35. The Television ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

The television brought people face to face with a world far larger than Pine Village: a world that had hidden in the shadows of the imagination as farmers of the late 1940s and 1950s had listened to their radios and a world that, despite being described in detail in the dailies and the fat newspapers on Sundays, remained aloof. In the beginning, television’s limited news coverage imitated the highly crafted newsreels viewed in movie theaters, but, gradually, that coverage became better adjusted to breaking news with its raw qualities and lack of polished shapes. With televisions in more and more of the homes in town and on farms, the world no longer lay in newsprint on the kitchen table. There was the world! There, on the television!

Granted, the news occupied only fifteen minutes on weekday evenings. Joe and Ida’s Zenith TV brought in two of the three networks clearly enough. Although the networks already had a commercial stake in ensuring high numbers of viewers, the journalists who read the news, often taken from wire stories, strictly avoided opinion and, in perfect spoken English, offered only the facts as those facts could best be understood at the time.

Broadcasts and telecasts told of the agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to establish a hot line for the leaders to forestall nuclear war, and Charles, Robert, and their classmates were led in drills to kneel beneath their desks in the event of an exploding nuclear bomb, perhaps in Chicago, which was too close to Pine Village for comfort. In Joe Dan’s Restaurant, veterans of both World Wars openly speculated about World War III. They had seen the world and were wary of it.

The daily news increments may have been tiny, but television sets showed that troubles were not illusions. Radio news had enabled listeners to picture troubles in their minds, and, not infrequently, the troubles as pictured in listeners’ imaginations became either magnified or tinged with a fancy bordering on unreality. Televisions and the evening news came to be trusted as living room repositories of the stark truth: a truth not contaminated by the imagination and not shaped into newsreels. Turn on the set for the evening news, and there they were: true troubles in spoken words illustrated by pictures only a few feet away—just past the footstool! At first—with journalists that had undergone rigorous training and with exacting adherence to high ethical standards—TV news programs could legitimately claim to encapsulate the truth or whatever was carefully considered to be the most likely truth at the time. Little by little over several decades, entertainment with its penchant for shock value would nudge truth aside. Unfortunately, the trust would remain, even when the truth had vanished.

No one was so deluded as to dream that the rural community had been the Garden of Eden before TV sets arrived. The Great Depression had dealt poverty to many families that had no means of recovery. Lives lost in Europe, in the Pacific, and in Korea had left behind broken hearts that could not be comforted. In spite of their vigilance, some farmers had fallen victim to accidents that left grievous injuries. All the same, Pine Village had succeeded in giving its residents a foundational stability: the bedrock of continuity. The television was sending tremors through that substratum.

The television seemed to pose difficult questions. What was Pine Village to do with the threat of nuclear annihilation? What was Pine Village to think about the varieties of unrest that began surfacing in cities across the nation? What was Pine Village to be in a troubled world?

Meanwhile, Ida’s friend Mary Akers dropped her boys, Matt and Lon, in the yard, where they and Robert and Charles played cowboys and Indians with their Western toy guns while she entered the kitchen. Ida switched off the TV set.

“I brought my books,” Mary said, waving her right hand filled with several booklets, then waving her left hand filled with sheets of S&H Green Stamps, “and my stamps.”

Mary was younger than Ida, but they were fast friends. That spring, both had sunburned necks from driving tractors to help their husbands in the fields. They sat at the oilcloth-draped kitchen table and attached stamps to the pages of their booklets. Clerks handed the stamps to customers in grocery lines and at the checkout counters of other stores; the stamps could be redeemed for discounts on goods at a wide variety of establishments. While they affixed stamps to fill their booklets, they swigged instant coffee and chatted about events on the farms and in the town.

“Did I tell you what I did?” Mary asked.

“What did you do?” Ida returned.

“Last weekend, I came around the school driveway past where they’re building the new tennis court on the corner right across the road from you. The workers had left for the day, and I saw three Coke bottles lying in the grass. So I parked and picked up the bottles. I needed just that many to fill my last carton. That way, I had four cartons full.”

“You don’t say.”

“I felt inspired, so I drove straight to the IGA in Oxford and redeemed all four cartons. While I was there, I picked up a box of Crispy Critters for the kids and a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup for me.”

“What did Don get?” Ida wanted to know.

“He doesn’t need anything!” Mary joked.

Ida laughed.

That evening, Joe and Ida took Charles and Robert to Columbian Park to the ball diamond, where they sat on bleachers to watch a demonstration of traditional dances performed by members of the Miami tribe. Men and women, boys and girls, were attired in the clothing of Indians—not the often ridiculously flamboyant costumes of Hollywood Indians but the authentic dress of the various peoples of the Miami, such as the Wea and the Piankeshaw.

