Summer heat can still be dangerous for farmers and others
working in the sun, but technology has changed the “thermostat setting” in many
ways during the past 50 years. A farmer might turn up the air conditioning in
the tractor cab, adjust the fans in the climate-controlled hog confinement
building, and then send a precision drone out to check for growth problems in
the middle of a 100-acre cornfield.
Things were different in the 1960s when I was a kid
growing up on a Midwest farm. We knew the heat was on when the old timers
finally put away their long underwear. As Dad says, “Long-sleeved, loose-fitting
denim shirts and bib overalls were the uniform of those days. One neighbor
never did shed his long johns. He’d just switch from wool to cotton in the heat
of the summer.”
We kids wore T-shirts, baseball caps, and shorts when we’d
weed soybean fields, but long pants were a necessity when baling hay. Not much
concern about sunburn then—peeling skin, poison ivy rashes, and sweat-filled
days just came with the territory.
When a real heat wave hit, Mom would set blocks of ice in
front of a fan in the kitchen; and if we finished enough work around the place,
we’d hop in the car with our cousins and head to the Hubbard swimming pool. Seven
or eight of us then rode home in a hot, dusty station wagon with no air
conditioning. The popsicles we bought at the concession stand dripped onto our
wrists, and flies buzzed--but we had jumped off the high board and played “gonzo
keep away” in the pool, so we felt refreshed.
Dad says we had it easy compared to the days when he was
a kid. “Refrigeration was in its early stages, and the work was more manual.
But we learned to adapt and live with the heat.” Here are some of his
recollections:
--The Dettbarn
family used to shock oats by moonlight. They wrapped a gallon crock jug full of
water with a soaked burlap bag and stored it under an oats shock.
--Location
was important. You could take a break while haying by lying in shade under the
hayrack; corn crib alleys usually provided a cool breeze; and horses might
submerge their heads in the stock tank while farmers sloshed their arms and necks
under the well pump spout.
--Old
Martin’s family had an ice house. The boys sawed 100-pound ice blocks from a
local pond in winter and stored them in an insulated building packed with
sawdust and canvass. Ice cream, cool drinks, and food storage. I loved walking
into the bigger ice house in Zearing. A cool blanket of air and Abbey Roberts
would hand us a few ice chips to chomp on. Occasionally, Abbey and Dad would
share a cold bottle of Grain Belt beer.
--Farm
work was tough—no cabs on tractors, but farmers had some protection from straw
hats or an umbrella clamped to the binder’s cast-iron seat. Kitchens were also
blast furnaces, but some folks had “summer kitchens,” small attached rooms that
provided more air flow while the wood or coal stoves were baking meat or cherry
pies.
--After
a day of pitching hay, some guys headed for a swim at the local creek or gravel
pit before stretching out to sleep under the stars in the backyard. On weekends
an evening breeze might cool the kids eating popcorn and sitting on folding
chairs while watching a Tom Mix western at the outdoor movie located on Main
Street. We usually had enough money left over from the dime movie and nickel
popcorn to buy a cold Coke at Harry Martin’s café, where a big, slow ceiling
fan kept the air moving.
Dad’s right. By the time I was a kid, air conditioning
was coming in, and technology--like grain augers and milking machines--was
making life a bit easier. But we still used some of the old techniques from Dad’s
era—with modifications: we joined other teens at the gravel pit to play rock music
and do loops off the rope swing into deep, cold water; we went to outdoor
movies equipped with cars, window speakers, and teenage hormones; and we
occasionally shared a cold bottle of something that came from the Land of Sky
Blue Waters.
by dan gogerty (top pic from pinterest.com; bottom pic from realclear.com)
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