Chapter 9 - One way or Another, Things get Done, Usually, Elmon and Others

Burton was special yet not unique in bringing unique creativity and distinctiveness to our countryside and the surrounding communities, but there was a cadre of specialized characters who specialized and had no special skills or talents other than a sense of a fair day's pay for a fair day’s work. Being God-fearing men of reason most were usually open to discussion around what their exact financial recompense for a respective day’s toil might realistically be forthcoming.

Although these men of little means were friendly and well-meaning their days work there would usually need to be some discussion as to detours or deviations, and divergencies that may have been taken throughout the days tasking. These divarications seldom were the cause of any costly delays or expenses directly but fair men would need to discuss at the time of financial settlements.

An example of these parting of the normal way of doing a task might include the afternoon Elmon Pederson was tasked with loading up the pickup truck with corn and grain and driving the six and a half miles into town to the feed mill where it would be ground up into feed, some vitamins and minerals added and then the feed would be poured into burlap bags weighing around 50 or 60 pounds per bag.

Like a lot of the men who were sent to the feed mill to grind feed Elmon was a retired farmer and was getting up in age a bit so the younger guys at the mill would often fill and load the bags into the pickup trucks as the older gentlemen would watch and perhaps regret that the strength of youth had left them, sometimes years before

Elmon was like many of the older men who now found themselves working as the hired help, he’d been the boss of a small acreage farm for many years. But as time went on, and the single-family farm became more of a challenge, and his strength, began to depart him, it seemed daylight would come to settle into night sooner, prices for gas and seed and fertilizer rose, income didn’t, and the struggle seemed more daunting each day. Soon these proud men, every one of them, would need to sit down at their kitchen tables, with their strong, caring wives, and look into their wives’ eyes and say, “I just can’t keep up anymore, we need to sell…” Always, the wives had come to this conclusion long before, but each would smile and nod, take his hand in hers, and give it a pat with the other… “Okay”

“Should we have some coffee? I made some pie this afternoon…”

On this day Elmon happened to run into his friend and retired neighbor Montgomery. Like Elmon, Montgomery was a retired farmer who’d picked up work on his nephew’s farm. They talked a bit and Monty (Montgomery) suggested they go get a shot and a beer while the young guys ground their feed. They were in line behind a couple of other pickup trucks so they knew it would be a good half hour or so before they would get their feed. Elmon agreed and they let the men at the mill know they would leave their keys in their pickup trucks and be back in a bit.

Elmon and Monty had a always enjoyed chatting with each other and as it tends to do, time went by pretty quickly as they each had a shot and a beer. And then another shot and a beer. “Well, we can have one for the road I suppose.” Monty declared. Elmon looked at his watch. “Well, a quick one I suppose.” They enjoyed the drinks and the permission they’d given each other to prolong their discussion. They’d discussed the Amish moving into Thompson Coulee across from French Creek and had just begun to discuss the price of feeder calves when Elmon looked at his watch. “By gosh I better get going. Nothing gets done back at the farm if I’m not there…” He patted Monty on the shoulder and they both shared a laugh. Elmon headed down the block to the feed mill, got into the pickup and turned the key.

It was getting a bit later on in the afternoon as my dad looked up at the sun. “Yeah, you better drive down to town to see what’s going on.” He hated to send me looking for Elmon because he knew it was a matter of pride but he also had learned from experience that Elmon had a special talent for getting himself into odd predicaments.

One such predicament, which I am sure was going through my dad’s head on that afternoon had occurred just a few weeks earlier when dad had sent Elmon across the valley to rack hay rows in the freshly cut hay field. The field was across the valley from the farm buildings so we could see it. My dad had been watching and he’d seen Elmon back the tractor up to the hay rake, but hadn’t seen any movement so he told me to take the pickup across the valley and see what was going on.

When I arrived in the hay field and spotted Elmon by the tractor and hay rake I began to laugh. I quickly regained my composure so that he would not see me. I got out of the pickup and walked over to him, standing in between the two implements. He had a smile on his face as I walked over to him. “What’s up.” I asked. Elmon laughed. “Well, I was going to hitch up the rake to the back of the tractor and the rake fell down on my foot, and I can’t pick it up…”

There was a little trick to moving the rake onto the tongue (the steel bar which one bolted the rake to the tractor) of the tractor and it did take a bit of strength. We’d all had this happened where the rake would fall on the ground, but we were able to lift it up. And not only had Elmon dropped the rake down, he’d managed to drop it on his foot. He had heavy boots so that he did not hurt his foot, nevertheless, it was too heavy for him to lift and he had been unable to maneuver his foot out of his boot. I lifted the rake onto the tractor and Elmon was off to finish the field work.

Yet another of the “Adventures of Elmon Peterson” occurred the summer before when my brother and I had loaded up the pickup truck with fertilizer and corn seed for Elmon to drive to the field about 2 miles from the home farm. I had finished tilling and wanted to get the corn planted and fertilizer down after lunch. Elmon just needed to take the 40-pound bags of seed and fertilizer out of the pickup and lay them under the trees.  Elmon could handle this task okay and was not a huge field so there were not a lot of bags to unload. My dad would drive the tractor down to the field after lunch.

This was late morning, maybe a half-hour task. Forty-five minutes if Elmon decided to sit down and enjoy the morning shade a bit.

As we walked down to the house for lunch – about an hour or so after Elmon had left my dad paused. “Yeah, we better jump in the car and drive down to see what’s going on now…”

We rounded the bend so we had a clear view of the entrance to the field. “Oh boy.” My dad blurted. I looked at him and he had this “What the hell” kind of smile on his face. He was shaking his head. We drove up to the entrance of the field and saw that Elmon, for some reason had decided to back the pickup truck into the field. This would have been fine, but right at the entrance of the field was a small bridge and Elmon had managed to drive one of the rear tires off the side of the bridge. There he sat. An ashamed, embarrassed look on his face. “I didn’t think I was anywhere near that side when I was backing in. I thought it would be easier to drop off the bags if I backed in…” My dad in kind of a disgusted voice said “Well Elmon, you got 8 acres of field you could turn around on.” He caught himself. My dad was a good Christian man he understood Elmon just was getting old, and with any luck he’d be there one day too. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get in the car and go get lunch. We’ll pull it out after we get something to eat.”

Elmon smiled the embarrassed, ashamed smile as we got into the car – I was sure to get in the back so Elmon at least felt he had shotgun and didn't feel too down on himself. “I would have sworn I had plenty of room on that side to back into the field.”

I smiled as I thought back to those days and drove down the valley, a bit cautious, concerned and curious as to what I would find.

About halfway, into town, I drove upon the pickup truck, which had been pulled over to the side of the narrow two-lane country road. I didn’t see Elmon in the pickup and was a little concerned maybe he was having a health issue so I parked across the road and hurried around the front of the truck to the ditch. There Elmon sat, rather enjoying looking out into the creek bed about a hundred yards off the road.

“Ah, hi.” He said when he saw me. Once again, his rather weak, sad, embarrassed laugh made an entrance. “Yeah, they didn’t shut the end gate on the pickup when they loaded it at the mill. I didn’t realize until I was halfway back that some of the bags had fallen out the back end. I drove over here but gosh I can’t pick those damn bags up and put them in the back of the pickup.”

I smiled, kind of relieved nothing was wrong. I told Elmon to jump in the car and drive it home and I jumped into the pickup and made my way back to town, picking up a half dozen full feed bags as I went. I was just glad non had busted open!