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Friday, July 6, 2007

Being Oldest Brother Brings Responsibility

I suppose the mantle of responsibilty goes along with being the first born son and my oldest brother Robert, or as we call him, the more familiar, Bob, embraced that mantle early on in his life, having to ride herd on his three younger brothers whenever Jack and Alice decided they would take some time away from the land and visit dad's sister in California.

Actually there was only one out of the three that really had to be "ridden herd" on, and that was the number three son, yours truly, who always chafed at having to take orders from one of his siblings. I always felt that he took his responsibilities much, much too seriously.

After all, mom and dad were thousands of miles away so who's going to know that the homestead is being run at a leisurely pace. But Bob, who eventually did his time in the United States Army and served in Korea just after the Korean War, may as well have had sergeant's stripes sewed on his barn coat, because he ran the farm like a military post.

I can remember a time when I brought a city friend home with me after school on the bus to stay over night without getting authorization from the officer of the day.

My friend and I were assigned hay duty. We were to acquire bales from high atop the stack up in the mow, get them down to the double boarded floor and then down through the chute to the awaiting holsteins in their stanchions.

Oddly enough, once we got into the "mountains" of bales, my imagination made us into mountain men and running, leaping gun battles erupted as we would leap, fall, tuck and roll into a hay valley, then scramble up yet another hay canyon under fire.

It wasn't long before we heard Bob's angry voice down below.

"Stop fooling around and get the hay down here! The cows need feeding before we can start the milking!"
"Yeah, yeah, In a minute! Don't get your undies in a bundle. We'll be right down!"
"Not in a minute -- right now! Or I'll come up there! And you don't want me to come up there!"
"Oh, yeah. I'm quaking in my boots. Come on up and get us then!"

Bob starts to climb, using the bracework of timbers that holds the bales in place. My city pal is smarter than I am. He hangs back, but I move forward on the attack, dropping a bale down on Sergeant Bob's position. It's a direct hit and he slips back to his starting point.

But now I realize that I have overstepped my bounds completely. This I can tell because my brother is now using language he never uses as he pulls hay chaff out from the neckline of his shirt. Not only that, I didn't really mean to hit him directly with the bale, I only wanted to scare him. Now I am the one who is frightened.

So I go into my bartering mode and tell him that this is getting out of hand, that I don't want to hurt him, and that if he will just go below and about his business, I will get the bales down and feed the cattle. Disaster averted.

Another time, I am assigned the task of bringing the cows around the barn and chasing them into the barn so that they can be milked. Bob is stationed in the barn to direct cow-traffic.

Again I rebel against that bossy attitude that he gets when he is in charge. So I prod the cows forward until the first of the group has gathered just outside the doors, peering in, but going no further. That's when I stop the forward progress to see how long it takes for Master Sergeant Bob to lose it.

A minute or two goes by before I hear:

"What are you doing out there? Chase the cows into the barn!"

I wait.

"What's going on out there!! CHASE THE COWS INTO THE BARN!!!

Finally I relent and do my job before he has a heart attack. When he asks what I thought I was doing out there I shrug and tell him that I couldn't get them to move and that we really do need a good dog.

I will always remember the summer morning that John , home from the seminary, was in charge of bringing the cows around the barn. It had rained heavily the night before and I (goldbricker that I am) lollygagged long enough in the house so that John would have the duty as I knew that with the rain, the barn yard had turned to soupy muck which could only be humanly negotiated by the removal of shoes and socks, and the rolling up of pant legs.

Unbeknownst to me, as I was making my way to the barn, John was returning to the house, having stepped on a nail buried in the muck, driving it deeply into the meat of his foot.

I open the back door of the barn to hear that same refrain:
"CHASE THE COWS INTO THE BARN!"

Saying nothing to Bob, I make for the house, enter, and find John on the steps that lead to the second floor of the house, his impaled foot extended, and obviously in a lot of pain.
"Pull it out!" he says through gritted teeth.

I am not good at this kind of thing. I faint at the sight of blood. So I reach down, grasp the rusty nail and begin to tug gently. this is met with shrill exclamations of pain.

"Stop -- stop!" John says.

I try again with the same results.

I am about to try a third time when the door flies open and it's Bob, who has had it with his incompetent brothers who can't even accomplish a simple task like chasing cows.

"What is going on?"

"John has a nail in his foot!"

"Where?"

Before I can even point it out and before John can give his opinion on what Doctor Bob should do, Bob reaches down and yanks the nail out with a quick jerk.

"NOW! CHASE THE COWS AROUND THE BARN!"

I watched and admired my oldest brother finish high school and volunteer for his stint in the army. I read his homesick letters to his mother and all of us while he was stationed in Korea.

He returned from the service and went to River Falls State with a science major, then went on to teach in Tomah, Wisconsin. I have no doubt that discipline was stern in his classes, almost military.

After the principal of his school was killed with a shotgun blast from a deranged student, Bob decided he had had enough of the world of education. That was about the same time my dad decided he had had enough of farming and was ready to retire.

Bob married Judy, a fine woman from Yugoslavia that he met while in Tomah, and they built a house beyond the apple orchard, within shouting distance of the house he grew up in, and he took over the hard work of farming.

And of course, according to his father, he couldn't do anything right when it came to farming. My dad made it pretty miserable for him. looking over his shoulder.

Bob has dealt with a lot more tragedy in his life than his brothers. Judy died of a massive stroke that occured while they were doing the morning milking chores. After that, it wasn't too long before he realized he just didn't have the heart to continue farming anymore.

He became custodian at St Joseph's parish in Menomonie and eventually retired, met his present sweet Dorothy, who loves and understands him so very well.

Bob is a pretty amazing guy. He is so talented in the field of science. He became really interested in birding and got so good at recognizing the birds of Wisconsin that he is among those who take bird counts for the State of Wisconsin yearly.

He is so good at it, that in fact, he can tell you what birds are in the immediate area without even seeing them. He knows them by song!

I look back over the years and I am somewhat appalled at my bad behavior when he was put in charge. But I know he accepts me as I am and still is talking to me -- Kim and I just took him out for birthdy dinner earlier this week.

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