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FAMILY: STORIES
Introduction
THE LIFETIME OF A MOMENT
Choices, so often a small choice made in a moment impacts us for our whole life, the moment seems to pass but more often than not the moment becomes part of who we are, and what may seem to be a small choice or decision, can impact us for the rest of our life; some for good and some not so good; a life if made up of moments. Following are some stories of the moments in one life, now older, events that are often seen differently when looking back in time. This began as an attempt by one man to reach out and impart some words of wisdom to his young grand-sons, CP, OC and LB, in a hope that some wisdom could be imparted into these young men whom he loves very, very much. To make the stories easier to understand, when addressing the youngest clan, we will refer to CP, since he was the first great-grandson that Granny ever had.
I
D Agony of D feet!
Filled with the exuberance of a school day outing spent skating and playing hockey, Tony goes running towards his desk, firmly planting his socked feet underneath himself he stretches out his hands for stability, his mind sees a graceful slide stopping right at the edge of his desk, where he can snap up his notebook and run back out to catch a ride home with his dad. It is not every day that he gets a ride home, for more often than not the end of a school day has a two mile walk home, but not today, and it is a good thing that his dad is here today.
A shrill cry comes from deep within Tony as he comes to a stop, a few feet away from his desk. Tony is not in a school with polished floors, nor in a school with many rooms and many students, his school has one room and there are less than thirty students in the whole school, with one teacher, and students ranging from kindergarten to grade eight. Tony is in grade three and the floor is made of what used to be hardwood. Only after years and years of wear and cleaning, what are left are splintered boards that produce long, sharp slivers of wood. As Tony begins to slide on the floor, he realizes that this was not a good choice. The socks on his feet caught on the slivers, and gently guided the splintered and jagged lumber into the bottom of his feet. He tries to lift first one foot, and then the other, but is unable to do so. His feet have been sewn to the floor, with the socks in the middle; he gently cries for help, not being able to move and hardly able to breath because of the pain.
The teacher comes over and tells Tony to quit fooling around and get going, for his dad is waiting outside and he needs to get home because there are chores to do. Chores, what kind of chores did Tony have waiting for him that was so important for a young boy in grade three?
Tony knew that when he would get home from school, he would run into the house and Granny, (really this was CP's great grandmother) would have faspa ready for him. Faspa was a light snack that offered a little relief to help people make it through until the supper meal, consisting on homemade buns, baked in a Homesteader stove, heated with coals and providing a great feeling of warmth and comfort on a cold winter's day. Usually he would have a few pieces of bologna or some home made farmer's sausage, grown and processed on the farm. "Don't eat too much, supper is in a few hours!" was a daily comment from Granny and Tony devoured everything put in front of him. The chores, yes, Tony and his almost two years older brother had daily morning and evening chores. There were three to four cows to milk, by hand, and to be fed. Since this was the winter time it meant the mess was in a gutter behind them, this needed to be scooped into a wheelbarrow and taken out and dumped onto a manure pile. In the winter, the manure pile was only two hundred feet outside of the barn, and as winter wore on that often meant balancing the load on the single wheel that seemed to have a mind of its own; wanting to wander off of the well worn path of packed snow. This would result in a wrestling match with a load of manure and yellow liquid that wanted to escape from the containing walls of the wheelbarrow. This part of the chores was not a great deal of fun, but it had to be done and this is what grade three boys do for chores in the middle of winter in the middle of the prairies.
Milking the cows was done by hand, and meant you first had to wash off the udders, for the cows had been standing and laying in the same spot for several months, as Tony and his brother were not always eager to clean up the mess behind the cows, the cows would lay down in their own mess, which needed to be cleaned off before the milking began. Placing a small stool on the right side of the cow, Tony leaned his head, with cap on, onto the side of the cow; this was caked with the dry remains of what she had been laying on. The technique included beginning by squeezing the top finger to block off the milk, and then proceeding down towards the little finger as the warm, rich milk flowed into the bucket that was held between his legs.
Years from now, when Tony is in his late teen years, he will still be sitting at the side of the cow and milking in the same way, only then he will remember a day his young cousins from the big city came to visit and stood in the doorway of the barn, taunting him at the work he had to do. After years of "milk fights" with his brother, (where each turns the udder to the side and streams his opponent with rich warm milk) Tony's hands are strong and his aim is deadly. Tony pretends to be bugged with his cousin's remarks, and his cousin, getting bolder dares Tony to spray the milk into his wide open mouth. Cousin is safely out of range, being twenty feet away. Tony drains a full udder of warm, cream filled milk, the stream flowing, almost as in slow motion, through the air and directly into the gapping mouth of his cousin. Cousin goes screaming and crying into the house with this harsh accusation, "Tony made the cow pee the milk into my mouth!"
