Anyone who’s been involved in food production knows that farming and ranching rank near the top as the most dangerous profession. Nearly every aggie knows someone who has suffered from some type of serious farm accident.
The subject of farm safety brings to mind a time years ago when I wuz charged with teaching farm safety to farm youth. I figgered that the best way to get across the importance of practicing farm safety to rural youth wuz to find someone who could speak authoritatively on the subject.
Eventually, I found an elderly farmer who fit the bill. This poor unfortunately fellow clearly had evidence of what can happen if farm safety is treated nonchalantly. This guy had a peg leg and a hook on one arm because it wuz before the advent of modern prosthetic limbs. He also wuz sightless in one eye and had a patch over it. In short, he seemed a perfect example to teach the value of farm safety. And, he agreed to share his experience.
So, at our first meeting with a group of youngsters we decided the best way to break the ice with the group wuz to have the youngsters ask questions.
The first inquisitive youngster asked the gentleman, “Sir, how did you happen to get a peg leg?”
The gentleman replied, “Well, I wuz trying to hitch my tractor up to a heavy piece of equipment and it wuz on a downhill grade. When I backed the tractor up, I neglected to get the emergency brake set properly and while I wuz trying to get hitched up, the emergency brake broke loose and the tractor rolled down and crushed my leg between the drawbar and the machine. My carelessness caused this peg leg.”
Then a second youngster popped this question: “Sir, what happened your arm? Why do you have a hook?”
The gentleman replied, “Once again, I failed to take the proper safety precaution. I wuz harvesting wheat and the combine got plugged. I tried to unplug it without shutting off the engine. While I wuz tugging on one of the belts trying to get it to move, suddenly the combine unplugged itself, but I couldn’t get my hand out of the way in time and the belt pulled my hand into the pulley and my hand got pinched off at the wrist. That’s the sad story about my hook for a hand.”
Then a third youth inquired: “Sir, why do you have a black patch over your eye? How did that happen?”
The gentleman took a deep breath and answered: “Well, young’un, that’s the saddest farm accident of all three. I had a pitchfork and wuz mucking some moldy hay out of an old barn hay mow. It wuz hot in the barn and I took my hat off momentarily to wipe the sweat from my brow. At that very instant, a pigeon decided to fly out of the barn and, when I glanced up, it pooped squarely in my right eye.”
The youngster came back with, “But, sir, some pigeon poop in your eye wouldn’t cause you to lose your eyesight.”
The gentleman replied tartly, “It did because I instinctively tried to wipe it out of my eye and it wuz my first day with my hook!
I hope this story prompts better farm safety practices on your farm or ranch.
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I never think twice about telling funny stories that happen to my friends. Therefore, I shouldn’t exempt myself when something funny happens to me. And, last week at one of our Old Geezer Gathering something happened to me that gave everyone a good laugh.
Here’s what happened: I wuz leaving our morning gathering and already had my pickup keys in my hand when I opened the door to go outside. At that very moment, my cell phone rang. Naturally, at my age I fumbled around trying to extract my cell phone from my overalls bib pocket.
When I finally got the phone answered, it wuz the same miserable, unintelligible foreigner trying for the millionth time to sell me supplemental Medicare insurance. After I summarily and curtly dismissed that bothersome idiot, I went to my pickup truck and couldn’t find my keys.
I looked in every pocket of my overalls and jacket. No keys. So, I decided to backtrack to the front door and see if I dropped them there when I fumbled to answer my phone. No keys.
So, I went back to the tables where my geezers friends were still gathered and explained my dilemma. About the time I finished with my lost keys tale, one of the geezers pointed to the floor and asked with a smirk, “Reckon maybe they could be those keys that just fell on the floor out of your pants leg.” That’s when all the geezers got a good laugh.
Sure enuf. I looked down and there were my keys. What happened is that in fumbling with my cell phone, I dropped the keys down the front of my overalls. I had to walk quite awhile for the keys to work their way out of my pants leg. I never did feel them.
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One “geezer topic” this morning wuz the changes in dentistry that we’d experienced down through the years. One fellow recalled from his younger days when he went to a dentist for some routine work, the dentist had on a white apron with fresh blood stains all over it. “He looked more like a meat cutter than a dentist,” he recalled. “It wuz kinda scary.”
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My words of wisdom for the week are: “If I woke up and nuthin’ hurt, I’d think I wuz dead.”
And, “whoever made the executive decision to put the ‘s’ in fastfood wuz a marketing genius.”
Have a good ‘un.
