The Red Flannel Rag

Dad always wanted a tractor, but Mom wouldn’t let him buy one. She thought he

would use it to trim the pasture where her cows grazed. She told me many times, “If I

let him buy a tractor, he’ll cut every blade of grass. I want the grass to be tall so the cows

can eat in the dry months. I won’t have to buy as much hay in the winter.” She

continued, “He takes the lawn mower out in the field and cuts some of the cows’ grass

every chance he gets anyway.” There was always a conflict between what Dad wanted to

do and what Mom wanted for her cows.

Dad worked around the problem by using the car as a tractor. One time I was

helping him make hay. He was pulling an old hay rake that had a foot pedal to release

the hay to make a windrow for the hay bailer. He drove the car while I worked the pedal

on the hay rake. We were moving along fine until he made a sharp turn in the corner of

the field. The large wheel on the rake got caught behind a fence post and snapped the

axle in two pieces. Dad heard the crack, stopped the car, got out and walked toward the

rake and me. I expected a major whipping, but he just stood there looking at the rake

and said very calmly, "I'll be a lop-eared cock sucker."

Dad was a faithful worker. The thirty-six years he spent working in a feed mill

ultimately killed him. He breathed feed dust all those years, and smoked cigarettes as

well. He died some years ago from brown lung. He was only seventy-five when he died.

We didn’t realize ho w sick he was because he never complained. After he died, our

neighbors and extended family members told us that he had been sick for a very long

time.

A few months prior to his death, I got a clue that he was very sick when he started

driving his truck to get the mail. The mailbox was only fifty yards from the house, but it

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