Grandfather Tales: Hank's Last Wish

I have told this story so often that I was surprised that I hadn't posted it on this blog.  A friend asked that I do so, so here it is:

One of my grandmothers had a long-term relationship with a man named Hank.  He was a good man, always kind to us kids, and I genuinely wished she would marry him so I could call him granddad.  However, for reasons of their own, he remained Hank until the day he died.

Hank was a dump truck driver for a local quarry.  Every weekday he would be driving on Route 18, back and forth with gravel, passing close to grandma's house with each trip.  When he died, grandma had him cremated and saved some of his ashes for his last wish after interring the rest in a corner of the garden.  (She's very "green" in the modern sense of the word, in her own way.)

Grandma decided to give Hank his last hurrah about a month after he died.  The weather had cleared (overcast and foggy- a good Spring day for Pennsylvania) and she had her sister Irene drive her to Erie, about 45 minutes north, for a large shopping trip.  Grandma had never learned to drive, you see, but she always pitched in with the gas.

So here we join these two ladies in their van driving toward the city of Erie at about 6:30 a.m.:

  'Millie, why'd you roll down the window,' asked Aunt Irene.
  'It's a beautiful day out,' replied Grandma.
  'It's okay, I guess.  I rather like the fog.'

  (Long pause)

  'Now what are you doing?'
  (Grandma is busy tipping the contents of a sandwich baggie out the window.)
  'Hank's last wish.'
  'What?  What have you got there?'
  'Hank's last wish.'
  (Grandma, finished with the empty sandwich bag, places it back in her purse.)

As they drove on, grandma told her sister how Hank had wished for his ashes to be spread on the highway where he had spent so much time. She explained that the bag had contained the last of his remains and she had purposefully waited until she next went shopping to give the road it's new coating.

Unfortunately for Hank, the wind and fog had the last laugh.  When they got to Erie the ladies found Hank spread all over the side of the van, plastered there by the mist.  He ended up being given a burial at sea, so to speak, by being washed off in a car wash.

Follow?

Just a reminder that you can also follow me at:

http://twitter.com/Evergreen_Man


http://www.facebook.com/bthroop1

 

Cow Embryo Incubation Chambers!

According to my Twitter feed I promised to tell this blog the story of the cow embryo incubation chambers.  Now for those of you who aren't aware, I grew up working a dairy farm in rural NW Pennsylvania while not in school.  Just about everyone in the church our family attended had some connection to farm life, which is why this story is so amusing to me.  I trust you will also find it so.

In the autumn of 1987, just around County Fair time where in that part of the country one is reasonably certain the days will be warm and rain-free, our church received a visitor.  This fellow was a traveling minister assigned to visit a circuit of congregations to review their needs and accounts once every six months for a period of two years.  His first full day with us was on a Saturday, so to get him and his wife acquainted with the area one of the elders took Barry with his family for a drive in the country and another elder took Barry's wife.

We had reached an area bordering on Amish territory and were viewing our first real farms when Barry asked a question about the large hay bales covered with tarps in the field.  As background you have to understand that this preacher had lived his entire life (he was 43 at the time I believe) in New Jersey near New York City.  Farm life was as alien to him as the Spaniards were to the Aztecs.  Here then is what our elder told Barry about life in the country:

Brother Morgan (picture James Earl Jones): 'Those hay bales there?  Those are cow embryo incubation chambers.  The farmer inserts the baby cow inside and it eats it's way out as it grows.  They put the plastic over top to keep it warm and to make sure it doesn't rot in the rain.'

This news took a moment to digest as our distinguished visitor started to realize that either his host was teasing or that farm life was a lot harder than any episode of Green Acres.  The rest of the ride was a litany of questions any country 10-year old could answer followed by the increasingly unbelievable answers which Brother Morgan seemed to make up on the spot.  To add verisimilitude the answers were sprinkled with truths such as how the Amish and Mennonites hung their curtains differently or to avoid wearing the color red around them to avoid giving unintended insult.  This lesson in farm life and biology continued for a couple hours- long enough to make our guest wary of staying too long in our primitive part of the world.

Finally we arrived at McDonalds to join up with the preacher's wife's car.  Over snacks we related anecdotes from our respective tours.  Brother Morgan was cajoled into admitting that most of what he had related was true in essence but that he may have exaggerated for comic effect a few of the more unbelievable "facts"- all except for the part about the cow embryo incubation chambers, of course.

I happened to see Barry again in 1994.  After a speech in Greensboro I rushed down to the stage to say hello.  Turning around from other well-wishers he saw me and immediately recognized the young adult I'd grown up to be.  "Throop!" he said loudly and affectionately.  We spent a couple of minutes gossiping about old times and he remarked that of all the places he had been our congregation of 'country bumpkins' had been the sharpest group of parishioners with which he had ever been associated.  He also said that he told this story on himself to his friends and colleagues as a cautionary tale: never assume you know it all- especially about how calves are raised.