The Vintage Rookie: George Grant, #3

Chapter 1

Seasons come, stay a short while and then fade away. Every year winter’s bitterness gives way to the promise of spring, the fruit of the summer and the reality of the fall before the landscape is again buried beneath the new snow.

The weather cycles stack up the years like bales of alfalfa on a skid behind a baler. Four bales for the base, three for the second tier, then two and finally one to top the pyramid. A full decade in each stack. Then the pyramids are merged to form huge blocks of interlocking bales. A hundred or more decades in a large stack of bales.

George Grant wondered why he was thinking of that as he unloaded bales from a trailer. They no longer used conventional sized bales on the Grant farm and hadn’t for many years.

Now they rolled the hay into large round bales that weighed a thousand pounds or more. He used a tractor-mounted front-end loader with a pointed six foot steel shaft to spear, raise and lay them in position, three bales high, each resting in the valley created by the two under it. Two large curved metal frames kept the bottom row of bales in place like a pair of bookends. When the stack was complete it would get covered with wide strips of black plastic to protect the hay from the weather.

On the Grant farm they no longer needed the stacks of bales as walls for a pile of silage. They had also stopped doing that years ago. Now silage was blown into large inflatable tubes six feet in diameter that looked like giant white caterpillars when they were filled. Several would lay side by side near the barnyard fence, ready to be used to feed the beef cattle in the winter.

The newer technology was not only a labor-saver but it had the added benefit of substantially reducing the waste of hay and the loss of spoiled silage in the air-tight cocoons.

Finished with unloading the trailer, George climbed up on the tractor seat, started the engine and drove the tractor over to where he could hook up the trailer and pull it away from the stack.

He parked the rig a short distance away in the open farmyard. In the morning after chores and breakfast he would haul more bales in from the field and stack them. With the use of newer technology and equipment the baling, hauling and stacking of hay had become a one-man job.

As he walked toward the house he thought back to last Saturday night and smiled. It had been a lot of fun. He and his wife Marcy had gone to the city for a 35th high school anniversary celebration. He shook his head as if he didn’t believe it. Thirty-five years has passed since he and Marcy had graduated from high school. It didn’t seem that long. It didn’t seem like he could be 53 years old, either. But he was.

He also couldn’t believe how much the nearby city had grown in those 35 years. It had a population of about 3,000 when they were in high school. Now it was almost 7,000 and seemed to be growing larger every day. It had developed so much to the south that the city was a half mile closer than the four miles it had been when he was growing up.

George and his younger brother Roy had been running the farm since George was a junior in high school and Roy was in the ninth grade. Their mother had died of cancer just after Christmas that year and their Grandma and Grandpa Grant became their guardians. Their father had been killed by a lightning strike nearly 18 months before. George had been hit by the same lightning strike but had recovered with no noticeable side effects other than the burn scars on the backs of his arms and on his back.

What very few people knew was that since the accident George had developed some strange side effects. Whenever he threw a baseball he got tingles in his hands and arms. They were never painful but they felt funny, sort of like when he bumped his funny bone. He got them whenever he picked up something heavy. The tingles also made him feel stronger and he could pick up a 75-pound bale of alfalfa like it was a light straw bale. The only other time he felt the tingles was when he was near Marcy Caldwell. He had noticed that shortly after they began dating when they were sophomores. He also discovered that she seemed to sense when he had tingles. He couldn’t understand how she could tell. There was no visible pulsing in his arms. No one else could tell. Not his brother, the doctors or any of the few people who knew about them.

He became aware of another strange sensation after the lightning accident. He saw a baseball moving through the air like it was in slow motion. He didn’t get that sensation with anything else and the eye doctor was at a loss to explain it.

There had been positive results from his strange sensations. He had led the Central High School baseball team to three consecutive state championships. He had been an outstanding pitcher with incredible speed and unbelievable accuracy. Almost all his pitches were strikes. He also had been a great hitter. Seeing the ball coming at him like it was in slow motion allowed him to swing his bat in the perfect spot to get a hit and he was really good at placing his hits where the outfielders could not catch the ball.

George smiled as he thought back on those long-ago days. He could close his eyes and easily picture 16-year-old Marcy Caldwell sitting by him at a table in the back of their home room at Central High School, helping him with geometry or just talking. She had been such a pretty girl, even with braces on her teeth. He knew she hadn’t lost any of her beauty over the years. There’s a few wrinkles around her eyes when she laughs, he told himself, but she is a very beautiful woman.

His class celebrated their graduation every five years. Many classmates joined them for the party. Some they hadn’t seen for years, those schoolmates who had moved to other areas of the country and returned only for an evening of remembrance. Some they saw regularly as they had businesses in the city or farmed in the area. Some classmates they saw socially as they had remained good friends over the years. And, they all had children who had attended school together and played on the same sports teams. Many of his classmates were grandparents, just like he and Marcy.

