America: More Joes than JBs

One morning as I was reading my daily Proverb, I thought of J B.  J B was a good friend, coworker, and brother in Christ.  As a kid, I would watch him fly past our house in a Baggett tractor-trailer truck.  I thought it was the grandest thing to know someone that actually drove a Semi. There were not many big trucks that traveled our country road.  We saw plenty of pickups, produce trucks, and pulpwood and log trucks.  

My brothers and I would run to the road, put our arms up, and pull down trying to get J B to blow his air horn.  J B would just laugh as he blew the horn and we would say, “There goes J B.”

Most everyone up home had side jobs to compensate income.  J B farmed on the side.  We raised pigs and crops.  J B had cattle and hay.  When J B was not in the semi ridge, he was on his Ford tractor fertilizing hay, cutting hay, raking hay, baling hay, and storing hay.  J B continued to do the small square bales instead of the large round rolls.  He contented that the large round rolls had too much waste.

One summer years later, many years later, my brother David and I were helping J B and another friend of ours Calvin haul hay.  We loved helping load and haul hay.  The only problem we were not young any more.  Like the proverb says, “The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.” (Proverbs 20:29 KJV)  David and I were grey.  In fact, J B had gone to work at the cement plant.  Calvin had been there for years and I was working there.

J B and Calvin loved the longer square bales for their cows.  David and I struggled to throw the hay on the trailer.  Calvin pulled the trailer as J B continued to rake and bale as David and I tired.  David and I both realized that we were bad out of shape.  Calvin commented that we had become soft and weak.  We struggled to lift the bales.

Calvin had mercy on us and volunteered to rest us.  On the first bale, Calvin struggled to lift the bale.  As he reached for a second one, he threw it to the ground and said, “Good gracious boys! Why didn’t you tell me the bales were heavy?”  David and looked at one another and said, we thought we had gotten sorry and weak.  Calvin said, “These bales weigh over 200 lbs.  They are too green!”

Calvin flagged J B down.  J B must have thought he was still driving for Baggett.  He was flying on his tractor raking the cut hay.  Calvin told J B that he did not want to burn down his barns with green hay.  If not dry enough, green hay will go through a heat and catch fire.

I never will forget what J B said.  “Dutton, I like to bale it a little green.  The cows like it better.”  Calvin won the argument and David and I were relieved.  First, we needed rest and second, we were glad we were not as out of shape as we thought.

Most people in our church and community worked hard to make a living.  However, a few in our community did not.

One time J B was raking and baling hay in his fields.  He needed someone to help him so he turned to his neighbor named Joe.  Joe was a tall, slender, and well able to help with the hay.  Watching him growing up I never knew of him holding a job or working.  As J B toiled in the hot summer son, Joe sat on his front porch swing and played his guitar.  J B hired him to help load hay.  Joe helped a short spell and told J B that he had better go home which was across from the hay field.

J B inquired as to his abandonment.  Joe said, “I might be seen by someone and lose my government check.”  J B was furious as he raked, baled, and loaded hay while Joe sat on the front porch and played the guitar.

Every time I see the cartoon movie with Porky Pig as a farmer working had while his neighbor, an old fox, plays a guitar on the front porch of a shack, I think of J B and Joe.  When winter comes, Porky is feasting while the old fox starves.  Porky’s conscience bothers him and invites his neighbor for dinner.  The sorry fox says that come spring he will work hard.  When spring comes, the old sorry fox returned to playing the guitar.

JB was accidently killed while working on a church playground.  Joe died receiving his government check and playing his guitar.  Today we have more Joes than JBs in the workforce.   

 

The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing (Proverbs 20:4 KJV).

 

The Ponderosa: A Second Grade Adventure

The Ponderosa

There was a place not too far from where I grew up that was called the Ponderosa.  If you remember, the Ponderosa was the home of Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe Cartwright on the hit western program Bonanza.  The Ponderosa near our home was a two-room cotton shack. 

The family was not the well-to-do Cartwrights, but an older single woman named Doll and her grown son Roby.  Roby was what we called up home, not right.  He was mentally retarded, or to be politically correct, he had special needs or what is termed developmental disabilities.  Doll and Roby walked everywhere they went.  Roby would walk pass the house carrying a lid from a syrup bucket.  He pretended that it was a steering wheel.  As he drove (that is walked with the lid) he would pretend to honk the horn and then wave at us.  We knew better than to make fun of Roby or any other person with special needs.  Daddy would tear us up.  If you wanted a whupping from daddy, just make fun of someone with special needs.  In fact, daddy taught us to pay special attention to those who were mentally challenged and go out of our way to help them.  I have taught my children to do the same. 

If you want to get us charged up, you just mistreat someone who has special needs.

Roby was pretty ingenious.  I know you might find this hard to believe, but Roby and Doll had a television set at the Ponderosa.  It was something to behold seeing an antenna protruding from the roof of the shack.  The antenna was unique.  It was the spokes of a bicycle wheel.  Spokes for an antenna and a syrup can lid for a steering wheel was very creative.

As far as I know, Doll and Roby did not get government assistance, but they did have neighbors who helped them.  People kept a check on them, but they were very independent.  They did not have running water, which meant that they did not have indoor plumbing.

Doll’s brother, Allen, drove the school bus.  I remember on one occasion that Mr. Allen did not have to pick up a couple of boys who lived way down in the boonies.  I was the first one to catch the bus, then the boonie brothers.  Rather than picking up others students early, Mr. Allen decided to stop and spend the extra ten minutes at the Ponderosa. 

It was cold that morning.  Ice was spewed up everywhere.  Mr. Allen and I got off the bus and went to Doll’s kitchen.  It was the first time that I had actually been inside the Ponderosa.  Doll was fixin’ breakfast for Roby and her on an old wood burning stove.  This stove provided heat for the shack also.  She offered Mr. Allen and me some coffee, eggs, and biscuits.  I was too scared to drink her coffee and eat breakfast.  I had heard Grandmoe Chapman talk of how unclean Doll and Roby were.  I must admit that Doll would not have made a good story for an issue of the Good House Keeping magazine.

I think back on that morning and think how small the Ponderosa was.  I have often wondered what kind of trouble Mr. Allen would be in today if he took a student in for breakfast at a place like the Ponderosa.

Doll and Roby moved up in our community when they bought an old raggedy run-down trailer and just an equally run-down old 1951 Plymouth jalopy.  At least by then, Roby had a real steering wheel and a real horn to blow as they crept by the house going to the store.  I do not think Doll had a driver’s license, so she drove really slow. 

I wondered what they did with all the spare time and modern conveniences they had.  Doll and Roby acted a little more sophisticated with their new house and automobile.  From my own personal experience, I know how more sophisticated one feels when they are able to take a real bath and go to a real bathroom. Doll and Roby made their trailer a little more reminiscent of the Ponderosa when they raised the bicycle-spoked antenna beside the trailer.

Come to think of it, I have images of Doll and Roby when I read of Elijah, a widow, and her son.

So he (Elijah) arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. (I Kings 17:10 KJV).