In My House

I am your typical first child in a family.

I am fastidious, because, by default I was taught to be. 

I am sensitive to my parents and their desires and wishes; they wouldn’t want it any other way.

I know, I know, any child not born first is going to raise the cry of ‘not true’ at what I say next.

My parents tried their best to get it right when they trained me.  Their discipline to me was straightforward and consistent.

Today, when I look at my younger brother, I don’t see it that way for him.  

He definitely gets more advantages than I did.

At least, that’s how I see it. 

And, I’m okay with it.  Mostly.  I know what is required of me, and I can give it in a way that is satisfactory to my folks.

I  know that in the end, me being the oldest, I’ll get first dibs on whatever it is my folks have to give when they choose to.

Knowing this, I recently entered into a partnership with my folks on the farm.  I’m interested in its legacy, and I’ll do what I can to see it through to the next generation.

*****

My little brother is a different sort entirely. 

I have yet to see any resemblance of responsibility shown by him. 

I don’t get it.  He is up late in the morning, and to bed way later than the rest of us.  You can pretty much guess how he faces each day living that kind of schedule.  The way I figure, he puts in a half day of work most days.  And then I still must go redo his work most of the time.

So, it came as a bit of relief one day when he approached our folks and told them he was interested in joining a trade school in a nearby town.  He said farming just wasn’t his thing. 

On our farm, we boys don’t get wages as such.  We get a pittance wage in return with the promise that when folks retire, the farm cedes to us.  In the meantime, our basic needs are met by folks. 

My folks listened attentively to my little brother, and I was amazed to hear my dad say he’d cover the first semester of trade school, and then he expected my little brother to pay his own way with afterhours work.

That first semester fee was more than the sum total of my wages I have received to date. 

My jaw dropped and stayed unhinged for quite some time after hearing those words, and it’s probably good it did, because if it had worked, I’m sure I would have said something I would have later regreted.

*****

Little bro was soon off to trade school.  Honestly, I didn’t notice much added to my workload.  Which proved my earlier suspicion; he really hadn’t pulled his share of the load anyway.

Well, the first semester came to an end, and we got word that jobs were scarce in the city, and, could the next semester be paid from home?  He would try his best to get a job and pay back the loan as quickly as he could.

I was okay with this, per se.  I encouraged folks to start a schedule of repayment for his loan.  I didn’t want any of that cash slipping out and gone for good.  We were running a slim enough margin that not much could go unaccounted for. 

We got busy on the farm then, and it seemed like just a few days, and the second semester was over.  I asked folks if their loan had been repaid.  Their answer stunned me. 

They said nothing had been paid back.

And they felt so badly, they said, that they advanced my brother more cash. 

They assured me it would be okay; they had confidence it would all come back. 

But it didn’t.

It wasn’t long, and I saw dad quietly selling some unused equipment.  Soon, he traded off more essential equipment, and purchased older, and smaller equipment to take its place.  What once had been a farm anyone could have been proud of started going to shambles.

I burned with fury.  It was obvious folks had overextended themselves.  Dad and I slaved day and part of the night with that older, high maintenance equipment, just trying to eek out enough to make it to the next year.

The livestock went next.  I was heartbroken.  I loved the cattle, they were my friends.

The years slipped by and with frugal living and careful farming methods, we began to slowly gain. 

Enough so, that one day we were able to buy a good-looking heifer that was bred with good bloodlines.  We figured if her calf was a bull, we were set, as it looked like by then we might have enough to purchase a small heifer calf to pair with it.  And we did.  We got that heifer calf, and if all went well, in a few months we planned to turn her in with the bull. 

My hopes begin to rise, ever so slightly.

I even dared to hope that I might be able to get married, which was something I didn’t feel like was possible with the estate the farm was in, even though my folks encouraged me to take the step in faith; that it all would work out if I did.

One day I was out planting.  It looked like the seed was going into good moisture, and there was a chance of rain that night.  If I put in a few extra hours, I knew I could finish and then we’d see if that rain came or not.

I was about finished when I happened to glance toward the house. 

My heart froze. 

Every light was on.  Had there been an accident?  I saw vehicles filled the yard and spilled out onto the road.

I picked up and ran for all I was worth in that direction.  I came even with the corrals and my heart sank.  I saw a blood trail leave it and go towards the house, but I was still clueless as to what had happened.

And then suddenly I knew. 

I just felt it, I guess.

My little brother was home.

I tasted the bitter, acrid taste of the most conflicting emotion I have ever known.

I was stunned.  Speechless.

Not only had my little brother drained the farm and us of all we had, but rumor had also filtered back that the life he was living never was a life at school. 

