I was born in a small college town. 25,000 people.
At six I was uprooted and moved to a larger town. 60,000 people.
At ten I was once again uprooted and moved to a really big town. A city. 2.25 million people.
Throughout life with my parents I we traveled back to our original small college town at least once and usually several times a year. Enough to keep small tertiary roots alive.
Marrying into the Mai Family invigorated those small roots and a long dormant world view sprouted and flourished.
1. First Impressions
90 degrees
Partly cloudy
Dew point: 54 degrees
Humidity: 28%
Wind: E 6mph
Forecast: Clearing
I met the Mai family, all be it very briefly, at the wedding of Albert and Elfriede’s younger daughter, Pam. On that occasion i put all my effort into maintaining a low profile.
Be seen.
Be polite.
Be gone before being offensive….i can be offensive.
Not deliberately but i have a tendency toward witty conversational comebacks. Occasionally laced with light sarcasm. Sarcasm is one of those things that can easily slip over the line into the offensive. And over the years i’ve learned that my best approach, when meeting new people, is to smile a lot and speak only when spoken to….and keep what i say short.
This is often hard.
I like to talk.
Almost everyone in the Mai family is at Pam’s wedding.
Close to two hundred people.
All my family, including aunts, uncles and cousins will easily fit in the back two pews of a country church.
Most of the people at the wedding and reception are Mai family kin. Most of the remaining are Kearby (Don’s) family kin. And there are a few others falling into the ‘friends of the bride’ or ‘friends of the groom’ categories.
Carolyn Mai, the Farmer’s other daughter, and i have been dating. This is why i’m at the wedding.
Carolyn is part of the wedding party.
I sit quietly in the back pew.
At the reception my respectful low-profile wall hugging plan is going well. At least until Carolyn leads me to the parents’ table for a quick hello. Holding Carolyn’s chair for her as we sit down my receptibility slips into an effort worthy of meeting the Queen.
Albert and Elfriede are sharing a table with their two oldest kids, John and Bruce, and their wives and a couple of aunts, uncles, and cousins.
It’s a big table.
It’s round.
Everyone has an unencumbered view of the new boy.
After a short while Cousin Shawn stops by.
Cousin Shawn is tall. But everyone in the immediate and extended Mai family is tall. I often feel like the proverbial child in a well when i’m standing around a bunch of the Mai family.
Cousin Shawn is a Lutheran pastor.
A remarkable singer. And has a very keen sense of humor.
Almost too keen for a Pastor.
‘So’, says Cousin Shawn, standing between Carolyn and me, his hands on our shoulders in a very pastoral way, ‘when are you two getting married?’
Silence.
Every eye turns to me.
Silence has a substance all its own.
From very wispy almost unnoticed silence to silence that is dense enough to capture planets, stars, and galaxies. The silence that falls on the conversation around the table will easily capture universes.
This is my first time meeting Cousin Shawn. We will become friends. But at this moment i don’t ‘know’ anyone well. Especially Cousin Shawn.
Carolyn knows Cousin Shawn.
Well.
Has known him since childhood. She laughs. ‘We’ve only been dating for a few months.’
‘So, there is no talk….’ says an uncle.
‘No.’ Carolyn smiles.
‘Well,’ says Shawn, ‘you’re not getting any younger.’ A few laughs and giggles. Smiles. Conversation regathers. Carolyn and i get up. Follow cousin Shawn for a promenade around the room. By the time the evening is over Cousin Shawn and i are having fun throwing quips and a razor-sharp non-pastoral comebacks around.
Next year Cousin Shawn will sing at our wedding.
2. The Belly of the Beast
98 degrees, Clear
Dew point: 61 degrees
Humidity: 24%
Wind: SE @ 7 mph
Forecast: Sunny, hot
Wheat Harvest 1990. Carolyn and i are married.
It’s round. Shawn sang at our wedding.
Time to spend some quality family time at the Farm.
Carolyn and i have stopped by the Farm for several brief visits when cruising I-70. The Farm is about halfway between Denver and Salina. Denver is where we live and Salina is where we meet Holly so she and i can exchange parenting duties for Muriel (11) and Eli (9).
This Farm visit will be for several days.
A week.
I feel like i am well on the way to being accepted. Of course, i have had ‘feelings’ before that didn’t quite work out. Like being a Nobel Laureate in literature.
Or astronaut.
Or rock and roll god.
But on our brief visits everyone is cordial. So, when the opportunity to demonstrate my worthiness of marrying the farmer’s daughter comes along, i jump at it. Actually, as it works out, i jump ‘in’ it.
