14. The Disking and the Camp ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Ever since Robert had celebrated his ninth birthday, Joe had let him steer the Minneapolis–Moline Z tractor while Joe stood carefully between the seat and the fender on the right side. Now that the summer of Robert’s thirteenth birthday was approaching, Joe began showing Robert how to run the International 560 by himself. When spring planting began, Robert spent weekends helping disk ground that Joe and Charles plowed.

Robert had already lifted some of the farming burden from his father’s shoulders by tending livestock and caring for chickens and ducks, but now Robert began assisting Joe in the fields during the spring months, when farmers were in a near frenzy to plant corn and soybeans while the good weather lasted.

One morning, Joe deployed Robert and the 560 in a recently plowed field close to State Route 55 and near the Old Barn. Before Robert’s father strode across the land to an adjoining field where he would be plowing, Joe reminded Robert, “Don’t turn too short at the edge of the field!” Robert was pulling an ancient harrow behind the relatively new disk. The harrow was in two heavy sections of rusty iron with a two-by-four running across the front to hold the two sections side by side. A fairly wide turning radius was required, so that the two-by-four did not catch on the plow.

Robert made many passes the length of the field. He enjoyed disking because he could go a little faster than was possible with plowing, and he enjoyed plowing less because leaning in the seat as one of the driver wheels ran in the furrow was less comfortable and turning to keep constant watch on the plow was more demanding. The soil that day was perfect for disking. The black loam lay smooth and fine. Robert had coined a word for well-disked ground: “chuffy,” a combination of “churned” and “fluffy.” The soil behind Robert’s disk and harrow was chuffy. Robert set his mind free to imagine stories.

He was in the midst of telling himself a story about a UFO like the ones that had been seen by so many people in Michigan in 1966, when suddenly he heard a snap.

Robert had been making a turn. He wisely stopped the tractor. Before he looked behind him, he knew what he would see: a broken two-by-four. Sure enough! he had turned too short, and the plow had snapped the board as it jammed up against it.

Robert shut off the tractor and walked across the fields to tell his father what he had done.

Joe backed off on the throttle but still could not hear Robert, so Joe switched off his tractor. He smiled and said, “Now, say that again.”

“I broke the two-by-four,” Robert confessed.

“You turned too short, didn’t you?” Joe commented, still smiling.

“Yes,” Robert said meekly.

“I was afraid that might happen,” Joe continued. “When you’re working a short field like that one, you have the tendency to try to work closer to the fence line than you would in a larger field, and, when you do that, you also have the tendency to try to make too short a turn. We’ll go to the elevator right now and have Let Crane saw a new two-by-four, so that you can keep on disking today.”

It was not the first time that Robert was amazed at his father’s patience and equanimity, nor would it be the last.    

Later that spring, Mr. Charlie Coffman loaded the school bus bound for 4-H Camp at Shakamak, a park southeast of Terre Haute. (Teachers and others in authority were addressed with a title, such as Mister.) Besides being 4-H advisor, FFA advisor, agriculture teacher, and principal, Mr. Coffman was a bus driver. He was ever and always in a cheerful mood, and the trip to Shakamak was no exception.

Charles and Robert threw their Army surplus duffel bags in the back of the bus, took their seats, and enjoyed the drive to Shakamak. Sitting in the sunny window of the bus and watching the small towns drift by, Robert felt as if he might be Charlie Brown or Linus. Compared to Tippecanoe River State Park, where the Adams Township 4-H Club occasionally repaired and where raccoons kept Robert awake all night, Shakamak seemed like a spa. On the first afternoon, Mr. McKee, the county extension agent, pitched the softball game. His windup was something to see! Squinting and biting his lower lip, he lifted a knee high in the air while he contorted his body like a pretzel, then he tossed the ball in a graceful arc. In the outfield, Mike would comment, “Oh, honestly!”  If anyone could keep from laughing long enough and could get a hit, Mr. McKee would exclaim, “Very fine! Very fine!”

Mr. Coffman was all for getting in the water as soon as possible. Robert and Charles lined up with the other 4-Hers, and Mr. Coffman led them on the trail to the lake. Even though Charles and Robert had gone barefoot around the farm, their bare feet were cut by the exposed shale that formed much of the path. The next day, every step was painful. For the time being, though, it was fun to watch Mr. Coffman disporting in Lake Shakamak. He was like a smiling duck, splashing and cavorting in utter glee.

Robert despised water and barely put up with the swimming. Back when he was in the third grade, Ida had enrolled him and Charles in swimming lessons at the indoor pool of the YMCA in Lafayette. At the first lesson, the children had turned right to gather around the instructor, who was standing at the shallow end. Shy, Robert had turned left, and the instructor had not seen him. The instructor had said, “Jump in,” and Robert had obeyed. Down he went in a pale green world. Breathing water instead of air had been a new experience; bubbles had gone up as he had gone down. Later, he had learned that parents, who were watching their children through a window, had pounded on the glass to get the instructor’s attention, and that the instructor had finally understood that a child had leapt into the deep end of the pool. The next thing that Robert knew was that the instructor had rescued him and was reviving him at the side of the pool. After that experience, Robert had feared the water so much that, every Friday after school, when the swimming lesson was approaching, he had felt sick to his stomach. After several weeks, Ida had given up and had canceled the lessons. Robert had gone cheerfully forward in life as a non-swimmer. So, at Shakamak, he was content to stand on the sharp shale in the shallow water and watch Mr. Coffman having fun.

At the end of a pier stood a tall structure supporting several diving boards with the uppermost one seemingly among the clouds. Mr. Coffman warned against using the diving boards—especially the top one. At dinner, Alan told Robert he looked at the diving boards and decided that discretion was definitely the better part of valor.

The soughing of the breezes in the oak leaves made Robert feel content, and, as a fiery sunset of scarlet, coral, and tangerine deepened into garnet and boysenberry, Robert felt that all was right with the world—except for his sore feet!