He had turned our good family name into a travesty.

Now, here he was, back home, and from the looks of things, all the stops had been pulled out and a huge celebration was in the makings.

All for an imbecile, who just happened to be my little brother.

And then, I must have gone berserk. 

I really don’t remember much of what happened next. 

I was standing near one of the outbuildings of the place, and, I must have lost it.

“NO!”  I screamed.

“NO!  NO!  NO!  You suffering fool!”

“NO!”  And I slammed my fist into the wall of the shed. 

I continued screaming and hitting the building until, spent and bloodied, I sat down against the wall facing away from the house.

And then, I started sobbing.  Deep, horrific sobs that are the loneliest thing a man can ever endure.  I cried in anger, rage, and frustration. 

Finally, my sobs lost some of their force, and I sat there, quietly crying, in the deepest sadness I had ever known. 

And then I realized someone was sitting beside me. 

I don’t know how long he had been there. 

He waited for my crying to cease, and, then, sat in silence with me for a few minutes before asking, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

I told him everything. 

It came out in a torrent of words that I couldn’t have stopped if I tried.  At one point, my language got so vile, I stopped, appalled at what he must be thinking.

“Go on,” he said, in the kindest of tones.

When I finished, we sat there, in silence, and I waited for the blow to fall. 

I was sure he would chastise me, lay some harsh words down on me.

But he didn’t. 

“I get it,” he said. 

And, we sat in silence again, for a spell.

“You have every reason to feel the way you are feeling,” he said, after a while.

“You worked so hard, and I’m sure your father noticed that, and appreciated it.”

I began to sob again.

He draped a kind, loving arm across my shoulders and continued.

“You did everything right.  You worked so hard.  You had the long view in mind, which is always good. 

You were, in a sense, everything your brother wasn’t.”

It was such a relief to hear those words.

“But you need to be in the house,” he said.

“What?”

“Yes.  You need to be in the house.  Together with them.”

“No.  No, there is no way I could be.  Not after everything that has happened.”

“You belong in the house.”

“Obviously not.  Look at the fuss they are making over my brother.  And after all he did. 

No.  They don’t want me there.”

“It’s in the house you’ll find yourself,” he continued, seeming somehow to understand what I was feeling, and yet urging me on to something I did not yet understand.

“You did it right, and your father has every reason to be proud of you.  You saved the farm, more than you’ll ever know.”

He paused.

“But it’s been lonely, hasn’t it.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“It’s just been you and your work, all these years.”

“Yes.”

“A person, living in your situation, has the tendency to become a law unto himself, or self-right.  I wouldn’t blame you if it happened to you.  It can happen to anyone.

You tend to start doing things the way you think they ought to be done, and it soon becomes the only way they are done.  It’s sort of like you live your life by good works, and, really, you have done quite well in that.”

“But my brother . . . “

“Ah, yes.  He’s on the other side of the coin, isn’t he.  You could say that in a way, his life was one for plumbing the depths of grace, while yours has been one for plumbing the depths of good works.  Every day, your brother got farther and farther away, in your mind, because you were isolating yourself from him and hedging yourself around with the good work you did.  You sort of removed yourself from all of life, for that matter. You had become an island unto yourself. 

Meanwhile, as his circumstances got more and more desperate, and the grace so freely extended to your brother was finally siphoned away to what seemed nothing, your brother became just as isolated; his isolation was terrible.  There seemed to be no hope for him.”

We sat silent for a while, and then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to me. 

I blew my nose and wiped the tear streaks away. 

“Keep it,” he said, when I handed it back to him.  “I want you to have something from me to remember our time with.”

“Thanks,” I said, and then, I got my first really good look at him.

“Your brother was at his end; hopeless.  Total despair.  He knew he had squandered every drop of grace, or so it seemed.

But there’s always grace.  Not for him in the huge amounts like it was when he started out, but enough to warm him to the thought of what it must be like in his father’s house.

And he got himself there; and surprisingly for you, he used some of the same effort you have used these last few years.

Grace alone couldn’t do it for him.  Good works alone can’t do it for you.”

The light began to dawn on me, and I suddenly realized what a fool I had been.

“The farm can wait,” he said.

“You need to be in my house.

They are waiting for you there.”

String of Pain

I saw them in a perfect line along the top of her hand.

“Like a string of pearls,” I thought.

“Or five words, neatly written in a calligraphy of red on a tan manuscript.”

They had a touch of artistry to them.

And they spoke volumes to me as she handed me my medication. 

And I noticed she had lost weight and looked older since the last time I was there.

And I wondered, “Will she be here the next time I come in?”