Wheat harvest is still a few days away.
The pre-harvest maintenance, tune-ups, prep work on the farm equipment is done. But since there is not only extra help, but also small (by Mai family standards) extra help why not replace the beater on the combine before harvest starts. It’s obvious that it will be a lot easier for the new brother-in-law/city boy to climb through the access door on the side of the combine than anyone else.
The access door is a two-foot by two-foot opening that is almost, but not at all easy to crawl through.
The combine is a John Deere 9600 Combine Harvester.
A big machine.
A big green machine.
A modern combine is an awesome piece of machinery.
The ‘header’, the long contraception at the front that gives a combine it’s classic combine look, is not actually a ‘built-on’ part of the combine. It is detachable. Different headers cut different crops. Once the crop is cut by the sickle bar it is moved to the center of the header by an Archimedes screw or conveyor belt. Trego Center Dairy has two headers.
One that cuts wheat.
One that cuts corn. (Around here we call it picking corn).
The John Deere 9600 is the type of combine often seen in TV ads. Ads that aim at arousing positive feelings with images of the American heartland. Images that will inspire folks to run out and buy a new pickup.
Or home.
Or Hamburger.
Or almost anything.
Although a John Deere 9600 is big, it’s small inside. Certainly small, by Mai family standards.
Even ‘small’ by six-foot city boy standards.
In fairness to John Deere engineers this part of the combine is designed for crops, not people. But inside here is where people go to find and change the combine’s beater.
Up to this point I have always assumed a ‘beater’ is something like the 25-year-old, rusted out Buick Skylark of my college days. But the beater in a combine is a steel cylinder about five feet long, about 10 inches in diameter with metal ‘vanes’ running its whole length.
The beater spans the width of the inside of the business area of a combine.
It helps in separating the wheat from the chaff.
It also helps move the straw away from the concave.
Concave?
The concave is a curved metal screen that allows grain to fall to the bottom of the combine where it is then augured (another Archimedes screw) to a bin at the top of the combine.
I become intimately acquainted with all of this during my confinement in the Farm’s John Deere 9600. My thoughts bouncing back and forth between marveling at this machine and marveling at Jonah’s three days in the belly of the beast.
The more i sweat the more Biblical imagery drips off.
The ‘floor’ in the combine is covered with ‘straw walkers’. They move the cut straw (‘walk it’) toward the back of the combine where it is chopped up and kicked out the back onto the ground.
Straw walkers are panels three-foot long, 20-inch-wide strips of thin steel with triangular teeth punched into them. The panels move back and forth carrying the straw to the back of the combine.
The teeth seem to be made really big old fashion ‘church key’ can opener.
As i first climb in Bruce offers a suggestion, ‘Don’t bend the teeth!’
Laying on the straw walkers without bending the teeth is advanced yoga. On a Summer afternoon in Kansas, it is advanced ‘hot-yoga’. After experimenting with various positions.
Lying flat wins.
Actually, it’s the only position possible.
To kill time,
and come to peace with my confinement,
i measure my cell. Since i don’t have a measuring tape i use body parts.
The inside of a John Deere 9600 is about three extended arm lengths wide.
One and a half body lengths long.
One arm to one forearm high.
The floor (‘straw walkers’) is on a slight slant. The end toward the front of the combine is a little over one arm length high and the back end, is right at one forearm high.
On the outside of the combine people are banging.
Loosening.
Tightening.
Unbolting.
Banging.
Occasionally someone looks in to ask how i am doing and remark about all the shade i have. They also reassure me that everything is progressing well on the outside, but they sure wish they had a bit more shade.
Bruce, taking pity on ‘the new guy’, shoves a large, folded piece of cardboard in the access door. Something to lay on.
As i lay on my carboard yoga mat studying the interplay of the various threshing parts of a John Deere 9600 Combine Harvester there is a sudden increase in noise on the outside.
Loosening.
Tightening.
Unbolting.
Banging.
There is a lot to undo. Pulleys. Collars. Belts. Retaining rings. All the stuff that holds a John Deere 9600 ‘beater’ in place.
‘You, OK?’
‘Doing fine.’
On the inside i shift my meditation on positioning to meditation on heat.
The combine is sitting in Farm ‘drive’. A large dirt and gravel area that all the buildings, sheds, barn and houses open onto. A drive that seems designed to concentrate Kansas heat and sun on the combine.
A big metal box designed to amplify heat.
