My mother-in-law, Pat Hendrickson lived in Meeker about a year before passing at the age of 94. She didn’t get to meet most of you, so I would like to share some of her humor with you now. Her Christmas letters from Bartlett, Kansas, population 69, were hilarious stories of life on the farm. You will need a little background for her letter to make sense. Her references to the “wolf at the door” reflected the uncertain economics of farming. Ernie was her husband and all-around great father-in-law. The name of their farm was Bitter Creek. “Ripley” is a reference to Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museums containing strange items.
Greetings from Bitter Creek,
Here we come again with a load of good wishes and to cast our usual pall over the cheerful homes of our dear friends and relatives. Not that the news from the farm is bad this year. Believe it or not, Ripley, this year the crops were okay and next year’s wheat is sown and up. We feel lucky as this is not so for everyone around our area. Rained all summer and fall. Our resident wolf had to move across the road, from where he dustily (now muddily) stares longingly at our doorstep. Not that the doorstep is empty. Six cats and a dog keep it filled.
We have about aced our Christmas preparations. Karen and Nathan got us off to a good start and mood by decorating our inside tree weeks ago, and yesterday Ern and I finished stringing lights on the pine in the front yard. This really irritates the birds that roost out there.
When we switch the tree lights on, the birds act as if we are going to set their feet on fire. Ern says he knows how they feel. No, Ern doesn’t roost anymore but he has the nerve-wracking job of stringing lights on the presently 25 ft. tree. He has his helpful farmhand wife (and all-around swell person) to work the levers on the tractor that will lift and front-end loader him high into the treetop. (Hearing of this, a friend said it made her palms sweat). This year we clicked right along. With my sure hand at the controls, Ern rose smoothly and majestically into the sky. Every few feet we stopped and Ern put lights on the tree from the huge snarl around his neck. Everything was going so well that we just had to smile sweetly at one another. Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it? Rightly so.
Somewhere near the top of the tree, as a sparrow hawk is my witness, I accidentally pushed the lever for down instead of up. Now, I’ve seen that standing on air bit in many cartoons, but I never thought I’d get to see my husband do such an excellent imitation of Wiley Coyote stepping off a cliff. I swear that man’s feet were nowhere near that receding front-end loader. The snarl of lights rose to encircle his head like a halo and to continue the cartoonish aspect, his eyes resembled Orphan Annie’s. At that point, I shut my eyes. When I opened them, Ern and the loader were re-united and none the worse for their little dip.
Ern claims the little dip was more like on the amusement parks’ nastier rides and he was not amused. We are still discussing Ern’s theory that accidents do not “just happen.” I, of course, take the opposing view and I hope Santa does too. I sure want him to give me a present. It’s a cinch Ern won’t.
By ED PECK
