Looking Back by Paul Assink

Chapter 12: Kittenball

We called it "kittenball" in those days. For what reason I never thought to ask and still have not discovered.

But it was softball, the twelve inch variety with the fast, underhand pitch. We played a lot of that in country school. Baseball, the nine inch variety played by major leaguers, would come later in high school, and to a limited degree, in post-high school and college. Kittenball was ideal for children, not only because it wasn't as hard as the baseball, but because it didn't require as large a playing field. The one-acre school grounds which were typical of Iowa rural schools in my day were just large enough to contain a softball playing field and small enough so that 7th and 8th graders could sometimes hit one over the fence for a homerun. Although I believe that in our rules, since the fence was a mere single cable strung through evenly spaced wooden posts, we never regarded hitting one over it as an automatic homerun. The batter would have to earn everything he got, and the fielder would duck under the cable and try desperately to retrieve the ball from the ditch and throw it home before the runner could circle the bases.

Nevertheless, hitting it over the fence was something of a feat that didn't occur frequently.

I remember when sister Ruth was in 8th grade she could really clobber the ball and, to the amazement of especially us underclassmen, she would occasionally even clout one, not only over the fence, but onto the road beyond the ditch.

My first experience with softball was as a first-grader. For some reason the big kids decided to let us little ones play one day. I remember batting and finally hitting the ball, whereupon I ran to the pitcher instead of first base. The older kids, I thought, made much more of that little blunder than it deserved. "Hey, not to the pitcher! Over here, Dummy--to first base! Dontcha know any better?" That ended my softball experience for a while. But by third grade softball before school, during recesses and noon lunch hour was a regular part of my grade school experience.

Since the whole school typically had only twelve to sixteen students, most kids above the second grade were included in the games. Usually two older players would choose sides by one tossing the bat to the other and then each would alternate going hand over hand up the handle of the bat. The last one able to get his hand on the bat handle with enough grip to toss it backward over his head would get the first pick. From there the choices from the first to the last would be virtually predetermined.

Somewhere in these years, probably about fourth or fifth grade, someone introduced a new variation in our game. Instead of the traditional diamond shaped infield, a triangular infield was devised consisting only of 1st base, 2nd base and home plate. This proved to be a real boon to our game because it required fewer players: A pitcher, catcher, 1st baseman, 2nd baseman and two outfielders.

One of the highlights of our rural school softball experience would be the inter-school com-petition. My school, Norway Township District # 3, had occasional rivalries with the "East School" (Dist. # 2), the "North School" (Amsterdam Township # 9), the "West School" (Boone Township # 1) and the "Siemens School" (Boone Township # 6). Our most frequent competition and greatest rivalry, however, was with the "South School" (Norway Township #4) where the Veldhouse boys attended. These could be fiercely contested games and closely matched.

In sixth grade a new development occurred: Allstar teams from the different townships would compete against each other for the County championship.

I remember the tryout for that first township team. Being only a 6th grader, I didn't regard my chances of making the team to be very good, but I would give it a shot. As I recall, two teams were formed to play against each other, and from that game the manager would determine the selection.

It was not a good day. I was supposed to have gotten a pair of tennis shoes by that time (already into the month of May), but for some reason, I didn't have them yet. No doubt, I blamed my mother for that inexcusable negligence. Anyway, I played the game in my ankle-high, slippery, leather-soled work shoes. I was distressed that I did not play well: my quickness, my running, my fielding were hampered by those slippery shoes on the grass infield. Then, when the game ended, I stupidly went with Bernard (a non-contender) into the school building, unaware that the manager was going to pick the team right after the game. When I went back out some 10 or 15 minutes later, all the players were seated around him while he was making the last selections for the team. In addition to the older players like Danny Veldhouse, a whirlwind pitcher and eighth grader, he had also chosen his brother, my friend Jay, from the South School. Bob Larson, a classmate from my own school was also chosen, as were a couple other sixth graders. Now, Bob was no better than I was, and in my opinion, not as good. But he made it. And Jay made it. And a couple other sixth graders were selected for the reserves. Desperately I tried to make myself very conspicuous as the manager made the final selections. He looked my way, but made no nod. He didn't even ask my name. I was passed over! Not chosen! Why? Did he think me slow and clumsy (because of my shoes)? Did he simply overlook me (because I had not been there when he had started picking)?

Whatever the reasons for my being omitted, I was devastated. Especially now that Jay and Bob and other sixth graders had made the squad, things were put in an entirely different light. My pride suffered. Had they not made it either, I would have had no problem. But they did make it and I did not. How could I explain that to others?

I went home that night swamped in gloom and embarrassment.