But that is years from now; today there are still seventyfive pigs that need food, their pens will be cleaned out once a week, the eggs to pick and chickens to feed; they keep about thirty for regular supplies of eggs and raise a few hundred in summer for extra money and a good supply of fresh chickens to eat. After all this is done, there is a barrel of water with a hand pump, where the water is drawn in from the dugout, a water reservoir three hundred feet from the barn; and the water is dipped out with a pail and placed in front of the cows for their twice a day drink.
Back to the school, Teacher calls in Tony's dad who had to pull each foot off of the floor, tearing and ripping at the flesh as he lifts him, there is no other way. Dad carries the wounded son out to the truck and they ride home. The buns smell good; there will be no chores for Tony tonight!
II
THE GREAT CHICKEN HUNTER!
When you grow up in the middle of the prairies in the middle of the 1900's, before video games, before computers, with no television, no snowmobiles and the closest boy you could play with living more than two miles away; your imagination gets a chance to grow. When Tony was twelve years old, his dad taught him how to safely use a 22 caliber rifle and limited his shooting to fifty shots a day. So Tony became an excellent marksman.
Tony would arrange for a wide selection of targets, one of his favorite being a penny set onto the side of a snow bank. Getting very good at hitting the penny, there was a bonus if he missed; the snow would capture the bullet and digging just a few inches into snow he could collect the little pieces of lead.
Tony would often walk around the ten acre yard he grew up on, hunting for rabbits. In spite of being an excellent marksman, he never managed to kill a rabbit. But in Tony's mind, he could hit anything he decided to hit. Then there was the chicken story.
One summer when Tony was in his mid-teen years, he was raising 250 chickens to earn a little money. These chickens had free range of the yard, and as the summer wore on, Tony hatched a plan in his mind about how to kill the chickens without getting such a mess all over. (Killing the chicken involved laying its head onto a wooden block, chopping off the head, and then the chicken would jump around with the blood squirting out about 2 to 3 feet; messing up everything around it.)
So Tony's brain wave was he would use a mushroom shot, (this is a bullet with a small hole drilled into the tip, it spreads out on impact.) so that when he shot the chicken in the head, the head would explode and it would bleed out wherever it was, leaving Tony safe from the mess.
Now there are a few things about shooting and about chickens that are very important to know. So first about the chickens, they walk around with their head moving in a jerking motion. They look around, moving their heads in a jerking motion, this is very important to know.
Now about shooting, when you learn to use a gun, it is very, very important that you learn how to be safe. There was no hunter's safety training when Tony grew up, but his dad had done a good job in teaching him about safe firearms practices. If you are a trained sniper in the army or with the police force, you learn how to stop from pulling the trigger all the way, even after you have decided to pull the trigger. If you have not been trained in this way, once you decide to pull the trigger and then go to pull the trigger, you can't stop. The sad thing is that even if you know you must because of danger to anther person, you will not be able to, that is why it is so very important to make sure you are shooting in a safe place and you know everything around you before you start to get ready to shoot.
So, one fine fall day a neighbour lady came over and she wanted 20 chickens, she wanted them killed and ready for cleaning. So Tony's job was to catch these chickens cut off their heads and prepare them for cleaning; that was the deal. The way you catch a chicken is you have a long handle, like a broom handle, and there is a thick steel rod attached to the end. At the very end of it is a large U shape, well the end is actually shaped like a miniature Sheppard's staff end. You walk among the chickens, hook the loop around a leg and pull the chicken towards you.
Since it was a nice clear and warm day, and there was nobody at home except his mom and the neighbour lady, Tony decided to put his plan into action. He asked the lady and his mom to go inside for a cup of coffee and not to come out, no matter what they heard or thought was happening, make sure you stay inside the house!
Then the great white hunter lay down in the middle of the yard, placing his box of mushroom bullets at his side, he loaded his weapon. Scanning the yard for the right chicken, making sure there were no others in the line of fire, having made sure that all was safe, he set his sights on the head of this chicken. Being sure of his shot and of the safety, his brain sent the message to his finger to fire!
Meanwhile, just as his brain sent the message to fire, the chicken decided to take a step. In order to take a step the chicken will first jerk her head back about 1 inch and then move forward.
Tony could not stop his finger. The shot rang out and Tony opened lowered his weapon to see the chicken still standing, but looking dazed and confused. There was a strange squeaking sound coming from the chicken, and Tony could not believe what he was seeing; a chicken with no beak! He had shot off the beak of this chicken! Well, you think catching a chicken is hard, now he had to catch not a chicken but that chicken!
Needless to say, there ended the brilliant career as the great chicken hunter!
PS.If you think this is not possible then you have not heard the most bizarre true story about Mike the headless chicken, it is worth checking out! Mike the headless chicken
© 2007 David Kehler · 2-581 Main Street Box 20388 · Steinbach Mb. · R5G 1R8 · 1 (204) 346-5448