Just Talking

The ranch hand and his Dad used to ease down to the pecan orchard bottom land to harvest oak fire wood.

Wright City timber was magnificent as it towered toward the clouds and seemed to be lost to the horizon in a never ending dense forest.

Dad always said that poor folks have poor ways. True to form, we had two of the sorriest chain saws one could imagine. "Two" was necessary because we were always cutting with one and working on the other to try to get it back in operation.

After cutting what Dad called a "jag" of wood, we would haul the fuel back to the house and pile it in the yard. That's when the "fun" started. The only method available to split the round logs into manageable fireplace wood was to use an axe, sledge hammer, and splitting wedge.

We used to pound on that dang wood til we couldn't hardly stand up. On occasion, we would get the axe or the wedge STUCK in the wood and wonder if it would ever be recovered without burning it out?

It was incredibly hard work, but the ole fat boy don't remember that so much as the opportunity it provided to drink a few col' beers with Dad and just talk. Long conversations about folks we knew, old worn out jokes, country philosophy, and life in general.

The ranch hand now uses a high dollar chain saw that would slice thru steel all day long like it was hot butter. There ain't a splitting wedge on the place. That implement of torture has been replaced with a hydraulic ram which halves the logs with the touch of a button.

In some ways it is "better", but the most important part is gone. No amount of modern machinery will ever replace that time with Dad doing honest labor and just talking.

Damn I miss that man.