Because her eyes told me the rest.  They were blown wide open, and the suffering pooled in them and glittered.

I hope someone is there to walk beside her. 

It’s going to be a painful journey, I’m afraid.

India #7

He sat there, bored and a bit aloof, and, I really couldn’t blame him.

His 15 years of living had been mostly filled with this little room and the knowledge it had to impart.

The 20 x 30 foot space was not lost on him; he knew every deviation and modulation of the rough floor as well as he knew the nearby Himalayan skyline. 

He knew, because there were no desks in the room, and all their work was done on the floor. 

And they lined up in rows, youngest in front, to the oldest in back.  And the room was full, just like it was today, every day. 

And just as warm, under the tin roof, as the insects and outside air filtered through the large openings in the concrete walls.

And he knew what it was like to share that space with 40 others, day in and day out. 

He was the oldest now, but he could easily see himself as one of the little 3 ½ year olds that were just beginning their own personal journey under their beloved pedagogue.

The irony of it all surely wasn’t lost on him either.  He knew why this school was here.  The thinly veiled references to Christianity and the songs they sang all talked about it in one way or another.  And even though his village was predominately Hindu, and even though Christianity was excluded, taught against, in the evenings and the rest of the week, it was the only school they had, so he went to it.

He followed the movements of the two young men as they set up the flannel graph tripod, placed the board on it, and then watched as his teacher ceded his authority to them for the next 45 minutes. 

He didn’t pick out any songs to sing, even though he did help sing them; he had had his turn at such, now it was the younger one’s turn.

He listened as the flannel graph Bible story was told.  Likely he had heard it before, and his good training showed in his courteous and mannerly attitude.

He took the paper with the picture they were supposed to color, and I caught myself rebelling for him.

But he didn’t.  He crouched down like all the rest and began coloring.  Some of the smallest ones quickly colored theirs, and then, their short attention span depleted, ducked into daydreams that nodded off into short naps before the rest were done.

But not so with him. 

He took the colored pencils from the two young men and surveyed them and his picture carefully.  It was then I saw that what could have been a project to sneer at, from his lofty age, became a challenge they all shared, according to their various ages.

He carefully worked the color into the corners, deftly moved it along the straight lines, then skillfully shaded in the broader areas.  And when he was finished, he handed his picture to the two young men for them to sign and leave a kind written remark, just like all the rest.  He knew that his picture would be judged by his own merit and the amount of hard work he had put into it; not by how it compared to all the rest. 

He accepted, without ceremony, the piece of candy one of the young men gave him and went back to his place to wait until all the rest had finished, and one more song would be sung.  Then he could go home.

But it took a little longer to finish this time, because a small one, maybe four years old, who couldn’t speak any English at all, wanted two pieces of candy.  He quietly stood near one of the young men, bumping up against the young man’s knee, and held out his little hand.

We all watched as the young man kindly told him in his native tongue, that he could have one color or the other, but not both.  The little one quietly begged; no words were spoken; his big almond eyes telling the story.  He could wait; he wanted the candy, but, maybe, he wanted the presence of the young man even more. 

Finally, school was dismissed, and they all left, some in ones and twos, some in groups. 

He left by himself.  And a part of me went with him, somehow.  He seemed so quiet, so aloof.  I wanted to make friends with him, but my time with him was over. 

I watched as he broke into a jog, then into a run and I saw the ground slip beneath him with surprising alacrity.

In just seconds, he had vanished from my sight. 

The two young men took the flannel graph board and tripod down.  One of them spoke some kind words of encouragement to the schoolteacher, who was there on his own hook, and because of his love for Christ. 

We soon packed ourselves away into the Scorpio, and one of the young men told us to roll our windows down and hold our hands out, because the schoolchildren would be lined up along the road out of the village to high five us as we went by. 

We drove slowly, and, tears were never far away as we touched their hands and told them Namaste, Namaste.  Because it felt like I loved them.  And they were my friends, even though I didn’t even know their names.  And I knew I’d never see them again.

I looked behind to see many of them standing, just where we had met and high fived, looking on as we slowly left their little place.

We rounded the last curve and turned onto the main road.

And there he was. 

The last in a long line of friends all lined up to say goodbye. 

More than a half mile from the schoolroom. 

Standing in his own confidence, perfectly in control of himself. 

His eyes looked deep into mine, and mine did into his. 

I didn’t high five him. 

I gripped his hand and held it as long as I could as we slowly rolled by.

Because I knew why he left early and ran hard.

Dear K1, K2, and K3

I hear, in a roundabout way, that your teacher dropped herself on her head, and now you don’t need to have school for the rest of the week.