Brian Ralston, Bob Cortez, Al Pulaski and Ty Miller had been at the reunion. Bob, Al and Ty were his teammates on the high school baseball teams and they still enjoyed reminiscing about the astounding accomplishments. No other high school class anywhere in the state could boast of three consecutive state baseball championships.

Brian and his wife, a farm girl from the capital area who had been his sister Sally’s roommate at college, farmed a few miles north of the Caldwell farm, which was three miles north of the city. Bob had married Mary Anders after they finished college. Mary had worked for her father at Anders Construction and then became president of the company when he retired. Bob and his cousin owned the carpet and tile business their fathers had purchased when Bob was in high school. Al had married a girl two years younger than him, but they had divorced after a few years and he didn’t remarry. He was part owner and manager of the large department store in the city and had been the mayor for a number of years. Ty Miller and Karen Allison had married while they were in college and moved back to the city after graduation. Ty was an insurance and real estate agent and Karen taught at the south elementary school.

There were others at the party who hadn’t been classmates, but had married classmates, including his good friends Toby Corbet and Willie Anders. They had graduated when George was a sophomore and both had married girls in George’s class.

Toby graduated from the state college at the capital and then pitched in the major leagues for 10 years before an injury cut his career short. He went into coaching after that and now was the head baseball coach of the state college team.

Willie Anders graduated from the state college with Toby and went on to play professional ball. He had pitched for 16 years in the major leagues before he retired. His pitching record included winning three World Series games. Six years ago he had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and for the past 10 years he had been the pitching coach for a professional team. He was a well-respected coach and knew lots of tips he freely passed on to his team’s young pitchers to help them hone their skills.

George remembered Toby and Willie making frequent visits to the Grant farm throughout their college and professional careers. Along with George and Roy they were eager to get pointers from Uncle Joe Wagner.

Joe really wasn’t George and Roy’s uncle. He was the hired man on the Grant farm. The boys had grown up calling the hired man Uncle. Their parents had each been an only child so they were the only uncles the boys ever had. In his younger years Joe had played semi-pro baseball on a number of traveling teams. He knew a lot about the game, especially tips and tricks from when he played ball. Many of those tips had been lost over the years and most current players didn’t know anything about them. But Joe remembered them and he passed them on to George and Roy and to their friends Toby and Willie. They were all better players because of Joe’s tips.

Willie told George again at the reunion party that he had learned so much from Uncle Joe. He told George that Uncle Joe was the best coach he ever knew.

Thinking of Uncle Joe was a reminder to George that he needed to go over to the cemetery and make sure the grass was trimmed around the gravestones. The Grant cemetery plot was large and all of their family was buried there. Their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and even their great-great-grandparents, the first Grants to settle in that area, were there. Several infants were there, babies who did not survive their first year. There were two military markers for Grant ancestors killed in wars. His mother’s family had the plot on one side and his Grandpa and Grandma Wilson were buried there, along with his great grandparents Wilson. John and Norma Caldwell, Marcy’s parents, owned the plot on the other side. Marcy’s Grandma and Grandpa Caldwell and her great grandparents were buried there.

When Uncle Joe had died at 82 George and Roy had him buried in the family plot. Uncle Joe was family to George and Roy. He had cut back on work at 70 and fully retired at 74. George and Roy had insisted he continue to live with them and give them advice that would make them better farmers. Uncle Joe had spent the last eight years of his life helping around the farm and when asked always had good suggestions for improvements. He was a favorite of their children for all the stories he told them. Uncle Joe enjoyed the visits from Toby and Willie. He closely followed their college and professional careers, including keeping a scrapbook, and whenever they came to visit offered tips on baseball. Willie said Uncle Joe was a never-ending source of good tips about baseball that those who were playing the game today had forgotten or never learned.

Remembering the visits from Toby and Willie was a grim reminder for George of the great disappointment in his life. After he graduated from high school he was set to enroll at the state college where he was assured of a full ride baseball scholarship. His dream of becoming a professional baseball player seemed very near. That dream was shattered with the accidental death of Don Hastings’ brother and wife. Don was a hired man on the Grant farm and his wife Helen ran the Grant household, doing the cooking, cleaning and helping the boys with their homework. Dave and Janice Hastings left three young children and Uncle Don and Aunt Helen were the only family who could take care of them. They had moved from the Grant farm right away to care for their orphaned nieces and nephew.