Then I did something very cowardly which would multiply my misery for two or three weeks to come. Pa asked me how I did, whether I made the team. Fumbling for an acceptable answer, I said I made it--"as a substitute." It was a lie. No other way to describe it. Even though I may have held some wispy, remote hope that a couple players would break their legs and that they might need someone else, and I would surely be next in line, I knew without question that I had not been selected in any capacity. But how could I bear the humiliation of informing my dad that I wasn't good enough, when Jay and Bob and other sixth graders did get chosen? Besides, Pa would be disappointed too, as I had attempted--frequently, no doubt--to impress him with the notion that I was among the best of players at my tender age.

The days came when the team went to play in the inter-township competition, and then on to Clarion where they won the County championship behind the pitching of Danny Veldhouse. But I know nothing of those games. I wasn't there. No players had broken their legs and I wasn't needed or even thought of. I could, I suppose, have attended the games. My parents would probably have taken me if the field work was not too pressing. But no way did I want my parents to know about these games. Better they should forget the whole thing and spare me the humiliation of exposing my rejection for the team on which I supposedly had been selected as a substitute. They didn't bring up anything about the team or the games we were to play. I was relieved to believe it had passed from their minds. But, a boy's sins have a way of finding one out. My biggest embarrassment was yet to come.

It was the day of the Norway Township end-of-year school picnic in mid-May at which time the eighth graders from the various schools in the township would have their combined graduation ceremony. It was a warm, sunny day as it always seemed to be when picnics were held. Renwick park, with the Boone River flowing lazily through it, was dressed in its spring greenery and the hickory trees shaded the outdoor platform where the ten or twelve eighth graders were assembled waiting for that moment when they would receive their diplomas. In addition to the graduation itself, the program would include various honors being distributed, a couple of vocal numbers and a short speech by the County Superintendent of Schools, Claude W. Sankey. Many, if not most, parents of the school children in the township would attend this yearly picnic along with their children. My parents would certainly be there because Ruth was graduating that year.

The program began before an audience of 50 to 75 people seated in folding chairs before the stand. I was sitting in the back row, or possibly standing there behind it. Superintendent Sankey conducted the preliminaries, a couple of numbers were performed, and then it happened! Mr. Sankey announced: "I would like at this time to honor the team from Norway Township which recently won the County Softball Championship." My heart sank; my face began to flush. I had hoped my folks, my dad in particular, would have forgotten all about that team that I presumably had been a member of.

Sankey went on: "And now, I would like to call the team members up to receive their blue ribbons." Oh no! It would all come out. Paul Assink would get no ribbons; his name would not even be mentioned. I quietly slipped away from the audience and hurried over to the refreshment stand where I could cover my humiliation amid the people buying ice cream cones and pop, people oblivious to the trauma I was experiencing within.

How I spent the rest of the day I do not recall. I only remember weakly explaining to my dad that I had been a "back-up substitute", whatever that lie was supposed to mean.

Pride. It goeth before the fall. Or maybe it is the fall. What an evil monster it is in human life. Why didn't I just come right out at the start and admit: "I didn't make it. I feel real bad."? But I didn't. The disappointment would have passed shortly and I could have proceeded to cope with the situation in honesty. As it was, my suffering was protracted over weeks and compounded with additional humiliation. And my character was weakened by my failure to accept reality.

Looking back on that episode, I can now say that I have learned from it. But I didn't at the time. Sadly, that weakness would be repeated in my later experiences where, instead of confronting situations head on, I would learn to escape pain by avoiding the very situations that might cause the pain. I'm not proud of that flawed aspect of my development. But time passes. Disappointments and embarrassments recede into the background and, while never obliterated and leaving their scars, one is allowed to function again without obvious and crippling impairment.

The next year I was in 7th grade. I don't recall how I was selected, but I made the allstar team this time, apparently without a sweat, and played third base. I distinctly remember the first game of the tournament: Norway Township against Boone Township. The Boone team had three of my second cousins on it--Bill, Kenny and Paul Siemens--and a whirlwind pitcher named Mary Knudson--a girl, can you believe it? We never had girls on our team, regardless of how good they may have been. But, be that as it may, I remember the conclusion of the game vividly because we were behind much of the game but were rallying in the last inning. With two outs, I was on third, Bob Larson was on second and Jay Veldhouse was at bat. The count went to one ball and two strikes. Superintendent Sankey was umpiring the game. Knudson got set for her next pitch, whipped it toward the plate. Jay swung. From that point on everything erupted into chaos. Jay foul-tipped the ball; the catcher dropped it. We were still alive! But no. Mr. Sankey called, "Strike three!"

The game was over? We were instantly stunned. But wait.

