ROSS, THE FARMER, FISHERMAN, DAD

ROSS

THE FARMER, FISHERMAN, DAD

By LaRue Lindholm Jones

About 1980

I want to give my family the gift of a man they never knew.  To Barbara and Amy, I give Grandpa Lindholm, to Ralph, I give a father-in-law, Ross.  To Brent, Elaine, Neal and Annie, I give a memory.  Also, to Annie, I give the Daddy she only vaguely knew. I wrote this story of my “Dad” remembrance in the early 1980's.  I have always felt very blessed to have been given this bit of writing talent to be able to keep this memory of Ross Lindholm.

     I know that a child's memory selects the best  parts of early childhood, there were times that were unpleasant.  I want to remember the good times and a very special kind of man.

     I knew a man who was not tall by todays standards.  A man's strength is not measured by height, but by what he is and the mark he makes on the world,  be it vast or small in scale.

     He wore his hair combed straight back.  He wore the top of a nylon stocking after he washed his hair to make it lay down.  His hands were short and stubby. They were rough, calloused, and worn, gnarled by years of farmer's work.
Dad was always very concerned about his farm.  He prided himself on planting the straightest rows when he put in his crops.  His haystack was the biggest and straightest haystack for miles around.  His haystack was one of my favorite memories.  Before bailing hay became common practice, the hay was loosely piled in big stacks.  The haystack was in the yard, near the barn.  A big derrick made of logs was used to lift the hay, a wagon-load at a time to the top of the stack. The hay was loaded on the wagon in the field.  Field hands “pitched” the hay a fork-full at a time onto the wagon.  It was hauled to the yard where a tractor lifted the hay from the wagon.  A system of ropes and pulleys on the derrick raised the hay from the wagon to the stack.  The stack grew bigger with each wagon-load. Dad was on the top of the stack, guiding each wagon-size bundle of hay until it was in exactly the right position.  Dad then pulled a rope and the huge bundle of hay dropped exactly where he wanted it.  As I remember, the hay-stacking ritual, I realize that it was a pretty risky business.  If something went wrong, he might have ended up under one of those loads of hay.

     Dad had a horse named Topper.  Topper was a beautiful brown saddle horse. Dad often rode Topper as he herded cattle.  He also had two big work horses.  The horses helped Dad do many heavy jobs around the farm.  They were also used to pull a sleigh in the winter.  Sometimes the horses and the sleigh were the only means of transportation in the winter.

     There was a small building near the house that was home for a variety of farm and blacksmith tools.  The little wooden building was dark inside and the walls were lined with tools for the many tasks that Dad needed to do.  There was a blacksmith’s forge and anvil as well as a variety of small hand tools.  Dressed in his work clothes and leather chaps, Dad would build a fire in the forge.  The bellows attached to the firebox heated the fiery coals.  Dad used the fire to heat horseshoes to a white and orange glow.  As he carefully handled the horseshoes with tongs, he used a blacksmith’s heavy hammer to shape the glowing horseshoes to fit the horses’ hooves.  There wasn’t another blacksmith nearby so he often shoed his own horses or those of neighbors.

     The process of irrigating the crops was fascination for a child to enjoy.  Dad wore hip-boots (waders) as he waded through the fields to the irrigation ditches. He always knew just where to set the canvas dam to get the best results.  When he opened a gap in the dike, the water rushed through to find its way to the thirsty plants.

     Dad had a yellow Minneapolis Moline tractor.  I don’t know for sure, but I think he mistrusted any other kind.  I know he always kidded about  John Deer tractors.  He also kidded about farmers who “farm by the moon.”  His ideas of farming were more practical than that.

     Dad was an avid fisherman I loved to watch as he cast his line out into the fast-running stream.  He’d stand for hours in the stream, not noticing the water’s depth.  There was a story that may or man not have been true.  It was said that he once caught three fish at one time on a three-prong fish hook.  True or not, it is a nice story.

     Dad was sure footed.  He worked for the last few months of his life at a marina in northern Idaho He often had to climb around in boats and on the docks.  He never fell, perhaps he was like a cat, he always landed on his feet.