
Sunday will be my 85th birthday. I’m amazed at the changes that have taken place during my lifetime.
Growing up an only child on a family dairy farm, I was dragged along when my mother labored outdoors alongside my father. Field work had to be sandwiched between morning and evening milking. As fall approaches, I’m reminded of corn picking.
Early in the spring, Dad planted the crop using a two-row implement pulled by our team of horses. Button wire was stretched from one end of the 20-acre field to the other, attached to the planter for each round and made the seed kernels drop two-to-a-hill in a checkerboard pattern. At the beginning of the growing season, he mounted the cultivator on his Allis Chalmers tractor and drove lengthwise and crosswise between the rows to remove the weeds.
My folks husked the ripened grain by hand. Dad, who covered two rows at a time while Mom did one, had a metal claws gadget that he strapped over his left glove. She used an aluminum peg to open the husks. My parents carefully tossed the cleaned ears so they didn’t hit me sitting in the wagon pulled by Dick and Brownie.
To liven up my day, Dad would lift me to sit astride Old Dick. My short legs stretched sideways as well as down over my fat steed. I held onto the harness and pretended I was riding the range with my favorite movie cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Sometimes, when the afternoon sun was warm, I would fall asleep and had to be moved so I didn’t fall off.
Today, farmers stick to one crop. I drive by spreads including thousands of acres dense with corn rows harvested by huge machines.
What changes during your lifetime have impressed you?