If that was strike three and first base is not occupied, the batter could run to first when the catcher dropped the ball. Finally, someone said, "Run to first!" The Boone catcher, mean-while, had already regained control of the ball and now, reassessing the situation, decided that he should tag the batter, which he did.

"Out" Sankey called, thrusting his thumb upward. It took a couple of seconds to comprehend the situation. By then some of the Boone team began their wild celebration of victory, while our team descended on Sankey en masse similar to a modern baseball bench-clearing brawl.

"That was a foul tip! The batter is not out! Didn't ya see that?" We argued desperately. We argued vehemently. "If the batter had missed the third strike, why wouldn't he have run immediately? The catcher didn't tag him at first because he knew it was a foul tip too. Dontcha see? That was a foul tip! --a foul tip, foul tip."

Sankey stood his ground. Boone was now jubilant in victory while gradually the tumult of our futile protests subsided. Within ten minutes the diamond was clearing and the bitter finality of the decision was setting in. I remember making one last protest to Mr. Sankey as he was walking away: "That really was a foul tip."

Sankey smiled, put his arm on my shoulder and said something to the effect of "Now, now. It's hard, but you'll get over it."

He was right, of course, but unlike most incidents in my life, this one has stuck in my memory for over a half century; so maybe he was wrong.

I often wondered whether Mr. Sankey really didn't know that it was a foul tip. Did he purposely, knowingly, falsify the call? I find it hard to believe that he did. I suspect, but will never know--and it makes little difference--that he called strike three by mistake, realized that he was wrong but not soon enough to reverse himself with dignity.

In any case, it was only a game. But seventh graders are not very philosophical about things as important as winning and losing, especially when winning would allow you to advance to the final round and play for the championship of the county.

Never mind, of course, that even if he had called it a foul tip, Jay might have struck out on the next pitch, or popped harmlessly to the shortstop, and the game would have had the same result. But the fact was, in our minds, we could have won and gone on to greater glory had we not been robbed by that call.

Next year, as an eighth grader in the spring of '42, we had another such tournament. Strangely, I remember little about it. I remember being the pitcher that year and I remember that we defeated the Boone team easily this time. I also remember that among the cheering fans for the Norway team there was a tall, good-looking, dark-haired eighth grade girl whose name I discovered was Frances Thompson. She attended the District # 7 school located in the southeast corner of the township nearer to Clarion. Frances seemed to be very excited about the game and--interestingly--particularly about my pitching. I would remember that and the fact that we did make some trivial exchange of conversation after the game. Beyond that, however, nothing came of it, not for the time being at least.

After defeating Boone, the Norway team was supposed to play in Clarion for the County championship. I draw a blank about that event. Apparently it never happened; surely I would remember it. I suspect the day was probably rained out and, because school would end somewhere around the 10th to the 15th of May and the township eighth grade graduation program would be held within a week of that, the event was most likely cancelled. So, once again, deprived of the opportunity for the supreme glory of a championship, I would ring down my grade school education and the kitenball that was so much a part of it.

Read more...
Chapter 11: On the Farm - Fieldwork
Chapter 10: On the Farm - Chores
Chapter 9: On the Farm - Playtimes
Chapter 8: One Room Schoolhouse - Norway Township #3
Chapter 7: 1934
Chapter 6: Amsterdam Township #4
Chapter 5: Birthplace - North Central Iowa

Or grab the paperback copy of the book HERE!

Chapter 11: On the Farm - Fieldwork

Whatever pleasures and satisfactions there were in working with animals, for me those did not balance the distaste I often had for that aspect of farm work.

Cleaning the udders of muddy cows in the spring, shoveling out the manure to keep the barn clean, putting up with temperamental cows who liked to kick, being stampeded and nearly trampled upon by hungry hogs you were trying to feed, castrating squirming pigs who squealed at the top of their lungs, trying to prod hogs up the ramp of a truck to get them off to market--all these things were the unpleasant necessities associated with farm work in my youth.

Field work was much more pleasant and, for the most part, even enjoyable. Plants were generally predictable and seldom uncooperative; the dirt of the field was much cleaner than the manure of the barnyard; and the open field less confining than the barn or the hog pen. Besides, field work was for men, or near-men; whereas, chores with animals was largely the domain of boys.

When I was small the highlight of the year was oat harvesting time.

Shortly after the 4th of July the oat fields would become white with ripened grain and the binder would be greased up and pressed into action. The binder was a machine pulled by horses or a tractor that would cut and bind the oats into bundles. This operation would begin on the outside edges of the field, proceeding around the field by cutting seven-foot swaths until the standing grain had dwindled down to nothing. The binder had a long cutting bar with perhaps 25 or 30 triangular blades attached to it. This bar knifed back and forth very rapidly and cut the standing grain, causing it to fall onto a moving canvas platform. This platform sent the cut grain toward the heart of the binder where two additional rotating canvas conveyors brought the grain upward to the apparatus which tied the grain with twine into neat bundles approximately one foot in diameter. The head of the bundle would contain all the grain and would fluff out. After the bundle was tied it was dropped into a cradle. When ten bundles collected in the cradle, the person operating the binder would release the cradle dropping the bundles in a pile on the stubble.