What breeze there is occasionally passes by the 2X2 access opening with some Kansas dust. Inside the combine there is no breeze. Just an occasional whisper as a breeze flirts with the 2X2 access opening.
But i am in the shade.
As the outside crew remind me. Trying, no doubt, to make me feel better about my life decisions.
Such as climbing inside a combine.
After another flurry of activity Bruce looks in to say the beater is free and i need to slide it North about six or eight inches.
North?
Kansas is flat. Western Kansas farmland is very flat. A stack of jokes about pancakes and pool tables come to mind. But one thing that does not come to the mind of a city boy are cardinal directions. North, South, East and West. Especially when inside a combine.
Out here everyone grows up using compass directions to describe the location of pretty much everything.
The semi on the East side of the field.
The picture on the North wall.
The chair on the West side of the room.
The mustard on the South side of the second shelf of the refrigerator.
Bruce’s comment catapults me to my childhood. At my grandmother’s house. A sixth generation Kansan. And she always gave directions using compass points. Although i am an eighth generation born-in-Kansas-boy, i never spent enough time at Grandma’s house to develop the skill. I’m forced to leave Kansas when i’m six. My dad and mom move to Indiana along with our furniture, dog, and me.
After several years teaching math at the local college Dad accepts a really good job working for Dage Television helping to create ways to link classrooms on different campuses via television cameras. So, i was dragged from Eastern Kansas to the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan, a part of Indiana where things aren’t laid out in nice straight lines.
Eastern Kansas is.
Western Kansas certainly is.
County after county covered in straight lines. Miles and miles of roads running due East/West. Other roads running due North/South. But it will take a while at the Farm before i learn to navigate the countryside, house, refrigerator and inside the combine using cardinal directions.
However, my recent hot yoga meditation, leads me to believe that moving the beater to the opposite side of the combine from where the folks outside were working on it will move it ‘North’.
It does.
Pleased with my insight i shift the beater further North.
Things are going well.
There was a fair amount of talking on the outside of the combine. A friendly voice offers ‘That’s perfect. Keep going.’
Then,
‘When you get the beater free don’t drop it. It’ll bend the straw walker teeth.’
Just about this time i can see a round two-inch view of Kansas where the beater shaft used to be attached to the South side of the combine. Bruce’s voice comes through the round hole, ‘Be careful Bob. It’s heavy.’
Yep.
It’s heavy.
Not horribly heavy, but heavy enough. Maybe a hundred pounds. Fortunately, my current ‘side-crane’ yoga pose seems to be keeping the beater off the straw walkers. By wedging an elbow between two rows of teeth i’m able to move the beater around so the South end is resting in the 2X2 access opening.
With a grunt for good luck i get the beater far enough outside the combine to hear the welcome announcement, ‘We’ve got it.’
The beater disappears into the Kansas sunshine. Which seems like a great place for it and me to be.
‘Should i get out?’
‘No. You might as well stay there. We’ll pass you the new one in a few minutes.’
In my excitement of not breaking, bending, distorting any teeth,
combine or mine,
i’ve forgotten that the plan is to ‘replace’ the beater.
Back to hot yoga meditation.
‘Hey Bob.’ i quit meditating to focus on a cold can of Mountain Dew attached to Bruce’s arm sticking through the 2X2 access door.
‘By the way, toss the can out when you are done. Don’t leave anything inside the combine’.
Makes sense. And i am hoping this included the city boy.
After finishing the Mountain Dew i begin an entertaining and somewhat difficult game of toss the can out the access opening. Entertaining because i’m slipping into a state of mind where everything is funny. Difficult because lying on straw walker teeth with only two feet of overhead clearance hampers my throwing skills. After a half-dozen shots, the can finally goes out. John looks in. ‘You finished?’
Good question.
Probably not since the new beater is on the outside of the combine.
In a moment the North end of the new beater is on the way in.
This time i’m prepared and in the proper yoga position. The beater slid right in place. After getting it bolted down i consider my job done and head to the access hole. My cardboard folded ready to slide out the hole with me right behind. Just after my carboard mat out the 2X2 access opening Bruce’s arm comes in. Now attached to a pair of pliers.
‘Just look around and straighten any of those teeth that might need it.’ I’m going to round up the cows,’ he says. ‘Meet you in the barn.’
Cows?
Barn?
Oh yeah this is a dairy farm.
In my eagerness to get-in-good-with-family i’d begun the morning saying something like; ‘Is it alright if i come down and help with milking.’
From novice John Deere mechanic to novice dairyman.
A fair day’s work for a city boy family member.
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