By 1968, Dad had grown tired of watching crops burn up. He put in an irrigation well, added a CAT engine, and bought a mile of mainline and at least a half mile of sprinkler pipe. By then he had four boys to help him move it. I had just entered the picture, so I wasn’t much help (Thank goodness). With the built in labor force, he earnestly tried to water every inch of ground he could. They laid mainline where ever possible and even carried hand move sprinklers, with the aid of poles, through corn. It’s not hard to figure out why two of my brothers practically disappeared after six years of that.
In 1974, I was mostly a nuisance when it came to moving pipe. I would try to ride the sprinkler joints while Dad and Mom, or one of my brothers carried it the required number of steps, to the next set. There were twenty eight joints, I think, so my brothers got proficient at shaking me off so they didn’t have the extra weight. I did want to be a part of it and at least think I was helping. Dad would have me help move the mainline. I could line the two ends up and hold the clip that held the two together up out of the way while Dad shoved them together.
It was a great Father/Son bonding experience for the most part. The only hiccup we ever had happened on one of those perfect, cool summer evenings. We were putting the mainline back out in the alfalfa. I was lining pipe up, holding the clip up, and saying “shove!” Dad would push them together, I’d clip them, and on to the next pipe we’d go. Line it up, hold up clip, “Shove”, watch in horror as finger disappears between pipe.
It must have felt wrong on his end, because Dad jerked the pipe apart, and I held up my hand. My little finger was kind of hanging beside my hand and I can tell you this, there’s a lot of blood in a six year old’s finger. Dad came running down the pipe, but I was too quick for him. “You cut off my finger!!” It was a very rational reaction from a six year old. “Would you stop! Come here.” “No! I want MOM. You cut off my finger!” The race was on. He yelled at my brother, who seemed to be frozen and watching the excitement from a safe distance, “Would you go get your mother!!” She was a quarter mile away setting out a sprinkler line with another brother. It could have been his fastest 440 ever. Dad finally caught me and wrapped up my finger with his dirty handkerchief. It was the kind of farm triage that builds a healthy immune system.
I tell this story, not because it’s a great story, but because it illustrates how time takes a little of the edge off certain episodes. 2020 has, so far, been a crazy, crappy, shake your head kind of year. My finger looks a little funky forty some years later, and I imagine, 2020 will look a little funky years from now. BUT, it will be a part of our history and it will have molded us and affected us in ways, good or bad. It will be a little like having a scar, that in time heals, but leaves a mark.
Farmer Dan's Food For Thought 