Standing between Cousin
Jon and Clear Creek when he was splashing big rocks. One of his launches struck me a glancing
blow, leaving a big knot above my left eye.
Standing behind
Brother John when he was hitting a softball with a bat. That one left me with a permanent scar above
my left eye. Mother patched it up with
adhesive tape. She was as good as a
plastic surgeon—the scar now pretty much hides away in a wrinkle.
That pole
climber’s safety belt, given to us by wonderful old Uncle O, would hit me in
the mouth with the buckle. It was a
double belt made of thick leather, one loop to go around the climber’s waist,
the other loop to go around the pole.
The buckle connecting the two belts was two clips and a metal hoop about
three inches in diameter.
To the dentist
I went. He ground the sharp edges off
and told Dad to bring me back when my football-playing days were done and he
would cap it. The doctor didn’t wait
that long. I’ve had a golden smile since
I was sixteen. Since he had just gotten
to Dad for a pretty penny (five of us through the dental chair) the good old
doctor only charged Dad a “buck”(the dentist’s word) to grind off the edges and
paint the wound in my left front tooth with silver nitrate.
I forgot to
worry that the old skunk black-with-white top ’55 Chevy would bump a rod one
week before my wedding.
When I was learning
to fly, I learned to worry that the engine would quit running and I would be
forced to land somewhere other than the airport. In my brief career, it never happened—to me.
Of course, once
in a while, things that I worried about really did happen. First to mind,
various crop-destroying hail storms. I
used to worry about going to the dentist.
As a teacher, I worried about many students who sure enough went awry.
Well, this week I
forgot to worry about my old tractor.
Going into this Spring I thought I was in pretty good shape with the two
old John Deere tractors. The 830 had a
rebuilt head installed and the 820 was running nicely.
So I was out
fighting some pretty good sized weeds in the summer fallow, the result of all
the May rain.
The tractor drug
down several times, but it was usually because of clover plugging up the
machine. I would stop, clean out he
weeds and away we would go.
During one of my
many stops to clean out the machine, the 820 started laboring as it sat
idling. When I put it into gear in a
desperate attempt to get it out of the field, it couldn’t pull its own weight.
When I pulled the throttle to kill the engine, it came to a sudden stop. A bearing somewhere has seized up.
Boy, I sure wish I
had worried about that one. That
probably means major surgery. No time
for that now, with harvest coming soon.
The poor old 820
suffered an athlete’s worst nightmare.
It had to be taken off the field, not on a stretcher but with the 830
and a chain.
Then, the 830 got
put into the harness and the plowing went on.
Getting over the summer fallow is taking a long time, what with frequent
stops to clean the weeds off of shanks plus the break down. I still have a few hours to finish.
Then there is
harvest to worry about. But wait, the
things you worry about don’t happen, so better not worry myself out of that.
Henceforth, I
shall do my best Alfred E Newman imitation.
What! Me worry? (Good luck with that.)
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