As musicians struck the deep-toned drums, a circle of dancers formed. Slowly the circle revolved as the men and women shuffled sideways. The dance was intended to ensure a good harvest. As Robert was enrolled in the 4-H gardening project, he hoped the dance would be effective.

Robert watched in fascination as the circle inched around and around. He wondered if Charles might be enjoying the performance as much as he was, but, when he glanced at his brother, Robert could tell that Charles was bored. Robert stayed focused on the dance after that.

In between dances, an announcer explained to the audience that, long ago, the Piankeshaw and Wea had lived on the land where Lafayette and West Lafayette stood. Robert suddenly felt transported back in time. He felt he was witnessing a culture that had arisen from the rivers, creeks, marshes, prairies, and woods that he knew. The circles formed by the dancers were cementing bonds among the performers and members of the audience while honoring not only the land but also what could not be seen but what could be profoundly felt: the spirit flowing around and through the water, the soil, and the air.

At the end of the exhibition, the audience gradually began applauding. It was not that people were reluctant to clap their hands to show their appreciation—it was that nobody quite knew whether applause was appropriate after such dances that the announcer had carefully placed in the context of Indian spiritual concepts. It felt as if a congregation were applauding after a church service. All the same, the children in the tribes smiled, as did several of the adults.

While Joe drove home, Robert pondered the dances and their meaning. For many days thereafter, Robert slipped away from the evening news telecasts. When he was by himself outdoors, he tried to perceive the natural world in front of him with enough precision to sense its vast spiritual backdrop. A rhythm—a music—lay within the wind. It was faint and came from far away. What was the meaning of that music? Robert tried shuffling sideways in imitation of what he had seen the Miami do, until he had traced a circle in the grass.

34. The Figurine and the Feed ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

That spring, Joe and Ida brought home the last boxes of items from the house of Grandma Rhode, who had passed away in her sleep on the final day of March. The only remaining thing that had to be moved before the property could be sold was the cultivator that Joe stored in the garage when it was not in use. Ida drove the Chevrolet into town while Joe ran the Minneapolis–Moline tractor into position to receive the cultivator. Charles and Robert were with their mother. They tumbled out of the car and stood waiting to help their father.

In years past, the boys nearly always had been on hand when Joe had attached the implement to his tractor. Grandma Kosie Rhode would serve everyone orange juice in tiny glasses with oranges painted on the sides. It seemed odd for Grandma Rhode to be missing the fun. Joe carried the heavy front sections of iron with their V-shaped hoes to either side of the tractor. He balanced each on a concrete block while he slid heavy bolts through the holes he had patiently aligned. When it came time to lift the doubly heavy back section, he enlisted the help of Ida and both boys: Ida to assist in lifting and the boys to steady and guide the ironwork into place. While Joe was fastening the nuts, Ida and the boys took one more look around the empty house.

Their footsteps echoed in the small rooms. Robert peeped into the tiny bathroom.

“Mom, you missed something,” he said.

Ida came to look. On the shelf above the sink was an inexpensive porcelain container in the shape of a lady at a costume ball in the 1700s. The upper portion—including her head with a funny hat—was a lid that covered the bottom portion—her light blue gown. The container had nothing in it and had been kept spotlessly clean. (Grandma Rhode had been meticulous in dusting and sweeping.)

“I guess we missed that,” Ida said.

Robert looked up with eyes that asked, “Could I have it?”

Reading his expression, Ida questioned, “Do you really want it?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Then you may have it.”

On the way home, Robert held the upper half of the container in one hand and the lower half in the other hand, to keep them from harm. He put the fragile piece out of the way on the bookshelf above his bed so that he would not accidentally break the figurine.

Joe, meanwhile, took Robert and Charles to the feed store in town to order ground feed for the shoats.

He switched off the GMC in the alley beside the store, and he and his sons walked into the office, where “Fireball” greeted them.

Lester Crane had two nicknames: “Let” (the more obvious of the two) and “Fireball.” Let’s father had known not only Joe but also Joe’s mother, her brother, and her parents. The roots of camaraderie between the Cranes and the Cobb family (Kosie’s maiden name) ran deep.

“Hi, Let,” Joe said.

“What can I do for you today?” Fireball asked.

“I need to load the bed of my pickup with ground feed for my feeder pigs.”

“Let me fix you up,” Fireball said good-naturedly, as he pulled an order form backed by carbon paper into place on top of the metal box that held the blank forms. He felt around the pocket on the bib of his overalls until he found the pen that he knew he had stuck there.