I bet that’s a good feeling.  Not having school that is.

But do something for me, will you?  Take care of your schoolteacher for me, since I can’t be there to harass her back to the light of day.

I have good news to tell you. 

The vacuum sweeper? 

It quit.

On the very plugin that it embarrassed me so dreadfully with the help lady.

I won’t even bother to call the help lady about it.  Because now it started working again, on a different plugin this time. 

I think it has a thing about work and chooses when or when not to get busy.  Might not be so very different from people who go to school.

I hadn’t talked to Bozar in a long time, so I rode out to where he was munching away on the dried out, brown grass that is all there is left to eat anymore.

He took one look at me, lowered his head, and whipped it from side to side, stringing slobber all over the place.  Next, he made a lunge at me, like he was ready to take me out.  But he stopped short, and just chuckled at me.  “Dude,” I said, “You are so stupid, you aren’t even stupid.” 

I patted his head, thumped his thick, heavy neck, and talked about life with him.  He lowered his head against my leg and just held it there for a while, then he rubbed up and down a couple of times and said, “That’s it pal,” so I got on my way back home.

I need to grill some chicken tomorrow morning for Bryce.  They are supposed to do an Indian meal for the youth tomorrow evening.  I imagine I’ll do the grilling over charcoal, seems like it always tastes better that way, even if it is more work.

Just so you know, by my count it’s 13 days until I see if I can find a jet plane that will fly me over to Syracuse, and then I’ll see if I can’t find a ride to Ohara road. 

We may have some good times together if we aren’t careful. 

Oh.  It’s my turn to choose a word for next week.  Amber, who is just a bit older than you, K3, and I take turns picking a word and then we both include it in what we write.

I have several words saved up to choose from.  They are Myopic, Ululation, Pith, Scamp, Alacrity, and Natty. 

Why don’t you pick one for me out of that list?

(Do you think since I included all of them in this that I won’t need to write on any of them now?)

Till then,

Kind

His son is challenged in ways a lot of us aren’t.

His son often roamed the yard, lips moving rapidly, brows knit together; something heavy on his mind.

His son had an affinity for rocks.  He had a wicked backhand throw that sent them spinning through the air a high rate of speed.

His first choice of target was the mirrors on his dad’s farm equipment; It was often when I was on the yard that I looked up and saw broken mirrors staring back at me from their vantage point.

His second choice of target was the moving fan blades in front of the engine on his dad’s tractors.

If his rock made it into that 6-inch gap between the fan shroud and engine, and made contact with the moving fan, one of two things would happen.  Either the rock made it through the blades and got hit by them on the backside of the fan, where it was propelled at tremendous speed into the radiator, or, the rock came in contact with the blades on the front side of the fan, and was propelled at horrific speeds back out in any random direction.

I don’t know how many mirrors and radiators his dad had to purchase during the time he lived with them.  For a while, his dad hung heavy canvas tarp material from the sides of the hood on each tractor as a sort of protection to deflect the rocks away before they hit the fan.  But he couldn’t fasten them on the bottom, because then the air couldn’t make it out, and the engine would overheat.  So, when the tractor ran, the canvas flapped open at the bottom, giving his son just a fraction of an angle shot, up into the fan blades.

It worried us mechanics to work there.  It was more than once that I was charging the A/C and I heard a sharp clang, and looking up, I saw his son some yards distant, cheering at his good shot.  I guess I must have been lucky not to have been hit.  I’m sure if I had, it could have been fatal.

But his dad.  Was so, kind.

He was just enough mysterious that you believed him. 

He carried a sort of deep strength about him.

He tried to stay in the area where we were working to keep tabs on his son.

And if his son got a shot off, and if it was one of those nerve shattering, rock smashing hits with the fan, I saw him go to him.

And I saw him gently wrap his arm around his son’s bent shoulders.

And he eased him off to the side, so that he couldn’t harm us.

And when he spoke softly to him, I saw the creased, troubled face of his son smooth over in peace.

I saw his son smile, then, and I saw his son put his arm around his dad. 

And I saw them stand there, arm in arm, while I worked on his tractor.

On His Knees

She was a good student.

She always got right to work after the assignments were given, and stayed with it until she was finished.

She didn’t ask a lot of questions, and her grades were usually on the good side.

She often seemed disinterested in school, and I could see why.  She lived in a family of adults, and she was the last one to attend school. 

But she hated creative writing.

She said she wasn’t good at it.

And that was interesting to me; because she was good at it.  Really good.

So, I got the Stir Crazy popcorn popper, some oil, and popcorn and put it on the back counter.

