Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

     Advertising isn’t a new thing, in fact for as long as people have tried to sell someone a product or service there has been someone in the middle working to make a living promoting it. It was a small promotional advertising piece that found it’s way from a drawer back to me this week that made me wander back in my mind to growing up on the farm.

     Back before ballpoint pens with a catchy logo engraved on the side and before there were mechanical pencils, many farmers received bullet pencils from their seed corn dealers. It was one of these pencils that a young R.P. Weesner gave to Marion Patience when he ordered some Pioneer seed corn. After years of sitting in a drawer, he was kind enough to return it to me to put with the rest of my memorabilia from the farm.

     I have very few memories of my Great Grandfather to be honest. I was a young man and spent some time with him and his third wife Hilda, who was always Great Grandma to me. By the time I was really old enough to form the bond with him that I had with my own grandfather, he had suffered a stroke and spent the remaining years of his life in Knoxville at the V.A. Hospital there.

     I remember a few things about him though, some which have been reinforced by photos that I have and some from the hidden corners of my mind where the cobwebs hold in those first few memories. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen but a few pictures of him in anything but striped bib overalls. I’m sure that was the most comfortable and cost effective wear for a farmer.

     Also, I, to this day, instantly picture him in my mind when I smell cigar smoke. I honestly don’t know if they make White Owl cigars anymore, but one of these days I should track one down to remind myself just what that smell was. In pictures I’ve seen he always had one close at hand, if not clamped in between his teeth.

     There was the Strong heart dog food cans on the back porch. I don’t remember the dog, but I remember those cans very well. I’m not sure if I just didn’t spend much time there, or if it was simply a matter of being too small to remember. We moved into his house after he went to the V.A. but by then many of the aspects of the house that I had seen in photographs had changed with a remodeling project.

     I remember his old scratchy brown couch that sat on the front porch of the house when we moved there for many years and went to college with me. It was an amazing couch to sleep on because the arms were very low, which made pillows unnecessary. That couch followed me around a few different places before the new bride put her foot down and made me haul it out to the burn pile.

     I sometimes wish I had had more time to get to know him. For most of my growing up years, we boys were somewhat scared of him, but only because we only saw him very infrequently when my Great Uncle and Aunt would bring him to the farm for a visit. Great Grandpa always sat in the back of the car and never got out, only waving to us boys playing in the yard, or speaking in a low shaky whisper when we got brave enough to venture up to the car to talk to him. It’s too bad that we had that fear of him for it built a barrier between us that didn’t need to be there.

     Anytime you loose someone it is hard emotionally. When he finally passed away I was older and most all of his friends were long gone. I remember standing at the casket and thinking about how frail he looked, his body curled from the age and disease that took their toll on him. I also thought of the folded flag that he held onto. That flag given to honor his service in the ROTC at Iowa State College during World War I. A photo of him with President Truman at the farm has always shown me a side of him that seemed a little mysterious. His life had spanned nearly a century, and yet I knew very little about him.

     Today I am kind of the keeper of the family memories and all things farm related. It are those old seed corn signs and photos that hang on the wall of my office along with my FFA plaques that keep the past just noticeable enough to remind me of where I came from. I can sometimes still see him in my mind although I no longer can hear his voice in head or even remember what it sounded like. I suppose that is how life is, and yet I know that there will come a day when he will walk up to me and pat me on the head and ask if I would like to earn some money picking sticks up in his yard. Until that day I’ve got a few memories and an old bullet pencil to keep me connected.

See you next week…Remember, we’re all in this together.