Later, the men would go out and "shock" the oats, stacking the bundles to stand together with the heads up forming what looked like little huts. Two bundles were then placed on top, capping the other eight bundles. With that, the oat shocks were set to survive the effects of heavy rains should they come. Shocking oats was heavy work. I didn't do a lot of it because by the time I was in high school, the coming of the combine had made oat shocking a thing of the past.

One of the pleasantries associated with the shocking season was the rare opportunity to drink beer.

Pa always felt that beer-drinking, whatever evils may attend it, was certainly justified after such laborious work regardless of how old one might be. I can still taste, swirling in my mouth, the distinct flavor of that yellow fluid from the long-necked brown bottle and feel the prickling sensation of the carbonation being released. Today, especially when drinking from a can, these sensations are difficult to reproduce and must be specifically concentrated on to recapture some of those first experiences.

The most exciting part of oat harvesting was the threshing time. A group of ten to fifteen farmers in the neighborhood formed a "run" in which they cooperated by helping with the threshing of each others oat crops. Each farmer would supply a wagon with a team of horses and the group owned or rented a threshing machine. In our run, Ed Johnson owned the threshing machine. The farmers moved from one farm to another and cooperatively completed all the farms in the run.

We, or at least I, eagerly looked forward to the day when the threshers would come to our farm. The prediction of the day before might be that they would be coming about noon. And, sure enough, about 2:30 the first two teams and racks would finally arrive. They would go immediately out to the field and, with pitchforks, begin to toss the shocked bundles onto the rack. A few minutes later two more teams and racks would arrive, and soon the field would be swarming with hay racks being loaded with bundles of oats. You can be sure, too, that the racks would be loaded in minimum time because no man out there wanted to be known as a "poke."

At last, the big steam engine with the giant rear wheels and its big boiler and smoke stack would come puffing into the driveway pulling the monstrous threshing machine behind it. It would set up in a place where the straw stack would be formed. By time the threshing machine was in place the first loads, piled high with oat bundles, would be ready and they would drive up next to the threshing machine. When everything was ready to go the big engine revved up, rumbled into gear and began to drive the huge belt that operated the threshing machine. With a deafening roar and a cloud of dust the machine settled into full operation and the men on the racks began to feed the bundles into the hopper of the thresher. The hungry machine swallowed the bundles, pounded them to pieces and sent out a stream of oats through a spout into a waiting trailer or truck. On the other side and beyond, a huge spout with a blower moved slowly from side to side over a thirty foot semicircle, disgorging the straw and chaff to form the straw stack. Someone, usually a younger member from the host farm, like me, would have the responsibility to operate the spout and to see that the straw would spread out evenly on the stack, enabling it to reach a sizable height. Another person would be on the stack with a pitchfork to compact the straw and smooth the edges. If the person on the stack was a friend of the spout operator he could count on occasionally getting blasted with a barrage of chaff and straw.

Another fascinating part of the threshing operation was the meal time.

The women were expected to serve all the hungry men, and serve them they did, with some of the biggest and most delicious meals I can remember. A bucket of warm water and a basin with soap and towels were set up on a table outside the house and here the men, blue shirt sleeves rolled high, would wash, splashing the water onto their grimy faces with both hands, snorting as they did so in order to keep the water out of their noses. I was always impressed with the transformation from filth to cleanliness that this pre-meal washing could produce.

After about a day the threshing would be done. With sadness I would watch the wagons, one-by-one, begin to pull away and leave for the next farm, followed at last by the exit of the steam engine and thresher. The noise, the activity, the excitement, all faded away and threshing would be completed again for another year. The farm and life on it would return to quiet and peace.

An appendix to the threshing season came about three weeks later. All the farmers would meet for an evening at Ed Johnson's place and figure up how much work they had put in at each place. If Harold Larson spent 10 hours at our place and my Dad and Henry spent 20 hours at his place, he would owe for those extra 10 hours. And so a great deal of calculating took place as the men sat around a huge table with pencils and pads of paper squaring up the labor costs.

But the exciting part of this night was that it was also an ice cream social to which all the women folk and kids were invited as well.

