OPINION: Farm chores interfered with radio program

Growing up as a boy on the farm can present certain trialsome and exasperating predicaments. Trialsome and exasperating might take the form of not getting to do something you want to do; at least not when you want.

For farm families with cows and horses, "putting up hay" occupied much of the summertime. During those years (late 1940s and early 1950s), I loved to listen to my programs on the radio. That was before people had TVs, but we had the radio, and that was great. I was a huge fan of the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Superman, The Green Hornet, The Great Gildersleeve, Inner Sanctum and others. The sounds on Inner Sanctum could raise the hair on the back of your neck, leaving you almost too scared to go to bed, afraid you might hear a creaking door slowly opening somewhere in the dark! Radio was really something in those days!

I also really loved the Sky King show. Sky King was a pilot. He often did heroic rescue flights. Or, he would zip through the skies in his trusty aeroplane, arriving just in time to catch the crooks or solve a desperate crisis. The problem was, unlike my other favorite shows, Sky King came on the radio at 4 in the afternoon, and when we were "in the hay," 4 o'clock was just about when Dad would be thinking we should head back to the hayfield for that last load of hay for the day.

So, one day, it was 4 o'clock, and Sky King was coming on, and it was time to head back to the hayfield for that last load of hay. I was in a not-very-happy 10-year-old mood, given the situation. Sky King would probably be doing his greatest adventure right then, the sun was hot, the inside of my straw hat was sweaty, my eyes were stinging from salty perspiration, the stickers in my socks were scratching at my ankles, my shirt was itchy with hay leaves. Obviously, when you are missing the Sky King show, all your discomforts are doubly worse.

I was up top on the growing load of hay, driving the horses, arranging the load and "tromping" the hay. We never baled hay in those days; we always put it up loose. So, tromping was important so your hay wouldn't slide off the wagon on the way to the barn. Anyway, as I was grousing to myself about my miseries, I noticed that my Dad, who was using a pitchfork to lift the hay onto the wagon, was whistling. Whistling! Now I sure wasn't whistling! But Dad was whistling. Actually, in our Ozark language, words like whistlin' didn't have a "g" at the end. We didn't say the "t" either, so it was "whiss-lin." It was only in schoolbooks that whisslin' was called whistling.

So, I asked Dad, "How can you be "whisslin" when we're so hot and tired!? He kind of grinned, and said, "O, I was just thinking it would sure be fine in wintertime to have this good hay for the cows!" That's all he said. He just went back to forking hay and whistling. Well, I wasn't in a mood to think much about getting a new perspective on things that afternoon, but somehow my Dad's whistling in the hay has stuck with me ever since.

I think Dad didn't just farm to make money. He enjoyed the farm and raising livestock and running a dairy operation. That day, when I was focused on an hour of missing the Sky King show, he was seeing a bigger picture.

He was seeing that last load of prime alfalfa hay stored away for winter, feeling the satisfaction of putting up the crop in top condition, and enjoying a good year with the livestock and all of us well cared for. Dad didn't ever say much about philosophies of patient work, willingness to wait on the lasting satisfactions, making the best of opportune times, and so on. And he didn't scold me that day for my impatience. He just forked that fine alfalfa hay onto the wagon, and whistled as he worked.

•••

Editor's note: This column was originally pubished in Feb. 13, 2008. Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge and an award-winning columnist, was vice president of Pea Ridge Historical Society.