Traditionally men passed their occupations to their sons. Cobblers raised cobblers and millers raised millers. We picture Jesus working with Joseph in the carpentry shop until he was called to his larger work.
That happens less today. There is one occupation where the old pattern holds. Most farmers learn farming from their fathers. Most of us work for a time with fathers and some of us with sons. There is something good and natural about that. But the transition from one generation to the next isn’t always smooth. Growing up a couple of decades apart means father and son can have different ideas. Control and decision-making can be tugged on for some time.
My own father and I had our moments. Looking back, there was probably a time I thought I knew more than I really did. We had a few good arguments. Like arguments in a marriage, there was often more to it than the issue on the surface.
I saw a cultivator in a field the other day, an increasingly rare sight. It reminded of a story the Kretschmers told. Bart and Katherine Kretschmer farm out south of us near the Cottonwood. They shared this when Pam and I got together with them after Hugo Kretschmer’s funeral a few years ago.
Hugo was Bart’s dad. Hugo and Irene moved into town after Bart came home to farm with wife Katherine. Hugo drove out to the home place most every day. It was what he knew. Bart might have wanted a little more independence, but he appreciated the help.
On a typical day, the jobs made themselves known. Pig chores and raising crops each had their duties. For the most part Bart and Hugo worked well together. One day, an odd sort of conflict rose up to disturb the peace. This was a wet year back in the 1980s. Bart had banded Lasso herbicide on the corn with the planter. Getting weeds cultivated out between the rows was essential. Steady rains meant the weeds were quite vigorous.
The Kretschmer’s had an old 4-row cultivator back then with C-shanks and wide sweeps. They also had an 8-row Danish tine. The 4-row was slower, but Bart thought it was needed with the bigger weeds. Hugo thought the 8-row would work fine. That was the last piece of equipment Hugo bought, and he felt a special affinity for it.
The seemingly minor disagreement grew into an argument. Who knows what all went into the stew that day? The weather, but there were other tensions. This was the eighties; there wasn’t much money in farming. Bart had taught for a few years after college, not sure if he wanted to farm. Then he chose the worst time to go into agriculture. There wasn’t a lot for Bart and Katherine to live on, and Hugo and Irene were trying to figure out how much to help them.
Katherine was working in the kitchen with the windows open. She had put two-month old Billy down for a nap. She could hear the men outside, especially since they were raising their voices. Small disputes were common, but this one was escalating enough to make Katherine cringe. They were coming up to the house where Bart wanted to get some feed slips.
As the argument spilled into the house, Katherine gave them a big, “Shhhhh! Billy’s sleeping!” Bart and Hugo were standing in the entry way now. Suddenly Bart raised the ante from mere cultivators. “Maybe I should just get out of here and go back to teaching. Then you can cultivate. However. You. Want!” He was retreating outside and slammed the door for emphasis.
The porch was down a couple steps from the kitchen. Suddenly it was Katherine and Hugo in silence. Hugo had spent forty-some years in that house, but he never knew how to be in there since Bart and Katherine moved in. Slumped, Hugo sat down on the steps. He used to sit in that spot all the time to put on his shoes and talk to Irene. He hadn’t sat there since the new occupants.
Katherine wasn’t sure what to say here. Finally, “Hugo, you want some coffee?” He looked up, “Sure” and turned his eyes back to the porch. Katherine shuffled around the kitchen as the coffee maker bubbled. A minute or two passed which felt like an hour to Katherine.
Hugo broke the silence. “You know, Katherine, I’m right. I’m right about the cultivator. But I’m wrong. I’m wrong this time.” Now his eyes came up. “Katherine, you know it means everything to Irene and me to have you and Bart here. But I miss things. I miss how it used to be.”
“Sometimes I want Bart to be little again following me around the farm. And I want Irene to be here in the house so I can eat dinner with her and the kids here in the kitchen.” Hugo made sort of an apologetic look. “I suppose that means you’d still be a little girl in Bloomington.”
Katherine smiled, “That’s OK. Sometimes I think that wouldn’t be too bad.” The coffee was done. Katherine brought two cups over. Handing one to Hugo, she sat on the step next to him. She never quite knew what to say to her father-in-law; now she thought it best to not say much.
Hugo cradled the cup in both his hands. “You know what I miss, Katherine? We made a little ballfield out there west of the machine shed, where we had a pasture. Me and the kids played games after chores that used to last hours. I pitched all the time. I was Warren Spahn. Bart was Rod Carew. That was his favorite player. The girls all wanted to be Roy Smalley cause they thought he was cute. Once in a while Ma came out and played, too. She was Eddie Mathews, cause we used to be Braves fans before the Twins came.”
“I miss that. Irene and I was talking the other night about memories like that. She said it was time for you and Bart to make memories on this place. I know that’s the way things are supposed to work. Ever since Bart was little, I wanted him to take things over. I know that, but I get sad sometimes. I remember my dad used to sit on a bucket down in the barn and just stare out the door. Now I know that he was probably sad this way.”
Hugo glanced over at Katherine. She was looking down at the floor, too, a little tear in the corner of one eye. Then she offered, “You know Hugo, you can play ball with Billy in a few years when he grows up.”
“I don’t know.” Hugo made a crooked grin. “I’m not sure old Warren Spahn’s got too many pitches left in his arm.” He felt a little misty, too.
Bart chose then to walk back in to the house. Seeing his wife and father sitting on the steps like that, he had a “What the hell?” look on his face.
The good news is that son and father usually let things fall away quickly when they disagreed. Bart wanted to put the argument in the past. There was too much to do to dwell on that. “Hey Dad. We need to get sweeps at Miller Sellner. They got sauerkraut at Eddie C’s today. You wanna go? We can call an executive meeting there about the cultivator.”
He looked at Katherine. “Is that OK, Kath?” On the baby monitor they could hear little Billy stirring. Starting to get up, Katherine said, “Sure, you two go ahead.”
As she walked out of the kitchen, she turned. “Billy and I might go play ball later. He could be the next Rod Carew.” Hugo grinned as Bart gave a “Huh?”