So, while the men were determining who owed who, and the women were visiting, the kids were outside in the dark having all the fun that kids know how to have under the shroud of darkness. Finally, however, the grand climax to the threshing season arrived when the huge dips of ice cream were portioned out along with cake and pop, and coffee for the grownups. It was fascinating to watch those big metal dippers dig into the huge cans of ice cream, while one's mouth drooled waiting for the third dip to be deposited on the plate next to the angel food cake.

The day would come, though, even while I was still on the farm, that the oat binder and the threshing machine along with the oat shocking and the threshing run would all be relegated to the pages of memory such as I'm trying to preserve here.

A new machine called the combine made all these things obsolete. The first combine came to our farm about 1941 or 1942. It moved through the fields picking up oats that had previously been cut and left in windrows, threshing it as it moved along. A trailer hitched to the combine would fill with oats and periodically would have to be exchanged for an empty one. Later combines cut the standing oats and performed all the threshing functions in one operation. The combine also made the growing and harvesting of soybeans a much simpler operation, a factor that led to soybeans eventually replacing oats on most Iowa farms.

Haying time occurred three times during the summer. We grew alfalfa as our primary feed for the cattle and usually three crops could be grown in the period from May to September. The alfalfa was cut with a mower which had a moving cutting bar similar to that on a binder. After being cut it would lay on the ground for about a day to cure or dry out. If it did not dry out sufficiently there was the danger of it heating up in the barn and causing a fire, the very thing which probably caused our barn to burn down that night in November 1937. After sufficient drying, the alfalfa was raked by a machine that moved it into long, continuous windrows. Then, with our pitchforks, we piled the hay into small mounds. When all the hay was so arranged, we proceeded to load the piles onto a hayrack pulled by a team of horses.

To unload the hay and put it into the barn required that three sets of rope slings be placed on the rack, one set on the rack floor and an additional set after each 3 or 4 feet of compacted hay was added. When the load was full it would be driven home and placed directly under the huge upper barn door which had previously been opened. A pulley would be lowered from the top front peak of the barn and hooked to the set of slings under the top section of the hay. This pulley was attached to a very long, thick rope which extended all the way to the top rear of the haymow and down through another pulley on the west side of the barn to the ground. Here, the end of the rope had a large hook to which the team of horses (or a tractor) would attach. When everything was set, the horses would begin to pull the rope and the hay under the top sling would curl over and eventually lift up and rise on its way to the peak of the barn where it hooked into a carrier. The carrier was a device with wheels which ran along a rail placed about a foot under the top of the barn. The carrier would then carry the slingful of hay to the desired location in the haymow, where, upon signal, a person standing on the outside of the barn would jerk a long thin rope attached to the carrier and trip the mechanism so that the load would drop. After depositing the load, the same person would pull the carrier back to the front peak of the barn with sufficient force so that it would lock into position at the end of the peak. From there the pulley was lowered again and the two other slings full of hay were each carried up into the barn in the same way. At the end of haying, or if rain threatened, the large barn door would be hooked to the pulley, raised up and closed.

One farmer on one occasion used this loading operation with considerable creativity. He had a large bull which he wanted to load into a truck. But, no way!

Neither he nor his helpers could coax, pull or push the beast up the ramp and into the truck. He had an idea. He moved the truck, walked the bull to the front of the barn, got out the sling ropes, put the ropes around the bull and hooked it to the pulley with the intention of lifting the bull just enough to deposit him into the truck. They hitched a team of horses to pull the other end of the rope, but as soon as the bull began to be lifted he let out a mighty bellow. This frightened the horses, causing them to bolt forward and run, which in turn sent the bull sailing upward and into the haymow, where they had no choice but to drop him onto the hay. How they got the bull out of the haymow, I do not know, but I'm sure that a creative person like him could handle that.

In later years we had most of our hay baled into rectangular blocks. This eliminated some of the work, but the bales would still have to be picked up and loaded into the haymow in basically the same way as before. Later balers loaded the bales directly onto a flatbed wagon, eliminating the job of loading them by hand from the field. John Eekhoff had a baler and did some of our baling. I spent a couple of weeks in two summers during my late high school and early college days working on the baler.

An important part of field work, of course, was the seeding or planting operation. I did very little of this. These were activities that occurred mainly during the school year, and only in dire emergencies would my folks consider it necessary to keep me out of school for work--or for anything else. Occasionally on Saturdays I might help with some oat or clover seeding, but planting corn was a rather skilled operation, not the kind of thing to be entrusted to a weekend helper.

Cultivating corn and soybeans, however, was a summer activity and I spent many an hour going up and down the rows, stirring and blackening the soil and eliminating the weeds that, since Adam's fall, have made labor so laborious.

