Tender Childhood Memories of an Olde Farte

This series is a collection of memories from my childhood growing up on a farm in Iowa. I hope they bring a smile as we reminisce together those days gone but not forgotten. Except for those with Alzheimer’s. Now where did I leave my keys?

Episode 1. Why I Hate Cows, Grandma Cracks, and Uptown/Downtown Terminology

I was born in the log cabin that I helped my father build … think about it.

Actually, my youth was spent on a farm in Iowa with my parents, Opal & Blair. Yes, their real names. The farm was just outside of Mediapolis, a sleepy little town; streets lined with oak, maple and elm trees, and a population of 1,650. That really is the name of the town, by the way. It’s the only town by that name in the world. I guess even small towns in Iowa can have their claim to fame.

It was a quiet little town, in a quiet agricultural community. It had what most little midwestern towns had: a Main street, houses, shops, cafes, trees, churches, grain elevators, tractors driving down the street, a town drunk. And women named Alma and Mable. It was surrounded by fields of corn, oats and alfalfa (hay) as far as you could see. Except in the winter, when it was surrounded by fields of snow. Most farms had some cows and pigs and maybe a few sheep. Some had a LOT of cows and pigs. And some sheep. Oh, and a reasonable number of chickens. Our farm had all of these. And cats. Lots of cats.

We had about eight milk cows at this time that had to be milked twice a day. Every day. Every. Stinking. Day. It was years later that I realized that cows were why we didn’t take a vacation. Until we sold the cows. I haven’t invited any cows over for dinner since then.

At first, we milked them by hand. But at some point, Dad picked up a used, homemade milking machine, which was amazing to me. We could milk two or three cows at once and be done much faster. I remember the fuhtuh, fuhtuh, fuhtuh sound it made as it sucked the milk from the cows’ teats (giggle… teats!).

Mom & Dad would separate the cream from the milk and sell the cream in mason jars. The leftover skim milk was fed to the pigs in troughs. We had very happy pigs. And cats. We gave some to the cats. Probably why we had cats. Soooooooo many cats. Not a lot of mice, though.

We also had about 20 or so chickens and one very ornery rooster we called Doodle. We would gather the eggs every day while trying to dodge Doodle the rooster and sell them to folks who would stop by. Once we found an egg that had apparently been tucked under the straw and missed for a couple of millennia. When it was cracked open it was rotten and smelled terrible.

My grandma was out visiting us one day not long after that. She was helping me gather the eggs while dodging Doodle and found one that she suspected was rotten. She cracked it open outside of the chicken coop, and sure enough, she was right. A few days later I was gathering eggs (and dodging the rooster), and I remembered what she had done. I commenced to crack open every single egg to ensure that absolutely none of them were rotten. Thankfully none were. They were all fine. And on the ground.

Grandma eventually chopped the head off of Doodle and we had soup.

On Main street, there was a two-story building with a basement that housed a family’s three businesses. On the main floor as you walked in was the furniture store run by the dad. On the second floor was the grandfather’s business: A Funeral Parlor and Casket Sales and an Embalming Room. Later in my life I would find myself creeping up the stairs in the dead of night to the funeral parlor, through the embalming room and out the rear entrance into the alley, with only the moonlight to light my way. I was terrified. I’m pretty sure the warrant has expired by now, though.

But the business’ basement was where I spent my time as a child. It was a variety store with everything from clothes to tools to toys to candy. Toys & Candy. Yeah. And the Candy was in one of those antique curved-glass cases with bins of candy that they scooped out with a shiny aluminum scoop into small, white paper bags. Yummm. Malted Milk Balls, M&Ms, Jellybeans, Hard Candies. And though I later developed Type 2 Diabetes, I still treasure those moments fondly.

Right next door was the True Value Hardware store, which inside had a counter where they bought and sold eggs & cream. Any extra eggs or cream that we had we sold there. Also, there was a counter where old Mr. Hewett repaired TVs and Radios. He also sold the vacuum tubes for them out of a yellow metal floor-display box that sat next to his counter. In those days when the TV went out, you pulled off the back, found the tube that was black at the top, took it to old Mr. Hewett at the hardware store, plugged it into the appropriate open socket in the yellow box to make sure it was blown, buy a new one just like it (there were, after all, only about 2 dozen varieties of tubes), come back to the house and stick it in. And it worked!

I wish that worked with Windows®.

We had three service stations: a Standard Oil, a Sinclair and a Farm Service. All three had a hose across the drive that, when you drove over it, rang a bell to summon the attendant (often the owner) to trot out to fill your tank (or put in 50 cents’ worth), check your oil and clean your windshield. He’d put it on your tab and on Saturday you’d drive in and pay the bill.

Poor guy. I always assumed at some point in his career he must have taken a moment to reevaluate his decision-making paradigm used the day he decided that running a service station would be his dream job.

When we would go into our little town it was referred to as going ‘Uptown’, as in, “Dad’s goin’ uptown to pick up a part fer the tractor. Yawannago? Betterhurryupthen!” Since we were only a quarter mile outside of town, these were quick trips, but enjoyed, nonetheless.

Just 15 miles away was Burlington, the county seat, which was the big city of around 20,000. They had everything a person would need. There were free-standing stores around town, of course, especially along the highway, but most of the businesses were located downtown, with store-front windows that seemed to sparkle, and dazzled the eyes of a young farm boy. This may also have been because I needed glasses.

Anyway, going to Burlington was called going ‘Downtown’, or ‘Intatown’, as in, “Get yerself cleaned up. We’re headed intatown to do some shoppin! No! You cain’t have no Oreos bufour supper!”

This was the early 60’s and every trip ‘Intatown’ was special. We would finish up the farm chores early, shower, put bandages on the wounds from Doodle’s talons and get dressed up. Not our church clothes, mind you, but Dad & I would be in nice slacks & shirts and leather shoes, and Mom would have on a pretty dress that she had made herself, along with stockings and low heels. She would put up her red hair and put on some makeup, which she didn’t have much reason to wear most days on the farm, since the pigs didn’t seem to care one way or the other. But they loved us on Fridays cuz they got fed early. Yes, ‘goin Intatown’ was an event for us all.

I have many fond memories of these innocent days, but the best was eating that soup Grandma made. It was the best Chicken Doodle Soup I’ve ever had!!

Next time on Tender Childhood Memories of an Olde Farte. Episode 2. Ol’ Doc Patterson, Dad’s ’55 Buick, and Facebook… in the 60’s?