Memorable Moments on the Farm by John R. Haws
	There are two memorable moments I had while living on a five acre farm we owned out on Libby Road.  The year was about 1972.  We had a combination garage and store room near the house.  The garage had no door and the store room had no ceiling.  So the whole thing was cold in the winter and hot in the summer.  I kept an old upright piano in there that I played until all of the ivory came off the keys, the keys stuck and it simply wouldn't play anymore.  There was also a swing in the middle of the room.
	One day I put on coveralls and went out to the store room to do some carpentry work.  There were two sawhorses and lots of scrap lumber.  I had a caprenter's pencil in the chest pocket, a hammer hanging on a waistline loop, a square ruler dangling out of one of my pockets and a saw in my hand.  When I leaned over to start to saw a board, the pencil fell out of my chest pocket.  I bent over to pick up the pencil and the square fell out of my pants pocket.  I leaned down to pick up the square and the pencil fell out again.  As I picked up the pencil, the hammer fell out of the loop and landed on my toe. I began to cuss and things got even crazier.  The saw got stuck in the board I was cutting and caused one of the sawhorses to fall over.  As I reached down to pick up the sawhorse the pencil, square and hammer all fell out - again.  I just gave up and left.
	This same store room had a window in it near the door.  For the longest time, one of the panes in the window was missing.  It had long ago been broken and all the glass removed.  So, one day I decided to replace the glass pane.  I spent a whole Saturday measuring the size, going to the local hardware store, buying the glass pane, installling it in place and filling in the edges with putty.  It looked really nice.
	The next day, Sunday, as I was walking out to the store room, I stepped on a rake that someone had left laying in the yard.  The rake handle came straight up and hit me square in the middle of my forehead.  I was so angry that I picked up the rake and threw it hard into the ground.  The rake went "boing" as it bounced once, and the handle of the rake went right through the beautiful glass pane I had installed the day before.  The moral is, of course, "Don't get angry when things go wrong.  Because, if you do, things will only get worse."
	These are two memorable moments for me while living on the farm.
	June 2003 Return to essays