Corn was usually cultivated three times and possibly four, if it didn't get tall too soon. Cultivating was a bit monotonous--up two rows, down two rows--but like anything, it could be made moderately interesting by playing little games with it, like trying to predict how much I would be able to complete by morning coffee or by noontime dinner. It also allowed one to think and reflect on whatever one chose to, for serious decision-making was not involved in this work; nor were there radios on the tractor or headphones plugged into our ears to impede those reflections.

Another enjoyable job was plowing. We had a two-bladed plow with about 14-inch bottoms; so we could plow a 28 inch strip. The ground to be plowed usually consisted of oat stubble, alfalfa stubble, clover ground that had been used as pasture, or corn ground whose empty stalks had been previously chopped up into smaller pieces with a machine called a disk. The plow was usually set so that it would slice into the ground to a depth of about 4 or 5 inches. When everything worked well the blades would slice the soil cleanly and smoothly, curling it up and over and leaving two shiny, black ridges and a flat, one-foot furrow in its wake.

One of the biggest challenges of plowing was to start a section of the field by plowing a straight line, a feat that could be accomplished only by keeping one's eye fixed on a target at the opposite end of the field and then holding the tractor rigidly steady all the way across the field. If the first transit was straight, it was then a simple matter of following the furrow, and continuing up and down the field and watching the strip of black soil get a little wider with each new furrow you created.

The most demanding field work on the farm was corn picking, some called it corn husking.

This was a job that would consume much of October and often last well into November. Imagine a plot of ground one half mile long (from 123rd Street to 127th Street) and almost 2 city blocks wide (from the street west of us to Navajo school on Oak Park Ave.), and then realize that every 32 inches there would be a row of corn, and on that row every 32 inches there would be a "hill" of three stalks with three or more ears of corn on each hill. Then, realize that each one of those ears were firmly attached to the stalk and encased in dried husk. It was the challenge of the picker to sever each one of those ears from the stalk, remove all the husk from each ear, and then toss it into a wagon being pulled alongside the rows of corn by a team of horses. This is the way corn was harvested on our farm, and most farms, until about 1940 or 1941.

I did very little of that kind of corn picking, although I would help my dad or brothers on Saturdays or after school. There was a real skill to picking corn by hand, and a great deal of attention was given to the art. Corn husking contests were held in almost every county throughout the state and the winners would eventually compete in a State Corn Husking Contest. One year, about 1938, Tony Carlson, a young local farmer, received much acclaim in our parts for winning the state contest.

The skilled husker would approach the task very methodically, grasping the ear of corn in his gloved right hand and with a steel hook, which he wore over the glove near the palm of his left hand, he would rip the husk open, tear it back in one motion, and with his right hand, jerk it free from the stalk and flip it against the bangboard of the wagon. A good picker would keep a steady bombardment of ears against the bangboard and in the course of a full day could pick over a 100 bushels of corn.

That 100 bushels was considered the picker's par. Henry was quite skilled at it and regularly picked his 100 bushels or more. Harold, possible due to less experience, had a difficult time attaining that widely sought goal. One day, I remember, he determined he was going to get his 100 bushels. He got up extra early, hastened to the field before the sun had dawned, and husked furiously all day long until dark. He just did accomplish the feat and gave us all a cause for rejoicing. He never, to my knowledge, bothered trying to repeat that accomplishment.

I'm not sure when it was that we got our mechanical picker, but I would guess that it was before the War, probably about 1940. This machine could be mounted right on the tractor, driven between two rows of corn, and husk the corn probably 20 or 30 times as fast as it could be done by hand. There would be delays due to mechanical breakdowns now and then, there might be a few more husks, and some of the ears might be missed if the corn stalks had been bent or twisted by strong winds, but corn picking would never be the same after the mechanical picker came on the scene.

Viewed from the perspective of the times, It was with gladness that various forms of mechanical progress came to the farm in the early to mid- forties. These were the War years, of course, and farm production was essential to the war effort. Also, many of the farm hands were serving in the armed forces, so new labor saving machines were produced and welcomed. But an era was passing, and an old and good way of life was rapidly coming to an end. The family farm which required the cooperative efforts of the parents and several children to till the soil, raise and harvest crops, and care for a variety of animals, was heading for extinction.

Being right in the midst of this revolution, we didn't see very clearly what was happening at the time, but "progress" was grinding inexorably onward to make farming a big business operation, forcing hundreds of thousands to find a new relationship to life, often in less satisfying ways.

