My Father Said ... 1

When we talked, my father, Joe Rhode, first made a cup of coffee. We sat across from each other at the drop-leaf table in the kitchen. (I still have the table.) In my memory, I can see Dad in his well-washed overalls and blue denim shirt with his boyish countenance alternately beaming or frowning, depending on the story he was telling at the moment. During our conversation on the 7th of June in 1999, my father said, “The hot days in 1934 began in May. The temperature surpassed 100 in the first week of June.” In fact, the temperature was 102 degrees Fahrenheit in nearby Crawfordsville, Indiana, on the 1st and 2nd of June in that year. Toward the end of the month, my father’s thermometer registered 104 degrees on two days. “Old, weak, or hard-worked horses died,” Dad said, “as well as a few young ones.”

How to Form a Barrier to Chinch Bugs

Photograph in Thomas D. Isern’s

“Folk Entomology in the Flint Hills of Kansas”

In Kansas History (Autumn 1996)

My father continued, “In early June, just as corn was eight or so inches tall, the chinch bugs attacked. Farmers dug shallow ditches around their fields. They used a horse or two to drag a pole through the ditch. The pole knocked the bugs into post holes, placed every four or five rods. Before the bugs could crawl out again, a helper poured a little creosote into the hole from a dipper dipped in a bucket. This killed the bugs. Corn yielded fifteen to twenty-five bushels per acre that year.”

The terrible conditions of 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression were a harbinger of what was to come only two years later: one of the most devastating heat waves in the history of North America.

Dad recalled, “In 1936, the heat lasted longer, and conditions were drier. From May 29th through the third week of July, no substantial rain fell. A few local showers wet the sidewalks. A period of extreme heat in July yielded a stretch of at least nine days with the temperature consistently above 100 degrees.” Indiana’s all-time record high of 116 was set in July of that year. “Corn yielded twenty-five to thirty-five bushels per acre in 1936,” my father added. He explained that there was a corn yield because sufficient rain had fallen in May: more rain than fell in May of 1934.

“Chinch bugs were not a problem in 1936,” said Dad. “There had been a heavy rain the night of May 29th, killing the chinch bugs. That evening was the graduation night at Pine Village High School,” when my father was Valedictorian and Senior Class President. On the 1st of June, he embarked upon his farming career with Marshall Rhode, Dad’s uncle. Circumstances were inauspicious, yet my father persisted, testifying to his hope for better times to come and his trust in agriculture.

Tipp City Finds 2

The Iron Dog Salvage & Antiques in Tipp City, Ohio, has awesome stuff! Rough wood and factory iron in all shapes and sizes are displayed for sale. I found a mythic eagle that I could not pass up!

Bronze Eagle from Lane & Bodley Sawmill

The moment I saw the eagle, I knew what it was, even though I had never seen another 3-D one. I had seen a 2-D one: in an old-time illustration. People who know me know that I love reading about and studying the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, especially with reference to America’s agricultural heritage. Well, the eagle appeared in illustrations advertising sawmills sold by Lane & Bodley of Cincinnati, Ohio, shortly after the Civil War. The bronze birds came to roost as ornaments atop the saws.

Cut Showing Bronze Eagle Atop Lane & Bodley Sawmill

My guess is that Lane & Bodley did not pour the cast eagles but obtained them from the famous Miles Greenwood Foundry just up the street in Cincinnati. After all, the Greenwood plant had a giant eagle casting on the roof! In the mid-1800s, American bronze casting was in its infancy, particularly for purposes of ornamenting objects such as sawmills. The 1870s witnessed a burgeoning number of bronze objects cast in sand.

Detail of Eagle in Cut (Above)

The Lane & Bodley eagle appears to have been cast in coarse sand and was made in two sections bolted together. In recent times, someone has replaced the original bolts and has brazed over the ends that protrude through the back of the bird; otherwise, the eagle is original and in great condition for its age.

As the national bird, the eagle lends a patriotic look to Lane & Bodley sawmills. I like the way the artist captured the eagle in a natural pose that suggests alighting shortly after flight just before the wings fold. The bird’s stance could also imitate that of an adult eagle feeding hatchlings, even as sawmills feed sawyers’ families. Whatever the artist had in mind, the Lane & Bodley eagle does not conform to the symbolic configurations of many bronze eagles made in the century and a half since it was poured.   

Summer Gardening 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

The monsoon came. By “monsoon,” I mean only a week of showers. The hot, muggy weather, punctuated by frequent spells of rain, grew a carpet of tiny weeds over the bare soil of my garden. I pulled the tall weeds that had a head start and waited for a day dry enough to push my one-wheeled cultivator through the open ground.

For several weeks, the weeds and I did battle. Eventually, I surrendered, and a lush growth of crabgrass soon carpeted the ground. 

My Garden on September 27th with Crabgrass

And Brown Stalks of Sunflowers

Here is what I had thought I would write in my blog: Meanwhile, my snow peas enjoyed the wet earth. They curled their tendrils upward, flowered, and began to form the edible pods for which they are revered. I was amazed that peas, which I have always considered a cool-weather crop, could be harvested in August! Pods with their fresh snap adorned my salads! Unfortunately, I could not compose such sentences. My snow peas were a total flop. They remained stunted plants that set on nary a pea, as my grandmother might have said.

Was I disappointed? Why, yes! But I looked back on a summer of fun and contentment amounting to bliss: not a loss, no matter what!

My garden was essentially finished. It amazes me how quickly a garden adopts a bedraggled appearance after the plants have ceased to be productive. The shabby stalks of broken-down sunflowers and the browned leaves of what had been vibrantly green beans not a month ago were symbolic of the change of seasons and of all things that begin, only to end. Of course, nature also represents things that end, only to begin! Five months had elapsed since I had planted the first seed. I had worked happily during three seasons. Chuang Tsu quoted Confucius as saying, “Live so that you are at ease, in harmony with the world, and full of joy. Day and night, share the springtime with all things, thus creating the seasons in your own heart.”*

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*Chuang Tsu Inner Chapters: A New Translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English (New York: Vintage, 1974).