And each time, just a bit before Creative Writing, I’d get it going, and then we’d all have popcorn while we did our writing.  (Because, sometimes I wrote with them, and I needed the distraction just as much as she did.)

One morning I asked them to write where God was when they prayed to him.

Some said he was at the top of the room.   Some said he was up in the sky somewhere.  Some said he was in the same house.

She said, “On His knees beside me.”

Evidence

I see the gashes.

Some are deep and fresh; some are from earlier days.

I remember the fog last night.  I remember how beautiful it looked, way up there on the hills.  It all seemed so distant, so non-threatening. 

And then the deer leaped out; I braked, but the driver in front of me couldn’t stop fast enough.  Because he was pulling a heavy load. 

I was surprised at how sad I felt for the deer as it tumbled, rolled, and finally just slid down the icy incline.

I remember seeing a fresh set of tracks down into the ditch, in the snow and ice, and several trucks lined up, ready to pull the vehicle down there back up to the road, so I moved on.

I remember, later in the evening, how danger tasted; tart and bitter.  Because the black night was all around me by then.  And I knew there were icy spots on the dark, winding road that I couldn’t see.  And because civilization and cell service were imaginary, at best.  And my lovely sat beside me, and I feared for her safety.

*****

I know that the temperature is still below freezing, even though the sun is shining this morning.  I see icy spots here and there on bridges, so I take my time and am careful.

I continue to see the gashes.

There are lots of them.  Some still have broken vehicles parked in them.  Some of the guardrails have come undone. 

Finally, because there are so many of them, and since it’s not icy anymore, and because the day is warm, they slip by in a 79 miles per hour collage of blurred snap shots. 

They don’t affect me so much anymore.  The deer is an isolated event from the evening before; there is distance between me and it now.

I began to wonder why so many people were out on the roads when they were so icy. 

I shrug.  I don’t know the answer to that question. 

And, I’m afraid, there is a little bit of indifference in my shrug.

But then the truth slams home. 

Every one of those gashes tells a story. 

Every person who slipped off the icy road yesterday is looking at life totally different today, because of the gashes. 

Some may have been changed only enough to have had to call a tow truck and the rearrangement of their schedules.

Some may be changed in a way that leaves them physically impaired.

*****

I see the gashes.

They may not be visible, but I see them, nonetheless.

I see them as my life and yours intermingles.

On some, they are fresh, they are deep. 

Whether deep and fresh, or timeworn, the truth they tell has been etched with excoriating certainty. 

The pain they cause is definable; real.

Your wounds remind me of mine, and I’m surprised, at times, how deeply I feel about your life.

Sometimes your wounds cause a new round of pain in my own life that I need to take time to deal with. 

And that is how it is supposed to be.

The day should never wear on, like it did for me on the interstate, and I become complacent, even zoned out, to what you feel.

Because each wound, each scar, is evidence to me that your life has been irrevocably changed.

And I hope that for every person down in the ditch today, there are 3, maybe 4 folks stopped by the side of the road, ready to give assistance.

I may not know you.  For sure, I don’t know what you are going through at this exact moment. 

But because of the scars in my own life, I feel deeply for you.

Blood Payment

I sat there, in the family car, and fumed. 

I glared at the parking lot in front of me, willing it to say one word at me, and I’d argue it back to the street. 

Because the parking lot was guilty of being a conveyance of sorts to the feet of my boys. 

It had sent them straight from the car, directly to the store which sold jeans that I had no use for.

Jeans that had no place in the likes of my home, much less on the body of my boys.

I didn’t know how I was going to address this one when they came back out of that store, but I knew I’d have my guns spiked, one way or another, and I’d let them know exactly where I stood on the matter.

Time dragged.

My anger cooled down to a slow simmer.

And then, in the clearest of impressions, I got the message telling me what I needed to do.

It wasn’t right to expect my boys to navigate this time alone, much less, under the towering cloud of my anger.

They were living their most vulnerable moments right then; I couldn’t stand by, and expect everything to fall into place, could I?

But the choice of action that suggested itself was far from appealing.

“Pay it forward.”

For a moment, I thought I had been hoodwinked by some wild timelapse gap in the neuroplasticity of my gray matter.

But then I heard it again.

“Pay it forward. How do you expect them to feel about you someday when you need help, or are in a vulnerable situation yourself?”

I put the cap on the simmering pot of anger inside me and doused the fire out that was feeding it.

I got out of the car, and walked myself across the same parking lot, into the same store that the boys were in.

I eased around, as much off to the side as I could, just there, if they wanted.

They looked up, startled to see me in there, but I let them have their space.