The tractor, which we had had since about 1930, eliminated the need for one team of horses, and soon the second team could be dispensed with, consigned to become the ingredients of high quality fertilizer. The useful, hard-working and faithful draft horse would become an endangered species, noted only in those history books describing the agriculture of a former age. The 160 acre farm, standard size for Iowa families during my childhood--who could ask for more?--would become ridiculously small for the monster farm machines that were appearing. And with crops so easy to produce with such machines, why mess with 300 chickens, 100 hogs, or 20 cows? Buy more land; forget the animals. And with chemicals to control weeds and insects, and chemical fertilizers to spur the growth of crops, all that was required in farming now was a few days in the spring to plant the corn or soybeans, a few days for application of weed and insect killers, and a few days for harvesting the mature crops, and the basic work of the farmer was done. Children may still grow up on the farm, of course, but they're really no longer farm children. It's a different way of life: more productive, to be sure, and necessary, perhaps, but not as good. And so it is with a bit of sadness that I look back and reflect, knowing that something precious and beautiful has been destroyed from life as it was--something that will never be recovered. At the same time, I am grateful because I was privileged to have experienced that life on the farm.

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9: On the Farm - Playtimes
10: On the Farm - Chores

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Chapter 10: On the Farm - Chores

With advancing age came advancing work responsibilities which we called "chores."

In those days, before the age of specialization, it was common practice for farmers to raise a variety of animals. We concentrated mainly on milk cows, hogs and chickens. The major portion of the chores were related to the production and care of these animals. We kept about three or four hundred chickens primarily for producing eggs; however, after the second year of producing eggs they were sold for meat. As a small child one of the delights of the year was the day we would bring home boxes of newly hatched baby chicks, one hundred fuzzy yellow little chirpers in each box. These were put in a special "brooder house" where they were nurtured until they were able to be treated like older chickens.

We would raise about 50 to 100 hogs each year, starting them off from birth from our own sows in about March. By November or thereabouts, after months of eating like pigs, they would be large enough to send off to market. A few brood sows would be kept for breeding purposes, mated with a boar; and the following spring the process would start all over again.

Our barn allowed for the milking of 16 cows and we usually had from 10 to 15 that would be producing milk at a given time. In order for cows to continue producing milk it was necessary that they also produce calves about once a year. We kept a bull among our cows in order to yearly impregnate them, which resulted in a continuous supply of new cows (heifers) which were often kept to replenish the herd, and of male calves which were sold as veal within a few weeks after birth.

In my later years on the farm we had our cattle artificially inseminated. This had two advantages: first, we didn't have to keep a bull around; and second, the genetic quality of the herd could be improved by using the sperm of bulls from a very superior quality stock.

We did not sell the milk itself; rather, we separated the cream from the milk with a machine aptly called the separator.

The cream was sold to the Farmer’s Cooperative Creamery in Kanawha where it was converted to various cream products including butter. Part of the skimmed milk which was left over was fed to the calves. The remainder was allowed to curdle by souring, after which the curds were separated from the whey. The curds went to the chickens and the whey was fed to the hogs.

Paul 1934

Besides the animals we raised for marketing, we also, until about my high school years, kept a couple of horses for farm work (in addition to a tractor). Other, less useful animals included a few mallard ducks which we kept, sometimes for eating, but mainly to decorate our pond next to the hog barn in back of the main barn. Two or three cats were also kept in order to curtail the population of mice and rats. Last, but certainly not least, we always had one dog on the farm, if for nothing else, to harass the rabbits. The dogs, moreover, also served as congenial companions, as barking heralds of visitors arriving on the property, and, sometimes, as aids in bringing the cows in from the pasture. Some dogs we had were useful in flushing out the pheasants during pheasant hunting season, a sport that was very popular with my dad and most farmers around Kanawha, but which I never had any desire to engage in.

Chores in my younger years were often done with Ruth. We would take our bushel fruit basket and fill it with corn cobs for the kitchen stove, and in the winter, get a bucket of coal for the living room stove. We gathered eggs too. Most of them from the chicken house, but some of our chickens would build nests in the barn and we would have to locate those too. The chicken feeders had to be filled with ground grain and oyster shells, and water had to be carried to their drinking places. As I got older, I would have to feed the hogs twice a day, and in the winter, the cows and horses also.

One of the biggest challenges was to teach a newborn calf to drink from a pail of milk.

This involved letting the calf suck your fingers, then thrusting your fingers and his mouth into the milk pail, hoping that the sucking would draw up the milk. After a while the calf would learn to drink without the aid of your fingers.

At about age ten or eleven I was introduced to milking. The cows had to be milked morning and night every day on a regular schedule. There is a real skill involved in milking by hand. The cow's teats had to be grasped and squeezed just right to make the milk squirt out. Then it was one squirt after another until the udder was utterly empty or "dry". A productive cow that had recently become "fresh" (that is, that had delivered a calf fairly recently) could give up to 3 gallons of milk in one milking. To fill a pail rapidly one had to develop a fast rhythm and keep those squirts cascading against the inner side of the pail in an alternating but almost continuous, flow. Some cows milked easy, while others required more effort. There were cows who liked to kick the bucket and, sometimes, the milker as well. Many a gallon of milk whitened the manure in the gutter, and many an angry cuss word blued the air on those same occasions because of it. Notorious kickers were shackled with chains on their lower back legs.

