Give the best gift this Christmas!

Try Chapter One . . .

Chapter One

Iowa 1959

 

The brick was cold again. The room was cold, my bed was cold, and I was cold. You know, like when you breathe, and you can see your breath, or like when there are actual icicles on your nose hairs. Cold, like when you sleep in your pajamas and Mom doesn’t even have to make you wear socks on your feet and hands to bed. Or when snow is good for making snowballs to throw at people but not for shoveling. But it was December, and that meant cold and snow. Besides being my birthday month, this was the month I always looked forward to.

Christmas presents, lots of food, family gatherings, and two weeks off from school. But right now, the brick was cold. Just before going to bed last night, I had heated it on the wood stove. When it was really hot, I quickly wrapped it in newspaper. Then, I ran up the creaky old stairs to my room, tossing the paper-covered brick back and forth like a hot potato. I threw back the covers and placed it under them at the foot of my bed. This was a nightly ritual for me and my two brothers, Mike and Bob.

The year was 1959, and I was 12 years old. Mike was two years younger than me, and Bob was two years younger than Mike. We slept upstairs, and our parents slept downstairs. It was closer to the wood stove for Mom, who often told us she didn’t like the cold. I never really thought that was fair since I didn’t like the cold either, but they were my parents, and they were bigger than me. At least I had my own room, while Mike and Bob had to share one.

But right now, I was cold. Living in an old nine-room, two-story farmhouse built in 1865, and that wood stove was our only source of heat, left me cold a lot.

If only someone would make a brick that retained the heat longer, I thought.

When the brick got cold, I would move my feet away from it and curl up. I always had a couple of extra blankets nearby that I could add to my other covers. That would usually help a little so I could fall back to sleep and not die from frostbite.

At about 5:30 am, Dad would wake me up to do the farm chores. Mike and Bob got to sleep in because they were younger. Sometimes, being the oldest wasn’t all that fun. I had a cow to milk, chickens to feed, and pigs to slop.

I never knew why Dad always called it slop. But when he said to slop the hogs, he meant that I was to feed the pigs. Some of those pigs got really big, and you did not want to be inside the pen when you threw out their food because those pigs could knock you down and then eat you. Yes, eat you.

A kid on a farm on the other side of town learned this lesson the hard way. Fortunately, he lived, but he worried a lot of people for a while. I also never knew why a pig could not tell the difference between an ear of corn and my ear, but they couldn’t, so I would stay on the outside of the pen during feeding.

I always knew when it was time to get up because I would hear Dad come upstairs singing. Now, Dad never could carry a tune. He didn’t sing in church. He didn’t sing along with Lawrence Welk on TV. In fact, he never sang, except in the morning to wake me up. It was always the same. The words were . . .

“It’s time to get up, it’s time to get up,

it’s time to get up in the morning.”

I think it was an old Irving Berlin tune or something that he had learned while serving on an aircraft carrier during World War II. I never heard him play that tune at home on the record player. Besides fighting in the war, he learned other things, like singing off-key in the morning.

Since I heard that tune practically every morning, I naturally learned to hate it. So, I would pretend I was asleep and make him shake me several times before I would begin stirring. I don’t know if Dad ever caught on, but it made me feel good to trick him. I would then get up and, quickly grab my clothes and run downstairs. I headed straight for the wood stove and stood next to it. Dad would always start the fire in the stove when he got up so the house would be kind of warm for Mom when she got up. When I got to the stove, I would slowly turn in place, warming one side and then the other.

After warming sufficiently, I would put on my clothes, grab my coat, and head out into the freezing, cold morning. I would fill a half bucket of corn for the chickens and a couple of scoop shovels of field corn on the cob for the pigs. I then took a hatchet and chipped the ice in the water trough because the water would freeze overnight, and the animals would be waiting for a drink. I would then fill a bucket with water from the well.

We didn’t have indoor plumbing for many years, so water had to be pumped from the well and carried to where it was needed. The animals needed it, so I took it to the trough and poured it in.

By now, the cow was waiting at the barn. Some of my friends on other farms had to go and get their milk cows and herd them to the barn for milking, but our cow usually showed up when she was supposed to. That made it nice. I hated to walk around the field saying, “Come boss, come boss.” I would get the cow in the barn and then guide her into the milking stall by pushing and shoving her like a football lineman. In order to get the cow to stand still while I milked her, I would put a couple of scoops of grain in the feed trough. The cow would stick her head into the stall to eat, and I would close the head brace to lock her head in. I would then take the rag that I had and wet it to wipe off her udders. They were usually dirty and often had manure caked on them. Most of the time Old Betsy would let out a loud “Moo!” when that cold, wet rag hit those udders. I would have to be careful that she didn’t kick me in an attempt to get the rag away from her.