It wasn’t long, and one of them came over with a shirt in his hand.  “See this?  See the deep maroon in just the right light?  You should get it,” one of them said.

We soon melded into a single group, tossing out opinions and ideas on what was a good product and what wasn’t.

I don’t remember if they got the jeans or not.  All I know is that what I felt in the store with them was a lot better than what I felt by myself out in the car.

*****

From that day on, you might could call us sharecroppers in this game called life.

I know it’s extremely important to be there for your boys, when they are in the toddler stage and all; probably the most important of any time of their life.

But I also know that later on, it seems about as important to put a little time down, being there for, and with them, in a sort of blood payment, if you will. Really, is it asking so much when you think about One who gave the ultimate example of such some years ago?

From what I gather, based on my own experience, paying it forward like that never is easy, but it accrues in immense percentages as time moves along.

Hole in the Ground

“Every young man should have the fun of digging a hole in the ground,” the 70-plus year old man told me, as he stood next to the hole I was digging to install a sprinkler system in the yard adjoining his.

“You think so?”

“Sure, I do.  I dug one when I was 6 or 8 years old.  I think each of my boys did.  Did you ever dig one?”

“Yeah, I did.  Only got about waist deep.”

“Your boys dug one yet?”

“No, but I bet they do.”

Incidentally, Austin was working with me that day, not much over seven years old himself, and heard our conversation.

It wasn’t long, and I saw the beginnings of a hole being dug on the north side of the tree row north of our place. 

The hole was still an infant, maybe a couple of feet deep, when we had a rainstorm of enormous proportions.  I saw a sheet of water rolling across our yard from the field to the south of us, perhaps 2 to 3 inches deep. 

The next morning, the seven-year-old boy was shocked to find his newly constructed hole filled to the brim with water and all the flotsam that the deluge from the day before carried with it.

Whereupon once the ground dried out and digging operations could recommence, the dirt being extracted from the hole was piled into a berm approximately 1-1 ½ feet high around the project.  This berm was continually modified, lengthening, and winding farther and farther away from the hole as the days and months came and went and more and more dirt was mined.

The hole was nearing the five-foot mark.  I happened to have a mini excavator rented for a job we were doing, and, unloading it from the trailer that evening, began the circuitous slow journey around the east and then to the north of the yard to the hole.  The family followed along, at first asking repeatedly where I was going, and then, as we got closer, what I was going to do.

I set up to the east of the hole, right on its edge, and took the depth down to the 9-foot mark.  Next, I backed up a little and cut a step out of the east wall about two feet up from the bottom, and then corresponding steps all the way up to ground level.

A new flurry of activity commenced north of the trees.  A hefty sized board was found that was long enough to bridge across the hole.  A rope and pully were bought.  A bucket was attached to the rope, and a tie off point down at the bottom of the hole was pegged into the wall.  This way, the lad could dig a bucket full of dirt, reef on the rope to lift the bucket to the top, run up the stairs, grab the bucket, and empty it onto the ever extending, neatly constructed berm.  Even the dirt pile I had piled to the side with the mini was carefully carried away to additional berm construction. 

Construction plans now included mining a few more feet down, which stopped at a depth of 14 feet, then tunnel construction towards the back door of the house, which was located some 75 to 100 feet away.  I got down there myself, then, and helped install a ceiling with supports in the four-foot hollowed out area to the left of the main shaft. 

Progress slowed and soon stopped, as the lad who had pioneered this epic effort morphed into a young man, although there were sporadic forays on days when the mood and frustration of the young man was such that the parents couldn’t be of much help.  There seemed to be a good amount of therapy gained down there, the young man armed with a pry bar and sledgehammer, gouging away at the side wall of the cave area.

The hole, with its 14-foot depth, seemed a bit of a safety hazard.  We learned this when we climbed down there a few months later and came face to face with your typical western Kansas prairie rattlesnake.  

We covered the construction site with several pieces of tin, and largely forgot about it for the next few years.

Until J. J., one of Austin’s friends, was over for the evening.  Turned out to be a rather tumultuous evening for him.  First, he was stepped on by the horse.  Later, when the boys were racing around the premises on foot, playing I don’t know what game, the boys circumvented the tin while J.J. elected to run right across it.  It didn’t hold, and after a muffled shout of surprise that ended in a thump far below, we looked down, panic stricken, to see what bones might be broken.  We were lucky.  None were broken, just a few sore spots and a scraped area where the edge of the tin had caught him as he traveled past it.

And then, after we covered it back up with the tin, we forgot about it, excepting the odd times we showed it as a tourist attraction on the place.

