I suppose no matter how or where you grew up, you have fond and probably jaded memories of it. Like Dad always said though, the only thing good about the good old days is that we were younger. I just came in from trying out a 2 bottom plow that I fixed up for a plow day. Boy, that was rainbows and unicorns. A cold wind blowing down my neck, having to constantly pull my hat down to keep from loosing it. An underpowered tractor that only had enough power to pull it in the best of conditions without having to stop and downshift to a crawl.
A lazy summer day back then was milking cows with bucket milkers, pitching manure out of the gutters with a fork, sitting on a tractor cultivating until noon, waiting for the hay to dry. Then raking faded out hay that had been laying for three or four days because it was cut with a sickle mower without a conditioner, then tossing square bales until supper, milking again then either picking up more bales out of the field or unloading. If we were extremely lucky, we got done early enough to go to the lake to go swimming before it got too dark. It's no wonder farm boys were leaving home and getting a job so fast that they left skid marks.
We had quack grass in every hay field. You could plow it under and put it in to corn, but the quack came back up before the corn did and even with four trips through with the cultivator over the summer, the weeds would win and we were darned lucky to get a quarter of the yield that we get today. Without Roundup to kill quack grass, it was a never ending battle that you could never win.
Would I like to have my folks alive and my brothers and sisters here at home yet? Sure, who wouldn't. We weren't isolated from the world though. By '69 my next older brother was in Viet Nam. I was entering High School, the war was still raging, the draft was still a real thing. There didn't seem to be much hope that it'd be over by the time I graduated and I wouldn't end up over there. Thank God it did end, but the anxiety was something I lived every day.
Paint a rosy picture and call it the good old days if you want to, but if you live your life right, the best day is today. The rest is just memories. Hopefully only the best of memories, or you might end up on a shrink's couch.
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Today's Featured Article - A Lifetime of Farm Machinery - by Joe Michaels. I am a mechanical engineer by profession, specializing in powerplant work. I worked as a machinist and engine erector, with time spent overseas. I have always had a love for machinery, and an appreciation for farming and farm machinery. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Not a place one would associate with farms or farm machinery. I credit my parents for instilling a lot of good values, a respect for learning, a knowledge of various skills and a little knowledge of farming in me, amo
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