I was talking with my wife the other day and during the course of our conversation I remembered a funny story from a few years back.
It involved a farmer and his hogs. It’s funny now but it wasn’t then. I never cease to be amazed at how life’s little twists and turns keep one’s days from becoming monotonous. I am sure that each person has experienced some type of change of plans to what they originally thought they would be doing. Sometimes those plan changes affect us for our whole lifetime, but generally they just affect us for the moment. What I remembered from a few years back was just such a thing. Nothing earth shaking mind you, but it was a little out of the ordinary as far as my days generally go.
It all started innocently enough. I was speaking to my neighbor across the back yard fence when a mutual friend arrived. J.D. asked me if I would like some fresh green beans and corn. Since I have a great affinity for fresh “anything to eat” I said yes. We talked on for a bit and then we parted, agreeing to get together that afternoon at his farm.
During the course of the day, I informed my wife and two older daughters that we were going to pick beans and corn that afternoon. This all seems innocent enough doesn’t it? Wrong! J.D. besides working for the state was a farmer. In the back of my head was something trying ever so desperately to get to the front of my head, but without success.
We went to J.D.’s farm. Mrs. J.D. was already picking beans so we went out to begin picking. We spoke with her and she pointed out the rows that were ours to pick. We had been picking for about fifteen minutes or so when J.D. came up and told me that he and I would go to another field and pick corn while the women were picking beans.
That buzzing memory at the back of my head began to assert itself even more, still without making itself completely known to me. So off we went down to his corn field in his pickup. We passed by some of his hog pens, where upon J.D. casually mentioned that he was thinking seriously about getting out of the hog business. It wasn’t that the market was down; it was that the hogs weren’t staying in his pens. Two sows with their young had gotten out and were roaming around the swampy area next to his corn field. It seemed that no matter what he did they always seemed to find a way to escape.
That buzzing memory at the back of my head was almost to the front… but not quite. We continued out into the field and I had a five gallon bucket half full of corn when I saw one of his sows with her young just at the edge of field. I pointed the sow out to him just at the exact same moment that the memory in the back of my head leapt to the front.
J.D. is a farmer, and a farmer’s work is never done, and any help is appreciated especially if it is free help. I had helped J.D. before, but that’s another story. I saw in my mind’s eye what was going to happen next, even before it did. J.D. started running to get his pen open and told me to go keep the sow with young from getting away. “Hold them there Brad,” he hollered over his shoulder as he finished opening the gate and ran off to who knows where. There it was. I remembered totally now. I am not a farmer; I was raised in the city. I had heard horror stories about sows with young mauling and mangling the best of farmers who got in their way. I was not a farmer, forget about being the best.
As I ran to get some fifty feet or so in front of the sow, I was making my plans. I went to the edge of the field down towards where the swampy area was, not so much to head the sow off as it was to place myself in close proximity to where there were some trees to climb. J.D. had said to keep her from getting away. That hog didn’t look like she wanted to get away, she took one step towards me and I took two back. All I could think of was, “Where is that experienced farmer? If he doesn’t hurry back he’s going to find his friend Brad holding that sow at the foot of the tree I have climbed.” He finally showed up with a pole about six or seven feet long. He poked and prodded the sow and got her and her young back in the pen, we mended the fences and then we finished picking corn.
While we were picking the corn, I asked J.D. where he had gone? He replied simply, “To get a long pole.” I asked him why he needed a pole, to which he replied, “Well, you can never trust an ol’ sow with her young. I needed something to keep her at bay while I was getting her back into the pen. You know they can get quite mean when they want to protect their young.” Then he smiled.
I burst out, “You told me to hold her here until you got back! You went to get a pole and left me here with a bucket of corn!” He just laughed as he replied, “I knew you were a smart man for a non-farmer. I knew you wouldn’t let that hog get too close to you, so I wasn’t worried about you. I figured that hog wasn’t really going anywhere, and I knew I had to hurry to find a pole, I didn’t have time to explain everything so I just told you to hold her there.”
Proverbs 18:24 NIV tells us, “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 27:10 says, “Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family, and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you— better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.” We need friends. We need to help our friends.
It was exhilarating that day down at J.D.’s farm. But I knew the next time I had a buzzing memory at a farm trying to get out, I’d just turn my pickup around and head back home. Food Lion sells pretty good corn. In my pickup, I always have some extra tools, tie-down straps and other things for unforeseen events. Since that day, I have decided to add to that collection one six or seven foot long pole... just in case.
Brad Morris, a retired minister, originally from Georgetown, served as a pastor and then as a missionary in Costa Rica and Ecuador, can be reached at cbrad7777@gmail.com. He has been in ministry for 50 years and a columnist for 17 years, 12 of which have been for the Times.
Brad Morris, a retired minister, from Georgetown, served as a pastor and then as a missionary in Costa Rica and Ecuador, can be reached at cbrad7777@gmail.com.
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December 25, 2019 at 12:00PM
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Brad Morris column: Picking corn | Opinion - South Strand news
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