In my mind the
barn and my father are inseparable. The huge barn was my father's domain as the
house was my mother's. He ruled over the animals and the activities of the barn
with full command. He spent his days and evenings there. He only came to the
house to eat and sleep.
Like the barn, he
was tall and his big bones and long legs were
like the rafters of the barn. His gray hair and gray mustache highlighted his huge head and large jaw. He stared down the animals
and they obeyed him. He never flinched around them. If they would not go where
he wanted them to go, he'd push and shove them.
And if they pushed or shoved back he smacked
them with an open hand making a sound that would echo off the barn and fill the
barn yard. The biggest horse and most stubborn cow would move after one of his
smacks.
He kept care of
his tools. He spent hours sharpening saws and axes, mending
horse harnesses and wagon parts. He smoked a pipe and the filling and the
lighting of the pipe was a ritual he had down pat. It always went in the same
order: open the pouch, put the pipe in the pouch, with the index finger of the same hand that held the
pipe, the tobacco would be pushed into the
bowl. The pipe would then be withdrawn
from the pouch. The pouch would be folded up
and returned to the left rear pocket of his coveralls. Then using the
finger of his free hand, he'd push the tobacco
into the bowl until it was at a tightness so that it would be able to draw air
through it but still be tight enough so it would not fall out of the bowl. In
one pocket of his shirt he carried wooden matches,
the big ones with the red tip that can be struck against anything.
He would put the
pipe in his mouth and then with the match in his right hand he'd lift his right
leg and strike the match against the
back of his right thigh. When the match burst into flame he would bring it up
to the pipe's bowl and inhale deeply so the flame would be drawn down onto the
tobacco, and the tobacco would start to burn. As
soon as it was ignited, smoke would flood all
the cavities of his head. Smoke would come out of his nose and out of his mouth
around the stem of the pipe which was clenched in his teeth.
The first great
puff or two of smoke seemed to be what smoking a pipe was all about. After that
it didn't seem to matter whether the pipe continued to burn or not. He'd hold
it in his mouth and smoke it, but half the time the pipe would be out and he'd
dump the burned and unburned tobacco on the ground and put the pipe back in his
pocket to wait for the next smoke.
He was a slow man
who took his time with everything. He was like the creaking old barn. They both
breathed the way a great elephant breathes,
slowly in and slowly out, the great bulk swaying with each long breath. He
walked like a barn with legs stiff and creaking. He never bent his knees. His
walk was a relaxed goose-step. It was like his height would make him fall if
his knees were ever to bend. Stiff and slow he
went leading a horse or carrying a saw and an ax.
But somehow he piled mountains of wood; cord after cord that big
trucks came and took away. He never owned a power saw. He never owned a
tractor. He never bailed hay with a hay bailer. He never had a milking machine.
He never worked with power tools of any kind. He provided his own power or the
horses he was driving did.
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