Home remedy

Every word of the following is the Gods truth.  It would be hard to make it up.  When I was a little kid, we lived on a small farm southwest of Garrett, Indiana.  Just down the road was a small rundown house that was a rental.  The folks that occupied the home were from the hills of Kentucky.  This happened around 1946-47.  

The elderly grandmother came to see my mom.  She wanted to borrow one of my dad’s work shoes.  Needless to say, my mom was a bit taken aback and asked why she needed one of dad’s shoes.  The old woman explained that the baby had “thrush mouth”.  I have no idea if that is a real disease or illness or not.  The old woman wanted to cure the baby.

It seems the process was to borrow the work shoe of someone that was of no kin to you.  You placed an amount of water in the shoe and ran it from heel to toe nine times.  Then you gave it to the baby to drink.  This cured the “thrush mouth”.

Mom solemnly got one of dad’s shoes and gave it to the lady.  Mom did not laugh or make any comment about the remedy.  The old woman brought the shoe back about an hour later. I have no idea if the remedy worked on not. 

Another time, in the spring of the year, my brother, sister, and I all came down with the measles but had not as yet broken out with the blisters.  The old grandmother brought my mom the roots of some dead nettle plants. She instructed mom to boil the roots and make a tea for us kids to drink.  That would make us “break out”.  Mom was a bit hesitant, but the old lady insisted so mom made the tea and we all drank it.  We then promptly broke out with the measles.  I have no idea if it was pure coincidence or if there was some component of the roots that caused the result, so I am unable to draw any conclusions on that home remedy. 

Dal Wolf.  Auburn

Life on the farm

Life on the farm.

In a prior “essay” I related that in 1943 when I was just 5 years old my dad and mother bought a small 26 acre farm a few miles southwest of Garrett, Indiana. The purpose of this article is to detail some of what life was like on the “farm”.  I doubt that you will believe some of what I relate but every word is the Gods truth.

The first memory is of the day that the folks looked at the farm.  My brother, Norm, sister, Sharron, and I had to stay in the rear seat of the “41” ford while the folks looked the place over.  My little sis broke a rear window in the Ford by hitting it with a copper beer mug.  (The story of the beer mug will be explained later).  She was only 3 years old so I guess she could not hold her liquor. (Pun intended). When the folks got back to the car dad was pissed to see the broken window.  He hauled my brother and I out of the back seat, stood in a mud puddle, and paddled both our asses.  I had no idea that I was in charge of mug watching. Neither did Norm.

  The second event was one that I did not witness.  Neither of the folks had inquired where my older brother, Norm, would attend school.  He was in the first grade in the spring of 1943.  They happened to pass two girls walking down the road past our house, so dad asked them where the school was located.  The older one pointed across a field and said, “yonder over thar”. (They were “southern” girls).  It was a one room brick school house about a mile away that she pointed out.  There was no bus service because of WW2 so Norm spent that first half year walking to school. The following year the township did offer bus service.  What fun !!

  Dad had promised mom that we would not have a cow on the farm because mom didn’t like to milk cows.  A week or so after we moved in, we had a cow.  Mom hated that damned cow.  She said that it would lift up a shitty foot, feel around for the bucket and as soon as she found it, kick hell out of it.  The cow did not last long BUT the cow was replaced by two goats.  The goats were small and close to the ground.  Who better to milk a goat than someone who was short and close to the ground?  You are way ahead of me.  Yep, I was chosen to milk the damned goats.  That was a job I maintained until I started working away from home at age 12.  No one else wanted to milk the damned goats so they went bye-bye.  If you visit the “goat barn” at the county fair you can witness all the 4-H kids that “raise” goats praise them to high heaven.  They are both nuts and liars.  Dal knows.

The last item on the “goat list” is about Jeff, the neutered Billy goat.  Somewhere dad found a harness for the goat.  He built a small cart using 2 tricycle wheels and a crate.  My sister was in hog heaven because she had her own private goat and cart.  Big deal.  That goat was worthless too.  Jeff was later converted into “leg of lamb”.  I do not remember what happened to the harness or cart.  I can attest that roast goat tastes terrible.  It is dry and greasy.  Don’t let anyone try to convince you differently.

We also had hogs, but not for long.  You cannot milk a hog.  You cannot ride a hog.  You cannot keep a hog contained within poor fencing.  The hog herd lasted only long enough to get a few pork chops and a ham or two.

More farm adventures will be covered in a future essay.

The ruptured mule

In 1943 when I was just 5 years old my dad (mother wanted nothing to do with it) bought a small 26 acre farm a few miles southwest of Garrett, Indiana.  The price was $100 per acre which was the going price for acreage at the time.  I think my dad thought he could make money as a farmer on that small piece of land.  He was wrong.