*****

Ten years slid by.  We had a wonderful rain one night and I was out, slowly walking down to the pens to see how sloppy they were, when I saw the gate to pen 4 leered jauntily ajar at me.  And, I saw five fresh trails of beef prints leaving there and heading west.

They were the hoof prints of 5 steers I had been fattening up to have butchered and sell parted out.  It wasn’t a problem at all to track them in the soft oozy mud.  I guessed their track to be less than an hour old, which would coincide with the sunrise spreading enough light around for them to see the gate had been left open, by none other than yours truly.

But when I found them, down at the bottom of a milo field a quarter mile away, there were only four of them. 

I got the boys, and we worked those four back up out of the waist high milo, back up to the home pens.  They herded easily enough, and it was soon they were back where they belonged.

But where was number 5?

We had four blacks in the pen; I knew the fifth was red and, I thought, would surely be easy to spot against the surrounding landscape. 

We looked for a couple of hours, though, and couldn’t find it anywhere.  I dismissed the boys and said I’d look for it on my own.  I started again, back down by pen 4, and followed the trail.  All five sets moved westerly towards the milo field. 

And then I saw it.  About halfway to the field, I saw the prints of one turn back towards the east.  They moved back into and were lost in the trail leaving pen 4.  I saw them emerge from the slop of the trail near the bottom fence of pen 4 and move in a northerly direction.  I followed them north and east, then saw them double back on themselves, before finally turning back to the east. 

East, along the north side of pen 4, then farther east along the north side of the north tree row . . .

I remembered the hole, and was pretty sure I knew what I’d find before I got there.

Sure enough, the tracks went by the hole with the tin covering it, circled back, and for some odd reason, tromped right onto the tin. 

I looked down, down, and there he was, wedged in the bottom of the crevasse. 

I was amazed at how diminutive his 800 pounds looked, all bunched up and forlorn like.

I called the boys over and we brainstormed about how would be the best way to get him out.  One option was to dig him out with a mini excavator.  But that was soon ruled out as being costly and time intensive when other work and customers were waiting even as we stood and planned.

One of the boys suggested getting the tractor and scoop over there, getting some of our wide tie down straps, and hoisting the poor fellow out.

We all agreed that was the best idea so far, and set up accordingly.  But.  Who was getting down in there with that beast?  The hazards included broken legs, should they get squished on either side, or, worse case scenario, getting trampled. 

I said I’d get down there.  The fellow seemed fairly calm, if not very sweaty.  But I had no way of getting the straps under him, so I climbed back out, and we reconnoitered.  Bryce suggested bending a large sized wire (we seem to have numerous sizes on the place) and use it to fish under the guy to catch the strap and pull it to the other side.  I honestly didn’t see that working at all, not wishing to practically stand on my head while I tried to fish blindly to the other side and under a steer with blood in his eye.  And I for sure didn’t see it working when I saw the boys had rigged a fishing pole out of conduit with the wire, pre-bent, attached to it with the idea of doing it all from the rim. 

And it worked!  I scampered back down there and fastened the tie strap to the fishing wire.  It wasn’t long and we had two straps under, back up, and attached to the scoop. 

I leaped into the tractor, and going completely on the hand signals of the boys, began to lift the poor guy slowly out. 

And then we ran into an unforeseen problem.  When our adventurous steer was lifted to within eye level of the rim, he presumed he was ready to go and, grabbing the edge with his front feet, took off.

And back down. With a tremendous whomp sound that made me fainthearted thinking of how many legs he had broken. 

Up to that point, we were pretty sure he had faired the first fall in a decent manner. 

He was a lot more agitated on this go around, and it took longer to get the straps fished under and back up.

Ultimately, we did, and this time, the plan was to have the tractor in reverse, clutch in, while lifting our fellow out and, once close to the top, begin reversing for all we had, dragging him the rest of the way over the lip and out onto ground level.

Another small conundrum presented when the fellow took off towards the west, still tied up in the straps.  But that righted itself when he kicked a few times and came free on his own.

I jumped on the four-wheeler and ran some flank pressure on the fellow while the boys ran down to pen 4, opened the gate, and formed a human fence line for me to bring the bruiser along and he penned easily.

Oh.  No legs were broken, but I guess you caught on to that already.

Rumor Has It

He was one of those kids who failed most of his way through school. 

Although definitely not because he was lazy. 

I had watched him the last couple of years with interest as he neared my room and the grades I taught.

He seemed a bit shy for the first several weeks, even the first couple of months. 

His grades had been on a smooth slide downward ever since the first day in my class; Parent/teacher conferences were nearing, and I wondered what I was going to say about it to his parents. 