While Let was preparing the form, Joe peered through the window at the street to watch the traffic. His back was turned when Russell Mitchell entered the office.

“What d’ya say, Fireball?” Russell began, then, noticing Joe, he said, “Hi, Joe!”

Surprised to hear his name, Joe spun around. “Hi, Russell,” Joe said.

“Are you keeping those boys of yours in line?” Russell inquired, nodding in the direction of Charles and Robert.

Joe smiled. “I reckon so,” he replied. “How are your boys?”

“Oh, I have them working in the barn today. I thought I’d sneak off to order some feed. They probably haven’t missed me yet.”

Robert listened to the conversation, while he looked forward to seeing the ground feed falling from the chute into his father’s truck. He always enjoyed the sight of the rushing feed making a mountain in the bed of the GMC and the dusty fragrance of the crushed grain.

“When I drove past your place the other day,” Russell said, his eyes becoming narrow, “I saw your boy there—”

“Charles.” Joe provided the name.

“Charles—leading a heifer around the yard.”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “He’s training her for the 4-H fair.”

Russell smiled. “So he’ll have her entered in the heifer class, then.”

“Yes. It’s his first year for the dairy project.”

“I was gonna say you’ve had pigs at the fair before this.”

“Yes, and we’ll have our Chester Whites there again this year.”

Fireball interrupted, “Joe, I need your signature right there.”

After Joe had signed his name with his customary elegant cursive, he handed the pen back to Let and said, “I reckon your boys will have cows at the fair.”

“Roger and Richard,” Russell said with a twinkle in his eye. “Yeah, we always have our Holsteins in the various classes.”

Joe hesitated, then he asked, “The heifer class, too?”

Russell peered intently at Joe. “We have a nice looking heifer that we think is gonna bring home a champion ribbon for us.”

“Is that right?” Joe commented, smiling.

“’bout so,” Russell said.

“You’ve generally had the champion in that class, haven’t you?”

“Fairly consistently,” Russell agreed, nodding.

Accidentally dropping the carbon copy of the form that Fireball handed him, Joe fumbled to pick it up from the dusty floor but managed to grab it on the third try. He carefully folded it and slid it in the pocket of his overalls.

“Pull around there, and I’ll get you loaded right now,” Fireball said to Joe.

“We’ll be seeing you, then,” Joe said to Russell.

“Take ‘er easy,” Russell responded.

Robert was not disappointed. The ground feed cascaded into the truck with a satisfying rumble.

His father’s conversation had given Robert an idea for the use of his figurine: he would keep his 4-H pins in it.   

33. The Obstacle Course ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

Robert glanced toward the front gate and saw Alan, the boys’ cousin, about to come in. Alan lived in Ladoga and was visiting his grandmother, Lena Rhode, who lived in Pine Village. Lena resembled the sweet old woman in the illustrations in one of the children’s books that Ida had read to Robert when he was small: white hair in a braid encircling her head, wire-rim glasses, and an embroidered apron. In the book, the woman popped corn, and Robert wondered how often Lena did the same.

Robert ran to meet Alan, whom he looked up to. A visit from Alan meant fun on the farm. Charles sauntered through the screen door and waved at Alan.

Alan was closer to Charles’ age, and the two of them devised what Robert considered fascinating games that he could not have imagined on his own.

Ida came to the door to greet Alan.

“Can you stay with us for dinner?” she asked Alan.

“Yes,” Alan said simply.

“Then you boys play for an hour, and I’ll have dinner ready by then.”

“What would you like to do?” Charles asked Alan, who glanced at a red Schwinn bicycle lying on its side.

“Let’s ride the bike,” he suggested.

After taking turns riding back and forth on the sidewalk a few times within the yard, Alan and Charles decided to take the bicycle through the south gate into the chicken yard.

The boys cleared an oval track around the westernmost chicken house. They had to move a five-gallon metal bucket out of the way, and they had to pull up gypsum weeds by their roots along the south side of the chicken house. Soon, Charles and Alan were alternating fast rides around the building while Robert watched.

“Would you like to ride next?” Alan asked Robert.

“Yes, I would!” Robert exclaimed.

Alan turned toward Charles. “I think your brother would like to take a turn.”

Charles yielded the bike to Robert, who pedaled slowly at first but eventually gained enough speed to keep the bike from wobbling. The boys had gone around the track often enough that the path had grown dusty. It felt soft beneath the tires.

After Robert had made two circuits, Alan said, “You know what we need. We need an obstacle course.”

Charles agreed. He and Alan placed the metal bucket directly in the path. Then they took turns steering around it while riding at top speed.

