Large families show what the farmer does for relaxation
As we get older, the days of the week seem to become bunched up. The week seems to be filled up with Mondays or Tuesdays or whatever day routine commitments are made.
It seems like, when one is finished, there is an immediate time to go to another. So it was on Tuesday, the Sept. 30; the next thing you know it will be Tuesday, Oct. 6, but still in September the Old Men of the Mountain were at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh.
The OMOTM must drive their doctors crazy because in the morning most of these OFs pack away some awesome meals and none of it the good stuff. Hey! At the ages of these OFs, who cares?
Let the OFs eat and be happy. Or as one OF puts it, “We got this far on what we ate so maybe doctors should be eating what the OFs eat.”
To go along with this attitude, one OF brought one of his grandsons as a guest. The grandson is a senior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
This somehow brought up a conversation about kids and grandkids. The OF who brought the grandson said he had 19 grandkids and four great-grandkids.
An OF sitting kitty-corner to this OF piped up that he had 17 great-grandkids, and one was just born and is the first-born great-grandkid to carry on the family name.
For a while, Christmas at these homes must have been a zoo. Also, neither one of these OFs attempted to run off the names of all these siblings.
Farmers generally work from sunrise to sunset, 12 hours and longer days are normal, but now we know what the farmer does for relaxation.
Drought, floods , and fires
This scribe has a note that right now makes little sense. The note says “Old Lawns.”
It took some time for those two words to sink in but they finally worked their way through the caverns of the brain to tell what they meant. It was not so much about lawns as it was how dry it has been (which everyone knows) and how ponds and wells are beginning to dry up, let alone how so many brown lawns are popping up in the areas the OFs’ haunt.
All the people in the Northeast know we are in great need of a good soaking rainfall, not these few thunderstorms that can drop an inch in an hour but only cover two or three square miles.
One OF said every little bit helps, so don’t complain too much about the more violent storms that go through.
Another OG thought that the world was drying out to get ready for the big fire, to which still another OG said, “Put the brakes on that one — how about Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and a few others? Those guys are looking for the next big flood.”
Another OG said this planet has been around for a long time and had many changes; even the area we OFs live in now was once under ice. The Pine Bush was part of a lake and that was not that long ago.
This OF said, “Don’t sweat it. Eventually this ball is going to tip and we will all fall off.”
Bigger worries
This particular OF is not worried about that kind of stuff. This OF’s concern is technology and what is going to happen when the world becomes a moneyless society and everything is done by phone.
The OF is afraid even credit and debit cards will be useless and all anyone will have to do is point a phone at a screen and the transaction is done.
The OF said he has trouble with a simple flip phone; to this OF, that type of technology is complicated enough for him. Everyone staring at a back-lit screen is driving this OF nuts.
Eventually, the OF thinks, people are going to evolve into having only one eye because they will be so focused on a single point. Who knows, the old goat may be right because stranger things have happened. The idea is not foreign; look at the Odyssey by Homer.
Making plans
To this scribe, it is good to hear so many of the OFs making plans to do this or that, go here or there, or purchase something big. All of this may or may not happen.
It is the planning that is important right now. Forget what might happen in the next few weeks — plan ahead.
As mentioned before, one OF is planning on quite a trip a few months down the line. Others are planning the trip to their winter digs.
One OF not only planned on downsizing but did it and found out, in that case, all the planning in the world came nowhere near what happened when it actually happened.
Another OF can hardly walk, has the routine aches and pains, has trouble walking down an incline, even a short one. The OF said, by the end of it, he has to run, and he can’t run. (What fun these OFs have.)
The OF just purchased a new 75 horsepower John Deere. What in the world is he going to do with that? Hey, it is his money, so what!
The Old Men of the Mountain who made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh and parked their John Deere B’s, Farmall M’s, Oliver 60’s, Allis-Chalmers B’s, even a Fordson out back were: Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Doug Marshall, Miner Stevens, with grandson Brian Mclaughlin, Wayne Gaul, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Ed Goff, Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Robie Osterman, Pete Whitbeck, Otis Lawyer, Herb Bahrmann, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Richard Vanderbilt, Bob Donnelly, Elwood Vanderbilt, and me.