He seemed especially dejected one day, and, on a whim, I told him to run out to a room we normally used for visits; that I’d meet him there as soon as I was free.

I honestly didn’t have an agenda as I walked down the hall towards that room; but I knew my chest felt pretty tight.  I guess you could say I felt sad for the way his life was turning out.

I stepped into the room and his eyes fell as soon as they met mine. 

I sat down across from him, and we were quiet for a spell, just sitting there.

I asked him what bothered him the most.

He thought a little and said, “I guess it’s cause I fail all the time.  I never make good grades.  I wish I could.  I’m not very good at sports.  I’ve never been good enough for my other teachers, I doubt I’ll be good enough for you.”

Suddenly, inspiration struck me, probably from the upper stretches of the celestial range, more of the heavenly sort, as near as I could figure out. 

And before I could stop myself, I said, “Yes, you have failed, and your grades show you are failing in my classroom also.  But that’s not what I’m going to tell your parents when they come in for their visit about you.”

He looked up, fleetingly, with the barest glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell them.” (I had his full attention now) “You aren’t dumb, regardless of what others have made you think.  You have a completely different system of operation up there in the top of your head.  It’s like this for me and other normal people; we have 4, maybe 5 marbles up in our heads and each marble stands for an idea, concept, or theory of life.  It’s not hard to reach up and grab one, look at it for a while, then toss it back and get back to schoolwork or whatever is in front of us.  You have 30, maybe 50 marbles up there in your head, and each one is brightly colored.  Some are 3D; some are charged with extra energy.  So, when it comes time for schoolwork, it’s honestly a real job to try to focus on it, because you have all these ideas and things are vying for your attention, instead of just one or two like I have in my head.”

“YES!!”  He almost shouted it.  “That’s exactly what is going on!  All day long, I have all these things I’d like to try or do, and then I realize I have schoolwork and I can’t stop thinking about my other ideas.”

“Right.  You are failing because you are rather intelligent.  From now on, don’t try so hard to suppress those ideas; come tell me about them, and then do your schoolwork.  It will all shake out okay.”

Let’s just say our young man turned into an all-out apprentice in the school of new ideas.  I was practically inundated with ideas for the next while, and a new zest for schoolwork also developed, because I had told him he would need at least a little bit of schoolwork to make those other ideas work out.

*****

I lost track of him for the next several years.  The first thing I heard was the rumor.

Supposedly, it was revival time at their church.  His dad was a preacher.  Revivals can be trying times to an early teenage boy who has lots of ideas, maybe not all of them exactly church material.

He had to wait every evening, after church, while his dad had visits with people. 

He got really tired of waiting.  So tired, that one evening, he fired up the family van and pulled it under the carport at church and left a neat set of blackies leading off the slab and out into the parking lot. 

The next evening, one of the evangelists, having heard of the minor debacle, approached him with concern for where his life was headed.  He mentioned that the direction it was going might get really warm in not too long.

It didn’t set well.

The next afternoon, while his dad was gone to church for more visits, he pulled the family van into the shop for a few modifications, that, to him had seemed long overdue.

He tied a heavy-duty fish line to the back of the accelerator pedal, fastened an eye hook of sorts directly behind it in the floor, and ran his fish line through that. 

Next, he fastened another eye hook of sorts to the far left, in the corner where the cab wall and floor meet.  He threaded his fish line through that, then directly back along the kick panel, running it through little loops along the way as he did so.  Eventually, he terminated it under the driver’s seat on the floor in front of where he normally sat.

All was ready.

Patience wasn’t a problem that evening.  Expectations almost trumped it a few times though. 

Finally, his dad and mom came out and they joined him in the van and started leaving the church yard.

It couldn’t have worked out better. 

One of the evangelists strode out for a last word with his dad about plans for the next day.

He started to reel in his line.  It felt like a big one on the other end.  As he reeled in the line, it took up slack until his fish line was taut all the way up to the back of the accelerator.  The strain of the line eased the accelerator forward.

His dad felt the van trying to move and secured the brake with substantial pressure from his foot. 

It was exactly what he needed.  He reeled in the line like his life depended on it.  The front van tires spun madly and dug twin potholes into the graveled yard.  His dad’s easy-going conversation changed into a frantic stutter as he desperately tried to arrest the screaming engine and all the extra commotion now in motion.

But he had no control over it.

Rumor has it that he got another visit from the evangelist.

And maybe most of it is rumor, but I have my doubts.

I think one of those gaily colored marbles happened to break loose in that fantastic mind of his, and he followed that glittering marble, much to his dad’s chagrin. 

And, I suppose, in a way, I am somewhat to blame.