The house had just had lights installed by the REMC.  There were no other improvements to the property.  The barn was a 20’ X 30’ structure that had a serious tilt to the southwest.  The machine shed/granary had no doors and the tool shop had a seriously leaking roof.  The hen house (it later burned down) had a rotten floor.  The woodshed had long ago disappeared and all that was left was a partial foundation.  This made a perfect place for the coal pile.  All in all, it would be fair to say the place needed some work.

The house had no plumbing.  The only well was in the barnyard and the outhouse was about 50 yards from the house.  Drinking water was carried in by the bucket full and a common dipper was used by all.  Heat was furnished by a coal burning Warm Morning stove in the living room.  Mom had a coal burning cook stove that she used in the winter and a propane stove she used in the summer.

  The folks believed in recycling.  They would attend neighboring farm sales.  If they found a piece of furniture that was marginally better than what we had and could be purchased for 75 cents or a dollar, it made its way home with us.  The old item was promptly reduced to kindling wood and used in the cookstove.  I shudder to think of what, today would be considered valuable antiques, went through the cookstove. 

  Now for the mule.  Dad needed a horse to do the farming.  A horse cost about $50 which was over a weeks pay at the time and way over the budget.  On the way to the feed store in LaOtto one day, dad spotted an old mule being pastured along the railroad track.  A few days later he saw the mule again. The mule was Doing nothing except chowing down grass.  Dad found the owner and offered to “mulekeep” the mule in exchange for the services of the mule.  The owner pointed out that the mule had a rupture about the size of a grapefruit on its abdomen.  That did not deter dad as he saw the mule as a solution to the horse problem.  Lucky us, the owner even loaned dad an old driving harness for the mule.  We were all set to farm.  In order to properly house the mule dad built a “mule shed” attached to the rear of the barn.  The mule shed helped to correct the tilt of the barn as well as keeping the mule out of the elements.

  Dad had the neighbor plant several acres of corn for us.  Somewhere along the line dad had obtained a one horse, one row, corn cultivator. Dad, the mule, and I sallied forth to cultivate corn.  My job was to sit on the front of the cultivator and push stones away from the cultivator hoes.  I was also tasked with tapping the mule with a stick if he slowed down.  “Bud him up son” was my cue to urge the mule forward.  What fun to be a farming apprentice.

  I don’t know what happened to the mule or his rupture.  One day the mule and harness were gone from our farm.  I do not recall seeing him pastured along the railroad track after that.  Perhaps he went to that great glue factory in the sky.  What happened next was worse. 

  The year was 1948. Tom Dewey, the republican, was running for president against the incumbent democrat, Harry Truman.  Allis Chalmers had just introduced a new tractor, the model G.  It was a truck farm tractor of very small horsepower.  It was orange and had a rear mounted engine.  It looked like a short “funny car”, sort of.  Dad and I went to the local Allis dealer, Earl Brindle, in LaOtto to see the tractor because dad had had enough of horses.  Yea !  Mr. Brindle was the local county republican chairman and dad was a stiff Roosevelt democrat.  Mr. Brindle had huge banner type pictures of Tom Dewey and Earl Warren, the VP candidate, in the sales window of his dealership.  After a short chat about the tractor dad said, “If your guy gets elected, we will surely have a depression”.  Mr. Brindle took umbrage at that statement and some “friendly banter” ensued.  I turned around and went back to the car.  I knew there was no Allis Chalmers tractor in my future.

Long ago beer story

When I was just a little kid right after WW2 my dad got laid off by the B&O railroad because servicemen were returning to their jobs and the amount of military freight was also down.  (at least that was the story).  Dad got a job as a 3rd shift boiler room attendant at the Old Crown brewery in Ft. Wayne.  The brewery had a policy of giving each worker a case of beer every two weeks.  (no lie).  Dad brought his beer home , put it in a burlap bag, tied a rope around the top of the bag and sunk it in the well pit in the barnyard. (no lie, again).  He always had beer on hand when anyone would drop by.  He seemed to have a lot of friends.  I only learned about the free beer policy a few years ago when I was talking to a friend whose dad also worked at the brewery.  When I was a kid i never knew where all that beer came from.

My brother and I went to work with dad several times when he was on 3rd shift.  He would send us up to the employees tap room to get a quart of beer from the employees tap. (no lie again)  We would then boil a pound of weenies in the beer on a small hotplate.

On the way up to the taproom we had to pass by these huge vats of beer aging in cypress tanks.  Since they were open to the air they always had a lot of foam on the top.  Dad used to claim that the dark brown "bock" beer that was brewed in the spring was a result of scraping the scum off the sides of the vats in a yearly cleaning.  That sounds plausible.  He also claimed that one year they found a "N-word" floating in the bottom of one of the vats.  I always found that a little hard to believe.  I think you will realize that I had an interesting childhood.