I was visiting with a father of a young man who was getting
ready to play football in Edmond, Oklahoma.
He was sharing with me how his son had to train almost year-round. During the off times it was expected that a
son would get special training in weight lifting and quickness skills. Other times he was expected to attend
training camps and then of course spring practice and fall practice. In fact I remember when our oldest son was
playing football for Deer Creek High School and he was expected to do all of
these things if he wanted a chance to play.
Well that is not how it worked in the Osage.
In the Osage if you lived on a farm or ranch you hauled hay
as soon as the weather permitted putting up hay. That means after school in the spring until
after dark and there was NO spring practice. In fat SPRING BREAK was not at all what it is today. It was only an opportunity to work full time building fences, hauling hay and more. During the summer you hauled hay from daylight until dark and only
stopped for lunch. And that was only if you did not
have time to eat it while in the hay truck between loading and unloading. If that does not make sense to you then you need to learn about how to be more efficient and save time. It was also seven days a week unless it
rained. That was the only excuse for not
hauling hay. Even the city kids helped
hauling hay. Steve Chrisco always talked
about hauling hay for the Jacques and working with AJ. I think every guy had the opportunity to haul
hay.
If that was not available there was
fence building which really was a year-round sport. Don’t assume this is the only things we did because we still
had to do our normal chores of feeding cattle or taking care of the show
animals we had for 4-H livestock shows or even feeding chickens and everything
else.
I do believe building fence was the hardest of the jobs on
the farm. It seemed like it took forever
and basically before automation it was even harder. Let me explain automation. Automation was having a post hole digger on
the back of a tractor to dig holes for wooden posts. In case you did not know it there were
several types of posts. The new ones
which are still used today are called T-posts.
When they came about it was a life saver but it was still back breaking
work. Let me tell you how that
worked. Basically you had about a 16
pound hunk of steal that you pounded the top of the post with and drove it into
the ground. It was called a sledge
hammer. Then someone got real smart and
welded a piece of steel pipe where one end was closed and there were handles on
each side. It only weighed about 20
pounds but once it slid over the top of the post all you had to do was lift it
up and drive it down on the post until the post was deep enough in the ground
to satisfy Dad. No easy task either. After driving one post
your arms weighed more than the piece of steel and you had to lift it off and get
ready for the next post. This may not
sound like that hard of a deal but when you do it for 12 or 14 hours a day
your ass is dragging and you can hardly lift your arms. The good thing is after a few weeks it was
not near so hard. I will put any young
farm boy up against the greatest weight lifter and the farm boy can wear the
weight lifter out.
Now the second way to build fence which was the old fashioned
way and before the tractor with the post
hole digger was to take a manual set of post whole diggers and dig a whole
about 3 feet deep to put an oak post into.
Sometimes they were cedar posts.
There is a type of oak tree we called a post oak which is a narley oak
tree that does not grow very tall but makes a very stout post. You would think that is not so hard but there
are several issues with this. First off Dad
had a set of steel post whole diggers that weighted over 20 pounds and maybe even 35 pounds. And picking
them up and down was difficult enough much less trying to drive them into the
hard ground and twisting and squeezing until you got a load of dirt to dip out
of the hole. The second issue is once
you got the post in the hole you had to put dirt back into the hole and then
tamp with a steel piece of iron that Dad got from the railroad which was made
to move railroad tracks. I think it
weighted at least 20 pounds as well. The
point is to get the dirt packed around the wood post tight enough that the post
would not move easily. And then no
matter what type of post you put in the ground Dad expected every post to be
the same height sticking out of the ground and in an extremely straight line. I should mention that I am not talking about
building a fence around your house but around a field or pasture. These fences could be a mile or more. Can you imagine keeping posts the same height
and in a straight line and perfectly aligned for hundreds and thousands of
yards. Each post had to be the same
distance apart. Farmers take pride in
their fences and their property and Dad was no exception. I would also have to say that Mom reinforced
the same values in everything she did as well.
Next time you drive down the road I want you to take a look
at the fences and fence posts and appreciate the work that went into it. And remember that farm boys got in shape for
football by building fences and hauling hay.
In fact I would have to tell you that every year I started football
practice in the fall I gained weight and I appeared much faster the first
couple of weeks. If you can’t figure it
out that means the faster kids were not in shape in the beginning but as they
caught up they were faster than me.
So what do you learn in the Osage?
·
High expectations are to be admired and achieved no
matter how many times it takes to get it right
· Building fences and doing it right is more important than football
· Building fences and doing it right is more important than football
- Building fences and mending fences is like a good marriage - it takes time and it is hard work but the straighter and more consistent you are the better you feel about yourself and your marriage and people admire you for your efforts
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