George, Grandpa Grant and Uncle Joe had tried unsuccessfully to find another hired man. With harvest time approaching there weren’t any workers available. George, Roy and Uncle Joe managed to handle the grain harvest with extra hours of work each day. Grandma and Grandpa Grant came out from their retirement home in the city to help with the cooking. Roy and George did the housecleaning and laundry in the evenings. There was no time for anything but work.

They were halfway through the grain harvest when Grandma Grant found a housekeeper for them. Cindy Milburn was a widow who lived in the city and she agreed to come out and take care of the household.

With the grain harvest over George knew he had a hard decision to make about college. Without a second hired man he couldn’t leave. He understood that and made the bitter decision to forego college.

He called Marcy, his fiancé, and asked her if he could come up to talk with her. He said he’d like her parents to be there as he had important news for everyone.

His news was about the failed search for a second hired man, meaning he could not leave and go to college. He suggested that he and Marcy might need to delay the wedding but she wouldn’t agree to that. Her father offered a compromise that George and Marcy thought would work. They planned the wedding for the Saturday after Christmas. It had been a beautiful wedding and after a week of honeymooning George returned to the farm with his new bride.

* * * * *

George had parked the tractor and walked across the farmyard to the house. His was thinking about those long ago activities that had shaped his life. He was about to open the back door when he heard a yell, Dad, Dad! He turned and looked toward the barn, then waited for his sons Gene and Ralph to come up to the house steps. We just finished loading a bunch of calves in the truck to take up to the feedlot. Mom suggested I stay here until you finished stacking the bales and then we could have some coffee. Gene gave his dad a pat on the back and said, Johnny is already in there working on Grandma’s sugar cookies. They laughed and stepped into the house.

Grandpa! Grandpa! Johnny yelled, jumped off his chair and ran to the door. George dropped down to a knee and held out his arms as his six-year-old grandson ran into them.

I hope you saved some cookies for us, George said as he stood up. Johnny scrambled back to his chair at the table, climbed up and reached for a half-eaten cookie on his plate.

You have to hurry, Grandpa, or they’ll be all gone. I don’t know if there’s enough for Dad and you, Uncle Ralph. He smiled as he waved the cookie around. Grandma said I could have another one after I finished eating this one.

George reached out and pulled Marcy to him in a hug. Well, maybe the rest of us will just eat all the rest of the cookies on that plate, he said to his grandson. Maybe your dad and uncle and I will eat them so fast you won’t get another one.

Oh, no, Johnny said as he reached over to the plate of cookies, picked up another one and put it on his own plate. Now you and dad and Uncle Ralph can have the rest.

George laughed as Marcy said, If you sit down I’ll pour coffee and you can fight Johnny for the cookies. George held her tight to him. As she squeezed his arm he could feel the tingles surging through his hands and arms. Well, he thought, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed over the years. The tingles are still there. Marcy gave him a light kiss on the cheek, whispered in his ear, I can feel your tingles and smiled. Then she broke away and reached over to fill three cups with coffee.

It had always been like that with Marcy. Here we are, he thought, grandparents, and every time I hold her I get tingles in my hands and arms like I did when we were teenagers.

He and Marcy knew they had a good marriage and it had been from the beginning. Neither had ever wanted anyone else. They knew when they married that George would not be able to join her at college for the second semester because he could not find another hired man to work on the farm. George had suggested that she finish out the year, spending Monday through Thursday nights at the dorm and coming home every Friday night. She could drive to the campus early Monday morning as they were up at five a.m. every day.

Neither one of them liked the thought of being apart that much, but in the end it was her dad who convinced them it was a smart thing to do. He told her she should register for all business classes the second semester and if she didn’t go back to college again what she learned in those classes would be valuable knowledge she could use on the farm.

But, Marcy hadn’t been content to let her education stop like that. Before she left the college at the end of the spring semester she had signed up for correspondence courses by mail. She had met with the dean of the business school and together they had planned a business degree program for her. The dean told her she had fulfilled the one year campus residency requirement so everything else she took could be handled by correspondence courses.

He had recommended she drive down and spend a day each month at the college and meet with the business school faculty to discuss any issues that she might have.

Over the next four years Marcy had given birth to two sons and completed the coursework to earn a bachelor’s degree in business, with honors. George, Roy, John and Norma Caldwell, Grandma and Grandpa Grant and Uncle Joe had sat in the audience watching Marcy walk across the stage to receive her diploma. Aunt Cindy had volunteered to stay home with little Gene and baby Ralph.

When Marcy had completed her degree she and George met with the dean of the business school. Together they designed a program so George could take basic business courses that would count toward a degree. He would not be able to earn a bachelor’s degree unless he fulfilled the one year residency. They all understood that was highly unlikely. However, over a six-year period he completed all the requirements except that and earned a business proficiency certificate.

