As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
TL and I were driving around yearning for property as we continue to look for some scrap land on which to build a dream, when we happened by one of my distant relatives from about the time Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He is a really nice guy, but the girls would have all thought they could do better in the looks department, The thing is in assets he is probably a millionaire as most farmers are, and he is all the things a good husband should be in moral, honest, hardworking, is not a pervert and is a good neighbor.
The locals tried to match him up with another nice frumper as of course what would a guy want but another frumper, but that is not the course of history as a gal returned home, wanting to be a farmer's wife, and she was from the best of family in honest, hardworking etc... etc...
So they got married a few years back, and I sort of lost track of them, but knew they had a little kid. I thought the child was still not walking, and that is what made me burst out laughing in delight, as we drove by. He politely sat in his drive with a huge John Deere tractor with loader, and as we passed there he was grinning, and sitting in front of him on the seat driving was this 2 year old son.
That kid was focused and loving every minute of it, in doing chores with dad and feeding the cows.
No safer place on earth than a tractor cab in that big seat, and a bit different than when Mom used to hold me on the M Farmall, blowing my left ear drum out, and me sucking dust for my lovely lung condition, but no such thing in a big John Deere tractor as you are cleaner inside than in Trump Tower.
That is the kind of stimulation for a child. None of that television or computer not stop, but the knowledge of how to work, operate machinery and do it without killing yourself or others.
I was listening to an old cowboy the other day talking about driving a hand clutch John Deere, and how his feet would not reach the pedals as he was 6. The store owner said he started about 8 driving tractor, and I think I was 7 when I first tried to impale myself on a hay rake that I turned too short and it rode up on the back tire.
Kids just sort of learned by doing, and that is the way it is. You can always tell a rural kid by the way they know how to handle vehicles and loads. It is just instinct in being aware. I may never like or master rush hour traffic on 10 lane highways, but put me on gravel and chasing cows with a pickup and I make NASCAR look tame.
My relative's little boy will have a great start in life. He has two very sound parents, who pay attention to him, and he is already being weaned on interesting wiring of his brain, that is not cell phones, laptops or 12 hours of television.
You never have to wonder about your kids when your kids are with you, and learning to be responsible.
I grew up in a world where we just kind of raised ourselves, were terrified of our parents ever finding out where we were, and we only got a few of us killed. Is different now in kids are always plugged in. The television conditioning did them no good in aggression and the isolation of the text message does nothing about learning to deal with people and reading them.
I also grew up in a world of being abused and misused in being stuck with 12 hour days working hard labor. My relatives kid won't have any of that. He also will not be like these snowflake farm kids who thought farming made money and all you had to do was sit on your ass and deal in six figure bills and receipts. They will quit it when they find out that the new pickups and talking on the cell phone non stop, is filled with people wanting their money in all the bills that got rung up.
I remember driving by that place as a child on Sunday after being at Grandpa's. Right across where that tractor was sitting, was Papa, this relative's great uncle, out at sunset hoeing by hand his beans, because the tractor had missed some. He loved farming for what it was, and was one of the richest farmers in our area and you would never have known it.
It is just nice that land belongs to someone who cares, and a little boy is there being loved and raised, like his dad was, like his grandpa was, like his great grandpa was as they settled in to make a go of it with nothing but Faith to go on.
Someday this popular girl will have a big tractor like that little boy. I prefer red tractors though........hell I prefer anything that runs, has a cab, a three point and that I could afford.
agtG
