Dad was brought up in what is generally
referred to as “The Old School.” The thinking then was “Education beyond the eighth grade is a waste of
time. Since you’re going to be a farmer anyway, experience is the best teacher.”
A farmer’s son was expected to
live at home and work for his father, without pay, until he was 21. Maybe he’d get a little spending money, but during
this time his father would teach him how to farm. When he turned 21, he may, if he wished, go out on his own. Of course, if
he could manage the time and decided to work some for neighbors, his wages would go to Daddy—if he was under 21. That
meant there wasn’t much money to spend and practically nothing to spend it on, even if he had it. And there was no television
and not even any radio. Mostly just work.
But, there were baseball or football,
and for the stronger young men, there were wrestling or boxing. My dad was a good wrestler because he was strong. Farm boys
work hard. Others, besides my dad, have told me of his feats. But, one day in his early 20’s, Dad was injured playing
football—lots of unbearable pain. But nothing could be seen on the surface, except that his leg turned black and blue.
Dr. Schrock decided he had to go to the hospital in Fort Wayne. To make a long story short, they severed his
sciatic nerve. They didn’t mean to, but that’s what happened.
Now I want to tell you what made me think
of this story in the first place. Somebody has to jog my memory sometimes. My wife, Zena, was telling me about this farmer
in Kansas, who was referred to affectionately as “Old
Man” Teijan. His place was almost directly across the road from their farm.
Zena said he had never before owned an
automobile, but one day he came home from Lebanon
with a brand new Model T Ford. He parked it in the yard until he could decide where to keep it. There was this sturdy metal
building that he used for a tool shed. It had a door plenty big enough to let farm machinery in, so this looked like it would
be perfect. It was about three times as deep as the car was long.
After moving everything out of the way
to make room, he started up the Model T and headed for the door of the “garage.” With all the family watching
admiringly, and the T Model moving at a pretty good clip, he suddenly realized he couldn’t remember how to bring it
to a halt. He started yelling “Whoa! Whoa!” But the car didn’t “whoa” until he hit the end of
the garage—hard! That wasn’t the last time, either. Zena’s dad came back from the Teijan farm one day and
nearly died laughing at how “Old Man” Teijan’s garage was beginning to look like it was pregnant.
Well, Dad never had trouble like that.
His problem was getting the T Model into the garage. Dad’s cars never had brakes, and the clutch never functioned properly;
so, when we saw or heard him coming into the yard, there was a mad dash to help push the car into the garage.
There was a rather healthy incline up
to the garage and a fair-sized bump where the door closed, so if he was going fast enough to get over the hump, he would likely
have hit the end of the garage like “Old Man” Teijan. On the other hand, too slow and he wouldn’t get in
the garage.
On one particular occasion, we were all
working in the garden when Dad came home. We could see the dust cloud following him for quite a ways, so we had plenty of
time to get into position. Now, I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe everybody was worn out from working in the garden,
but there wasn’t enough “push” exerted to get the car into the garage. At some stage, brother Lloyd said,
“Let it roll back and we’ll give it another try.”
Well…the car stopped. On me. I
had fallen down. Pandemonium reigned. Nobody seemed to know what to do, except Dad. The Model T stalled and wasn’t running.
He jumped out of the car, took one quick look, and backing up to the left rear bumper he shouted instructions to my brothers,
“When I lift it up, you pull Teddy out!” He lifted the car up and they sure enough pulled me out, little or no
harm done. Like I said, he was “The Strongest Man in the World.” Anyway, I thought so.