While Charles rode, Alan looked over a small metal drum and the unhinged door from a hog house. When Charles came to a stop, Alan said, “Why don’t we lay this barrel on its side and lean this door on it to make a ramp? Then we could ride the bike up the ramp, fly through the air, and come down on the other side.”

Charles smiled broadly the moment he heard the plan. He and Alan tugged the drum into place and propped the door to make the ramp, which was steeper than either he or Alan had realized it would be.

“What do you think?” Alan asked. “Can we keep the bike upright after flying through the air?”

“I think so,” Charles said.

“I dare you to go first,” Alan said.

“I double dare you to go first,” Charles replied.

“Well, alright!” Alan said. “If you’re going to double dare me, I suppose I’ll have to show you how it’s done.”

He set the bucket out of the way, so that the oval was clear, except for the ramp, which seemed pointed at the sky. Alan rode once around the chicken house to gain speed. On the second pass, he bounced the front wheel over the edge of the wooden door. The bike dashed up the incline and dropped heavily just beyond the upper edge. Alan stayed standing on the pedals as a cloud of dust arose, and, wobbling to the right and back to the left, he kept the bike upright. The stunt was magnificent! Robert applauded in glee!

“Now it’s your turn,” Alan said to Charles.

Having had the advantage of watching Alan, Charles imitated his predecessor’s strategy as exactly as he could. He built up his speed around the track, and, the second time around, he flew up the ramp. With his legs almost straight up from the pedals, he rode the bike in its short arc back to Mother Earth and managed to pedal the bicycle forward beyond the dust cloud marking the point of impact.

“That was impressive,” Alan said, in his customary droll manner.

“Robert, would you like to try?”

Robert quickly declined the opportunity. Shaking his head, he said, “I’m not old enough.”

“Shall we go again?” Alan asked. He accepted the handlebars from Charles and made his second attempt, which was less wobbly than his first. Then it was Charles’ turn again.

This time, Charles had a little less speed than he had on his first effort. When he reached the top of the ramp, the bike leaned to one side, and he and the bike fell.

“Oh, no!” Alan said. “Are you alright?”

Charles dusted himself off. He had torn the knee of his jeans, and he had a small cut on one elbow; otherwise, he had come away unscathed.

“Boys!” Ida called from the back door. “Dinner’s ready! Charles, go get your father!”

Charles walked to the barn to tell Joe it was time to eat the noon meal.

When everyone entered the kitchen, Ida looked at Charles and asked, “How did you rip your jeans?”

“I fell off the bike,” Charles said.

“You should have seen it!” Robert said, but a look from Charles made Robert understand he was not to reveal the dangerous ramp, which the boys had dismantled. “He just … fell … off!” Robert extemporized.

“Put some tincture Merthiolate on his elbow while I give the boys their Fizzies,” Ida said to Joe.

Alan, Charles, and Robert eagerly dropped the Fizzies tablets in their glasses and watched as the flavored bubbles rose through the water.

After the meal, Ida told Charles to change his pants and to bring her the torn jeans. When she straightened out the rolled up cuffs, a handful of dust fell from each one.

“What were you boys doing?” she asked, with an inkling of the truth.

No one replied.

“Whatever it was, nobody was seriously hurt, at least,” she said, as she prepared a patch for the jeans.

As Joe had to go to Keith’s shop for a tractor part anyway, he drove Alan back to Lena’s house. Having had great fun, Robert looked forward to more adventures the next time Alan would visit.

32. The Paddle and the 4-H Club ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

Robert so admired Mrs. Arvin that he was sad to leave her second-grade classroom. He moved on to Mrs. Moyers’ third-grade room. Mrs. Moyers was a dignified teacher with a heart of gold. Attired in slender skirts of pleated brown plaid with matching fox-brown blouses and jackets, Mrs. Moyers appeared to be as sophisticated as she indeed was. She collected birds’ nests, several of which adorned her shelves. She was happy to be asked about them, and she delighted in describing how she baked them to eliminate insects, mold, or mildew.

Every elementary teacher could wield a paddle, but Robert could tell that several of them greatly preferred not to resort to paddling a student. Mrs. Moyers was one who truly disliked her paddle, but, with Robert’s class, she encountered a difficulty.

Who knows why? For some reason, Robert’s class had a tough time memorizing multiplication tables. Mrs. Moyers tried every strategy she could apply toward helping the students remember such products as 9 times 7, 9 times 8, and 9 times 9. Finally, in desperation, she said, “I will paddle anyone who answers incorrectly when I ask for a product resulting from the multiplication of two factors.” She arranged each day so that, in the final period, she could go up and down the row, asking students, “What is the product of seven and eight?” or “What is the product of six and nine?” When a student gave the wrong answer, she walked toward her desk, slowly removed the paddle from its drawer, and turned toward the student. Then she would say, “The period is nearly over, and I’ve yet to give the homework assignment; for that reason, I’ll postpone paddling you for giving the wrong answer.” … and, the next day, she seemed to have forgotten that she was to have paddled someone!