As he and his sons sat down at the table and reached for their coffee cups, George’s mind raced back to the first time Marcy had told him she could sense the tingles in his hands and arms. Now, more than 35 years later he still didn’t understand how she could sense the tingles when no one else could.

Over the years he had seen Dr. Blake for regular checkups and they had done more random testing, always getting the same negative response. Dr. Blake would look at the test results and shake his head, telling George he just didn’t understand why nothing ever showed up on his testing equipment.

Shortly after he and Marcy were married George had told Dr. Blake that Marcy somehow could sense when he had tingles and always knew how intense they were. He told the doctor that Marcy first told him she could sense his tingles when they were juniors in high school and that he had finally told her about his lightning strike accident. Dr. Blake had been amazed that Marcy could sense the tingles, but laughed and said, I knew you really got the cream of the crop when you married her, George, and now we find out she’s even smarter than my electronic testing equipment. That’s really something! Dr. Blake had retired years ago and George never told the doctor who replaced him about the tingles. After all, he reasoned, they never show up on any tests.

George took a sip of coffee, reached over and picked up a sugar cookie. He took a bite, then turned to Gene. "I saw you had the cattle truck. How many calves are you hauling up to the feedlot?

I’ve got 46 in the truck. There are a few more that are about ready to go, but they can wait for another month since we have room in the barn. When I get these unloaded Grandpa is going to meet me at the feedlot and we’ll see about selling a load or two. He told me yesterday that the price was decent so he thought we might reduce the herd a little for the summer months.

Gene and Ralph’s grandpa was John Caldwell, Marcy’s dad. Ten years ago Gene had graduated from college and took over the Caldwell farm and feedlot operation. John, Marcy, George and Roy had merged the Caldwell and Grant farms into a family corporation as the Caldwell-Grant Farms. John had given his holdings to his daughter. John and Norma bought a house in the city and retired. It was a semi-retirement for John as he often went out to help his grandsons. Gene, his wife Karen, daughter Norma and son Johnny lived in the Caldwell farm house.

Ralph, George and Marcy’s younger son, his wife Martha and baby Lois lived on the old Nelson farm. Caldwell-Grant farms bought it when the widow Nelson died. Gene and Ralph ran the feedlot and farmed the Caldwell and Nelson land.

Ralph, Uncle Roy and Johnny helped me load them, Gene told his dad in response to a question. Uncle Roy said he was going to the pasture to check on the beef cattle. I think Brian was going with him.

I helped load calves, too, Grandpa, Johnny said. I’m pretty good at chasing calves up into the truck.

He sure is, Ralph laughed. I watched him chasing those calves down the alleyway right up the chute into the truck. He reached over and tousled Johnny’s hair. I think you’re going to grow up to be a great farmer, Johnny, especially since you can already herd calves into a truck.

I’ll bet you’ll be a good farmer, Johnny, his grandpa said. Pretty soon you’ll be big enough to drive the cattle truck.

Don’t rush it, Dad, Gene laughed. He’s growing like a weed and after his birthday next month he’ll be seven going on 17.

Yup, just a chip off the old block. Your mother and I thought the same when you boys were that age.

Well, son, Gene told Johnny, I think it’s time for us to head home. Grandpa John is going to meet us there. You can show him how good you are at unloading calves. He got up, gave his mother a hug and said, Thanks for the coffee and cookies, Mom. See you later Dad, Ralph.

Thanks, Grandma Marcy, they sure were good cookies and you make the best lemonade in the whole world! Johnny stood still for a moment while Marcy gave him a hug and handed him a small paper bag with two cookies in it that he was to take to his older sister Norma, then he turned and bolted out the door after his dad.

I need to get out to the barn and check on a couple of cows, Ralph said as he stood up. They looked like they were about ready to calve when I looked in on them just before I came to the house. I told Uncle Roy I would do that while he and Brian were at the pasture. Now that Gene took a bunch of calves up to the feedlot, I’ll move some others around so the new calves don’t have to be in pens with the older ones. He waved his hand in the air and turned to walk out the door.

Chapter 2

After Gene, Ralph and Johnny had gone Marcy cleared away the extra plates and coffee cups while George sat there for several minutes dawdling over his coffee. He looked like he was deep in thought. Marcy came over to stand beside him, reached down and nuzzled his neck. George looked up with a grin, Oooh. That feels good.

Marcy laughed, sat down at the end of the table and picked up her coffee cup. You look like your mind is a million miles away. What’re you thinking about?

Oh, he laughed, I just started reminiscing as I walked across the farmyard from where I left the tractor and trailer. I started thinking about last Saturday night and the fact that it’s been 35 years since we graduated. It just doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.

I know, it doesn’t seem that long to me, either, Marcy responded. "Maybe it will catch up with us when Mary graduates next week. Watching