On the Moraine, Part XXIX
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
Spring of 1964 meant the McNary Farm was done with the Federal Reserve program and was eligible to farm. Dad had bought another old unstyled John Deere A, so now we had two John Deere A’s and the Case DC. We had sold the old Farmall.
When it came to be time to prepare the soil, we hired Harold Wagoner for a week and kept all three tractors running. Dad, Harold, and me. We had close to 150 acres to plow and prepare. Best news of all was that I got to take a week off from school to drive a tractor.
We worked nearly all the daylight hours that week and had everything prepared. Today, with the big tractors they have out in the prairies, you could have done this much work before lunch, if you could get the rigs turned around in the fields.
But we ran hard for six days. We started on the McNary Farm and ended up on the Beaver Farm. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and by Saturday evening, my arms had second-degree burns. Mother had tried to get me to wear a long-sleeve shirt, but I wouldn’t do it. I can still point out scars on my arms that came from that week.
For refreshment, I carried a stone jug, hanging off my tractor seat by a piece of rope. It had a corncob for a stopper. I would fill it with chipped ice, water, vinegar and honey. Tasted almost like lemonade if you got the mix right.
The rest of the summer was spent combining wheat, cutting hay and other normal farming activities. Despite my previous disaster, we had close to 100 pigs to fatten up for market, too.
And my helping out with hay work for other farmers continued to grow.
We had graduated that spring from the eighth grade at Marshall. We had a graduation ceremony in the Marshall gym and Mr. Pulliam was the speaker, being the Highland County school superintendent.
He is still living and recently had a birthday. He told a joke that night I have never forgotten. He was telling about another commencement speaker who was speaking at Yale University.
This person was doing the old trick, “Y” is for …., “A” is for … and so on. Except that person was delivering a real stem-winder – on and on and on.
Of the graduates in the audience, one leaned over and said to the another, “I am sure glad we didn’t go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology!"
I was so ignorant at that point in my life, I didn’t know the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a real place. I thought perhaps Mr. Pulliam had made it up.
Happy belated birthday, Mr. Pulliam.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.