About the time I began high school we acquired a mechanical milker, the type that hung on a belt and drew the milk by a surging vacuum action which milked all four teats at one time. One person with a pair of mechanical milkers could now do the milking in less than half the time that it took three persons to milk by hand. Some cows would still kick, however, and even the machines could lose their contents to the gutter. I never enjoyed milking, especially in early spring or in wet weather when the cows, after walking through the mud back of the barn, would have to be cleaned before they were milked.

The chore I detested the most, however, was one which was done only once a year, but it seemed to come along much oftener.

As I mentioned, we raised pigs with the idea of growing them to near maturity, fattening them, and selling them on the market. Now male pigs, after they reached a certain age, were not only difficult to control, but their pork would become unsuitable for eating; that is, unsuitable, if they retained their full masculinity. The solution was to deprive them of their full masculinity by surgically removing their testicles. This was best accomplished with a sharp one-edged razor blade sometime before the little porkers became a foot tall. My dad had many years of experience as the surgeon and I soon learned how to prepare the patients for the operation. We first enclosed all the pigs, both males and females, in a small area. My job was to grab the right rear leg of a male, then its front leg, and flip him over in such a way that I could keep my left knee pressed against his head and pull the legs back to expose the location where my dad could make the necessary incisions. No anesthesia was applied and the three or four minute routine precipitated some ear-piercing squeals which, however, subsided quickly when the procedure was completed. Because there were usually 50 or so male pigs to require castration, it would take three or more hours before the last male meekly trotted off to join his emasculated brothers.

If there was any pleasure at all in this "detesticle" work, it was derived solely from the relief gained by the completion of the yearly task.

Getting back to our dogs, on one occasion our dog may have saved the life of brother Henry.

As I said, we kept a bull around, usually a young bull because as these specimens of masculinity became fully mature they often became quite fierce and a threat to people who might find themselves in the same vicinity and unprotected. Older bulls were usually kept in the barn instead of being allowed to roam among the cows in the barnyard or pasture. To lessen the danger in keeping a bull, the animal would be dehorned at a young age and later have a ring placed in his nose by which he could be led around with a pole hooked into that ring. On this occasion Henry was leading the bull from the stall in the barn to the water tank outside, using only a rope hooked to the ring. The bull had not as yet displayed much bullish behavior and no exceptional precautions were considered necessary. But there is always a first time, and this was it. Our bull suddenly chose to demonstrate his virility as Henry unsuspectingly walked ahead of him while leading him to the water tank. The bull gave one quick snort, charged head down, knocking Henry flat to the ground, and then began pawing and snorting, preparing for another charge. But our dog Sport was nearby, saw the incident and immediately tore into the bull, barking and biting at his nose and effectively diverting him from his malicious intentions. Just what happened after that, I don't recall, but somehow the bull was controlled and put back into the barn, and Henry, with a few aches, survived with something to tell his grandchildren about.

While on the subject of bulls, I must relate an incident with a bull in my own life which occurred when I was in about the 8th grade. One of my jobs at this stage in my life, in addition to milking the cows, was to get the cows from the pasture in the summer months so that they could be milked. On this particular late afternoon I was bringing the cows home. Among the cows was a young bull that was just beginning to become a bit frisky. I walked along side the herd until we got to the corner gate leading from the field into the barnyard. I stopped at this point to let all the cows pass through the gate. But the bull refused to pass. He remained behind and, with a challenging glint in his eye, he seemed to say: "You first. I'll follow."

I invited him to go on ahead, waiting several anxious moments for him to pass; but he was of another mind and insistent on staying right where he was. Finally, with a bit of apprehension, I went on ahead. The bull now immediately followed me. I walked a little faster; the bull walked faster too, almost to a trot, and was closing the gap between us. Prudence, to say nothing of panic, prompted me to run. My pursuer began running also, right behind me. By this time I was in the barnyard and made a frantic dash toward an area about a hundred feet to the right where there were a bunch of small boulders, the bull in close pursuit. I hurdled over a number of the boulders ( note the rocks in the upper left hand corner of the first photo on this page) and on into the midst of them. My pursuer, not knowing quite how to negotiate those boulders with his four hoofed feet, bellowed and bounded to a reluctant halt. Henry, meanwhile, had seen from the barn what was happening and immediately came running out with a pitchfork and persuaded my would-be assailant to cease and desist from his evil machinations. Panting, and probably sobbing, I gained an instantaneous appreciation for how precarious our earthly existence can be.

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