One afternoon, she came to Robert’s desk. “What is the product of nine and six?” she asked. Suddenly, Robert felt confused. He remembered the product of nine and five: forty-five. He recalled the product of nine and seven: sixty-three. He could not—for the life of him—remember the product of nine and six. He blushed. Ultimately, he said, “I forget.”

He felt his classmates’ eyes staring at him—burning into him—from all sides. He pictured how it would feel to be marched to the front of the room, to be commanded to bend over, and to receive the humiliating blows of the paddle across his backside.

Mrs. Moyers glanced up at the large clock on the wall of her room. “Well, Robert, the period is almost over. I still need to give the homework assignment for tomorrow. You’ll have to wait to be paddled another day, but I want you to be sure to tell your mother that you do not know your nines.”

All the elementary teachers respected Robert’s mother because she, too, had taught elementary school for some fourteen years before Charles was born, when she quit teaching. When Robert returned home from school, he walked up to his mother and said, “Mrs. Moyers told me to tell you that I do not know my nines.”

Ida was rolling pie dough. Flour was clinging in dusty patches on her forearms and her apron. She stopped in mid-roll and stared at Robert.

“What do you mean? You don’t know your nines?”

“I forgot the product of nine and six today.”

“Mrs. Moyers called on you, then? Is that it? And you couldn’t answer her question?”

“Yes,” Robert said meekly.

“Sit down here at the table while I finish the dough.”

Robert took a seat on one of the bentwood chairs.

“Let’s go through the nines,” she began. “What is” she pushed the roller forward “nine times two?” she drew the roller back.

“Eighteen,” Robert answered.

“What is” she pushed the roller forward “nine times three?” she drew the roller back.

“Twenty-seven,” Robert answered.

Ida went all the way through the nines and made three circles of dough for pies while Robert responded to the drill.

While she prepared the pie fillings, she took him through the sevens and the eights. Then she went back to the nines to see if he would forget any of them. Luckily for him, he remembered all.

Then Ida sat down across from him. She looked him straight in the eye and said, “Are you embarrassed that you didn’t know the answer when Mrs. Moyers asked you?”

“Yes, very much so,” Robert replied.

“See that it never happens again,” she said, and, after a stern moment, she smiled her trademark smile. “You know the answers now, and you need to know them for the rest of your life.”

After that day, Robert never again came close to a paddling in school.

One of the greatest experiences of that school year was joining the 4-H Club, of which Charles was already a member. The sponsor was Mr. Coffman, a jolly elf of a man with a huge smile for everyone and every occasion. He was not terribly tall and a tad roly-poly. He wore black rimmed glasses through which his honest eyes sparkled, and his black hair was always cut somewhat short. He taught agriculture and shop classes, and he was the Future Farmers of America advisor, to boot. The 4-H meetings were held in Mr. Coffman’s classroom in the basement of the gymnasium that opened out to the track and field to the north. A carved wooden owl for FFA meetings stood at the front of his desk. Thanks to the owl, he had gained the nickname “Bird.” Everyone liked Mr. Coffman, and, before 4-H meetings were called to order, someone would say, “What’s the word?” To this question, the universal reply was “Bird!”

Robert quickly memorized the 4-H motto: to make the best better. He soon mastered the promise: I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living for my club, my community, and my country.

Robert and Charles’ father, who had been in 4-H when he was a boy, decided to enter Charles in several projects that year, one of them the raising of a dairy cow. Robert, meanwhile, was enrolled in swine and gardening (plenty for a boy his age). Joe had a promising Holstein calf that he thought might do well in the judging. Charles was given the responsibility of training her to be exhibited in the coliseum that coming summer. Robert helped Charles because both boys thought the world of the calf.

Her name was Buttercup. She was as gentle as a lamb, but her personality was as powerful as a lion. She loved to be around people, and, at times, she seemed human, herself! Her coat of velvety black and purest white was always shiny (from the frequent brushings she received), and she fluttered her long lashes in a way that was most becoming.

Joe hoped Buttercup’s conformity to the expectations for her breed would earn her a strong showing at the 4-H fair. She was duly registered as a purebred Holstein.

With thanks (in part) to Robert’s 4-H project, Ida would have an extra helper in the garden that spring. His parents would teach him to keep exact records as he went along. Robert could hardly wait to see the vegetables grow!