After cleaning her, I would sit on the one-legged stool and attempt to balance myself while gripping the milk bucket between my legs. To get the proper grip on the bucket, I would first squirt each side of my pant legs with a burst of warm milk. Then, gripping the bucket between the wet spots and balancing on the one wooden leg, I would start filling up the bucket with warm milk. Usually, in the winter, I would scoot up close to Old Betsy just to try and keep warm. The warm milk would steam in the bucket, and the smell of the milk would permeate the air.

That smell always attracted the cats. We had several cats at the farm. Although they weren’t wild, they certainly weren’t tame either. They would prowl around the cow while I milked her, constantly meowing. Sometimes, I would squirt a stream of milk at a cat. The cat would sit up on its hind legs, stick its tongue out, and use its fore paws to try and direct the stream of fresh milk into its mouth.

The one thing I disliked most about milking was the cow’s tail. That old tail was almost constantly in motion, swinging from one side to the other. When it swung to my side, it would sometimes hit me in the face. That tail stung like the dickens. That little bit of hair at the end would feel like being hit by a whip. So, before I sat down, I’d get the pump sprayer and spray the cow with bug spray. If I forgot, the cow would remind me by swishing its tail more to get the flies off of its back. There were always flies, except for the coldest of days, but Betsy would still swing her tail.

When the milking was finished, I would open the stall brace and release the cow. Then, I would pour some milk into a few dirty saucers for the cats. That would prevent me from tripping over them while walking to the house. At the house, I would strain the milk for impurities, such as dirt or flies, pour the milk into a jar, and put the jar into the refrigerator. If we already had enough milk to last us to the next milking, I would pour all of the old milk into the hog trough and let the cats and hogs fight it out.

Mom would be up by the time I got back to the house. The smell of breakfast being cooked was always a welcome scent. The first smell to hit my nostrils was the coffee percolating in the silver long-necked coffee pot. Crispy bacon, two over-easy eggs, and toast covered with real butter were what I would typically eat. Hot chocolate milk was my usual drink of choice during winter, only to be replaced in the summer by cold chocolate milk. After all, I was a growing boy, and I needed my chocolate. The only part about drinking the milk I disliked was the clumps of cream. In order to get rid of the clumps, I would take my spoon and swirl the milk until I couldn’t see the clumps anymore, then drink it fast. It still tasted good.

Days on the farm during the Christmas holidays after chores were done were ordinarily carefree for me. Sometimes, I would go to another farm to play with one of my friends or hang around the house and dream about Christmas and the gifts Santa would bring. Dad would sometimes tease me about getting a lump of coal from him instead of gifts if I wasn’t good. There were a few years that I felt that I had dodged the bullet and missed the coal delivery, but this year, I had been especially good, so I was going for a BIG gift.

I decided to forget about asking for the small gifts and clothes. I wrote to Santa earlier in the year and sent it to him on my birthday in October. I thought that if I sent it a little earlier, he would not confuse me with other gift-seekers. This gift would require special handling, therefore the need for the additional time.

Dear Santa,

For Christmas this year, would you please bring me a horse? A pony would be fine if you are out of horses. Please make it a thoroughbred. I like Arabian stallions or a Palomino like the one Roy Rogers rides.

Love,

Leonard

I wrote it in my best penmanship and signed it boldly so there would be no confusion as to who sent it. I showed Mom and Dad the letter before I sent it off. They had asked to see it and told me they would mail it for me. My parents had always been good about sending Santa my letters.

Feeling confident that soon there would be a new animal on the farm that I could gleefully surprise my family with, I told Mom after breakfast that I was going to work in the barn and clean out the stalls. This surprised her, and she commented on what a good little worker I was. I bundled up again and went to the barn. I went to one of the stalls and began to clean it out. Nothing was going to be too good for my new horse. I raked, shoveled, and swept out the stall. I put down new straw and spread it around to make a comfortable bed for the new arrival. After I finished, I spent a few minutes looking at the stall, dreaming about petting and riding my new horse around the area. I thought about showing him off to my friends and being the envy of the new girl who had recently moved to the farm across the road with her family. They would be jealous, but I decided I would take the high road and let her ride him as long as I was there.