Paul T

During the summer we were on a motorcycle trip to Republic Washington. One of the side trips we took had us crossing paths with a flock of wild turkeys crossing the road in front of us.

When I was little I remember visiting my aunt Juanita and Uncle Paul T’s farm in the late fall in Missouri, before Thanksgiving.

My aunt Juanita would gather black walnuts in the fall and sell them as a cash crop for income on their small farm. Besides running cattle on the farm, Paul T raised turkeys that were sold for Thanksgiving dinners.

I remember going to the barn to get feed for the turkeys and then staying close to Paul T as we went into the turkey pens to fill the feeders. The big white turkeys were bigger than I was and because there were so many of them I kept really close to Paul T. The turkeys only wanted to be fed and were harmless but to a small girl they seemed scary.

When the turkeys were sold it seemed strange to wander out to the garden and look beyond to the pens that were now empty. I didn’t really understand until years later that those turkeys I helped feed were now being processed to become the main course on someone’s Thanksgiving dinner table.

Paul T would sometimes take me into Greenfield in his old truck when he had to take care of business and we would eat peanuts out of a big bag he kept in the truck. It was the first time I had eaten raw peanuts and they weren’t my favorite, but I liked going to town and riding in the truck with him.

Paul T is gone and my aunt Juanita has Alzheimer’s and lives near her children Shirley and Gary in Kansas City. Gary takes care of his mother’s farm and his own farm that once belonged to Paul T’s parents.

I remember one winter when we visited my aunt and uncle and I went with Paul T to feed the cattle. We drove a flatbed truck through the farm gates and the cattle began to follow behind the truck. Paul T cut the wire from the bales and we pushed the hay flakes off the truck to the hungry cattle. The cattle would bawl as they waited for the hay to be dropped off the truck. I was always bundled up in warm corduroy pants with a flannel lining and a cozy warm winter coat but the only important thing to me was that I was outside with the animals, helping.

Smells and Memories

Riding through the farm lands last weekend on the motorcycle gave me a chance to relax and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells. Because of my allergies and sinuses I don’t always smell flowers, foods, or everyday things that most people take for granted.

It was the mowing season and I could smell the fresh cut hay lying in the fields waiting to be bailed or rolled. It reminded me of all those summer days playing in the barn at my aunt’s farm with my cousins in Missouri. We played hide and seek behind the stacked hay bales in the barn loft or climbed down the ladder to hide in the empty stalls.

In the afternoon my cousins and I would walk out into the fields and woods to find the cows grazing and begin herding them down the paths leading to the barns. When the cows came into the barn with their bodies warm from the summer sun and their udders full and ready to be milked, their scent mixed with the odors of freshly cut hay and filled the barn with a perfume that can’t be bottled.

We spent hours exploring the root cellar filled with canned fruits and vegetables for the winter and the evenings catching fireflies. These are memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

My aunt’s house sat at the end of a country road with the corn cribs on one side of the road and my aunt’s home which was a 1960’s modern electric marvel sitting on the opposite side of the road. Across the highway were the fields I remember my uncle tending and mowing in the summer.

My cousin Carl went on to raise polled Herford breeding stock, and Rita and Johnny still live just down the road from where they grew up in Ozark, Mo.

My aunt Elma has Alzheimer’s and although she wouldn’t remember who I was today, I will always remember the childhood memories of farm life that I continued to enjoy even after my family moved to Oklahoma and onto California.

It is amazing what the smells one picks up while riding on a Harley can trigger in your mind; the memories and the smiles it can bring when you look back.