The straw stack

As an introduction to the straw stack story, I need to describe the harvesting of wheat.  My father had about a four acre field of wheat.  Years ago, when a field of wheat had rippened, it was cut by men and women manually cutting it with scythes.  The wheat was then manually bundled and tied.  The bundles were then stood upright so that wheat could dry properly.  Later these bundles were manually carried to a point where the wheat was seperated from the stalks.  This was usually done by placing the wheat on some kind of screen and then walking on the wheat bundles.  The wheat would fall through the screen and was then bagged and the dry stalks had become straw to be used around the farm.

By the time I arrived on the scene,  the wheat was cut by a mowing maching powered by a team of horses.  Later an atachment to the mowing machine was developed that automatically bundled and tied the wheat.. These bundles were manually stood upright and eventually transported to a threshing machine that seperated the wheat from the stalks.

The threshing machine was an enormous machine powered by a long leather belt that stretched from the tractor to the threshing machine. The bundles of wheat were fed into one end of the machine where huge knife like fingers grabbed the bundles and seperated the wheat from the stalks.  The wheat was than forced through a spout where it was dumped into burrlap bags and later hauled to a granary for storage.  The stalks (which had become straw) was blown through a long spout into what soon became a stack of straw.  This whole operation was extremely noisey. It was very exciting for a six year old boy to stand and watch the threshing operation.

I was six years old at the time of this story.  The new straw stack was located just a few feet from the chicken house.  I remember thinking what a thrill it would be to run down the roof of the chicken house and jump into the new straw stack.  Dad must have read my mind because the last thing he said that morning as he left for work was: "Glen, I don't want you to play in that new straw.  I need it for other things."

Talk about temptation.  I was able to resist the temptation until about noon.  But then the thought came into my mind that one little jump could not do any harm. I climbed to the highest point on the roof of the chicken house, turned and ran down the roof and leaped into the straw.  It was glorious.  It was too much fun to stop at just one jump so I did the same thing again.  Unfortunately, some of my friends saw me having so much fun and decided to join me.  Within minutes every young boy in the neighborhood was running down the roof and jumping into the straw.  We did straight jumps, belly whoppers and sumersaults.  Withing minutes that straw stack was completely flattened.   When Dad came home that night the straw stack had disappeared.

I'm not going to bore you with an account of what happened when my father came home that night.  Needless so say, it was not pleasant. However, the most unpleasant thing was the lecture I received and the subsequent knowledge I had that my father was totally displeased with me.  I certainly was a slow learner. But I may be learning that there are consequences for completely ignoring your father.