The Red Flannel Rag

have peace in his life. Perhaps that is why I treasure the picture so much. Every time I

look at it, it is as if I am standing there with him.

As soon as the potato plants peeped through the ground, he was out there gently

digging around them. He despised potato bugs. When he saw the first one on his potato

plants, he grabbed his spray and soaked the whole patch. As soon as he sprayed them,

he walked slowly up and down each row and handpicked the bugs off the plants, put

them in a tin can with kerosene, and then set the can on fire.

Every harvest time he would try new ways to get his potatoes out of the ground.

The garden had a six-foot wire fence around it that he had built to keep out the cows and

chickens. It was hard to use a tractor in the small space. One year he took the car out

into the pasture behind the garden and hooked long chains to the plow. He put my

brother and me behind the plow to guide it through the potato row while he pulled the

plow with the car. That method didn't work because we were too small to hold the plow

in the ground.

Another year, he made a harness for my brother and me and hooked us to the

plow while he held it in the potato row. We were too weak to pull the plow with its blade

stuck in the ground. Much to his dismay, he ended up digging his potatoes by hand

every year. But it was a labor of love, because he enjoyed comparing the yield each year

to the one from the year before.

Some of the biggest arguments between Dad and Mom happened when she went

into his potato patch and “grubbed” some new potatoes before the vines died. He would

say, “Myrt, how in the hell am I gonna know how many potatoes I got this year with you

out there “grubbin’?” His fussing never stopped her. Year after year, she “grubbed” and

he fussed.

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