The Missing Car

This story has been writing itself over and over in my head ever since Memorial Day weekend. Ellis and I drove up north to attend a wedding reception. We arrived at the township hall. Ellis was going inside when I started walking to the pavilion where people were gathered. "That's not our party," Ellis protested. "They all look too old!" 

But it was our friends and family and we were gathered to celebrate Sheldon and Ellen and their new marriage. Once, long ago, we all went to a little church in Graceton, MN.

Jenni, Ladina, Trenda, Leah, Dawn, Ellen and Sheldon

As sometimes happens at get-togethers like this, memories start to float around in the back of ones mind. After awhile they must spill out in some form or another. 

Would this story work for a children’s meeting on a Sunday evening? Or sail away above their heads? I thought it was worth trying. 

There I was with a bench full of squirming boys and girls in front of me. I asked them if they were having fun - singing songs and coming to children's meeting. It seemed they were enjoying themselves. I gave them a couple verses - "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." and "A happy heart makes the face cheerful."

Then I began.

"I don't know you very well and I've never played games with you... are you a good sport when you win? How about when you lose?

Do you play tricks on each other at your house? Hide your sister's book? Do you ever have water fights on hot summer days? What happens if someone dumps a bucket of water on your head?"

At this, Jasper, my grandson, launched into a long, long story. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I tried to look intelligent and make murmuring sounds in the right places. 

When he stopped to catch his breath I began again. 

I'm going to tell you a story about my dad. He was your great- grandpa, Jasper.

When my dad was about the same age as some of your dads - he had a friend named Merv. Merv and his wife, Barb, had two children, Sheldon and Jenni. Our families played games and had picnics and went to church together. Dad and Merv worked together. And sometimes they pulled pranks on each other. 

One day my dad drove to town. He parked his car along the street and went inside the hardware store. After he bought the supplies he needed he walked outside and down the street toward his car. But -- the car was not there. He looked up the street this way and down the street that way. Where could that car be? It was nowhere in sight!

(About this time Jasper and Jackson started laughing. The disappearing car tickled them.)

Just when Dad was getting very worried he saw Merv sauntering up the street, whistling a happy tune. "What's the matter, Arnie? You look like you lost your best friend."

"No, I lost my car! I parked it right here and now it's gone!"

"Well, did you leave the keys in it?" Merv asked.

"Of course I left the keys in it," Dad sputtered. "This is Baudette, no one pulls the keys in this little town."

"Let's walk around the block and see if we can find it," Merv suggested. So the two friends walked around the corner, then around the next corner and there sat the car.

 Maybe there was a mischievous look on Merv's face because Dad suddenly realized that Merv had played a trick on him. He had recognized Dad's car and drove it around the block to hide it.

Now my dad could have gotten mad, but instead both men had a good laugh over this prank. 

That's what you can do when someone plays a trick on you. 

We practiced our verse one more time and that was the end.

*End of children's meeting *

The next day Krysta told me she was laughing when Jasper was talking. She figured parents of Jasper were the only ones who could decipher what he was saying. 

Krysta took the little ones to the library one summer day. When they came out to get in the car there was a bunch of teen agers splashing water around - a water fight was happening right before their eyes with ice cream buckets of water being dumped on heads. My words had triggered a memory for him.

Suddenly ...

I imagined Merv and Dad looking down from heaven at that little children's meeting and Merv saying to Dad, "Listen to your little grandson. He is quite the story teller - just like his Grandpa!"

Dad told the story about his missing car often enough that even my youngest sister,  Maria, remembers it. She often says she has no memories of living at Graceton. Maybe there are more stories hiding around the next corner. 

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July 4th

Breakfast with Mom

Breakfast was *Trim Healthy Mama* pancakes with sausages.  And peanut butter. Ellis fried a couple eggs to go with his last pancake. Coffee. Apple juice. 

This was a scrumptious holiday meal with no deadlines to meet, no place we needed to be at a certain time, not a schedule in sight.

Someone mentioned our friends who had arranged a chicken butchering day. Allen and Krysta and family were helping them along with a team of workers. There were girls eager to provide child care for all the little people. Twelve skillful people put forth all efforts to get 140 chickens from pen to freezer.

Mom asked Ellis, "Don't you want to go help butcher those chickens?"

Then how the memories flew like chicken feathers in a tornado. It turns out that Ellis has filled his quota of providing chickens for consumption. 

Every year Ellis's dad bought one hundred chicks to raise for meat and another hundred to grow up and be laying hens. In the spring those little chicks arrived by mail from Dassel Minnesota. That involved a drive to the post office in Dagmar MT to pick up the boxes of fluffy, peeping chicks in a 1968 Chevy Biscayne.

Ellis and his siblings made sure each chick had a drink of water and each tiny behind was clean. The pens in the brooder houses were ready with fresh sand and gravel smoothed out evenly. Hanging heat lamps were arranged for warmth. One hundred chicks went in the brooder house by the big silver grainery. The second box of one hundred chicks went in the brooder house by the haystack at the east end of the chicken coop.

Of course it takes awhile to give two hundred chicks their first drink. There was always time to sit back and watch the little fluff  balls scurry around and discover their new home - such a large space after the crowded boxes. Now was the time to hold them and stroke the soft yellow down before sitting them on their sturdy little feet. 

Every day Ellis fed them chick starter and mixed tablets in their water to keep them healthy. The meat chickens grew up to be  flighty chickens running all over the farm and roosting in the trees. 

In the fall when the weather turned colder the day before butchering the boys had a rodeo catching the chickens using fishing nets and chicken hooks. Back to the brooder house they went over night. After evening chores they were loaded into the back of a truck with a tarp over it. They drove to Carl Dahlgaards, the neighbors who had a butchering shop in their basement. 

The boys put chickens into cages and hauled them downstairs and put them in a row of funnels along the wall. Heads were removed, chickens dunked in hot water then into a machine that plucked feathers and down the assembly line where they were gutted, cleaned, and put into big wash tubs of icy cold water. Someone cleaned each gizzard then hearts, livers and gizzards were packaged up.

Every so often Carl, who was running the plucker, would take the big cigar out of his mouth and brush off chicken feathers then put it back in his mouth, clamp his teeth down and continue chewing. 

The wash tubs were hauled up the stairs and out to the truck -- one hundred meat chickens. They also butchered one hundred old laying hens to make room for the new hens. Was this all in the same evening or two events? 

So many questions - Ellis finished breakfast and called his sister, Edith, to find out her memories.  

Edie remembered what happened after the chickens were hauled home. If it was cold enough the chickens waited until morning when a neighbor lady came over and helped singe hair off the carcasses. They cut up some, but also kept some whole packaged in freezer paper. They were taken to Grenora to be frozen in a locker. 

After Ellis and I were married I found out chicken was not one of his favorite kind of meat. Mom fried chicken, made a gravy to pour over the pieces and baked them in the oven. It was named Chicken Fricassee in the Mennonite Community Cookbook. One of my favorites, especially with biscuits. 

I am not quite ready to raise hens to provide eggs for baking,  but this would be a cute way to start that hobby. 

We ended up grilling burgers at Deanne's house. 4th of July picnics aren't complete without watermelon and corn on the cob. There was way too much food. No one had to stop and eat at a restaurant on the way home.

We ended the day at the fireworks in Blooming Prairie. 

             Happy Summer everyone!