I learned to work when growing up. My father taught his way. The farm demanded of your time and hard work every day.
Back then the work was arduous. Did we do our bodies harm? ’Cuz work weren’t for the sissy, laboring on the family farm.
The summer heat would find us hauling bales of alfalfa hay. We bucked ’em high up on the truck. For us, the only way.
Then we’d throw the bales from off the truck onto a large haystack. That night we’d lay there dreaming of hay bales rolling back.
We always used a shovel and a pick to dig postholes. We dug through rock and gravel, planted posts then spiked the poles.
Equipment was expensive so our bodies did the work. Life for us weren’t all for fun and no one dared to shirk.
Not one of us had even known what posthole augers were. Our backs bore all the brunt from work. It took its toll, for sure.
By five a.m. we’d be up milking Holstein cows by hand. My grip was like a vice. Now arthritis reprimands.
One day while helping Uncle Clarence lift a trailer hitch, my foot gave way and then I felt the sting of low-back twitch.
He said, “You won’t feel pain right now but dang sure when you’re old.” I’ve heard folks say their pain is worse, especially when it’s cold.
Now after fifty years I feel the sting and twitch all day. My Uncle Clarence got it right, his experience I’d say.
I wake each morning, climb out of bed, my joints are stiff and sore. The experts claim I’m getting old. I say, settling up the score?
The sharp pains are reminders of hard work and how we played. Back then we were invincible. Never thought the word “Afraid.”
Am I sorry for the life we lived? Work wore our bodies out. I don’t make lame excuses ’cuz hard work I brag about.
And about those aches each morning, they’re a pain right in my rear, but always a reminder of the work from yesteryear.
