Old things make memories

Every year we plant potatoes. Several years ago we decided that digging with a spade was silly so we bought a middle buster for our tractor. Marge and I finished digging the potatoes the other day so need to clean the middle buster and grease it so it doesn't rust. As I was thinking about greasing the middle buster, it made me remember greasing the plow for Dad.

Dad had a plow on one of his C Internationals with two plows with one throwing the dirt right and the other left. So you could plow down the tater patch with the one plow and then plow back with the other plow. Dad was picky about those plows, so when he got done using them they were shiny and clean. And before rust set in he always had me use some axle grease and grease the plows. I hated doing it but I did it anyway.

Funny how the simplest of things brings back a flood of memories. Not too far from the plow was an old grinder. The grind stone was maybe 2 feet deep and maybe 3 inches thick. It was operated with one's feet, so you could sit down and run the grinder with your feet and grind away at whatever you had.

Not too far west was the old cellar. The mound of dirt over the cellar was maybe 6 or 7 feet high. There was a sloping door even with the ground, on the south side, that led to steps down to the next door which was into the cellar. The cellar had a dirt floor with racks along the east and west sides where the potatoes were stored. There was a walkway down the middle with an old ice box on the north end. Dad had put a lock on both doors in case of a tornado. He always had an axe in the cellar just in case a tree fell on the cellar and an old lamp with a wick for light. Plenty of crickets and bugs as well.

Then southeast of the old cellar was what was at one time an old sod house probably built in the beginnings of the 1900s. When I came along it had pretty much fallen down and was a great place to explore for Mick and me. I remember taking one of Dad's hammers and beating on the wood to get it apart. Swung up with the hammer and smacked me in the forehead. I headed to the house when I finally stopped bleeding like a stuck hog. Great place to play.

Then just west of the old sod house stood an old black walnut tree that's still there. It hasn't changed a lot in the past 70 years or so. Most every homestead had a black walnut tree. It must have been the one kind of nut tree that could stand the Nebraska winters.

Then not far northwest of the black walnut tree was a small place say 4-by-4 feet fenced off with a wooden picket fence. At some point in time we were told a baby passed away and was buried there close to a huge old cottonwood. The fence was there for years and finally disappeared. God only knows the final resting place of thousands of the settlers who died in the middle of nowhere.

I wonder what the memories of the modern day youth will be like. With the pandemic and unrest in America and seems like bickering on every hand and even in the Church I just wonder. Seems like the kids and teens today can't even attend school and church in peace. Today most everyone has their nose in a cell phone and are oblivious to everything around them.

Maybe we need a timeout button or a pause or a mute button on the whole mess. I'm tired of hearing about the shots and the virus and the government. Up in the little town of Arthur, Missouri, a friend of ours had a beer-thirty party where the community came in to visit and enjoy the evening. No agenda. Just visit.