Part of New Papa’s finite charm was that he was hard of hearing. Our grandmother would mention that the television in the living room was broken. New Papa would respond with “yes dear, we can get another year out of those blistered bald tires on the tractor that the grandchildren use.” The 1947 tractor was an extremely reliable piece of farm equipment in the 60’s. Like most tractors in that era, we would be hard pressed to identify any inherent safety features but that was of little relevance, as the manner in which the oldest boys (pre-16) drove it would have negated any benefits.
My older siblings and cousins were always kind and patient when explaining the realities of the world, without the “Disney” spin our parents put on everything. Penn, was careful to point out all of the dead animals found on the farm. Whether it was a dead mouse the cat brought in or a smelly carcass found in the road, he let us know that the creature’s cause of death was really from a mosquito sucking all of its blood.
The older boys ran regular patrols of the farm using the old Ford tractor, pulling the rusty trailer full of younger cousins, with Stain and Chip riding shotgun, armed with bb guns. The point of the bb guns was to shoot dead things, mosquitoes, black birds, crows, and stuff at the farm dump.
Our grandmother and aunts and uncles often watched us load up, beaming with pride when they saw the older boys help us in the wagon.
While one of the boys would hand out stale vanilla wafers for the ride, another would explain to us where we were going and what vegetation and livestock we would see along the way. The adults would smile and wave while we safely drove away at a snails pace, taking several minutes before we turned the corner and disappeared from sight. As reliable as that old tractor was, it also had a very dark side. Without fail, within seconds of driving out of the adult line of vision, the tractor slipped into 4th gear and the magic teacup ride became a white knuckle run away train without a track. We would speed down the farm’s dirt roads with the driver managing to skillfully hit every pothole. There was one regrettable instance when Looper flew out the back but she really had only herself to blame…it was quite avoidable had she not let go with her second hand, in order to get a bug out of her eye.
For the most part the boys were pros at pushing the ride to the limit, occasionally slamming on the brakes to make sure an airborne cousin landed in the trailer.
During their time at the farm the boys were devoted amateur entomological vivisectionists with a particular interest in the study of the Doma Diptera, which a lesser scholar would know as the house fly. Penn and Chip were the most knowledgeable but Stain and Jack also made some solid contributions. Their primary work was to determine what role (if any) the fly's wings played in their ability to fly. They would capture flies and tie a long hair around the fly's neck or waist and proudly watch them try to fly on the tether with various combinations of wings and partial wings. Chip was intensely loyal and apologetic to his flies and could be faulted for getting too attached to his subjects. He did not feel the same compassion when painfully procuring a long hair from an unsuspecting female cousin. Other experiments included shaking the flies mercilessly in their hands several times and throwing them on the floor so that they could watch them stagger around before they stepped on them. When our harrowing tractor rides were over, we would stumble out of the trailer, the cousin version of the disoriented flies.
Unlike the flies, we lived to volunteer for another ride.
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