The Pastor’s Piece – August 6, 2023

The Pastor’s Piece

FCFI

August 6, 2023

It seems time goes a little faster now than it used to. Back in my youth it seemed like once summer was upon us, it had no end. We would work and play for sunny days on end. I don’t ever remember keeping track of the days. Summer was endless. 

My dad had two farms back then, about 20 miles from each other. One was a dairy farm, which was where we lived. The other was a beef farm where dad had a herd of Black Angus cattle. Grandpa took care of the beef cows, while dad and mom and the rest of us lived on the dairy. We made hay all summer long on both farms. I remember getting the morning chores done on the dairy, eating breakfast and then loading up in dad’s pickup and driving up to the beef farm to make hay. There were six of us boys plus dad and only four could fit in the cab of the truck, which meant at least three of us would ride in the back going to and from the other farm. I cannot count the number of times one or more of us lost our hats in the wind on that jaunt. Much to dad’s consternation, we’d bang on the roof of the truck and lean over the side and shout into the open window asking him to stop. Most of the time, Dad would stop and we’d jump out and run back and pick the hat up from the middle of the road. We lost more than one cap that way, as sometimes dad refused to stop. 

One day the Angus bull had a sore foot. He was always an easy-going fella – up till then. Dad and Grandpa had the vet out to work on the foot. The bull was lying down in the pasture and refused to get up. They started poking around and he didn’t appreciate that so much and he ended up chasing dad up a tree. 

On another occasion, I was riding on the Ford tractor with Grandpa as we took feed out for the beef cows, when somehow I fell off the tractor and Grandpa ran over me. I can still see the look of relief on his face when I rolled over and jumped up onto my feet – unhurt. It was a miracle. 

It wasn’t all work and no play. We worked hard, but we played hard too. We always had time to play baseball. And we had time to go to the lake for a picnic now and then and a day of swimming. We rode motorcycles, bicycles, mini-bikes and motor scooters to our hearts’ desire. We explored the woods, built tree houses, and played kick the can. We had friends over and we stayed over at friend’s houses. We built forts in the hay mow and had our cousins over for fun on the farm. 

I don’t ever remember it raining during the summer as a kid, but I know it did because on days when it was too wet to go to the field with tractors, we went to the bean fields with our bare feet to hoe out button weeds and volunteer corn. 

The only time we took naps was on Sunday afternoon, thank goodness. Naps seemed like such a waste of time back then. Grandpa knew something about naps, because he only took them ten minutes at a time.  After we ate lunch, no matter how elaborate or how simple the lunch was, we had to take a ten minute snooze. If we were in the house, we’d lay down on the living room carpet. If we were outside we’d settle under a tree, a hayrack, or wherever we happened to be. He had power naps mastered before power naps even had a name. 

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. There was a dump in the back pasture of the neighbor’s farm that bordered ours. Every now and then we’d see the neighbor’s pick-up truck slowly crossing the pasture heading towards the dump and we knew what that meant … lots of cool stuff for us to dig through and drag home. I’m pretty sure if mom had let us keep any of it, we’d have a whole lot of collectable antiques right now.  

Sweet corn – Grandpa knew how to eat an ear of sweet corn. He’d butter it, sprinkle a little salt and pepper, and then attack it like it was going to get away from him. He’d munch and crunch his way across the ear, juice flying in all directions and butter dripping from his chin until he had conquered the whole thing. I get in trouble for eating corn that way now, but all I can say is Grandpa was a good teacher. 

“You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever,” (Psalms 16:11).

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).