intricacies and strategy of Chinese checkers.  I've personally undertaken the responsibility for acquainting them with the adventures of "Goldilatch and The Three Blind Mice".

And though the front porch has been gone for years, and it's star performer a little longer, I believe our children still hear the echo.

His music was that strong.


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