B careful what U say

I might have been 17 yrs of awkward aged when I had said something about how much better the good old days had been, in Dad‘s presence. Wow, did I or was it however did I wind him up. He spieled it out as if the years had happened only moments ago. “These are the good old days we are living right now. Those suppose-ed good old day you refer to if I was lucky if I made $6.00 a week. Groceries cost $5.00 to feed four generations all having to live in the same house. A whole $1.00 left. A nickel could buy me a pouch tobacco. A nickel could buy me a single beer if I stopped off on my way home from work one time once a week. That $1.00 went further in those days my not having to spend several dimes on gasoline for a car we could not afford. Jobs were damned few and a many more of them out there. When I worked all day at picking up potatoes I was paid off in potatoes. And,….on and on he had gone.” And more, “I’m making a $125.00 a week now and that is good money. We spend a 1/4 of it on food, a 1/4 of it on housing, a 1/4 of it on car, 1/4 of it on cloths, shoes and other things. Life is good, we’re warm and well fed. Don’t tell me about the good old day’s.”
Mom had told me other stories how Dad had cut firewood to trade for lumber under peoples porches, in attics of sheds, barns, stables. I knew that house (cottage really) he’d built in my Great Grand Mama’s back yard. When I was a child it was from within that little cottage Dad brought out the hammock he put up between two trees he’d never got to lay in nor dream in all the time we stayed at Great Grand Mama’s. Mom had also told me of their finally scraping $5.00 together So Dad could buy 2 Maxwell cars sitting down in the river flats. Both pulled home by horse. He took parts from both of them to make one run. He cut one’s body in to and made a gypsy truck out of it. All the tires fixed to hold air for spares they loaded the truck with their meager belongings, drove from So. Haven to Detroit abandoning it (all the tires flat) on a city street somewhere close to a Marine buddy’s home where they lodged until they found jobs. Mom worked in a five & dime store. Dad walked to an auto plant gate every morning and hired in at whatever job was open that morning. I had heard the lived stories the good old days?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My Day’s start
We’ve had a sprinkle this morning. I was belatedly tipped off I had to grind this morning. So, I’ve been to the elevator already. Tanya hadn’t been there for some time and I got a gloriously ultra fine hug. (sigh) If we both weren’t so well taken, I could fall in love all over again, settling for just one of her hugs.
Greene loaded with supplements, I stopped to pick up empty feed wagon. This was the same place Barry’s billeted. Barry’s promise to help me like some overnight clouds didn’t hold water.
Starting my grind Barry’s stepfather joined me for the morning grind. He had also treated me a drive on his new personal off road ATV. Tom’s insistence I should like his machine, I didn’t. To much machine, to fast, to big, to uneasy to handle. I’d rather have a smaller 250 4x4 ATV under me come Spring time when the mud’s up to a two footed standing jack rabbit’s eyeballs; and, we don‘t have jack rabbits around here. Power Steering wouldn’t make that 440 machine any easier to handle either. Boils down to if I should need a tractor I’d come home and get one.
10:00 AM it was tea time my having given up coffee. If it weren’t for one transgression the last four weeks I’ve been on a near perfect smokeless wagon. Tea over it was to stacking firewood. Darn, I’ve been supplied with more wood to cut up.
For some added thoughts, it was plainly cold here this morning. I had to put on an extra heavy shirt to stay outside wit out shivering up an earthquake. So ccc-c-c--cold, I’m ready to crawl under my comforter and start my winter hibernation. (brrr) Sometimes caught running bare around the house, give me my own den and I’d fit right in.
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Just for the fun(?) of it, I mowed an herumpteenth cutting alfalfa field this very afternoon. Next, I longed for enough ambition to take the brush-hog off the little Ford tractor for a change over for the hay-rake‘s use. (yawn) I should never had come into the house. Sitting wrong for a rest-bit I sat wrong and if I didn’t move soon, I knew my tailbone would let me know I had goofed.
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Hey, hey, hey! Just before dark an acquaintance has brought me a carburetor for Ugly’s use. Yipee! Now maybe, between it and a couple hard wires by passing Ugly’s own wire loom, J just may have it running right before another week is out? BGKC.
Fernan